by Erica Ridley
One of the kittens climbed up the side of Cole’s face and settled against the crevice between his forehead and the settee.
He didn’t dislodge her. His mind was not on kittens, but on Diana.
With discomfort, he began to realize that expecting her to drop everything she cared about, to change her very personality in order to play proper duchess for him was, at best, myopic and vain.
Made worse because his motives centered about making life easier for him, when his life was already easier.
The entire reason she’d resorted to duplicitous playacting was because openly pursuing her passions wasn’t an option.
He bolted upright, to the surprise of several kittens.
Duplicitous was the wrong word. So was “playacting.” For Diana, barrister’s secretary and measures inspectress weren’t roles to be acted. They were positions she might have filled in another life. Careers she might have enjoyed.
Her covert research-gathering wasn’t a disguise. It was the real Diana, doing what she loved, being herself. Courageous enough not to let anything get in her way. Not the world, not her true identity, not even the Duke of Colehaven.
Diana was Diana, and would always be Diana. Chess games and research journals, crusades against injustice and unbridled passion, always on the precipice between impending scandal and political breakthroughs. Breathtakingly beautiful inside and out, and completely impossible.
Either Cole accepted that, accepted her, or he had to set her free. She deserved nothing less.
The question was whether he deserved her.
Chapter 18
“Do you want to go to a dinner party with me tonight?”
Diana glanced across the tea table at her cousin. “Do I have to?”
He shook his head. “No.”
No.
Diana lowered her teacup and gazed back at her cousin.
His face held a hint of sadness, but his eyes were sincere. He wished she would go. Not to get rid of her, but because he enjoyed her company. He liked going to events together. But it was up to her.
That made all the difference.
“All right,” she said.
His face lit up.
Diana found herself smiling back.
She would have gone anyway, of course. Until today, she hadn’t realized she had a say in the matter. Yes, Thaddeus had been trying to find her a husband. Not because he wished her gone, but because he wished her happy.
Guilt twisted in her stomach. She certainly hadn’t gone out of her way to return the favor.
“Maybe I’ll wear something distinguishable from the wallpaper tonight,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “Maybe I’ll even join the conversation.”
He placed both hands to his chest as if in the throes of apoplexy. “Who are you? What have you done with my cousin? And how long can you stay in her place?”
She tossed a serviette at him. “Beast.”
He grinned at her unrepentantly. “They’re not all bad, you know. Believe it or not, the number of peacock feathers in a woman’s hair does not correlate inversely with her intelligence.”
Diana wrinkled her nose and sighed. “I have a feeling I’m the awful one.”
Her cousin was right. Just because the ton was unashamed of its frivolous interests did not mean none of them cared about the plight of the people or the state of current laws.
That was what Cole had been trying to show her when he’d forced her to shop. She liked fashion. He knew it. She’d thought if she indulged such fancies, it made her less serious than she wished to seem. Less worthy of being listened to.
But blending with the background erased her voice altogether. Refusing to take an active part in customs she deemed stifling and silly meant turning her back on the very people in the best position to help.
Cole was not a lone swashbuckler, cutting swaths through fusty members of Parliament in a one-man mission to bring cohesive bushel descriptors to the people.
He was not responsible for the Weights and Measures Act of 1815. Neither was she. There was an entire committee, plus the House of Lords and the House of Commons. She and Cole were agents of change, but they could do little without the staunch support of others.
By thinking of the ton as adversaries, she had devoted her energy into “Diana versus Everyone” instead of “Diana and Everyone against Injustice.” Cole’s world was just as valid as hers.
They just couldn’t live in it together. Not if he wasn’t willing to bridge the gap with her.
Shaw strode into the room. “Duke of Colehaven to see Miss Middleton.”
Thaddeus arched his brows toward Diana. “Should I fetch my pistol or make myself scarce?”
“At ease, cousin,” she assured him. “I don’t hate Cole. I’m just not going to marry him.”
“I’m here to change your mind,” came a low voice from the corridor.
Diana and Thaddeus whirled to face Colehaven.
“I left this ‘gentleman’ in the entryway,” Shaw said with a sniff.
“The entryway is three paces from the parlor,” Colehaven put in. “I can hear you talking.”
“I’ll fetch the pistol,” Shaw said and strode from the room.
