The duchess takes a husb.., p.1
The Duchess Takes a Husband, page 1
PRAISE FOR HARPER ST. GEORGE
“A glittering ballroom romance bursting with the industry and wealth that so define Gilded Age heiresses.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“The Heiress Gets a Duke is a charming, compulsively readable delight and I can’t wait for the next book from Harper St. George’s magical pen!”
—Evie Dunmore, USA Today bestselling author
“St. George marries classic elements from historical romance greats like Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn with subtle winks and nudges about the genre that would appeal to the more experienced romance reader.”
—Forbes
“A sparkling jewel of a love story, full to the brim with Victorian wit, romance, and heart-stopping heat. Road trips in a carriage and four don’t get much sexier than this.”
—Mimi Matthews, USA Today bestselling author on The Devil and the Heiress
“A sexy, emotional, romantic tale . . . Harper St. George is a must-buy for me!”
—Terri Brisbin, USA Today bestselling author on The Heiress Gets a Duke
“Wit, seduction, and passion blend seamlessly to create this deeply emotional romance. St. George weaves an intriguing plot with complex characters to provide the perfect sensual escape. There’s nothing I didn’t love about The Heiress Gets a Duke, especially its lush, captivating glimpse into history.”
—Anabelle Bryant, USA Today bestselling author
“With sizzling chemistry, brilliant banter, and an unapologetically strong, feminist heroine, Harper St. George sets the pages ablaze!”
—Christi Caldwell, USA Today bestselling author
“Fun, tender, and definitely sexy, The Heiress Gets a Duke is already at the top of my list for the best books of the year. Don’t sleep on this refreshing and feminist romance.”
—BookPage (starred review)
“Harper St. George just gets better and better with every book, penning the kind of page-turning stories that you will want to read again as soon as you finish each one.”
—Lyssa Kay Adams, author of Isn’t It Bromantic?
“A rich, compelling, and beautifully written romance. St. George brings us the story of Violet Crenshaw, an American heiress with distinctly modern ideas about love and marriage.”
—Elizabeth Everett, author of A Perfect Equation on The Devil and the Heiress
“Luscious historical romance.”
—PopSugar
“Rich with period detail, The Heiress Gets a Duke brings to life the Gilded Age’s dollar princesses in this smart, sexy, and oh-so-satisfying story.”
—Laurie Benson, award-winning author of the Sommersby Brides series
“You’ll sigh, you’ll cry, and you’ll grin yourself silly as this independent and cynical heiress finally gets her duke.”
—Virginia Heath, author of Never Fall for Your Fiancée
TITLES BY HARPER ST. GEORGE
The Gilded Age Heiresses
The Heiress Gets a Duke
The Devil and the Heiress
The Lady Tempts an Heir
The Duchess Takes a Husband
BERKLEY ROMANCE
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2023 by Harper Nieh
Excerpt from The Stranger I Wed by Harper St. George copyright © 2023 by Harper Nieh
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.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593440995
First Edition: May 2023
Cover design by Rita Frangie
Cover photo by anna.evlanova/Shutterstock
Book design by George Towne, adapted for ebook by Molly Jeszke
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 Harper St. George
Titles by Harper St. George
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
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
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from The Stranger I Wed
About the Author
_143550374_
For all the readers who asked for Camille’s happily ever after. This one’s for you.
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for reading the Gilded Age Heiresses. I hope you enjoy the opulence and richness of this time period as much as I do. One of my favorite parts of the Gilded Age are the Dollar Princesses. These were real women from new money families who were often pressured into marriages with European nobility for the sole purpose of raising the status of their families in Society. There were over 350 of these marriages from 1870 to 1920. They were the inspiration for this series.
Sometimes the marriages were consensual, as in the case of Jennie Jerome, who accepted the proposal of Lord Randolph Churchill after knowing him for all of three days. (Their first child was Winston Churchill, who was born premature at nine pounds.) Some believe it was this love match that started the avalanche of heiresses into European society. Then there is the famous case of Consuelo Vanderbilt, who was forced by her parents to give up the man she loved to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Accounts from the time indicate that she was crying as she walked down the aisle. This story in particular was the inspiration for Camille.
Camille has been somewhat of a cautionary tale for my Crenshaw heiresses throughout this series. They saw her forced marriage in the prologue of book one and decided to run from every marriage their parents tried to arrange for them. Camille’s book was not planned when I first started writing the series, but I am so glad that readers wanted and asked for her story. She deserves her happily ever after.
