When You Give a Duke a Diamond

by Shana Galen

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “Are you certain? You’re crying.” He looked slightly panicked, and she almost started laughing.

  “I’m just happy,” she said between sobs.

  “Of course,” he mumbled. “I always cry when I’m happy.”

  “Let’s give the women a moment, old boy,” Sinclair said, taking him aside. And then Juliette was engulfed by Fallon and Lily and the countess. She was surrounded by love. And tears.

  And she had never been so happy in all her life.

  ***

  Will didn’t particularly enjoy standing next to the Earl of Sin. After all, the man was his soon-to-be-wife’s former lover. But he supposed it the lesser of two evils. Weeping women or a staid man who happened to be Juliette’s former lover?

  He’d take the man.

  And then the countess broke away from the circle of women, and the earl abandoned Will. He patted Will on the shoulder. “Think I’ll go for a walk.”

  Will frowned and turned to find the countess staring up at him. “I didn’t think you’d do it,” she said.

  “My lady?”

  She nodded to The Three Diamonds, who seemed a bit calmer and more composed now. They were whispering. In his experience, whispering women were never a good sign.

  “I didn’t think you’d do what it took to win her back. You broke her heart, Pelham.”

  “I know. I will make it up to her.”

  She nodded. “Yes. I think you will.”

  “It’s the least I can do, considering I acted like a complete fool in Yorkshire.”

  “I am so pleased to hear you say so.”

  He raised his brows at her.

  “Even at my age, it’s uncomfortable to tell a duke when he’s acting like a fool.”

  Will couldn’t remember her mincing words before.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Your Grace,” the countess said, “why did you let her go?”

  He raked a hand through his hair and watched Juliette. Their eyes met, and she smiled at him. He had to remember to breathe again. “Pride,” he answered.

  “Ah. Yes, I certainly understand what it is to have pride. And to have it injured.” He gave her a curious look and noted she was watching The Three Diamonds. He shifted uncomfortably. No wonder Sinclair had fled.

  “All the world thinks I am a fool,” she said. “And I allow it because some things and some people are more important than pride. Why else would I allow the world to believe my husband is bedding those three women?”

  Will started. “I…” He did not trust his ears and cleared his throat before speaking. “I’m not certain I follow, my lady.”

  “Then I shall speak plainly. My husband has never bedded your Juliette.”

  Will opened his mouth then closed it again. “Are you certain, my lady?”

  She smiled. “Yes, quite certain. It was all a charade from the very beginning.”

  Will struggled to make sense of what she said. “Then Sinclair is not Juliette’s protector?”

  “Not in the sense you mean. I rather think he sees her as the daughter we never had. We were unable to have children, you see. These girls are our children.”

  “But why—?” He shook his head, tried to comprehend. “Why the charade? Why the pretense?”

  “You shall have to ask Juliette, as that is her story to tell more than it is mine. Suffice it to say, she is not a courtesan, and she has never been a courtesan. But then that makes no difference to you now, does it, Your Grace?”

  “No,” he said and surprised himself because the words were true. “It doesn’t.”

  “Exactly.” The countess nodded. “When love fills one’s heart, there should be no more room for pride.”

  Twenty-five

  One month later

  Juliette collapsed on the blue velvet chaise longue in the drawing room of Will’s London town house and heaved a sigh of relief. Her white satin gown with the blue sash and beaded bodice felt as though it weighed three stone. “That is the last of them,” she said. “I thought they would never leave.”

  Will, dressed in elegant charcoal gray, lifted her feet and sat beside her. “We’re finally alone.” He tugged off his gloves and set them neatly beside him.

  Juliette knew that tone of voice and raised her head to smile at him. “Married and alone.” She removed her gloves and dropped them in a heap on the floor.

  “It was the longest month of my life,” he said.

  “I told you to get a special license.”

  He shook his head. “You deserved having the announcement in the Times and the banns called.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He coaxed one of her slippers off and then the other, and began to knead her feet. She groaned in pleasure.

  “And now that we are alone,” Will said, “and married, I want to ask you a question.”

  Juliette tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t manage it. “Hmm?” was all she could say.

  “Why did you do it?” Will flexed her foot, and the motion felt heavenly. “Why would you choose to play the role of a courtesan?”

  Juliette’s eyes fluttered open. “So you do know. I wondered.”

  “It makes no difference to me.”

  She knew this, but it felt good to hear him say it again. “Who told you? Lily?”

  “The countess. She told me that night at Covent Garden.”

  Juliette sat up. “And you’re just now asking me?”

  “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me. The past is the past. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  “Perhaps not at first.”

  She raised a brow, and he tickled her foot.

  “Perhaps not ever.” He smiled. It was so wonderful to see him smile all the time now.

