The Duke’s Blackmailed Bride
Northbridge Brides Series Book 1
Leigh D’Ansey
Contents
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Duke’s Blackmailed Bride COPYRIGHT 2011 by Leigh D’Ansey
2nd edition Nov 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Cover Art by Tania Hutley
Introduction
Vanessa Fitzwilliam is in dire straits. Her father’s death a year before left her with a crumbling manor and a handful of old retainers relying on her for support. When the Most Noble Hugo Ashton Duke of Northbridge sweeps into her life with a surprising proposal, Vanessa is tempted – but the arrogant duke believes her to be something she’s not!
Prologue
“Ours is a small world, Miss Fitzwilliam, and you have not moved through it without notice.”
Vanessa’s cup halted halfway to her lips. Over its rim she sent him a cool stare.
“Those cat’s eyes of yours could never look the innocent, so do not play the ingénue with me, Miss Fitzwilliam.”
Her name on his tongue sounded strangely exciting.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, his glass cupped loosely in both hands. Not a gentleman’s hands, noted Vanessa. Northbridge’s hands were scarred and calloused, she supposed from hard riding and the perils of warfare.
“There was the incident of the high perch phaeton driven at speed through Hyde Park.” His measured voice brought her attention back to his account of her misdemeanors. “Two wheels off the ground at one point, so I have been told. Dowagers having to adjust their hat pins as you flew by.”
Vanessa sipped her tea.
“The night you played understudy to one of Prinny’s coterie in Drury Lane,” Northbridge continued, “wearing trousers. The footlights showed your legs to advantage, I believe.” His gaze moved downward.
Even though they were well concealed, Vanessa found herself pressing her limbs together. “I was obliged to play the part of a young man. What was I supposed to wear? Petticoats and hoops?”
“Your appearance on stage was shocking enough,” Northbridge said, leaning toward her and pinning her with his gaze, “but surely even you must have been aware that staying overnight at Crockford House, without even a maid in attendance, scandalized all society and put you quite beyond the pale.”
Vanessa’s skin crawled at the very mention.
Chapter One
Vanessa Fitzwilliam extended one slender foot from beneath the mountain of bedclothes and promptly tucked it away again.
“Hattie!” she called. “Why is there no fire in the grate?”
Come to speak of it, why wasn’t her bath filled with steaming scented water just waiting for her to slip into? It was then Vanessa remembered that Hattie, like most of the other servants, had been dismissed. No doubt the wretched girl had found a more comfortable position in a warmer manor house than Melrose Court.
Dragging the bedcover around her shoulders and sliding her feet into a pair of worn velvet slippers, Vanessa crossed to the windows and pulled back the drapes.
As it had been yesterday and the day before that, the landscape was dismal. Vanessa pressed her forehead to a windowpane running with condensation and wondered if it would ever stop raining.
She made her way downstairs through gloomy hallways to the kitchens, the damask cover trailing along the floor behind her. A voluminous form topped with an enormous mobcap rolled out of the scullery and observed Vanessa with astonishment.
“What on earth are you doing down here, Miss Vanessa?”
“It may have escaped your notice, Mrs. Shearwater, but there is nobody to draw my bath this morning. I shall have to do it myself and bath in the kitchen.”
Mrs. Shearwater went white. “You can’t bathe in the kitchen, Miss Vanessa. It ain’t seemly.”
“Seemly is as seemly does,” said Vanessa grimly, finding a tin bath in the scullery and hauling it before the fire.
“Why won’t you accept that nice Squire Roberts?” asked Mrs. Shearwater, apparently resigning herself to the unlikely scenario and heaving a cauldron of water onto the stove.
Vanessa tossed her head. “I do not intend being the wife of a man who walks about with pig manure on his boots, Mrs. Shearwater.”
“Too fussy you is, Miss Vanessa. Squire Roberts’d be better’n the Poorhouse.”
And, the sad fact was, Mrs. Shearwater was absolutely correct. Vanessa was twenty-six years of age and unmarried. She had been too fussy altogether and had spurned several offers.
Despite his ridiculous title she could probably have lived with the young Earl of Giggleswick but for his habit of sniveling into his handkerchief every five seconds.
The very idea of marriage to that abominable creature, the Marquess of Crockford was abhorrent, and she certainly could not have married Albert Neville. Besides being only a second son, she gave him several inches. It didn’t do for a wife to look down on her husband.
At least those were the lofty sentiments Vanessa had entertained when she’d turned down the really quite pleasant Albert, just over a twelve-month ago.
Not that he’d wasted any time mourning Vanessa’s loss. He and little Daisy Sitwell had made their marriage vows not much over six weeks after Vanessa had given Albert her gracious refusal.
“I ’ear the Duke’s up at the castle,” said Mrs. Shearwater, giving her a sideways glance. “Although the likes of you, pardon me, Miss Vanessa, wouldn’t do for so grand a duke as he.”