There is no question that Camille was a victim of domestic violence. Please be aware that some of the abuse she suffered in her previous marriage is remembered in this book, in case that is a sensitive topic for you. It’s not explicit, but it is discussed.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline defines domestic violence (also referred to as intimate partner violence, dating abuse, or relationship abuse) as a pattern of behaviors used by one partner to maintain power and control over another partner in an intimate relationship. No one deserves to have this happen to them. Anyone can be a victim. If you suspect this is happening to you or someone else, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) or text “START” to 88788 for anonymous and confidential information. Their website www.thehotline.org has information about the signs of abuse.
Victoria Woodhull was an outspoken proponent of women’s rights. In particular, she was an advocate of Free Love. At this time in history, this movement meant that people should be free to enter into marriages and to leave marriages as they wished without hindrance from society or the government. She was a lecturer who traveled around the United States discussing her ideas, and she also ran a radical newspaper touting women’s rights. The portion of the speech in this book is from Woodhull’s 1874 speech “Tried as by Fire; or, the True and the False, Socially.” By 1878, Woodhull had left New York for England, where she lived with her family until her death. I thought it possible she would attend the London Suffrage Society meeting (which is fictitious).
I took a few liberties with the origin of cabaret. Cabaret was started by Rodolphe Salis in the Montmartre district of Paris when he opened the nightclub Le Chat Noir in 1881. The entertainment featured a platform surrounded by an audience, where various acts would perform poetry readings, song and dance sets, comedy routines, and shadow plays. Frequently, the entertainment turned toward political and social commentary. The different acts were all brought together by a master of ceremonies who entertained the audience. It wasn’t until 1889 and the opening of Moulin Rouge, a dance hall that popularized the cabaret style, that the entertainments veered more toward seductive
Chapter 1
BLOOMSBURY, LONDON
WINTER 1878
Smile, but not too wide. Smiles in public are meant to be mysterious, not expressions of joy. Keep your shoulders squared at all times but always, always remain demure. Chin tilted downward the slightest bit, darling. It wouldn’t do to appear too confident. A wise woman knows her place is one of support and encouragement. When a suitor gazes upon her he should see a prospective helpmate, someone who will assist in his life instead of forcing her own will. No one likes a headstrong woman.
Camille, Dowager Duchess of Hereford, closed her eyes, attempting to block out the words. No matter how she tried to ignore them, her mother’s advice always seemed to play in the back of her mind when she least wanted to heed it. As the only child of Samuel and Martha Bridwell, she had been raised to the most exacting standards from birth. Her mother had been fastidious when it came to her grooming, comportment, and even her friends. Her education had centered around the intricacies of both running a large household and navigating the treacherous waters of Society. Nothing had been more important to her parents than seeing her married well, and Camille had all these speeches memorized, having heard them relentlessly.
Unfortunately, her parents’ ideas of married well had been vastly different from Camille’s. She had valued kindness and affection, while her parents had valued social status. That was it. That seemed to be their sole requirement.
She opened her eyes and smiled at her reflection in the mirror before her, the muscles in her face responding from memory, curving her lips upward in a cold imitation of happiness. She hated this practiced smile. It made her feel aloof and untouchable. While it had its uses in London ballrooms, it was not what she needed now. She was at Montague Club, not a mansion in Mayfair. The gaming club was for entertainment, not social climbing. Something a bit more sincere would probably be better for her purposes this evening, though she honestly didn’t know. She’d never tried to seduce a man before. Her stomach fluttered in nerves and perhaps a tiny bit of anticipation as an image of Jacob Thorne came to mind.
She let the smile drop and leaned forward to get a better look as she rubbed her fingertips along the bracket lines left behind in the fair skin on either side of her mouth, hoping to make them disappear. At twenty-three she wasn’t old, but recent years had given her face a maturity that her mother had warned her against when Camille last visited her in New York.
Haven’t you been wearing the night cream I sent you?
Camille had lied and answered yes, but when she’d returned home to London, she had found another case of the fancy French jars waiting for her. At the time she’d been annoyed. She’d been in mourning for a dead husband whose loss she did not grieve and her mother was already stressing the importance of marrying again. Well, Camille did not want to marry again. Ever. But now she rather wished she had started applying the night cream. Men liked women who looked young and fresh. The cream might help that, but there was nothing she could do about her eyes.
