A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  “What is it?”

  She jerked her head up so swiftly, she wrenched the muscles of her neck. Daisy winced, resisting the urge to knead the tight flesh. “What is what?” She glanced about.

  Auric nodded to her frame.

  “This?” Oh, drat. Why must he be so blasted astute? She alternated her attention between his pointed stare and her embroidery frame then pulled it protectively to her chest.

  His firm lips tugged with a nearly imperceptible hint of amusement. “Yes, what are you embroidering?”

  Then knowing it would be futile to casually ignore his bold question, she turned the frame around. Even as she revealed her work, her cheeks warmed with embarrassment over her meager efforts.

  “What is that?” His sharp bark of laughter caught her momentarily unawares. The sound emerged rusty, as if from ill use, but rich and full, nonetheless. She missed his laughter. She’d still rather it not be directed her way.

  “Oh, hush.” She jerked the frame back onto her lap. Then she glanced down eyeing the scrap. It really wasn’t that bad. Or perhaps it was. After all, she’d spent several years trying to perfect this blasted image and could, herself, barely decipher the poor attempt. “What do you think it is?” She really was quite curious.

  “I daresay I’d require another glance.”

  Daisy turned it back around and held it up for his inspection. Silence stretched on. Surely, he had some manner of guess? “Well?” she prodded.

  “I’m still trying to make it out,” he murmured as if to himself. Lines of consternation creased his brow. “A circle with a dip in the center?”

  “Precisely.” Precisely what she’d taken it as, anyway. Daisy tossed the frame atop the table, inadvertently rustling the gossip sheet and drawing Auric’s attention from one embarrassment—to the next.

  As bold as though he sat in his own parlor, he reached for the paper. With alacrity, Daisy swiped it off the table just as his fingers brushed the corner of the sheets. “You don’t read gossip.” She dropped it over her shoulder where it sailed to the floor in a noisy rustle. “Dukes don’t read scandal sheets.”

  “And you have a good deal of experience with dukes, do you?” Amusement underscored his question.

  She didn’t have a good deal of experience with any gentlemen. “You’re my only duke,” she confided. Couldn’t very well go mentioning her remarkable lack of insight with gentlemen.

  His lips twitched again.

  A servant rushed into the room bearing a silver tray of biscuits and tea, cutting into whatever he intended to say. The young woman set her burden on the table before them and dipped a curtsy, then backed out of the room. Daisy’s maid, Agnes reentered and took a seat in the corner, with her own embroidery. The servant was far more impressive with a needle than Daisy could ever hope to be.

  “How is your mother?”

  Ah, of course. The reason for his visit. Auric, the Duke of Crawford, was the ever respectful, unfailingly polite gentleman.

  “She is indisposed,” she said with a deliberate vagueness. Only Auric truly understood the depth of her mother’s misery and, even so, not the full extent of the woman’s sorrow. Daisy would not draw him into her sad, sorry, little world. She reached for the porcelain teapot and steeped a delicate cup full, adding milk and three sugars. She ventured he had enough of his own sad, sorry, little world.

  Auric accepted the fragile, porcelain cup. “Thank you,” he murmured, taking a sip.

  “Well, out with it.” Daisy poured another, also with milk and three sugars. “After your absence, there must be a reason for your visit.”

  “Am I not permitted to call?”

  She snorted. “You’re a duke. I venture, you’re permitted to do anything you want.” Just so the new stodgier version of his younger self knew she jested, Daisy followed her words with a wink.

  Daisy stared expectantly back at him.

  Auric considered her question. Why do I visit? Repeatedly. Again and again. Week after week. Year after year.

  The truth was guilt brought him back. It was a powerful sentiment that had held him in an unrelenting grip for seven years and he suspected always would. Selfishly, there were times he wished Daisy was invisible. But she wasn’t. Nor would she ever be. No matter how much he willed it. “Come, Daisy,” Auric took a sip and then provided the safe, polite answer. “I enjoy your company. Surely you know that.”

  She choked on her tea. “Why, that was a bit belated.”