Just as Mrs. Shearwater no doubt intended, her cunning turn of phrase snared Vanessa’s attention. “What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Shearwater? I’m worthy enough for any duke. Why, my Uncle Barton was none other than—”
“Your Uncle Barton was your grandmother’s uncle’s cousin on your mother’s side and related to you by no more than a drop of blood in your little toe,” said Mrs. Shearwater with a sniff.
Even a drop was possibly an extravagant calculation, considered Vanessa, but she would bow to Mrs. Shearwater’s superior knowledge on the subject of the Fitzwilliam bloodline.
“Have you brought a gown and shift downstairs?” asked Mrs. Shearwater, pouring in hot water as Vanessa dropped the bedcover to the floor, divested herself of her nightclothes, and stepped into the bath.
Of course she had not. She gave Mrs. Shearwater a pointed look. When one no longer had a lady’s maid, a cook would have to suffice. Besides, Mrs. Shearwater wasn’t that ancient and she was quite strong judging by the volume of water she’d managed to heft into Vanessa’s bath.
It wasn’t until Mrs. Shearwater reached the door that Vanessa began to feel contrite, thinking of the dim passageways and steep flights of stairs that led to her bedchamber.
“Mrs. Shearwater, wait—” she began, reaching for the rough towel that the cook-cum-houseke
eper had thoughtfully left on rush-seated chair beside the bath.
Mrs. Shearwater turned, taking in Vanessa’s naked body halfway out of the bath, water streaming down her flanks.
“Ye didn’t think I was going to fetch your garments?” The housekeeper’s expression mirrored the absurdity of Vanessa’s misconception. “Lumbering up all them stairs with this old body? No, m’love, I’m going to find that lazy tub o’ lard, Pansy.”
Vanessa had no idea who Pansy was and just at this moment did not care one jot. As the heavy door swung shut behind Mrs. Shearwater, she settled into her bath.
She was almost comfortable, except for a sharp little spike that insisted on trying to impale her spine, when a loud rapping at the outer door made her start with surprise.
The door was flung inward and to her horror Vanessa observed a gentleman standing at the entrance. Rain dripped from his greatcoat onto the stone floor. A flurry of dead leaves swirled about his muddied boots.
Her scream brought Mrs. Shearwater tumbling back into the kitchen while the visitor muttered an oath, turned his broad back to Vanessa and faced the storm without.
“Are you decent yet, madam?” he barked after no more than a few seconds had gone by. His riding crop rapped an impatient tattoo against the side of his boot.
“Indeed, I am not, sir,” said Vanessa, rising from the bath. She took in the cut of his greatcoat and the damp, dark curls that brushed his collar, while Mrs. Shearwater draped the rose-pink bedcover around her, exposing only slightly more than the amount of bosom that was proper.
But then everything about these circumstances was improper, Vanessa thought, suppressing a somewhat hysterical giggle—a noble duke barging his way into the kitchen of a respectable manor house and finding the lady of the house bathing in the kitchen.
For, of course, both Vanessa and Mrs. Shearwater knew their visitor, planted like a bulwark against the weather, could be none other than the aforementioned Duke of Northbridge, no doubt demanding shelter from the wild weather, refreshment, or stabling for a horse gone lame.
Mrs. Shearwater coughed. “Perhaps you might shut that door, Your Grace,” she said, making a rather slapdash bob to his unresponsive back. “We would not want Miss Vanessa to catch a chill.”
One many-caped shoulder twitched irritably. With the hand that had removed his hat, the Duke pushed the door to.
Holding the edges of her makeshift gown between her breasts, Vanessa exerted enough pressure to encourage a décolletage that was attractively rounded but in no way vulgar. His Grace was a different kettle of fish than her previous suitors and in the unlikely event he had come courting, she might as well present herself as a package worth opening.
In any case, even though a curvaceous figure was not quite the style, she was proud of her body, shapely and firm from long walks and hours spent in the saddle.
“You may turn now, Your Grace,” she said after a minor adjustment of the bedcover’s heavy folds. Constrained by the tendency of her gown to part at the center, she nevertheless managed to dip into a modest curtsy.
When she raised her head, she found herself stripped by a pair of hard grey eyes. Pitted cheeks flanked a blade-like nose, a firm mouth with a small white scar at one corner, and an uncompromising jaw.
The shadow of new beard gleamed blue beneath his damp skin.
An unfamiliar warmth vibrated low in Vanessa’s belly. The raised nub of the damask weave grazed her fingertips. Beneath the fabric, her breasts tingled in a way that was strange and exhilarating.
But she did not lower her gaze. Instinctively she knew this could be a crucial encounter that would not only affect her, but those who had served her for years. Since Aunt Genevieve’s death just a few weeks before, Vanessa had been thrown completely upon her own resources. “You find me in an awkward situation, Your Grace.”
“I am come with a proposal,” he said.
Aware of a rapid increase in Mrs. Shearwater’s expiration, Vanessa shot that lady a warning glance before a full coughing fit was permitted to occur. If Vanessa could receive the Duke of Northbridge garbed only in a bedcover, then Mrs. Shearwater could also maintain her dignity for the welfare of all who inhabited Melrose Court.
