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

by Christi Caldwell

  Lady Clarisse. The Duke of Ravenscourt’s legitimate daughter. Golden blonde and icy as a January freeze, she epitomized all a duke’s daughter should be. And unfortunately for Jane, the young woman was astute to have heard the whispers and knew her instructor was really none other than her half-sister. “I did not advise them to maintain an unmarried state.” Wise though they’d be. “But rather encouraged them to exercise their own opinions and beliefs and—”

  The headmistress thumped a fist on the desk hard enough she rattled the lone page upon the otherwise immaculate surface. “Enough, Mrs. Munroe.” The page fluttered to the edge of the desk and then hovered there, one heavy breath from tumbling to the floor.

  And even knowing the words had been coming did little to stem the tide of panic threatening to overtake her. Jane placed her trembling palms on her lap. “Mrs. Belden,” she began. Having been summoned a quarter of an hour ago, she really should have placed her efforts on finding the appropriate and necessary words to save her post. “I won’t make the same mistake.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she bit the inside of her cheek. Blasted lie, and an obvious one at that.

  To both of them.

  “Ah, yes, you’ve said as much,” Mrs. Belden said while peering down the length of her disapproving nose. “Four times.”

  “Surely it was not four,” she murmured. She’d have wagered this very post she depended upon that it had been at the very least six times.

  “Regardless, Mrs. Munroe, I simply cannot have you here any longer.”

  The panic climbed higher and higher, tightening her belly, and settling in her throat, threatening to choke her. She gripped the edge of her seat and held firm. “I do not have anywhere else to go.” This proved to be the second worst possible response.

  The stern headmistress of the esteemed finishing school sat back in her chair. “That is, unfortunately, not my problem, Mrs. Munroe. I’d had,” she raked her cool gaze over Jane. “I had reservations about you but was persuaded,” likely paid a substantial sum to take her on, “to allow you a post. In your time here, you’ve filled my girls’ heads with dangerous talk of treason, challenging the very tenets of Society.”

  “I’d hardly say encouraging the ladies to strengthen their minds and not offer blind allegiance to a gentleman constitutes treason.” She couldn’t keep the dryness from threading her words. The other woman snapped her eyebrows into a single line.

  Blasted quick tongue. She cleared her throat. “That is, what I’d intended to say is I’ve striven to instruct the young ladies on the importance of using their minds to formulate productive thoughts.” That extended beyond the match they’d make and instead to rely on their own strengths and capabilities. “And—”

  “And lecture them on the words of your Mrs. Mary Wollstonecraft.”

  She was hardly Jane’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. That esteemed woman was the inspiration who had given Jane hope she could be more than mere chattel. But she was everyone’s Mrs. Wollstonecraft. “Yes,” she said calmly. “I have spoken to them about Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s philosophies so they might formulate their own opinions.”

  Mrs. Belden propelled forward in her seat. She thumped her fist on the desktop once more, sending the lone page fluttering to the floor forgotten. “Mrs. Munroe, women do not have opinions. They are obedient, decorous creatures to be cared for by a husband and your Mrs. Wollstonecraft with her bastard children is not fit discourse for anyone.” Crimson blotches blazed upon the woman’s cheeks, and she stared at Jane with pointed condescension, her words a smidgeon shy of the insult she’d level at her.

  For every employer from the previous households she’d found employment in to this dour creature, all knew the truth—the Duke of Ravenscourt’s requests of employment for Jane were more of an order than anything else and stemmed from some obligatory response to his by-blow daughter.

  She tipped her chin up at a mutinous angle, daring the woman with her eyes to speak the whole truth. The woman wisely remained silent, likely fearing retribution if she were to issue that insult. Little did the nasty headmistress realize that Jane would no sooner humble herself before the man who’d sired her by asking for his aid than beg the pinch-mouthed crone.

  “I agreed to His Grace’s request but was forthright in saying that if you did anything to jeopardize my charges, I’d be forced to release you from your responsibilities. After all, I’d heard rumors of you.”