  He frowned, not particularly caring to have the veracity of his words called into question—even if it was by a slip of a lady he’d known since she’d been a blubbering, babbling babe.

  “I referred to your response,” she clarified, unnecessarily. Then, like a governess praising her charge, Daisy leaned over and patted him on the knee. “It was still, however, very proper and polite.”

  “Are you questioning my sincerity?” Having known her since she’d been in the nursery, and he a boy of eight, there was nothing the least subservient or simpering about Daisy Meadows.

  “Just a bit,” she whispered and winked once more. Then a seriousness replaced the twinkle of mirth in her eyes. “I gather you’ve not come by because you’re still nursing a broken heart over your Lady Anne.” Lady Anne Adamson—or rather the former Lady Anne Adamson. Recently married to the roguish Earl of Stanhope, she’d now be referred to as the Countess of Stanhope in polite Society. The young lady also happened to be the woman he’d set his sights upon as his future duchess.

  “A broken heart?” he scoffed. “I don’t have a broken heart.” He’d held the young lady in high regard. He found her to be a forthright woman who’d have him for more than his title, but there had been no love there. Daisy gave him a pointed look. “Regardless, what do you know of Lady Anne?”

  “Come, Auric,” she scoffed. “Just because I made my Come Out years ago and disappeared from your life doesn’t mean I’ve not always worried after your happiness.” At her directness, a twinge of guilt struck him. She’d always been a far better friend to him than he’d deserved. Daisy’s initial entry into Society had been cut short by the untimely death of her father. She and her mother had retreated into mourning and had only reemerged this year.

  He shifted in his seat, not at all comfortable discussing topics of his interest in another woman with Daisy. She was…was…well, Daisy. “I thought you didn’t read the gossip columns?” he asked in attempt to steer the conversation away from matters of the heart.

  “Ah, I said you didn’t read the scandal sheets.” She held up a finger and waved it about. “You’re a duke, after all. I’m merely an unwed wallflower for which such pursuits are perfectly acceptable.”

  “You’re n—”

  “Yes, I am,” she said simply, as though no more concerned with her marital state than she was with her rapidly cooling tea. “I’m very much a wallflower and quite content.” She took a sip.

  “Must you do that?” he groused, even as it was not at all dukelike to do something as common as grouse. She’d always had an uncanny ability to finish his thoughts, as he had hers. Still, it was quite unnerving when that skill was turned upon a person.

  “Yes, there simply is no helping it. I’m afraid I’ll have Season after Season until—”

  “I referred to finishing my sentences.”

  Daisy set her teacup on the table in front of them and leaned forward, her palms pressed to her knees. “I know, Auric,” she whispered as though imparting a great secret. “I was merely teasing. Though, I expect you’re unaccustomed to people going about teasing you.”

  He took another sip and thought once more about the only lady who’d managed to capture his attention. The Lady Anne Adamson, now Countess of Stanhope. There had been nothing fawning about the lady, which had been some of the appeal to the now wedded woman.

  Daisy patted his hand. “You are better served in her belonging to the earl. You’d not wed a woman who is in love with another.”

  A dull flush heated his n
eck at the intimate direction she’d steered their discourse once more. Words of love and affection and hearts had no place between him and Daisy. Theirs was a comfortable friendship borne of their families’ connection and strengthened by a loss they shared. A friendship that would likely not be if she learned the role he’d played in her brother’s death. She’d certainly not be smiling and teasing him as she now did. Pain knifed at his chest. With a forcible effort, he thrust back his dark, regretful thoughts. “I’ve quite accepted Lady Anne’s decision.” There, that was a vague enough response. He felt inclined to add, “Nor was my heart fully engaged.”

  Daisy let out a beleaguered sigh. “If that was the romance you reserved for the lady, it is no wonder she chose another.”

  Instead of rising to her baiting, he asked, “Are you a romantic now, Daisy Meadows? Dreaming of love matches?”

  “What should I dream of?” She sent a dark eyebrow sweeping upward. “A cold, emotionless union to a gentleman who’d wed me for my dowry?”

