A Wicked Duke's Prize: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Henrietta Harding

  “I don’t have any idea what you mean,” Rebecca said. “Tabitha, have you heard anything about some such reputation? Mr. Crauford seems to have crafted his own fiction regarding my life. If we’re ever to be happy in our marriage, Mr. Crauford, I should expect that you give me the benefit of telling my own story.”

  “Marvellous! That’s precisely what I wish for. Please, Miss Frampton. Explain to me how it is you came to be engaged so many, many times, prior to this. Explain the story of your life.”

  Owen had assumed he’d backed her so far into a corner that she wouldn’t return. But now, her mouth lifted, and a lilting laugh shook out from her. She dotted the sides of her eyes and said, “Goodness. How long we would have to stand here, discussing the intricacies of each and every engagement! I imagine you would grow terribly bored, Mr. Crauford.”

  “And yet, I demand it,” Owen returned.

  “Very well. I suppose what you need to know about each of them is this.” She cleared her throat and crafted a stoic, overly serious expression. “They couldn’t keep up with me. And neither can you.”

  Owen tilted his head. “You have such a negative perception of me. You liken me to these other men.”

  Rebecca gave a slight shrug. “You imagine that you’re so different from them?” Her eyes grazed from his face towards his broad shoulders, down his torso. He felt under inspection from a higher power. “I see and feel and deduce no real difference. The only reason, in fact, that you haven’t gone running, as of yet, is because you’re latched into your familial duties. Your father has monstrously torn away at your family’s fortune, and thus, you’re here, in my rose garden, with Tabitha and I – even as Tabitha and I would much prefer to have this time alone. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves without the likes of you for years upon years.”

  “I really don’t mind that you’re here,” Tabitha interrupted.

  Rebecca paid her no mind. “Regardless. Your sense of familial duty hasn’t sent you running away yet. That’s all this is. It’s better if we don’t pretend there are any other issues at play. I learned a long time ago, it’s better not to lie to oneself.”

  “Ah, but Rebecca –” he said, utilising her first name as an overly pointed attack. “You use this word ‘yet’. And this is all that this world hinges on. I haven’t yet packed up my bags and run, but every day, I rise with a single question in my mind.”

  “And what question is that?” Rebecca replied.

  Here, Owen caught Tabitha rolling her eyes back in her head, seemingly aghast at the wretched chess-play between them. Why was such a sensible girl with the likes of Rebecca?

  “The question I ask myself is, ‘How will I find my way out of this pitiful marriage with Rebecca Frampton?’” he returned.

  He expected the words to fall like a smack across her cheek, for her to recoil. But instead, her smile widened.

  “To imagine that we rise with the same thought in mind!” she said, her voice bright.

  “I’ve never lost at something I’ve put my mind to,” Owen replied. “So the doubt that glimmers there behind your words, it’s better placed elsewhere. You can generally mark your calendar with this fact. You and I, we will walk down no aisle together. We will speak no vows. There will be no wedding breakfast or first-born son.”

  “Or daughter,” Rebecca interrupted.

  “There will be nothing between us. Some day soon, in the next months even, we will pass one another on the street and treat one another as strangers,” Owen continued.

  Tabitha muttered something neither of them could hear. Both Owen and Rebecca ripped their heads toward her, their eyebrows high. But Tabitha just shrugged her shoulders in annoyance. Already forgotten, Owen whirled back towards his prey.

  “I can’t imagine a way you’ll find your way out of this,” Rebecca said.

  “I hear a challenge in your voice,” Owen replied.

  “In fact, there is. I will be greatly impressed if you can worm your way out of this. And you’ll be doing me an immense service if you do.”

  “An immense service! For my future non-bride,” Owen said contemplatively. “The fact that I might be assisting you at all makes me want to scrap the whole thing.”

  “Till death do we part,” Rebecca returned.

  For a moment they beamed at one another, both stirring in the adrenaline of their own wordplay. Owen cleared his throat and said, “It’s a deal, then. I will dig my way out of this marriage. And we’ll both be free.”

  “I cannot wait to see how you make it happen,” Rebecca said.

  They stuck their hands out and shook on it, like gentlemen crafting a deal. Their eyes connected for a long moment, and yet again, something stirred within Owen’s stomach. But the moment their hands separated, there was a shout from the main house.

  “I shall show you the garden!” Mr. Frampton called, ever loud and robust.

  “Wonderful. Where did my son run off to?” his father replied.

  “There he is. My future father-in-law,” Rebecca murmured.

  “It’s wonderful to have dreams, Rebecca. I hope you always keep them close to your heart, even in your years of spinsterhood,” Owen said.