  She laid her head back on the arm of the chaise. “Are you certain you want to hear this? It’s not exactly a celebratory story, and we are celebrating our nuptials tonight.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  She sighed. She would tell it once, and then it would be over. Will was right. She should have told him. “When it became clear to me I could no longer live with Oliver—rather, that he would end up killing me if I lived with him much longer”—she felt Will’s hand on her foot tighten—“I went to my older brother and my mother and told them I had to get away.” She ran a hand over her eyes. “I never thought of divorce. I simply wanted to escape. I was tired of living in fear. I’d spent three years doing everything I could to please Oliver, and nothing I did was ever good enough. He had begun beating me more frequently, and as I said, I really did fear for my life.”

  Will’s face was white and strained, and she sat forward and took his hand.

  “It’s in the past now. I escaped.”

  “I should have killed him out on the moors,” Will said. “I should have beaten the bastard until he was dead.”

  “Perhaps jail is a worse fate,” she said. “In any case, my brother would not help me. You see, after my father died, I was a bit lost. I was so sad and lonely and missing my father. Oliver stepped in and wooed me. He made me feel so special, as my father had done. Oh, I was so young and so naive—only seventeen and really still a child.

  “My brother and my mother rejected Oliver’s requests to marry me. They did not think him a good prospect. In hindsight, they were right, but for reasons even they couldn’t know at the time. But I begged and pleaded, and finally my brother relented and gave consent.

  “When I wanted out, he reminded me how I’d begged him and refused to help. My mother relied on him to support her, and she could not go against his wishes. But she had a friend she knew would help me.”

  “Lady Sinclair?”

 
She nodded. “Yes. Lady Sinclair was the one who helped craft a scheme to convince Oliver to divorce me. When everyone thought I was cuckolding him, it became a matter of pride to him. It took another year, but I was finally rid of him. All of that time, I’d been living with the Sinclairs, and rumors were swirling that the earl and I were having an affair. It was completely untrue, but the rumors gave Lady Sinclair an idea. What if I were to become a courtesan? Not simply any courtesan, but one of the most sought-after courtesans in all of London?”

  “It’s a brilliant idea. What other options were open to you?”

  “Exactly. I was a divorced woman, which is scandal enough, but I had no income, no family support, nowhere to go. I would have ended up on the streets. Instead, Lord Sinclair helped set me up in London. I don’t know how he did it—I suppose he spent quite a deal of money—but he helped me build a reputation. By then, Lily and Fallon were also under the countess’s wing, and she decided it would be better for the three of us to stick together. And so we became The Three Diamonds.”

  “And none of you are actually courtesans?”

  “No. But what the countess gave us was freedom. Freedom to live our lives in relative security. Freedom to have fun, to enjoy life, to become someone new. I suppose we even had the freedom to choose the men we would bed, if we wanted to bed any at all. None of us had ever had that freedom before.”

  “I’m liking the countess more and more.”

  Juliette laughed. “I thought you might. And incidentally, until I met you, I never met a man who interested me enough to take him to my bed.”

  “And you know that does not matter to me. You are mine now. You are no longer the Duchess of Dalliance but the Duchess of Pelham.”

  “It doesn’t have quite the same ring.”

  Will frowned, and she laughed. She sat forward and cupped his face in her hands. “There is no other duchess I would rather be. I love being your duchess, Will.” She kissed him softly and found his mouth more than eager for hers. Tingles of heat spiraled through her body from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. She had not realized how much she missed Will’s kisses—how much she craved them. She pulled him closer and lost her balance, causing him to fall on top of her. She laughed and wrapped her arms around him.

  He kissed her again then raised his head. “Why don’t we go up to the bedroom? I have everything arranged.”

  She raised her brows, wondering what surprise he had in store for her. “Lead the way,” she murmured into his ear. He stood and pulled her up, but her foot had caught in the hem of her gown, and laughing, she grasped the side table to keep her balance. Unfortunately, the Greek vase on the table toppled to the floor. She lunged for it but missed. It landed with a thud just short of the Aubusson rug and shattered on the wood floor. Papers scattered on the rug and littered the wood. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Is it authentic?” She bent to pick up the pieces and the slips of paper, but before she could lift anything, Will grabbed her hand.

  “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  He fell to his knees beside her and lifted the largest shard of pottery. Beneath it lay a small folded scrap of paper. It was quality vellum and quite expensive. It would not have been used to jot a simple note.

  “I assume that is not yours.”

  “No.” He lifted the cream rectangle and flipped it open. He stared at the contents for a long moment.

  Juliette, impatient to retreat to the bedroom, raised her brows. “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s a list of names.” He angled the paper and she saw the names of four men scrawled in an elegant hand. At the top of the vellum, underlined twice, were the words Diamonds in the Rough.

  She shrugged. “Should this mean something to me?”

  “It means something to me. This is Lady Elizabeth’s hand. I am almost certain of it. And, if I am not mistaken, these are the names of four spies for the British government, one of whom is already dead.”

  “Lucifer’s diamonds,” she breathed.

  “Yes. They were never jewels, as we assumed. These names, these men’s identities could be just as valuable as a handful of diamonds if offered to the right people or government. Obviously, at least one of the men has already been sold and disposed of.”