Her eyes were sad, and she didn’t really understand why. Hereford was dead and not around to control her life anymore. She did not miss him or his high-handedness. She was a wealthy widow with all the freedoms inherent in the position. Though the bulk of the money her father had transferred to Hereford upon their marriage had gone to his heir on his death, she had been provided a small pension and a London residence. Then, completely unprompted, her father had bought her an estate situated not far outside of London. She suspected he had been motivated by guilt but had never questioned him. So given that, she should be very happy, but there were her eyes, staring back at her and calling her a liar.
She smiled again, this time wider and with joy, revealing a row of mostly straight, white teeth, but her brown eyes did not brighten at all. Sighing, she sat back, thinking of all the women she had seen Thorne escort about the club with their easy smiles. It reaffirmed her instinct that he would like her better if she could smile more naturally, and she would have tried again, but the door to the ladies’ retiring room swung open and a beautiful woman came sweeping in. She paused in surprise as soon as she set eyes on Camille. She appeared to be about the same age as Camille with dark eyes and hair and a golden complexion.
“Well, well, well, you do exist.” The newcomer smiled and took a seat beside Camille on the elongated ottoman that was set before the mirror and vanity. “Lilian Greene,” she introduced herself.
“Camille—” she began, but the woman took over.
“Duchess of Hereford, yes, I know.” Lilian Greene’s smile had no trouble lighting her eyes as she turned toward the mirror and leaned forward to adjust a hairpin hiding near her temple in her raven tresses. She was elegantly dressed in a modestly cut chocolate-colored gown.
“Dowager now,” Camille clarified.
“Of course, Dowager.” She paused, her sympathetic eyes catching Camille’s in the mirror. “I am sorry for your loss, Your Grace.”
Camille gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Please call me Camille. I’d prefer to have one place where my title doesn’t matter.” She hated the title, actually. It had brought her nothing but pain and frustration.
“Then you must call me Lilian. When Jacob told me another woman had joined the club, I was happy, of course, but then I never saw you here and I wondered if he’d made you up simply to placate me. I am always on at him to bring on more female members and stop referring to it as a gentlemen’s club.” She chattered easily as she arranged other pins in her hair.
“You know Mr. Thorne well, then?” There was no reasonable explanation for why the fact that Lilian had called him by his first name made her feel so heavy inside. Lilian seemed unaware of this fact as she pulled out a small cosmetic tin from the handbag dangling on a strap looped around her wrist and dabbed a bit of scarlet rouge on the apples of each cheek and her lips.
“Would you like some?” she asked instead of answering the question, holding the little pot out to Camille.
“Oh, thank you.” Perhaps a little color would brighten her face.
She put a dab of the cream on her fingertip and slicked it across her bottom lip. It was brighter against her lighter skin and blond hair, but she loved the effect. Usually, she wore only neutral shades meant to subtly enhance her peaches-and-cream coloring, but the scarlet was arresting, drawing the eye immediately to her lips. A tiny revolt against the social constraints of her life. She couldn’t help wondering if Thorne would like it. Another swirl of anticipation swooped through her, prompting her other hand to press against her stomach.
“That color works well on you. And to answer your question, yes, Jacob and I know each other well. I’m a longtime member.” Lilian winked and rose, adjusting her skirts.
It was absolutely none of her business, but she couldn’t help but wonder if Lilian and Thorne were lovers. He had lovers. Camille knew that. She had been a member of the club for a few months, and in that time she had seen any number of women arrive by the ladies-only entrance and greet him very warmly. Sometimes he’d offer his arm, other times he’d slide his hand around their waist and disappear with them into parts unknown and she wouldn’t see him again that night. She couldn’t say with reasonable certainty that he slept with all of them, but it was a fair bet that he’d bedded a few.
“How many women members are there?” Camille hadn’t thought to ask when she’d filled out her registration form and paid the rather expensive dues. She’d joined because Hereford would have been appalled, not because she’d been trying to prove a larger point about equality of the sexes.
“A dozen, give or take, not nearly enough. I have to hurry off, but I would love to chat more. Will you be here another evening this week?”
Camille opened and closed her mouth when she realized she didn’t know what to say. If Thorne rejected her proposition, then she couldn’t imagine showing her face here again, but she didn’t want to miss the chance of making a new friend. She didn’t have many of those. Since coming to London over three years ago, she’d become that American because she could never seem to live up to the expectations of being Hereford’s duchess. It had become the done thing to invite her to events only to sneer at her behind her back. Fellow American heiresses the Crenshaw sisters, August and Violet, were her friends, but they were both happily married now and starting families of their own.
