One Fine Duke

by Lenora Bell

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” And don’t care about me. I’ll only wound you again by leaving.

  “I was so young when it happened,” said Beatrice. “I didn’t understand what was happening. As I grew up, you were never home, always out with your friends, just like Rafe is now. And then you left. I have so many questions, which everyone refuses to answer. Why wouldn’t Father pay your ransom? How did you free yourself?”

  “I said I don’t want to speak of it,” he said shortly. There was no use talking about the past. After he’d freed himself, no one had wanted to talk about his ordeal—his mother had tried to pretend it had never happened, his father had told him that it was best forgotten, that he must be strong and silent and bear the nightmares in secret. “I don’t want to talk about me,” he continued, “I’m here to talk about you. There’s been a warning given—one I take very seriously.”

  She lowered her teacup. “What kind of warning?”

  Society kept sheltered young ladies in the dark about so many things. His fear for his sister’s safety forced him to ignore convention and share everything with her. It was better for her to be on alert. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I feel strongly that you should know so that you will be cautious and careful.”

  “Now you are alarming me. What has happened?”

  “I received this letter.” He handed the letter to Beatrice and watched her read it.

  She whistled, low in her throat. “How very strange.”

  “Now do you understand?” he asked. “When I read the words I dropped everything and rushed to London.” He caught her gaze. “I would never let anything happen to you, Beatrice. I would never allow you to suffer in the way that I did. I would give my life to keep you safe.”

  She smiled, her lips wobbling slightly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. What do you suppose Rafe is up to now?”

  “That’s what I want to know. I couldn’t extract anything from him earlier today. He ran away at the first chance and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “He’s been a regular terror lately, even worse than usual. His town house is a veritable den of iniquity. Mama doesn’t allow me to visit him there even though it’s only a few steps away. She turns a blind eye, of course. He’s her golden boy who can do no wrong.”

  “Until the mystery is solved, my manservant, Corbyn, and I will take turns guarding your bedchamber door. I’ll hire additional footmen and post a guard outside the house. I’ll stay in Rafe’s town house instead of going to my club. Once word is out that I’m in London I expect to receive another letter, this one asking for money.”

  “Or the extortionist may retreat now that you’re here? Maybe they wanted to conduct things from a safe distance.”

  “That could be, but for now I’m not taking any chances with your safety.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Be wary. Don’t trust anyone. Talk to the servants in a general way. Ask them if they know anything about Lord Rafe’s troubles, or if anything out of the ordinary has happened recently.”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll protect you, Beatrice. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  As they’d hurt him. Wet rag stuffed into his mouth. Gagging, unable to breathe. Chained to the wall, the iron around his wrists chafing.

  Two bowls of gruel per day. No privy. No sunlight.

  “The memories plague you still,” she said softly.

  He nodded, unable to speak, the phantom rag still choking him.

  “Why don’t you take me back to Thornhill House with you?” she asked, mercifully changing the subject. “I’m so tired of society. I’ll never be a success. I have designs on your library—I hear you have one of the largest collections of books in the entire kingdom. I hope you’re protecting the library from mildew?”

  “The collection is intact, but I don’t think Mama would be very happy if you abandoned her before the end of the Season.”

  “She’ll live. I’m sure there’s a wing at Thornhill you could dedicate to your eccentric spinster sister, isn’t there? I want to live surrounded by books. And perhaps a few cats. And I’ll write the best etymological dictionary the world has ever seen. And don’t say that it sounds lonely because that would be the very height of hypocrisy.”

  This was no passing whim. Drew could tell that she had it all planned. “Finish this Season and then I’ll speak with Mother. Thornhill is still being renovated and it’s quite rustic. It’s not for everyone.”

  “I’m not cowed by leaky roofs or resident ghosts. Thornhill House needs another monster.”

  “You’re not a monster.”

  “I’m Beastly Beatrice.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

  “Why not? Everyone calls me that behind my back.”