  Rumors. So the grounds of her dismissal from her previous employer had found their way to the far flung corners of Kent. Not even the duke could silence those scandalous whispers. Fury tightened Jane’s belly at the condescending sneer on the woman’s lips. A woman who instructed young ladies on blind obedience and their rightful position in Society would never believe the word of a duke’s by-blow daughter over that of a powerful earl’s respected son and heir. So she said nothing.

  “I cannot provide you a reference…” Nausea turned in Jane’s belly. A knock sounded at the door and she looked blankly from the arbiter of her fate and to the wood panel. Mrs. Belden frowned and glanced briefly over at the door, and then returned her attention to Jane once again. “As I said, I cannot provide you a reference. It would not be the honorable thing for me to do as your employer.”

  Honor. What did this woman or the Earls of Montclairs and Dukes of Ravenscourts of the world know of honor? Fear turned her mouth dry. Where would she go? For the briefest, infinitesimal moment, she entertained sending a missive to her father. She slid her eyes closed. God help her, she’d not be so weak to rely on the assistance of a man whom her mother had thrown away all hope of respectability and honor for. She could not, nay would not, appeal to her father. She’d not ever done so on her own behalf. Her foolish mother, who’d given away all happiness for that man’s love, had done so. The employers who cast her out, time and time again, had done so as a deferential respect for the revered Duke of Ravenscourt. “I ask that you allow me a fortnight, Mrs. Belden,” she said at last.

  “You—” Another rap interrupted the woman’s words. On a huff of annoyance, she stood with slow, precise movements. “Yes?”

  The door opened and one of the uniformed instructors, Mrs. Smythe, stood at the entrance. She momentarily glanced at Jane. Pity filled the woman’s eyes. Ah, so all knew. Nothing was private where she was concerned. “Mrs. Belden, there is a quarrel between Lady Clarisse and Lady Nora.”

  Lady Clarisse. The very legitimate daughter of the Duke of Ravenscourt—the one not dependent upon the mercy of cruel employers and prey to lecherous gentlemen. Bitterness turned in her belly.

  “A quarrel?”

  The young woman had despised Jane from the moment she’d arrived at her new post, likely a product of a daughter who knew precisely the young woman her father had coordinated employment for.

  “Yes, they are arguing about,” she cleared her throat. “Mrs. Wollstonecraft and,” she slid her gaze away from Jane’s as though unable to meet her stare. “Mrs. Munroe.”

  The headmistress favored Jane with a black glower. “I will return in a moment to continue this.” This, as in the ensuing argument between Lady Nora who’d quite taken to the enlightened ideas of free thought and freedoms of choice and Lady Clarisse, who’d quite detested anything and everything Jane had lectured on or spoken of, including mundane mentions of the weather.

  Together, the two women hurried from the office, leaving Jane alone. A thunderous quiet filled the room. Her shoulders sagged as the hum of silence in her ears blended with the frantic beating of her heart, nearly deafening. Filled with a restiveness, she shoved to her feet and began to pace before Mrs. Belden’s immaculate, mahogany desk.

  “Twenty-five,” she whispered. Never more had she wished for that magical, almost mystical, elusive age which represented her freedom.

  The funds settled on her by her benevolent father would pass to her hands. Life had seen her humbled, dependent upon the duke’s powerful connections once her mother had passed. The man, whom she’d met but t
wo times in her life and then only when she’d been a small child, had purged her from his life. Beyond seeing her properly employed, he’d no dealings with her. She tightened her mouth. The funds promised her, that she would take with a sense of entitlement and no regrets. For that impressive to her, insignificant to him, amount her mother had spoken of, represented Jane’s freedom.

  Freedom to not find herself on her back, legs spread for some bored nobleman as her mama had been. Freedom to not be subjected to lecherous lords and their vile sons’ grasping hands, merely for the station of her employment in their households. Freedom to set up a small finishing school, not at all like Mrs. Belden’s, where young ladies would be encouraged to read and discuss matters of import. Only two months until freedom was at last granted her.