  Mr. Frampton and Mr. Crauford appeared at the gate. It creaked open, a truly wretched, metal-on-metal sound. The men stepped within and Mr. Crauford made a big show of complimenting the garden, the shrubs, the fully-flung-open roses, and the trickling fountain. “My wife would adore this.”

  “Why don’t you bring her along next time?” Mr. Frampton asked.

  “Perhaps! That would be lovely. She asks seemingly endless questions about her future daughter-in-law,” Mr. Crauford returned. “Doesn’t she, Owen?”

  This was entirely untrue. In fact, Owen’s mother had hardly left the little bedroom she’d sequestered off for herself, continually moaning within, declaring herself an imbecile for having married such a thoughtless man. This was seemingly constant fire toward Owen’s mission, to ensure that he never ended up in such a loveless and bizarre marriage – and further, to ensure that he made his father’s fortune back, without requiring such a union. His hands dropped into fists as his father and Kenneth Frampton awaited his response.

  “Now that you mention it, Father, I suppose she does,” he said, his eyes flashing.

  His father didn’t seem to deduce his meaning. Perhaps he truly did live in a separate world, built up with his own delusions. He would have to, given that he’d deluded himself into giving away so much of their fortune. Always, the next card game was the solution to every problem.

  There was a strange, strained pause. His father spewed, “Thank you again for your hospitality today, Kenneth,” and shot his hand out to shake Mr. Frampton’s. “It’s always a pleasure. And I know these are the first of many, many visits, until our children go off and make a life together.”

  Rebecca’s eyes glittered with assurance. She mouthed, Good luck, even as he turned toward the gate and followed his father outside. At the gate, he spun around a final time, made heavy eye contact with her, and then bowed deeply, mocking her. “Thank you, my lady. I do not require luck. But I appreciate the sentiment, regardless.”

  Chapter 11

  Owen clambered into the carriage and perched next to his father. Horse hooves scrambled across the dirt and stones until, moments later, they shot out onto the open road. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, until finally, Neil declared, “What a horrific man!”

  Surprised, Owen spun round and blinked wide eyes at him. “Kenneth Frampton?”

  “So endlessly braggadocios,” his father replied, his nostrils flaring. “It seems he wished to continually lead the conversation back to his earnings at the gambling table, to, I suppose, rub my nose into the thick of it. He dripped into pieces of advice, told me that now that we’re nearly related, I needed to… to alter the vision the world has of me… I…” Neil Crauford’s hands wrapped tight around the fabric of his trousers and squeezed until his knuckles grew white.

  Was
this already Owen’s opportunity? Could he press this button long enough to ensure his father ripped out the contractual obligation of this marriage?

  “And yet, this is the only way,” Mr. Crauford continued, releasing the fabric of his trousers and slipping his palms against his knees. “The only way in which we can restore the family fortune, the family name. With this match, you will marry well and be prosperous and happy, all the days of your life. I know that to be true. I must be brave in the face of this horrendous man. We’ve hardly a penny left, let alone another to rub against it. And you, Owen. You still have your entire life ahead of you. We must face this truth.”

  Owen’s heart stirred with apprehension. Half of him seemed eager to keep his family name intact, to go against what he’d told Rebecca and, indeed, marry her to ensure his father and mother remained above water. It would be the single greatest sacrifice of his life, and he would demonise the day forever, the day he gave up his freedom to make up for his father’s mistakes.

  He imagined himself as a much older man, long after the death of his father, enraged and dark and shadowed, a stranger to himself and his previous ideals. He’d given everything up for the benefit of others. What sort of man would that make him, down the line?

  The carriage clunked over a few holes in the road, the wheels dipping and casting Owen and Neil back and forth. Owen marvelled at the weight of an entire fortune, gambled away. Was there any other way to get it back?

  He asked his father this very question.

  Neil scoffed. “Unless you’re a much better gambler than I am, I can’t imagine another way, son. The only way we can keep our family going is through this link with the Framptons. And, I can’t say it enough. Rebecca really is a beautiful woman, isn’t she? The sort of woman who could make you proud, just to have her on your arm.”

  Owen turned this over and over in his mind. When the carriage turned swiftly toward their own mansion, he already had a small list, ways in which he could restore his family’s fortune, keep the familial reputation, without marrying Rebecca. He was further urged forward on this alternate path due to his bet with Rebecca herself. She would see. He would yank this marriage out from under her and free them both.

  Perhaps in six months, when he spouted that they would pass one another on the street and not even utter one another’s names, they would instead meet for a drink and laugh about those reckless months, during which Owen had had to scrape together an entire family fortune, only to avoid doing what he’d been told to do. “It was the principle of the thing,” he imagined telling her. He knew she would laugh.