Colehaven crossed directly in front of Diana and dropped to one knee. “Every moment without you is like stars vanishing from the sky. You are the light in the darkness. My compass to—”
Thaddeus leaped to his feet.
“You know, Shaw really oughtn’t to be left in charge of a pistol,” he said as he edged out of the parlor. “Do carry on without me.”
Heart racing, Diana turned back to Colehaven.
“I’m in hell without you,” he said baldly, his eyes on hers. “But I have come to realize our future isn’t about me. Nor is it about you. Marriage would mean the one thing you begged for us to be: equals.”
Diana cocked her head. “Are those scratch marks on your face?”
“Kittens,” he said with a wince. “Free to a good home. Now, pay attention.”
She folded her hands in her lap and nodded. “Equals, you were saying?”
“Equals.” He scooted closer on one knee. “You’re right, of course. Men and women aren’t equal in the eyes of the law, but—”
She shot up straight. “You can fix that?”
He grimaced. “Meters might be easier.”
“True.” She let out a long sigh. A woman could dream. “One thing at a time, I suppose.”
“Just so.” He pressed a finger to her lips. “If I could take the floor for just a moment, you’d see that I’m trying to perform a persuasive romantic soliloquy.”
She frowned. “I think ‘soliloquies’ are when one is talking to oneself. This might be a monologue?”
“Definitely not a monologue,” he assured her. “‘Mono’ means just one speaker, and you haven’t stopped interrupting since I began.”
Diana mimed sewing her lips closed and motioned for him to continue.
“Everyone deserves love,” he said in a rush, as though the invisible thread binding her mouth shut could break at any moment. “And everyone deserves happiness. You were the one who said to me, ‘If it can be improved, improve it.’ Everything will be improved if we do so together. Our own lives, plus the lives of others, as well as the very concept of what a husband and wife should be: a team.”
Hope began to fill Diana with lightness. This did not sound like a man who wanted her to give up her dreams for him. This sounded like a man who wanted to chase their dreams together.
“I don’t want to change you,” he said softly. “No matter what you might think or what twaddle I might have said. Your contrary, big-hearted nature is the reason I love you.”
Diana’s eyes widened as her heart fluttered in her chest. She couldn’t have interrupted now if she’d tried. He’d stolen her very breath.
“I don’t want you to pretend to be like everyone else,” he continued. “If I was tempted by ‘normal,’ I’d have married it by now. I don’t want to make do wit
h the status quo. I want you. For better and for worse, for bonnet and for mobcap. I want it all.”
Her breath tangled in her throat. She had believed for so long that she couldn’t have it all. He wasn’t just trying to convince her it was possible. He was handing it to her.
“Diana Middleton,” he said, his voice solemn and gentle. “I won’t ask you to be my wife. Instead, I beg you to take me as your husband.”
Her eyes pricked with tears.
“Er, Diana?” he said nervously. “We’ve concluded the monologue bit. Now is when you give some sign as to whether it worked.”
She took a deep breath. “Did you bring beer?”
“It’s in the carriage,” he replied automatically, then narrowed his eyes. “But you don’t get any unless you marry me.”
“Checkmate.” She launched herself into his arms. “You beautiful, foolish man, I love you more than ten hogsheads of beer and a thousand perfect disguises.”
“Thank God,” he murmured into her hair as he held her tight. “It also seems I love you more than my own career. I was meant to take the floor last night to discuss public works and fisheries. But as soon as I finished, I launched into an impromptu speech on the importance of simplifying our unnecessarily chaotic system of weights and measurements into unified, manageable units.”
She lifted her head in alarm. “You did what?”
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I give credit where credit is due. I heavily cited research from the foremost expert on the topic. Perhaps you’ve heard of Miss Diana Middleton?”
“You did what?” She dug her nails into his shoulders and stared at him with horror. “But that was your chance! Who did they pick for committee leader?”
“Me,” he said with an impish grin. “Not of fisheries, but of weights and measures. If only there was someone with years of firsthand knowledge who could join me on my quest to analyze the current climate and work out a proper solution. If you could point me in the direction of a competent inspectress—”
This time, Diana interrupted him not with words, but with a kiss of complete surrender.