She arched one eyebrow. “It cannot be a proposal of import for you to have entered via the kitchen door.”
He sent her a cool glance. “You may not be aware, but the path from the direction of Ashton Castle is blocked by a windfall of beech. It appeared less taxing on my mount to venture this way than to ride all around through Berkley wood and approach Melrose Court from the exposed side in this vile weather.”
As he rather looked as though he had been hewn from stone, Vanessa was unsurprised he had put his horse’s comfort before his own—in fact she applauded this consideration.
“Indeed, it seems as though this winter will never end.” He strode forward and set his hat on the scrubbed table. A shiver of awareness tripped up Vanessa’s spine as the musky, masculine scent of him caught at her nostrils.
“I had rather waited for a more clement day, but have come to the conclusion that this may never eventuate.” He turned to Vanessa expectantly, his hands clasped behind his back. His square shoulders and tall frame blocked out the meager light from the kitchen window.
Vanessa realized he did not seem averse to elaborating on his proposition without further ado, but she was not inclined to undertake any such conversation without even the dignity of a pair of drawers on her person.
“Perhaps this is a matter that should be furthered in the small drawing room,” she said, almost certain that Dunn would have lit a fire in that small space. “Mrs. Shearwater, show His Grace the way if you please.”
From their expressions, Vanessa concluded that the notion of the cook leading the Duke to the drawing room was far more outlandish than his accepting a restorative drink and getting down to business at the kitchen table.
“I will join you before long, Your Grace.” Gathering her draperies about her she swept
ahead of them, picking up pace the moment they were out of sight, as if Northbridge himself was racing up the stairs behind her.
Having entered her bedchamber not quite out of breath, she came to an abrupt halt and looked about with agreeable surprise. A fire flickered in the grate, the clothes she had discarded the previous evening had been set aside for laundering, her bed curtains withdrawn, and the bed straightened.
“You must be Mrs. Shearwater’s Pansy,” she said to the girl whose pleasantly rounded proportions in no way lived up to Mrs. Shearwater’s unkind description.
Pansy extracted herself from Vanessa’s capacious wardrobe, a sage-green morning dress of fine wool folded over one arm.
“Yes, miss.” She made a bob and surveyed Vanessa with a pair of inquisitive brown eyes.
Vanessa smiled. “Are you related to Mrs. Shearwater?”
“Mrs. Shearwater’s my aunt that was married to my mother’s brother.”
“Well then,” said Vanessa, dismissing the erstwhile Mr. Shearwater who had been dead these many long years. “I don’t know how your aunt inveigled you here, but we have the Duke of Northbridge in the house and I must be dressed to receive him. You have made an excellent beginning.”
A becoming pink flushed the maid’s cheeks at Vanessa’s commendation.
The sight of her tangled hair in the glass brought color to Vanessa’s own cheeks. Northbridge could not have been presented with anything more hoydenish.
When her abundant locks had been simply dressed, Vanessa waved away the muslin cap Pansy presented with a brisk, “Can’t abide ’em,” but expressed satisfaction with the lilac kerseymere spencer laid out on the bed.
She spared only a moment for the looking glass, thanked Pansy, told her she had no idea how she would be reimbursed, but reimbursed she would be, and set off for the small drawing room.
Chapter Two
She stopped in the doorway, her usually confident disposition tilted askew by the sight of the man wh
o stood with his back to the broad windows overlooking the sweep of parkland beyond.
His greatcoat had been removed and his long legs, encased in tight buckskin breeches, showed extremely muscular. He had about him an air of vigor and manliness more suited to the outdoors than the confines of a country drawing room.
His silver gaze traveled over Vanessa with deliberation, but she could not be certain whether he approved of her more suitable attire or not.
She raised her chin and stepped forward. “Your Grace. It is indeed a pleasure to welcome you on such a dreary day.”
“I will apologize for not sending prior notice of my visit.” His tone was not apologetic in the least.
“Had you so, you might have found me in a manner more acceptable,” Vanessa returned with a touch of asperity. He might be The Most Noble Hugo Ashton Duke of Northbridge, but Vanessa had not been brought up in any way servile, and was accustomed to speaking her mind.
His black brows drew together. “Your manner of dress—or lack of it—in the confines of your own home is of no concern to me.”
“Nor outside my home, I should think.” Vanessa brushed her words with acid.
The sardonic lines about his mouth deepened. “That is what I am come to speak about.”
“About my deportment away from Melrose Court?” said Vanessa, astounded. “What gives you that right, sir?”
“I have none at this instant. Should the right be mine, I doubt I would exercise it in any case.”
“You have me at a loss, Your Grace.” And indeed he did have. This conversational sparring was giving Vanessa the headache.
“It is my understanding you have no guardian whom I should approach about this matter. You are no slip of a girl, but midway through your third decade—”
The Duke's Blackmailed Bride: Northbridge Brides Series Page 1