  Chapter 12

  The moment Owen and his father departed, Kenneth Frampton cut his palms together and beamed at Rebecca. “What a marvellous way to spend the afternoon!”

  There was a strained falseness to her father’s words, yet nothing Rebecca could fully articulate. She arched her brow and said, “Have you and Mr. Crauford finalised the next big event of my life?”

  “In fact, we’re very close,” her father said. He cleared his throat, then opened and shut his lips once more. His eyes skated from Rebecca to Tabitha, and his expression shifted, as though he’d only just remembered Tabitha was amongst them. “Tabitha, it was quite lovely of you to stop by today. You must have such a fine impression of Owen, as I do.”

  Tabitha was a horrific liar. Her cheeks scrunched up and her eyes turned toward Rebecca for assistance. When it was clear that Rebecca wouldn’t dip in to save her, Tabitha uttered, “He’s quite pleasant,” with endless doubt stitched into her voice.

  “He’ll make a fine husband for Rebecca,” her father continued, blaring over the last of Tabitha’s syllables. “Now, if you girls will excuse me. I must attend to some final things in my study.”

  When the gate clanked closed behind him, Rebecca collapsed at the side of the fountain, drawing herself in a kind of ball and bubbling over with laughter. The entire affair was far too bizarre not to laugh. Tabitha, sure that Rebecca was in the midst of some sort of mental break, rushed to her side, gripped her shoulder and cried, “Rebecca! Are you all right? Please, look at me…”

  When Rebecca revealed her tear-soaked cheeks, Tabitha seemed increasingly worried. Her brow furrowed, she uttered, “Why are earth are you smiling?” with such child-like confusion, that Rebecca’s laughter rang out louder still.

  Rebecca tapped her handkerchief against the side of her eyes, drying her tears. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said, hiccupping once. “It’s all just silly, isn’t it? It’s clear my father is having second thoughts … He’ll never admit it, of course, but I can read directly through him. And Owen, of course, wants nothing to do with me and will fight tooth and nail to rid himself of me. It’s far different than the other engagements, Tabitha. It seems that I don’t have to have anything to do with the undoing.”

  Tabitha clicked her tongue. “But the flirtation between the two of you…”

  The words echoed. Rebecca yanked her head around and glared at her friend, her smile dissolving. “Flirtation? I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “There’s such a tension between the two of you,” Tabitha said. She tip-toed back a bit, her palms outstretched. “The air sizzles when you speak to one another. It’s as though you’re both actively hunting for the other’s weakness, in order to use it in battle. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “And you perceive that as flirtation? It sounds rather more like we detest one another and want little to do with marriage,” Rebecca said. She flipped her red curls behind her shoulders, dumbfounded with Tabitha’s words.

  “But look at him, Rebecca…” Tabitha began, gesturing out towards the world beyond the garden. “He’s far more attractive than the others. But not only that. He seems to have your zeal and arrogance and attitude and… Are you going to find another man like that? In all the world?”

  Rebecca’s heart tweaked with a jolt of panic. She didn’t allow this emotion to echo across her face. Rather, she stretched her smile wider and said, “Tabitha, I know you’re not entirely versed in the world of flirtation. Perhaps it could be perceived that way. However, know that I approach no moment with my dear fiancé with any sort of pleasure. Assuredly, he is handsome. And he even seems interesting. Imagine. An interesting man. If we were outside the bounds of this wretched situation, I might find him a viable option for marriage. As it stands, however, he wants little to do with me, and I match this completely.”

  “But it seems to me that you aren’t an active participant in digging yourself out of this marriage,” Tabitha said. She strung her fingers over her waist and shifted her weight.

  Rebecca’s cheeks burned slightly. She cast her eyes back to the ground yet kept her voice bright. “It seems that Owen wishes to do that all on his own. Who am I to take that away from him? Besides, it allows me some space in my mind to consider other things.”

  “You think that Owen will be able to do it alone?” Tabitha returned.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Rebecca said. “But it will be quite interesting to see him try, don’t you think?”

  “What will you do, Rebecca? Will you dress in your wedding gown, arrive at the church, and then perform a mad dash down the street? I must warn you, I cannot keep up with you whilst running. Your legs are longer than mine, and you’re certainly more volatile,” Tabitha said. Her lips twitched into a grin.

  “There she is. My humorous Tabitha,” Rebecca said. “You shouldn’t worry yourself so greatly about my romantic affairs. This engagement, it will come to nothing. You won’t be required to chase a demonic bride down the street. I promise you.”

  Tabitha shook her head. “The entire thing is going to be a mess.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Rebecca said.

  “I’ve never encountered two creatures more meant for one another,” Tabitha said with a soft shrug.