  Jane stopped suddenly and stared blankly down at the desk. Except, two months may as well have proved endless for a woman without references, employment, and stubbornness to not ask the blasted duke for anything more.

  The budding panic cloyed at her chest and she closed her eyes a moment. The options for an unwed woman of ignoble origins were not many. Rather, they were nonexistent. She dropped her gaze to the floor and her panicked musings cut short. Absently, she stooped to retrieve the forgotten page dropped by Mrs. Belden moments ago. She’d no intention of reading the contents of another person’s note. She’d never been one of those nosy, eavesdropping bodies unable to mind her own affairs. No, she’d no intention of reading about the nasty headmistress’ affairs. But then, her eyes snagged upon one particular word on that brief note, written in a powerful hand.

  …Employment…in need of a companion…

  Jane chewed her lower lip and looked to the doorway, and then guiltily returned her attention to the sheet. She quickly scanned the contents.

  Mrs. Belden,

  I require the services of one of your esteemed instructors for my sister, Lady Chloe Edgerton.

  She continued skimming.

  …A term of two months…

  Her heart started and she picked her head up, staring at the floor-length crystal windowpane. A sign. As a mere girl, her mother had spoken to Jane of signs and encouraged her to find hope in those signs. For all her cynicism of her lot and station in life as a bastard daughter of a powerful duke, she’d looked for and celebrated those symbols. It was the sliver of optimism she clung to; a hope in a better world—for herself, for others. Two months. Surely this was one of those carefully laid signs she was to follow.

  Giving her head a shake, she cast one more glance at the door and then returned her attention to the remainder of the note.

  …Signed,

  The Marquess of Waverly.

  Waverly. She ran through the name in her mind, trying to recall a student who was sister to the marquess. Jane had only been at Mrs. Belden’s for a year. A giddy sensation lightened the pressure in her chest. The young woman, a Lady Chloe Edgerton, was a stranger to her. Surely another sign. Fate’s way of intervening. Footsteps sounded in the hall and she quickly folded the note and, shoving aside the tendrils of guilt, stuffed the missive in the front apron of her uniform.

  Mrs. Belden stepped through the entrance and did not break stride. She continued on to the seat she’d vacated a short while ago and then thumped her fist once upon the desk.

  The stolen note within Jane’s pocket burned and, for a numbing moment, she thought she’d been discovered. That this disobedience and theft would result in her being turned out immediately. She thrust aside the guilt. Her life had been subject to the whims and fancies of an indolent peerage early on. This moment, she would put her security and her future before all those lords and ladies.

  “As I was saying, Mrs. Munroe, I can no longer continue to hold you on my staff. You’ve a fortnight, at which point, I expect you to leave.”

  A fortnight. Time enough for a missive to be sent to Jane’s father and time enough for the duke to secure another post for his daughter. She tightened her jaw. The woman made the erroneous assumption that she would seek out his aid. She’d not done so before and she’d not do so now. Nor did she suspect the stern headmistress would be herself eager to write that respective note informing the duke his illegitimate daughter had been turned out on her ear. “Thank you,” she said with a stoic calm, belied by the frantic pounding of her heart.

  The woman inclined her head and with a flick of her hand, indicated the meeting was at an end.

  With the pilfered contents in her apron, Jane marched, head held high, from the room. She made her way down the narrow, whitewashed corridors. When she’d placed distance between herself and Mrs. Belden, she came to a stop beside the silver-plated knight oddly out of place in the finishing school. Positioning herself behind the massive armor from long ago, she withdrew the missive and perused the page once more.

  The Marquess of Waverly’s sister required a companion. At one and twenty, the young lady, a powerful marquess’ sister, was likely no different than all the unkind, self-absorbed women Jane had confronted since she’d been the sneered at, giggled about bastard child, living in a country cottage kept by the duke. Jane could brave the discomforts of such an assignment. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, troubling the flesh. Could she, however, in good conscience slip into a post assigned to another?