  “If you hide yourself away, you won’t be living your life.”

  “That’s what you did, isn’t it? Hide yourself away. Withdraw from life.”

  What a wonderful example he’d set for his sister. “I’ve created a new life with a new sense of purpose. My agricultural experiments. The simple, straightforward sense of satisfaction that comes from helping feed people.”

  “I want to have a useful life. I don’t want to marry a man who doesn’t love me and who marries me for my fortune or, worse still, out of pity.”

  “Before I left London, you told me that you didn’t want to be pitied. I see the sentiment is stronger than ever.”

  “Pity: to feel compassion for the wretchedness of another. If someone pities me, I must be wretched, but really I’m not. I find happiness and acceptance in books. They never judge me or pity me.”

  “Have I told you that you looked lovely tonight?”

  “I didn’t. That shade of yellow is death to my complexion.”

  “Then why agree to wear it?”

  “I don’t care what I wear. Do you know who looked lovely tonight?” she asked with a glint in her eyes. “A lady I met for the first time.”

  Don’t say it. Don’t—

  “Miss Wilhelmina Penny.” She watched him closely. “I saw you dancing with her.”

  A memory of their dance rose in his mind like the dawn.

  Miss Penny’s laughter making the candles flicker, the line of her rose-colored slippers contrasting with his black shoes, milky gauze swirling around slender ankles . . .

  In the shed, he’d caught a tantalizing glimpse of pink stockings and pink garters tied with rosettes, and a slender waist, curvaceous breasts . . .

  Whisky. And lots of it.

  “What did you think of Miss Penny?” Beatrice asked, glancing at Drew over the top of her teacup.

  “I thought she was trouble.” Pretty, perplexing, arousing peril. Best avoided. Best forgotten.

  Beatrice laughed and propped her feet up on the fender, turning her skirts up at the hem so they wouldn’t catch on fire. “I liked her. She didn’t stare at my face at all, and she offered to mete out punishment to Lady Millicent for making fun of me. She was quite ferocious about it. Reminded me of you, actually. You have the same warlike expression on your face right now.”

  “You know I won’t countenance anyone who makes fun of you.”

  “It’s part of my life,” said Beatrice, staring at the flickering flames. “The Almighty placed this mark on me for a reason. I’m a wallflower. A complete and utter failure in society.”

  “You’ll never be a wallflower to me.”

  “You have to say that. You’re my brother. Besides, I’ve made my peace with it. I intend to find a new and different way to become a triumph.”

  “I call that a complete triumph,” said Grizzy as they returned home after the ball. “Sir Malcolm will be very pleased with the progress you made tonight, Wilhelmina.”

  More like a total disaster, thought Mina as she climbed the stairs to her room.

  Lord Rafe had never arrived because of some feud with his brother, the duke.

  Thorndon.

  Had she gone temporarily insane in
that garden shed? Holding him at pistol point. Demanding that he undress. And then the commanding way he’d disarmed her . . .

  “You achieved success where all the other ladies failed, Wilhelmina.” Grizzy followed her into her room. “He was quite taken with you—everyone was whispering about it. The scrutiny of your deportment will be more intense than ever. We must resume our decorum lessons immediately.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “No rest for you, my girl. Not until I’m satisfied that you will be able to converse knowledgably on the arts when the duke invites you to visit the opera with his sister and mother, as I’m quite certain that he will.”

  “I met Lady Beatrice tonight. She’s wonderfully engaging and clever. I hope that we’ll become friends.” She’d always wanted a friend growing up. She’d been so very lonely with no one to play with.

  “Perfect. Now then, I’ll name the opera, and you name the composer . . .”

  Mina’s mind wandered back to the shed as Grizzy tested her.

  She couldn’t shake the suspicion that Thorndon had been hiding from something when she’d surprised him in the shed. She needed to read the Duke Dossier more closely.