  Auric stilled and looked at the girl, Daisy, and conceded, in this moment with talks of hearts and love matches and unions, that she was no longer a girl, rather a woman. “You’ve always been something of a romantic.” A woman who, if one sorted through her entrance, and disappearance, and then reemergence into Society, was on her third Season, no less. She professed herself to be a wallflower. He eyed her a moment. He took in the dark, curled hair piled atop her head, the shock of freckles on her cheeks and nose, her too full mouth. Uniquely different than the Incomparables, she’d never be considered a great beauty by Society’s rigid standards, and yet certainly interesting enough to make a match with a proper gentleman. “You desire love then, do you?” he asked, hating that it was not Lionel here having this discussion with her—for so very many reasons.

  Auric expected her to debate the charge. Instead, she again sighed and picked up her embroidery frame. “You always were entirely too practical.” She paused. “And clever. You are indeed, correct. I’m a romantic.” Daisy looked down a long moment at her embroidery frame and then turned the ambiguous needlepoint toward him. “You really cannot tell what it is?”

  “No idea,” he said succinctly. On the heel of that was a sudden, unexpected, and unwelcome possibility. “Has some gentleman captured your affections?” Whoever the blighter was, he was unworthy of her.

  She paused, for the span of a heartbeat. “Don’t be silly.”

  His shoulders sagged with relief. He didn’t care to think of Daisy setting her affections on some gentleman because it would require Auric to take a role in determining that man’s suitability as her match and he did not welcome that responsibility. Not yet. Oh, as she’d pointed out, with her out a second time, it was likely she’d need to make a match soon. However, it was not a prospect he relished. There was too much responsibility that went with seeing to her future. Auric finished his tea and set aside his cup. He tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece attached.

  “You have business?” she asked with a dryness to her tone that hinted at her having identified his eagerness to take his leave.

  “Indeed,” he murmured as he stood. “Will you give my regards to your mother and send her my apologies for not visiting in—?”

  “Three weeks?” Daisy rose in a flurry of sea foam skirts, that silly embroidery in her hands. “I shall.” With her chocolate brown gaze, she searched his face. For a moment she opened her mouth, as though she wished to say more but then closed it.

  He sketched a bow and started for the door.

  “Auric?”

  Her quietly spoken question brought him to a stop and he froze at the threshold. He cast a questioning glance back over his shoulder.

  Daisy folded her hands, one gloved, the other devoid of that proper garment. He eyed her fingers a moment; long, exposed, graceful. How had he failed to note what magnificent hands she possessed? With a hard shake of his head, he concentrated on the lady’s words. “You needn’t feel an obligation to us. You’ve responsibilities. My mother and I, we know that.” A pressure tightened his chest. She held his gaze. “Lionel would have known that, too,” she assured him, unknowingly squeezing the vise all the more, making breathing difficult.

  The polite and, at the very least, gentlemanly thing to do was assure Daisy that his visit was more than an obligatory call. But that would be a lie. His debt to this family was great. He managed a jerky nod and swept from the room, feeling the familiar relief at each departure from the Marchioness of Roxbury’s home awash in memories.

  Auric strode down the long, carpeted corridors, past the oil canvas paintings of landscapes and bucolic, country scenes.

  Except with the relief at having paid his requisite visit, there was guilt. A new niggling of guilt that didn’t have to do with his failures the night Lionel had been killed, and everything do with the sudden, staggering truth that Daisy Meadows was on her third Season, unwed, and…he shuddered, romantic.

  Bloody hell. The girl had grown up and he wanted as little do with Daisy dreaming of a love match as he did with a scheming matchmaking mama with designs upon his title. The pressure was too great to not err where she was concerned.

  He reached the foyer. The late Marquess of Roxbury’s devoted, white-haired butler stood in wait, Auric’s black cloak in his hands. “Your carriage awaits, Your Grace.” There was much to be said for a man who’d leave the employ of the man who inherited the title and remain on the more modest staff of the marchioness and her daughter.

  “Thank you, Frederick,” he murmured to the servant he’d known since his boyhood.

