PRAISE FOR CHRISTI CALDWELL
“Christi Caldwell writes a gorgeous book!”
—New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean
“A Christi Caldwell book never fails to touch the heart!”
—New York Times bestselling author Tessa Dare
“Sizzling, witty, passionate . . . perfect!”
—New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James
“Christi Caldwell is a must read!”
—New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh
“Romance worth swooning over!”
—New York Times bestselling author Grace Burrowes
A JOVE BOOK
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2021 by Christi Caldwell
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
A JOVE BOOK, BERKLEY, and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593334928
First Edition: August 2021
Cover design by Rita Frangie
Cover photo of woman in bonnet © Ilina Simeonova / Trevillion Images
Book design by George Towne, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are 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.
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Contents
Cover
Praise for Christi Caldwell
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Doug,
who reminded me all the best heroes enjoy time in the kitchen.
Prologue
Staffordshire, England
Eighteen years earlier
Rafe Audley hated the Duke of Bentley.
It was a particularly strong sentiment, given that Rafe had never met the powerful peer, even once, in his thirteen years on this earth.
Rafe, however, didn’t need to meet the man who’d given him life to know that death was too good for the ruthless lord.
Screams rent the tiny cottage, and Rafe’s fingers twitched from the need to clamp them over his ears. To drown out the sounds of that misery and suffering.
Except that would be the coward’s way, and Rafe was many things: a bastard, a fighter, when he needed to be. But he was no coward.
Nay, a coward was the manner of man who’d get a woman with child again and again and again . . . and know nothing of it. It didn’t matter that Mama had defended the duke’s ignorance, explaining she’d not wanted him to know. A real man knew where he was spreading his seed, and took ownership of his responsibilities, as the duke had failed to do for his three—about to be four—children.
Rafe’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. But then, would an all-powerful duke truly see his bastards as children? He would actually have to pay a visit and be part of his children’s lives. Otherwise, he was nothing more than a stranger.
Another piercing cry split the otherwise quiet night.
Moisture dotted Rafe’s brow and slicked his palms.
“Jesssssusss.”
Did that high-pitched plea belong to Rafe, or his mother on the other side of that door panel? Since she’d begun laboring ten hours earlier, everything had been jumbled in his mind.
Rafe began to pace.
This wasn’t the first time his mother had given birth. Nor, given the state of her relationship with Bentley, would it be her last. Off she’d go, spending months on end in London with the duke, while Rafe looked after his brothers; eventually she returned. Whenever she had a babe in her belly, that was when she sought to hide from her cherished protector.
And yet, with Rafe waiting outside, as he’d done before, this night felt altogether different than the previous times.
This time, the thick summer air hung heavy and ominous. Even from where he waited, the stench of sweat permeated the room and spilled out into the narrow hall where Rafe stood.
So why did it feel different?
For all the similarities, something in this moment . . . felt a sea apart from the last times she’d gone into labor.
“Stop it,” he whispered to himself, needing to hear any voice other than the weak one—growing increasingly weaker—on the other side of the oak slab.
She will be fine. She had to be. Why . . . she always was. She’d scream and cry and plead with God, as she’d done struggling to bring his younger brother Hunter into the world. And then there’d come the cry of a newborn. And after that, she’d smile tiredly up at Rafe when he stormed into the room to verify with his own eyes that she was alive and well—still.
Then . . . then, they’d resume their lives. Until Mother left, and Rafe had three siblings to look after.
And then what happened? They began this same hellish process—again.
A burning rage coursed through Rafe, a volatile force that sent his hands curling into fists. Had the Duke of Bentley walked through this modest cottage the monster paid for, Rafe would have gleefully and viciously beat him to death for what he’d done.
“Rafe . . . is everything all right?”
He spun about. “Wesley,” he said blankly, “you are awake.” But then, could anyone sleep through what their mother now endured?
His younger brother tugged at his sleeve. “What is happening?”
He strangled a sob, needing to give it life, but even more, determined to be the person his brother needed him to be. “Nothing.” Which wasn’t far from the truth. Mother’s inability to birth the babe was what accounted for her suffering even now.
And where there was usually a challenge in the stubborn boy’s gaze . . . indecision, the likes of which Rafe had never before seen from him, radiated from his brother’s eyes. “Is she going to be a-all right?” There was the faintest of quivers to that whisper.