  Then, no one had truly been assigned the post. And any one of Mrs. Belden’s other instructors already were in possession of a post. They were not dependent upon another position the way Jane was.

  Yet, it was still not her missive. Jane tightened her grip upon the page, wrinkling the sheet. It was a level of underhandedness she disdained and she hated herself in this moment for being so very desperate that she’d abandon all honor. She lightened her grip. It wouldn’t do to ruin the page. With the tip of her ragged fingernail, she ran it over the inked word “two”.

  Two months.

  She’d sacrifice her honor and pride for just two months. Jane thrust aside all guilt and hardened her mouth into a determined line. After the abuses and injustices she’d known at the hands of the peerage, she had no compunction in entering into another one of their households so she might steal her freedom. After all, noblemen and their snobbish kin were the same. She’d not feel any remorse in lying to them.

  Jane drew in a shuddery sigh. “Liar,” she said under her breath.

  Except, when faced with the option of survival or her own sense of guilt for her deception, Jane chose survival.

  Chapter 3

  In the muddied London streets, with rain stinging her cheeks, Jane at last had reservations in absconding with a note intended for Mrs. Belden and leaving in the dead of night without a word to anyone.

  She jumped as the driver of the hired hack tossed down her lone valise. It landed with a hard thump in a rather impressive puddle. Water splashed the hem of her skirts and soaked her boots. She glowered up at the gap-toothed man who stuck his hand out. “Yer coin.”

  “Your coin,” she muttered and fished around her reticule. She handed over the coins, eager for the foul-stenched, leering driver to be on his way. It wouldn’t do to be discovered, arriving in a rented hack. He stuffed the half pence into his pocket and then climbed aboard his carriage—leaving her alone.

  In the biting London rain. At the front steps of the Marquess of Waverly’s residence. The seeds of misgivings, which had rooted around her brain the moment she’d arrived in London and blue skies had been replaced with black storm clouds and ominous rumblings of thunder, grew in her chest. She stole a skyward glance and blinked as raindrops trailed down the lenses of her spectacles, blurring the world before her. With a silent curse, she removed the pair and dried them with the fabric of her dampened cloak. To no avail. Jane placed the glasses on once again seeing the world through a rainy blur.

  She sighed. It was a sign.

  “Don’t be silly,” she muttered to herself. “The sign was a favorable one.” She’d paid attention to the blasted sign. Two months. What was the likelihood of that precipitous amount of
time coinciding with the timing of her attaining control of her trust?

  Lightning cracked across the sky and she jumped, propelled into forward motion. She swiped her waterlogged valise from the ground and, with an unladylike speed that would have gotten her sacked by Mrs. Belden if there hadn’t been the whole treasonous Mrs. Wollstonecraft talk on Jane’s part, she made her way up the handful of steps.

  The new signs all seemed to point to the folly in her plan. Even so, she still didn’t care to be smote by lightning on a stranger’s doorstep. She dropped her valise and knocked. Thunder rumbled overhead, burying the staccato rhythm of her rapping.

  Another blasted sign.

  “I’ve quite tired of signs,” she said, glaring at the door. A glint of gold snagged her notice and she raised her attention up from the black panel. She wiped the rain from her eyes and stared transfixed at the erect dragon, with his vicious grip upon the knocker, daring her to knock.

  The day she’d been assigned a post at Mrs. Belden’s Finishing School, she’d met the other instructors—dour-faced, always frowning, as though they’d feared a grin would result in their immediate expulsion from their esteemed post. Dragons, every last one of them…. and she’d become one by default.

  A dragon. Jane raised her fingertips and traced the ice cold fabled creature. A slow smile turned her lips up. She raised the knocker and pounded hard. She’d little other choice. She knocked once more. Nay, she had no alternative. Another knock. Either lie her way into a post for two months’ time or face an uncertain life on the streets. She flattened her lips into a firm line. Or, she could swallow her injurious pride and appeal to the man who’d sired her until—“Bloody unlikely,” she said between gritted teeth and pounded all the harder.