  The man inclined his head as Auric shrugged into his cloak and then Auric hesitated. As a duke he enlisted the help of very few. He didn’t go about making inquiries to servants, particularly other peoples’ servants, and yet, this was the butler who’d demonstrated discretion with his and Lionel’s every scheme through the years. A man who’d rejected the post of butler to the new Marquess of Roxbury following the other man’s death and remained loyal to Daisy and her mother. “Tell me, Frederick, is there…” He flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve. “Has a certain gentleman captured Lady Daisy’s attentions?”

  “Beg pardon, Your Grace?”

  “A gentleman.” He made a show of adjusting his cloak. “More particularly an unworthy gentleman you,” I, “would worry of where the lady is concerned?” A gentleman with dishonorable intentions, perhaps, or one of those bounders after her dowry, who’d take advantage of her whimsical hopes of love. He fisted his hands wanting to end the faceless, nameless, and still, as of now, fictional fiend.

  Frederick lowered his voice. “Not an unworthy gentleman, Your Grace. No.”

  Auric released a breath as the old servant rushed to pull open the door. Except as he strode down the handful of steps toward his waiting carriage, he glanced back at the closed door, a frown on his lips as the butler’s words registered through his earlier relief.

  Not an unworthy gentleman… Not. No. Not. There is no gentleman who’s captured the lady’s affection.

  That suggested there was, in fact, a gentleman. And Daisy, with her silly romantic sentiments required more of a careful eye. “Bloody hell,” he muttered as he climbed inside his carriage. He had an obligation to Lionel, and to Daisy, his friend’s sister.

  Whether he wished it or not.

  Chapter 2

  Seated at the edge of Lady Harrison’s ballroom floor, Daisy fiddled with her skirts. Couples whirled past in an explosion of colorful satin gowns. She eyed the dancers longingly and tapped her slippers noiselessly to the one-two-three rhythm of the waltz.

  …it doesn’t matter that you’re a horrid dancer. When you love something enough as you do, it will come. Now focus. One-two-three. One-two-three…

  The gentle chiding words spoken long ago whispered around her memory so strongly she glanced about, almost expecting her brother to be there, staunch, supportive, and at her side as he’d always been. Alas, the delicate chairs alongside
hers remained fittingly empty. The aching hole that would forever remain in her heart throbbed and as she rubbed at her chest. She searched for one particular gentleman whose reassuring presence always drove back the agony of missing Lionel. Alas, every other unwedded young lady waited in breathless anticipation for the Duke of Crawford’s rumored arrival as well. Except, with the rapidity in which he’d taken flight that afternoon, as though her townhouse was ablaze and he was bent on survival, Daisy was sure she was in fact, the last person he cared to see.

  She sat back in her seat and sighed. For all the bothersome business of being invisible, there were certain benefits. She touched her gloved fingers to her bare neck as the silly thought that had taken root earlier that afternoon had since grown. The pendant. She required a necklace. Nay, not any necklace, but that whispered about heart worn by the Countess of Stanhope and the woman before her—the countess’ twin sister.

  Both strangers to Daisy. She slowly stood, shifting her gaze to her mama locked in conversation. Eyes blank, lips moving, the marchioness was her usual empty shell and certainly wouldn’t note if her invisible daughter did something as scandalous as slip away from the ballroom. Alone. Unchaperoned. Nor would she likely care if she did note such a shocking aberration from Daisy’s predictable self.

  From across the room, a flash of burnt orange skirts stood vibrant amidst the sea of whites and ivory. Daisy’s heart kicked up a swifter beat as the lovely, golden-blonde woman stole an almost searching glance about and then took her leave of the ballroom.

  Before her courage left her, Daisy skirted the edge of the dance floor and slipped from the crush of Lady Harrison’s annual event. Her slippered footsteps silent on the carpeted floors, she stole down her host’s corridor. She fixed her gaze on the burnt orange satin skirts as they disappeared around the corridor and quickened her step, detesting her rather short legs that tended to complicate the whole hurrying about business. Daisy reached the end of the hall and turned in time to see her quarry slip inside her host’s conservatory.