Epilogue
June 1824
London, England
* * *
At half midnight, the black sky above the Palace of Westminster was speckled with stars. The moon’s waxing crescent lent its shimmering glow to the rows of gas lights flanking the Westminster Bridge.
The Duke of Colehaven cared about none of this.
He sailed from the palace to his waiting coach without so much as a glance at the night’s beauty. The carriage door was scarcely shut before he was urging his driver to fly to Grosvenor Square with all haste. But Cole was not fleeing Parliament. He was racing home to tell his wife the good news.
Diana was not in the nursery or playing with kittens or organizing her notes in her private study. She was bending over a barrel in their brewing room, her journal in one hand and a mug of beer in the other.
She barely had a chance to set down her sloshing ale before Cole swept her off her feet and swung her in mad, giddy circles.
He tried to cover her with kisses, but couldn’t stop grinning long enough to make proper work of it. “We did it, darling!”
She grinned back at him. “You managed to pick out a fashionable waistcoat?”
“Minx.” He set her down in order to thrust a painstakingly copied sheaf of documents into her hands.
Her eyes lit up even before she glanced at its contents. “This calls for a celebration! Pour yourself a beer, my love.”
“There’s no time for ale.” He flapped his hands toward the papers. “Read, read!”
Diana cleared her throat and affected the pompous, ramrod-straight posture of a court crier. “An Act for ascertaining and establishing Uniformity of Weights and Measures.”
It was all Cole could do not to bounce about the brewing room like a mischievous kitten. He consoled himself by downing half of his wife’s ale.
“Whereas it is necessary for the Security of Commerce, and for the Good of the Community, that Weights and Measures should be just and uniform…” Diana continued, her posture relaxing and her grin widening with each new word. With a squeal, she dropped the papers upon the brewing table and launched herself back into Cole’s arms. “We did do it!”
“No grams and meters,” he warned her as they spun about the room.
“I’m thrilled with the demise of twenty-seven different kinds of bushels,” she assured him, laughing. “You’ve achieved a miracle. Imagine—one single size for a gallon!”
“I don’t have to imagine,” he informed her solemnly. “The document I showed you clearly states that a ‘gallon’ is a standard unit of volume, defined as ten pounds of distilled water weighed in the air at the precise temperature of sixty-two degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, with the barometer configured at—”
She pressed her lips to his, sending all thoughts of imperial measures scattering to the wind with the magic of her kiss.
His friends might have teased him for breaking his ten-year winning streak with the loss of the wedding wager, but Cole knew the truth. The passionate embrace of the clever, stubborn, irresistible woman in his arms was worth far more than any bar-room bet. He’d lost nothing but loneliness and won the love of a lifetime.
He’d wager nothing on earth could be better than that.
* * *
THE END
What happens when two forbidden lovers—one the wicked Duke of Eastleigh and the other a governess with a secret past—reunite? Find out in ONE NIGHT OF SURRENDER.
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In order, the Wicked Dukes Club:
One Night for Seduction by Erica Ridley
One Night of Surrender by Darcy Burke
One Night of Passion by Erica Ridley
One Night of Scandal by Darcy Burke
One Night to Remember by Erica Ridley
One Night of Temptation by Darcy Burke
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Dukes, Actually
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The Duke’s Embrace
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One Night With a Duke
Ten Days With a Duke
Forever Your Duke
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The Earl’s Defiant Wallflower
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Acknowledgments
As always, I could not have written this book without the invaluable support of my critique partner, beta readers, and editors. Huge thanks go out to Darcy Burke, Tessa Shapcott, Erica Monroe, and Tracy Emro. You are the best!
Lastly, I want to thank the Historical Romance Book Club facebook group and my fabulous street team. Your enthusiasm makes the romance happen.
Thank you so much!
About the Author
Erica Ridley is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of historical romance novels.
In the new Rogues to Riches historical romance series, Cinderella stories aren’t just for princesses… Sigh-worthy Regency rogues sweep strong-willed young ladies into whirlwind rags-to-riches romance with rollicking adventure.
The popular Dukes of War series features roguish peers and dashing war heroes who return from battle only to be thrust into the splendor and madness of Regency England.
When not reading or writing romances, Erica can be found riding camels in Africa, zip-lining through rainforests in Central America, or getting hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.