  The surprising thing was that Thorndon had warned her about Lord Rafe. Which either meant that he was jealous of his brother or that he was capable of empathy and of caring for something beyond himself, not a very dukelike emotion, to be sure.

  “I can see that you’re too fatigued to concentrate on your lessons,” said Grizzy. “We’ll resume in the morning. I’ll send Addison to help you undress.” Mina hadn’t brought her own lady’s maid to London, because she’d never had one.

  Her life had been entirely unconventional. She’d grown up as a hoyden, allowed to roam as she pleased around the grounds of Sutton Hall but never allowed to venture past the woods.

  “I’ll have to start a new naturalist tableau.” Grizzy cocked her head. “I think I’ll call it the Wedding of the Hedgehog and the Vole.”

  “Oh, please don’t.” Mina had seen the chamber of horrors that Grizzy called her workshop.

  The iron pincers, the spools of metal wire, the cotton batting she used for stuffing. Grizzy had lent her a stomach-churning book entitled Taxidermy: the Art of Collection, Preparing, and Mounting Objects of Natural History, by her idol, one Miss Sarah Lee. “That is, don’t start planning a wedding just yet,” she said. “I only had one waltz with the duke.”

  “Nonsense. You dazzled him. I have every hope that an invitation from the duke will arrive for you tomorrow. A whirlwind courtship and then . . . Duchess of Thorndon. I never would have thought it possible.”

  Was that an approving glint in Grizzy’s flinty eyes? Mina never would have thought it possible.

  “Good night, Great-Aunt.”

  “Sleep well, Wilhelmina.”

  The duke had said that Lord Rafe was in some kind of trouble. If she knew what kind of trouble it was, she could be the one to fix it for him, and he’d be so grateful that he’d agree to her plan.

  The problem was that in order to set her plan in motion, she needed to actually speak with Lord Rafe. She couldn’t write him a letter—what she had to say must be spoken in person.

  Her uncle had said Thorndon was staying at his club. Obviously Lord Rafe would know that as well, and so it would be clear for him to return home after the ball was over.

  It was high time she stopped dreaming about becoming a secret agent and tested her capabilities in the real world.

  She’d pretend to go to bed, wait until Grizzy was asleep, and embark on her very first clandestine mission: sneaking into Lord Rafe’s chambers.

  If he were there, she could make her proposition. If he weren’t, she’d search the apartments for clues about the trouble the duke had alluded to.

  Mina had kept a satchel packed and ready for a swift escape ever since her parents had perished. She’d even attempted to run away from Sutton Hall, but Uncle Malcolm had swiftly found her and brought her back home.

  He had a network of informants spread throughout England and the Continent.

  Tonight she’d take the first steps toward true freedom.

  If only she’d been able to bring the red silk dress with her. After she’d changed back into her ball gown, she’d reluctantly left the red silk in the garden shed, bundled up and hidden in the workbench.

  This mission called for invisibility and stealth.

  Let’s see, she would need a dark cloak. A stout rope. Sensible boots.

  And her trusty pocket pistol.

  Three hours later, Mina crouched in the shrubbery outside of Lord Rafe’s bedchamber window at his nearby Mayfair town house, which was adjacent to his mother’s town house where the ball had been held.

  She’d scaled his iron gate and made her way, silent as a mouse, around the back of the town house to the courtyard, stopping at the mews to examine the carriages.

  Lord Rafe’s dashing cabriolet had been missing. He wasn’t here, which meant that instead of convincing him to become her partner, she’d be searching his apartments for information about his whereabouts, debts, current mistress, and other salient details of his life that she might use as leverage.

  A few more minutes and then she’d climb the low wall and enter through a window left helpfully ajar. It was either a sitting room or a study. The bedchambers were on the floor above.

  She crouched low, hidden by rosebushes from the house, but able to observe everything.

  The house was dark and silent.

  Thorndon was probably snoring in his bed at his club. No doubt he was dreaming of finding a demure, biddable country lass to milk his Cornish cows and churn his . . . butter.

