The devils own duke, p.1
The Devil's Own Duke, page 1
Dedication
For Rachel, friend and beta reader extraordinaire. You’ve saved me more times than you know.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Lenora Bell
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
“It’s time for your grand entrance, Papa,” said Lady Henrietta Prince.
Her father crossed his arms. “I don’t wish to make any kind of entrance, Hetty, much less a grand one.”
“Nonsense. There are a dozen lovely and accomplished duchess candidates waiting to fawn over a handsome lion of a duke.” She fussed with his cravat. “You’re the belle of this ball, please remember.”
An elderly belle with a decidedly mulish expression on his heavily lined face.
“Duchess candidates. Bah! You make it sound like a borough election. Are they going to stand on chairs and make speeches? Am I to cast a ballot to choose a wife?”
Hetty suppressed a smile. “I’ll grant you that the situation is unconventional, to say the least, but we’ve no other choice and you know it. If I’d been born Henry, not Henrietta, the title and lands would be mine. As it is, you must do your duty, remarry, and sire a new heir or we’ll lose everything to the Crown.”
She’d seen what happened when peerages reverted to the Crown. She’d lose Rosehill Park. The monarchy would own her vineyards and plant them over with timber. Their tenants would be subject to indifferent treatment from a land steward with only profit on his mind.
She’d lose her independence, her freedom, and everything she’d worked so very hard for—all because she’d been born female.
The duke frowned. “What right did my brother Walter and his son have to go and get themselves drowned?”
“I don’t suppose they had a choice. Their ship sank and they along with it.”
Her Uncle Walter had been a quiet man, fond of flannel nightcaps and sweet-meal biscuits. He and his son had drowned in a shipwreck off the Channel Islands less than a year ago, leaving the dukedom without an heir.
Hetty shuddered to think of their cold and lonely demise. She’d grieved for them, but she’d also been mourning the loss of certainty and security, the loss of her future.
“Bloody inconvenient, leaving us with no heir to speak of,” grumbled the duke, “not even a sixth cousin twice removed, or some such.”
“Language, Papa. You promised to behave tonight. No drinking whisky and no swearing in front of the ladies.”
“They might want to meet the real me before they decide to become leg-shackled.”
Heaven help them if the ladies saw the real duke. She quite despaired of him most days.
He wasn’t a mean-spirited drunk, only an extremely naughty and highly unpredictable one.
There was the time he’d bellowed a bawdy song during the vicar’s sermon about the sufferings of Job.
Which had been vastly preferable to the time he’d propositioned the poor vicar’s wife. At a funeral.
“You don’t have a flask in your waistcoat pocket right now, do you?”
At his sheepish expression she held out her palm.
“It’s only a few swallows.”
She raised her eyebrows. He handed over the small silver flask.
“We should be hosting balls for you,” he muttered, “not for me. It’s high time you found a husband. Your mother wanted you to marry.”
A memory washed through her mind in a soft, hazy palette of cream-colored satin and pink rosebuds. Sitting at the vanity in this same London townhouse, preparing for her very first ball. Her mother, brown eyes sparkling, tucking a diamond clip into Hetty’s upswept curls.
Her own brown eyes, so like her mother’s, shining back at her from the glass, so hopeful and romantic. The smell of melting beeswax candles interchangeable in her memory with her mother’s scent—warm, sweet, and comforting.
My darling, you’re so beautiful. You’re a woman now. You’ll have your pick of gentlemen. You’ll start your own life away from Rosehill Park. Away from me.
A teardrop falling from her mother’s eyes and landing on Hetty’s shoulder. She could still feel the small spot of damp, the harbinger of tears to come.
She’d never had the chance to begin that new life. Her mother had taken ill with a fever and died within the week.
And her father had started drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a whisky glass.
No time to dwell in the past. There’s work to be done.
“I’m four and twenty and far too busy for marriage. We have the grape harvest next month and then there will be wine to press and bottle, and food to put by for winter, cottage roofs to repair, and—”
“Don’t we employ someone to worry about those things?”
“You’ve sacked two stewards already, don’t you remember? And I never hired a third.”
She’d made do as best she could, learning to manage the estate and attempting to restore her father’s spirits. She’d even continued the work her mother had begun, nurturing their ancestral vineyards into a promising venture, producing sparkling white wine to rival the finest French champagne.
He sighed heavily. “I’m afraid I haven’t been much of a father to you, m’dear. I’ve let you down. Left you too much to your own devices.”
“I like my freedom, thank you very much. And no moping, now.” She needed him to be merry and charming tonight. She threaded her arm through his and gave him a bright smile. “This is a happy occasion. Your duchess candidates await.”
“What do I want with romancing widows?”
“This has nothing to do with romance. This is about saving our family fortune.”