“Wasn’t she fine with me? And you, and Hunter?” Rafe hedged. “Why should this time be any different?” Why? Whyyyyy? That silent scream pealed around his mind, a mantra born of agony and fear.
Wesley smiled. “You are right.” His grin instantly faded to a scowl. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Rafe inclined his head. “You wouldn’t let me.” He softened that with a wink.
“Yo
u’re right, big brother,” he said, and yet, still Wesley lingered.
Rafe firmed his mouth, knowing what was coming.
“Perhaps we should write him?” Wesley suggested.
“No.”
“I know Mama would not wish it, but if he knew, then he might—”
“I said ‘no,’ ” Rafe growled, his voice harsh, and he immediately regretted that outburst, as his younger brother’s shoulders sagged.
“Fine,” Wesley mumbled, and then quit Rafe’s side, returning to the room he and Hunter shared.
The moment Wesley had gone, his mother’s sobs renewed with force, sparing Rafe from guilt and plunging him headfirst into terror. “I cannnnnnn’t. I cannnnnn’t.”
And where, in the past, there’d been a steady assurance from the same midwife who’d delivered Rafe, Wesley, and Hunter, a confidence-infused voice from the sturdy old woman . . . now, there was none. There was nothing beyond Mama’s cries.
I cannot take it.
Rafe clamped his hands over his ears, muting everything. He focused on that ringing behind his palms, not unlike those times he and his brothers competed to see who could stay submerged the longest.
And then he registered it—silence. Lowering his arms, Rafe said a silent prayer of thanks.
Only . . . this quiet wasn’t like the two times prior. Nay, it was thick and heavy and hung in the air, twining with the echo in his mind of Mama’s shouts.
Please. Please, say something.
Someone—
The door opened a fraction, and Rafe surged forward.
The midwife, Hazel, who’d delivered Rafe and his siblings after him, stepped out, and Rafe froze in his tracks.
Because he knew.
He knew even with no words spoken, from an innate understanding that could only come from deep inside life and death—that this moment was born of the latter.
The old woman pushed the door open a smidge more, allowing him a greater look into those small chambers. If he wanted that look. Which he didn’t. He didn’t want any part of that room.
Rafe gave his head a shake. “I’m not going in there,” he snarled. Ever. Because the moment he stepped across the threshold, all of this became real. And he wasn’t ready for it. Mayhap he’d never be.
The midwife nodded.
“No,” he clipped that word out past his clenched teeth.
She dusted her hands together. “Your mother would have wanted that.”
Wanted. As in, a moment from the past. Two little letters that confirmed his every fear and first suspicion.
Emotion wadded in his throat, and he choked on it.
“Come,” she urged, and put a hand out.
If she’d been weeping, he’d have turned on his heel and taken off down the corridor. But she wasn’t. She was steady and sure in ways Rafe wasn’t, and never would be again, and it gave him the strength to follow her.
The pungent odor of sweat and blood permeated the air; it stung his nostrils and turned his stomach. And somehow, he found himself moving forward, following Midwife Hazel.
They reached the side of Mama’s bed.
Not bringing himself to look at her, Rafe stared down at the tips of his scuffed boots. Tears pricked his eyes, and he dashed a hand angrily at them.
“Do you know the last thing your mother said before . . .”
“She didn’t do anything but cry,” he spat angrily. How dare she? How dare she have chosen him. She’d abandoned Rafe, Wesley, and Hunter . . . and for what . . . ? So that she might bring another babe that they couldn’t afford into this world?
“That isn’t true. Her voice was weak. You likely wouldn’t have heard it,” the midwife murmured.
And certainly not with your ears covered, a voice silently jibed. And you were covering your ears through it.
The old white-haired woman looked to the young maid across the room, a girl cradling a babe.
The babe who’d claimed Mama’s life.
Hatred singed his veins.
“Don’t look at her like that,” the midwife said tersely.
Her.
A girl.
What the hell were he and Wesley and Hunter going to do with a damned girl, without a mother?
“I’m not looking at her,” he spat. And he resented that he’d have to ever look at her . . . or after her . . . again.
“You had your mama thirteen years. Your sister’s never known her even a minute,” the same woman who’d birthed him and his siblings after him chided.
Rafe’s chest constricted, and he stared with stricken eyes at his newest sibling.
“The babe is going to need you,” Hazel said in a low voice. “She’s going to need l-love.” It was the first crack in the woman’s composure. She glanced away, and when she looked back, she was once more collected. “Your resentment is misplaced. You know where it belongs . . . and it ain’t on that babe.”