  She had no idea how he knew this, and she was not certain she wanted to know. She’d had enough dealings with Lucifer and his diamonds to last her a lifetime.

  “And that’s not all.” He lifted some of the cheap papers and began thumbing through them.

  “Lady Elizabeth’s vowels?” she asked, scanning the parchment.

  “Yes. Most of them issued from Lucifer’s Lair.” He looked up at her. “Did she actually think she would get away with it? She must have known Lucifer’s reputation.”

  “I don’t know.” Juliette gestured to the IOUs. “I would venture to guess she enjoyed taking risks.”

  Will folded the vellum along with the IOUs and placed the papers on the mantel in a mahogany box embellished with gold filigree. Juliette shivered with unease, glad to be rid of the papers. They felt tainted with Eliza’s blood.

  “I know someone who is looking for this information. I’ll contact him in the morning,” Will said, taking a small key from inside the box and locking it. He dropped the key in his waistcoat pocket. “Until then, they will keep.” He held out his hand. Juliette took it, and he drew her close, kissing her fingers with his lips. She felt safe again.

  “Let’s go to bed, Duchess.”

  “A very good idea, Your Grace.”

  ***

  Will stood at his bedroom window and stared into the night. It was never truly dark in London, but his window overlooked the gardens, and so the view was darker than most. The scent of rose petals teased his nose, and he turned to glance at the bed behind him. Juliette lay on her side, her hand curled under her chin, the white counterpane pulled over her bare shoulders. Surrounding her were hundreds of pink, red, and white rose petals. During their lovemaking, a few petals had fallen on the rug and into the two champagne flutes on the floor beside the bed.

  He lifted one of those flutes now, fished the petals out, and drank the last of the champagne. In a moment, he would climb in bed beside his warm, sleeping wife and hold her until the first pink light of dawn. He thought of his uncle, who had sent him a half-dozen letters, no doubt railing against his betrothal. Last night, Will had thrown them into the fire without reading them. He had thrown his unhappy childhood into the fire, as well. This morning he had begun over again. He was a different man, a different duke. He had Juliette by his side.

  And she loved him.

  He set the glass aside and took hold of the window drapes. He spared a last look into the garden. Lucifer was still out there somewhere—biding his time, waiting for his opportunity to take back the diamonds—the secret names of loyal men he had intended to betray. There had to be more than those names alone. Will was certain Lady Elizabeth’s slip of paper was merely her insurance. What had she done with the rest of the information about the men? Whom had she sold them to? Had Lucifer killed her before she could sell all of them, or were the men on the list still in danger?

  Will thought of the second name on the vellum.

  Warrick Fitzhugh.

  Will would arrange a meeting with Fitzhugh first thing in the morning. He didn’t know anything about these Diamonds in the Rough, but he knew his friend was in peril.

  And he knew Lucifer would not give up easily. The duke almost hoped he had a run in with this Lucifer. He felt he owed the man a few broken limbs for what he’d done to Juliette. He would make sure the man was hanged for what he did to Lady Elizabeth.

  But Lucifer and the diamonds were a worry for the morning. He had the only diamond he wanted right here. And he lifted the counterpane and took her into his arms.

  From

 
The Rogue Pirate’s Bride

  France, 1802

  “That’s him,” Percy whispered. “I’m almost certain of it.”

  Raeven Russell glanced at Percy. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on his pale, freckled skin, and his white-blond hair stood up in all directions as though he’d run a hand through it half a dozen times. Which he probably had. Percy Williams was purser for the HMS Regal, and while Raeven knew Percy adored her, she also knew he abhorred any action that violated her father’s rules.

  She reached over and slung an arm around him in the jaunty way she had seen men do time and time again. “You look nervous,” she said under her breath. “People will wonder why.”

  “I am nervous,” he hissed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “That’s my problem.” She shifted away from him and scanned the men around her. Which one was Cutlass? There were several likely candidates.

  Raeven stood like a man—legs braced apart and hands on hips—to survey the seedy Brest tavern. Dockside taverns the world over were the same, she mused as she studied the crowd. They were filled with sailors looking for wine and women, ships’ captains hiring additions to their crews, beleaguered serving girls skirting men’s too-free hands, and whores working to entice any man with the coin to pay.

  She didn’t know why she should feel so at home. She certainly didn’t belong here and had gone to considerable trouble to disguise herself as a young man before sneaking off her father’s ship and onto a cutter with the crew members going ashore legitimately.

  If her father knew she was here… She shook her head. She could hear his booming voice in her head. The daughter of a British admiral should behave with more decorum, in a manner befitting her station in life.

  But what was her station in life? Her mother had died days after her birth, and from the age of four—when the last of her relatives had given her up as incorrigible—she’d been sailing with her father. This certainly wasn’t the first tavern she’d visited. It wasn’t even the first time she’d sneaked off the HMS Regal.