He pulled his arm away, the expression in his eyes turning to near panic. “I can’t do it. I can’t remarry.”
“I know you still miss her terribly,” Hetty said softly. “I miss her too. But she would have wanted us to thrive. She loved Rosehill Park and the vineyards more than anyone. Do this for her, Papa, if not for me.”
“You’re so like her, you know.” He touched her cheek. “Brimming with life, beauty, and ambition.”
“Enough.” Her voice sounded husky and there was a lump in her throat. She wasn’t accustomed to tenderness from her father. “Here, have a sip of wine and then we’ll go down together.”
She poured a small glass of sparkling wine from Rosehill for her father, and one for herself.
Bubbles tickled her nose and the tart-sweet flavors of citrus and vanilla burst on her tongue with just the right amount of full moon brightness.
It was very good wine, if she did say so herself.
“The ladies are clamoring for a waltz with a legendary rake. Will you disappoint them?”
“I did cut quite the swathe in my day.” Her father squared his shoulders. “Very well, my dear. Deliver me to the bloodthirsty horde.”
When they arrived at the top of the stairs, he gave a nod to the waiting footman below.
“His Grace, the Duke of Granville, and Lady Henrietta Prince,” the footman announced in ringing tones.
Ladies in pastel-hued silk gowns, glittering jewels, and feathered headdresses craned their necks. Excitement was running high. Her father hadn’t hosted any entertainments since the death of his wife. Well, not respectable entertainments, at least.
“Smile, Papa,” she whispered as they descended the stairs. “What about Mrs. Dudley?” she asked, gesturing toward a comely brunette, who responded with a gracious dip of her head that set the pastel-dyed ostrich feathers atop her head waving. “She’s a widow with a considerable income and most amiable.”
“She’s half my age.”
“Most gentlemen would consider that an incentive.”
“She’d be too much for me. In the bedchamber.”
Not a conversation Hetty wished to have with her father, though the ultimate goal of this evening was to install an infant heir in the nursery at Rosehill Park.
The widow Dudley would make a wonderful duchess. She had young children from her previous marriage and was still of childbearing age. It would be so delightful to hear the pitter-patter of little feet running through the halls of Rosehill.
There’d been a time when Hetty had longed to start a family of her own, to be a blushing bride, and a proud mother.
But she was content with the busy and useful life she ’d built. And she’d be able to go back to that life if her father could produce a new heir.
“Don’t you see any pleasing prospects, Papa?”
“The only prospect that pleases me is a bottle of good old Scotch whisky and a box of the mildest Havana cigars.”
“You promised to conduct yourself with propriety, remember? When the clock strikes midnight, I’ll expect you to have made your decision,” she said firmly. “And now I’ll leave you to become better acquainted with your adoring public.”
She steered him toward Mrs. Dudley. When she’d safely deposited him into the vivacious widow’s care, Hetty made her way across the room to her friend Miss Viola Beaton, whom she’d invited for moral support. Viola would stay overnight and the two of them could have a lovely long chat. Hetty didn’t often visit London, being so occupied at their estate in Surrey.
She clasped her friend’s hands. “Viola, I’m so glad you could come.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Viola replied with a warm smile that displayed her deep dimples. “How is the heir-begetting scheme progressing?”
“Precariously. Papa is most reluctant.”
“He does look rather peevish.”
“I’ll have to watch over him like an eagle-eyed chaperone. It would be just like him to escape down the balcony stairs and run straight for a tavern.”
“Everyone else appears to be enjoying themselves.”
The room was lit by beeswax candles casting a warm glow over the polished parquet floors and shining jewels worn by the ladies. Everyone was smiling, talking, and drinking wine from crystal goblets.
“I instructed the footmen to keep the guests’ glasses filled with my sparkling wine. Perhaps I’ll win some customers for my future wine cellar.”
“How are your plans progressing?”
“I’m concentrating on producing the best wine possible, and earning an endorsement from a wine expert, before opening the cellar. No one will buy my wine unless it has a reputation for excellence. This vintage promises to be the best yet. The grapes are already bursting with flavor. We had too much rain last month, but August makes the wine, my mother always said.”
Hetty felt her mother’s presence here tonight, heard her lilting French accent echoing in her memory. The pain of losing her was still fresh and sharp after all these years.
It had been her mother’s goal to restore the ancestral vineyards into a profitable wine venture. The grape vines were all she had left of her mother.
“Wine does help ladies feel disposed toward romance,” said Viola. “I seem to remember your wine playing a role in the courtship of our friend Lady Beatrice.”
Several of their friends were happily married, but not Viola. She, like Hetty, was too busy for marriage, though for different reasons. Her father was a famous composer, but he was going deaf and their income had shriveled to practically nothing, while their debts kept mounting.