The Duke of Bentley.
“Aye, that is right. The man who got her with child is the one deserving of your hatred, but you can’t have two equally powerful emotions. They cancel one another out.”
Confused, he shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Someday you will,” she said, and gave no further explanation. “Your mother asked that you look after your siblings. That you be the parent they won’t have.” A muscle rippled in his jaw, and feeling the midwife’s eyes on him, he glanced away from his mother’s dead body, and down at the old woman as she asked, “Are you able to do that? It is a tremendous responsibility for a young man.”
“There isn’t any other choice, though, is there,” he said, bitterness twisting around his words.
“You always have a choice, my boy.”
And with that, she called the maid over. The young woman placed the tiny babe in his arms.
Her body was so slight, and yet, there was something steadying in the feel of her against him.
He wanted to hate her . . . and yet . . .
Rafe swallowed.
He could not.
And in that moment, holding his sister close, Rafe made a vow—he’d never become his mother, putting love before those he was responsible for.
And as sure as his mother lay lifeless before him, the duke was dead to Rafe now and forever.
Chapter 1
London, England
Spring 1805
In the many years she’d been working as an instructor in etiquette, Miss Edwina Dalrymple had advised everyone from the daughters of powerful members of the gentry to the daughters of obscenely wealthy merchants.
She’d taught women who’d not so much as attempted a curtsy in their life the intricate and essential motions they required among the previously unfamiliar Polite Society.
She’d written articles offering advice to young women new to the ton.
She’d even written—although not sold so very many copies of—a manual with her instructions and advice meticulously laid out.
In all the time she’d worked in her respective positions, however, she’d never entertained . . . a duke and duchess.
Though, in fairness, there wasn’t an overabundance of those highest of peers below a prince.
Even if there had been, however, they’d certainly never sought to enlist her services.
Or they hadn’t before now.
At that very moment, the Duke and Duchess of Bentley stared across Edwina’s modest chestnut table. Etched upon their faces were matched expressions of austere confidence and regal power. It was a skill they’d likely perfected in their respective nurseries, and one Edwina had schooled countless students on. And the duke and duchess also represented the closest Edwina had ever found herself to the dream she’d long carried of working among their vaunted ranks.
Ten years. It had been ten years, nearly to the date, t
hat she’d secured herself references that would set her on a course to be the most sought-after and, more importantly, most respected governess.
Folding her hands neatly before her, Edwina opted to train her focus on the Duke of Bentley. “You would like me to instruct your child.” Because, really, the matter of that out-of-the-blue request required clarification. A duke and duchess seeking her services. Such an outrageous impossibility, one she’d only ever carried in her dreams. She discreetly pinched her thigh.
No, she was most definitely awake.
The duke nodded. “That is correct. However, he is not a . . . child in the traditional . . . sense.”
Edwina sat up straighter on the upholstered armchair and waited for him to say more. “Your Grace?” she asked, seeking clarification.
The duchess silenced her husband with a single look, the manner of which Edwina had used sparingly, and only with her most recalcitrant charges, in order to preserve its effectiveness.
And wonder of wonders, it appeared even dukes could be tamed.
The just-graying gentleman adjusted his cravat and sat back in the sofa he occupied alongside his wife.
For the first time since they’d arrived and the duke had stated his intentions to hire Edwina, the duchess took command of the meeting. “We’ve come to enlist your services, Miss Dalrymple,” Her Grace intoned. “And I gather, from your . . . response, you are wondering why we’ve requested you specifically.” The gentleness in the duchess’s tone kept that question from being an insult.
The duke frowned at his wife. “We do not mean to offend you . . .”
His wife gave him another look, this one a wry smile that proved just as effective in silencing him. “By everything I’ve read to you about her, the woman is clever enough to know. She knows that we’re aware she’s never had a patron among the peerage.”
“That is correct,” Edwina murmured, appreciating that directness and honesty. People of their station did not solicit her help. Unless they had to. “I have never had a client who was born to the peerage.” Once that truth had stung. Edwina, however, in time, and with her work, had come to appreciate her lot for what it was—outside the sphere of the ruling elite. Despite the fact she’d been working her way to establish a place among them from the start. “As such, I must confess to . . . some surprise.” And elation. Under her hem, Edwina danced her slippered feet about in a quiet, unseen celebration.
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