  Not that she should be thinking about Thorndon.

  Only . . . there was the garden shed, halfway between the two houses. Inside that shed she’d entertained all manner of wild fantasies.

  He’d held her wrists trapped over her head and flattened her against the wall with his overwhelming strength and muscular body.

  She’d longed for him to kiss her. Touch her.

  Wrong desires. Wrong brother.

  Chapter 6

  Walking with Miss Penny in a field of daisies, petals open to the sunshine, bees buzzing around their heads.

  All the time in the world. No reason to rush.

  No one to see them but the sheep. They could make love in the summer breeze.

  He laid her down on the sun-warmed flowers. She watched him through half-lidded eyes. She lifted her arms and he came to her, resting his head against the swell of her breasts.

  Her heart beat beneath his ear. Life danced and hummed around them.

  He slid his hands up her skirts, over her smooth thighs. She wasn’t wearing any drawers. How delightful. He squeezed her buttocks, angling her hips, spreading her thighs for his tongue, like a marauding bee sucking molten sunlight from a . . .

  Drew woke with a gasp and a stiff cock. No, just a few more minutes, please. Or maybe an hour?

  Christ. What was he, sixteen? Erotic dreams about a girl he just met. And why had his dream been so damned flowery? His sleep was usually invaded by nightmares, or else he was too exhausted from his labors to dream at all.

  This dream had been filled with sunshine, flowers, and Miss Penny.

  The sun on his back, breeze cooling the sweat from their brows, tucking daisies into her hair . . .

  There he went again.

  What the devil was wrong with him? He blamed it on the whisky.

  It must be bothering him more than he cared to admit that a lady possessed of such spirit and intellect, not to mention such a sharp wit, would choose a wastrel like Rafe.

  Corbyn stood sentry at Beatrice’s door even now because of Rafe.

  Drew was sleeping here in the hope that Rafe might return, and then Drew could continue the interrogation.

  The bastard who had sent the letter would send another one soon.

  It was his move.

  Come on, you miscreant, come and find m
e.

  He thrust off the tangled covers and left the bed, walking to the window. He opened the casement and leaned into the night air, taking great gulping breaths.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Miss Penny. The zing of attraction between them. The unevenness of her breathing as she’d tied his cravat.

  Or had it all been one-sided? Perhaps she hadn’t felt a thing. She’d been humoring him, or worse, trying to be rid of him so that she could hold her tryst with Rafe.

  Why in the name of everything unholy would she want Rafe? It made no kind of sense. His brother wasn’t the marrying type—even a girl who’d been raised by her uncle in the countryside would know that.

  So what did she want with him? Did she think she could reform him?

  Good luck with that. Drew had been trying for years now and Rafe wasn’t ready to change. He might never be. If he’d truly done something so heinous that the family could be extorted because of it . . . well then, Miss Penny was putting herself in danger.

  Changing her gown for Rafe. He didn’t deserve to have a young lady go to so much trouble to please him.

  More important, Miss Penny didn’t need to change. She was absolutely perfect just the way she was.

  Stop thinking things like that.

  It was late. He was tired. He’d just had an erotic dream that had been cut short in a very unsatisfactory manner. His cock was still semi-hard.

  There was something deliberate about the way she’d hidden the dress in the shed. She had specific plans. She had secrets.

  She was the last lady he should be thinking about. She’d never be happy in Cornwall.

  You’re only thinking about her because she chose Rafe over you.

  Just because he’d abandoned his rakish ways and found some purpose for his life didn’t make him stuffy and boring. Just because he didn’t gamble, consort with courtesans, or have a cravat style named after him didn’t make him unappealing to adventurous ladies.

  It had never occurred to him that a young lady might not find him attractive. He’d never had any trouble finding female companionship. Women used to flock to him, they couldn’t get enough. His prowess in the sheets had been legendary. He’d been the wickedest rake of them all.