Viola had been forced to take employment as music instructor to the Duke of Westbury’s sisters.
“I’m very sorry, Viola.”
“Whatever for?”
“I should have invited some eligible bachelors for your sake. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
“Never mind bachelors.” Viola plucked at the skirt of her plain white muslin gown. “If there were prospects here, I’d be dreadfully conscious that this gown is four seasons old.”
“The gown is charming and so are you.” Viola had an irrepressible good humor, despite her reduced circumstances.
“You’re the one who’s glowing tonight, Hetty.”
“Do you think so? I’ve been living in the countryside too long, wearing serviceable cotton gowns to prune the grapevines. I’m not accustomed to whalebone corsets and tissue-thin silk. This gown was created for my debut seven years ago and I seem to have changed considerably in the intervening years.”
Hetty glanced down. The bodice of the ballgown was proving unequal to the task of containing her much-more-ample bosom. And she was no longer the blushing, naive young girl with a head full of fairy tales who had swirled in front of the glass, dreaming of handsome suitors and stolen moonlit kisses.
Viola leaned closer. “Don’t look now, but there’s a broodingly handsome gentleman standing across from us and he’s been staring at you the entire time we’ve been speaking with rather a hungry look in his eyes. Gives me the shivers, really.”
“Maybe he’s staring at you.”
“No, he can’t take his eyes off of you.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“Never seen him before, though that hardly signifies since I rarely go out in society. Oh, Hetty.” Her eyes widened. “He’s striding this way with the most predatory expression on his face. I do believe he means to speak with you.” She shivered. “Or possibly swallow you whole.”
“No doubt he’s a brother, or nephew, of one of the ladies, thinking to ingratiate himself with the duke’s daughter. I’ll soon put an end to any such notion. Tonight is about my father, not me. The decision will be his alone.”
She swiveled to face the man, ready to fix him with a forbidding stare to halt his forward progress.
Her breath caught in her throat.
He was just as Viola had described. Brooding and predatory, with piercing gray eyes that caught and held her gaze. His hair was overlong, wavy and brown, streaked with gold where candlelight fell.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and so handsome that she glanced behind her to see if perhaps he meant to bestow all of that smoldering appeal on some other lady.
The way he prowled wasn’t suited to a society ballroom. There was something almost brutish about him, nearly uncivilized. It was the way he held his ungloved hands, half-curled into fists.
Something about the slight crookedness of his nose, the blunt edges of his stubborn jaw.
Capturing her hand, he bowed his head and brushed his lips against her knuckles as if they were intimately acquainted.
There was a faint shadowing of whiskers along his angular jaw. His evening attire was ill-fitting, the coat straining at the seams, as though the man beneath was too much to be restrained by a tailor’s art.
He wore a scarlet embroidered waistcoat, a gaudy gold watch on a fob, and his black dress shoes were scuffed.
Straight from Savile Row, he was not.
“Lady Henrietta.” His lips quirked into an audacious half smile that said he had a secret he would reveal to her alone. “May I say that you are the loveliest sight I’ve ever beheld?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
“Too late. I’m going to extol your beauty and there’s nothing you can do about it. You are a goddess, Lady Henrietta, created from starlight and roses, sent to this earth to—”
“That’s quite enough, Mr. . . . er.” Hetty stopped, realizing she had no idea with whom she was speaking. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir. I don’t recall your name.”
An unruly lock of hair flopped over one of his eyes. “Ellis. Ash Ellis.”
She mentally searched through the guest list, attempting to match him with one of the ladies she’d invited, but no connection came to mind.
He slid the tip of his finger over her palm. Good gracious. He was still holding her hand.
She snatched her hand away, her cheeks flaming as though she’d swallowed an entire glass of wine in two gulps.
Somewhere far away the orchestra began to play, a violin bow dragging across the taut string of her nerves.
“Waltz with me, Lady Henrietta.” It was more an order than a request.
She hadn’t planned to dance this evening, but before she could object, he grasped her hand and led her onto the floor. She glanced back at Viola, who gave a little shrug of her shoulders with an amused expression dancing in her green eyes.
Hetty could refuse to dance with him, but her father was being surprisingly well-behaved at the moment, dancing and talking with the ladies, and she didn’t want to be the one to cause a scene.
As her hand came into contact with Mr. Ellis’s solid shoulder, and he placed a hand against the small of her back, a quiver traced the curve of her spine. She hadn’t danced with a man since her first—and only—ball, in this very room seven years past.
He smelled of vanilla-laced cigar smoke and a heavy-handed eau de cologne. Her friend, Miss Ardella Finchley, a chemist and perfumer, would have been able to pinpoint the scent immediately.
All Hetty knew was that he wore far too much of it, and it had too much musk and cedar to it.
