by Eloisa James
“Why did you do it?” Devin asked. “It wasn’t the act of a gentleman, Otis.”
Viola shook her head. That realization she had had long ago—that given a happy childhood, Devin would have been a very naughty boy—had bred true in his son.
“I did it because I wanted to,” Otis said, with inescapable logic.
“But now Mama’s favorite chamber pot is dented,” his father pointed out.
Viola winced, and walked into the room.
Sure enough, Otis was drooping on his father’s knee, and beside him was a gleaming, slightly dented chamber pot once used by King Henry VIII.
“I’m sorry, Mama!” Otis cried, scrambling down and running to her, throwing his arms around her knees. “I’m sorry about your piss pot, I truly am! I didn’t mean to.”
Viola stooped down and put him on her hip, knowing that in a month or two, he’d be too heavy for her to pick up. He was his father’s child in height as well as character. She met Devin’s eyes over Otis’s head. Sure enough, her husband was on his feet and coming to take their son away.
“He’s too big for you to carry these days,” Devin said, his caressing smile telling her that he was as excited as she was about the baby who would join the family in a few months. He set Otis on his feet and said to him, “It wasn’t right to take something from your mother’s room and use it for any reason, son.”
“Mama doesn’t piddle in it,” Otis pointed out. “I didn’t either,” he added.
“I keep precious things inside instead,” Viola told him.
“That’s just be-culiar,” Otis said. “Tommy said that you’d be mad at me.” He looked up at his father. “He said that you might be mad enough to send me away to school.”
Viola knew with unshakable faith that she had married the right person.
She knew that she would love Devin till the grave and beyond.
But that didn’t mean that there weren’t moments when her heart practically burst with the emotion. Say, for example, when His Grace, the Duke of Wynter, crouched down in front of his young son and told him that he would never, ever send him away. And he would never be angry with him either. “Cross, perhaps,” Devin said, kissing his son on his forehead. “But you’re working on being less naughty, right?”
“I’m trying,” Otis said earnestly. But he paused, because their son was nothing if not honest. “I’m not sure it’s working, though.”
“That’s all right,” Devin assured him. “Mama’s working on not being afraid of horses, isn’t she?”
“It’s not working,” Viola confirmed with a sigh.
“What are you working on?” Otis asked his father.
Devin stood up again. “Loving your mother.” He leaned in and gave Viola a swift kiss.
“That’s silly,” Otis said.
“Why?” Devin asked.
Otis raised a tiny eyebrow. “Because that’s easy. It’s hard not to be naughty!”
When his parents didn’t stop kissing, he made his way out of the nursery as quietly as he could. He had to go to the cowshed, where his best friend Tommy was looking after the new calves, and tell him that everything was all right.
Otis had an idea that would make a better target for his slingshot than the chamber pot.
If he could just find a goose egg . . .
A Note about Cycle Plays and Shakespearean Insults
I hope you enjoyed my rendition of a medieval cycle play! In the Middle Ages, individual play cycles were performed annually in the streets of 127 different towns in the British Isles. The plays instructed parishioners about the major events of the Bible and liturgical year, and subject matter ranged from the fall of Lucifer, to the creation of Adam and Eve, all the way to the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin Mary. They were performed on wagons that moved through each city, allowing an audience standing in one place to see all the plays, one after another. A given cycle could include well over thirty plays (the York cycle has forty-eight). Each play would have been assigned to a guild, or group of craftsmen; the baker’s guild, for example, would have performed the Last Supper. Scenery was minimal, but costumes were elaborate.
My version of The Play of Noah is a loose interpretation of several plays in the York cycle, including the Building of the Ark performed by the shipwrights. Noah’s irritable wife comes from The Flood, originally performed by “fishers and mariners,” and written by a playwright now known as the York Realist. I should add that while medieval performances did include impromptu riffs, Noah’s wife would not have hurled Shakespearean insults hundreds of years before that playwright’s birth. Another note: Caitlin and Viola briefly discuss The Second Shepherd’s Play, the most famous cycle play. It comes from the Towneley sequence and was written by a playwright now known as the Wakefield Master.
I made up St. Wilfrid’s, but based its cloister on that of St. Bartholomew the Great in London, which hosts refreshments after Eucharist as well as the occasional medieval banquet and a Michelin-starred restaurant, Club Gascon. The York cycle was last performed in 2016 in the streets of York; I like to think that St. Wilfrid’s would welcome a rakish medieval play to go with their medieval banquet.
Acknowledgments
My books are like small children; they take a whole village to get them to a literate state. I want to offer my deep gratitude to my village: my editor, Carrie Feron; my agent, Kim Witherspoon; my Web site designers, Wax Creative; and my personal team: Franzeca Drouin, Leslie Ferdinand, and Sharlene Martin Moore. My husband and daughter Anna debated many a plot point with me, and I’m fervently grateful to them. In addition, people in many departments of HarperCollins, from Art to Marketing to PR, have done a wonderful job of getting this book into readers’ hands: My heartfelt thanks go to each of you. Finally, my thanks go to a generous and knowledgeable Episcopal priest, the Rev. Lawrence N. Crumb, who was kind enough to explicate different aspects of the Anglican religion. Any mistakes are mine.
Announcement
Don’t miss the love story between Hugo, Duke of Lindow, and Ophelia, Lady Astley, in the prequel to the Wildes of Lindow Castle series
My Last Duchess
Coming October 2020 from Avon Books
About the Author
ELOISA JAMES is a New York Times bestselling author and professor of English literature who lives with her family in New York, but can sometimes be found in Paris or Italy. She is the mother of two and, in a particularly delicious irony for a romance writer, is married to a genuine Italian knight.
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By Eloisa James
Say Yes to the Duke
Say No to the Duke
Born to Be Wilde
Too Wilde to Wed
Wilde in Love
Seven Minutes in Heaven
A Gentleman Never Tells (a novella)
My American Duchess
Four Nights with the Duke
Three Weeks with Lady X
Once Upon a Tower
As You Wish
With This Kiss (a novella in three parts)
Seduced by a Pirate (a novella)
The Ugly Duchess
The Duke Is Mine
Winning the Wallflower (a novella)
A Fool Again (a novella)
When Beauty Tamed the Beast
Storming the Castle (a novella)
A Kiss at Midnight
A Duke of Her Own
This Duchess of Mine
When the Duke Returns
Duchess by Night
An Affair Before Christmas
Desperate Duchesses
Pleasure for Pleasure
The Taming of the Duke
Kiss Me, Annabel
Much Ado About You
Your Wicked Ways
A Wild Pursuit
Fool for Love
Duchess in Love
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author
’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
say yes to the duke. Copyright © 2020 by Eloisa James, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-287783-3
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-287806-9
Cover design by Amy Halperin
Cover and stepback illustrations by Anna Kmet
Cover photographs © Anastasia Rei/Shutterstock (rose brush); © EDIFICE/Alamy Stock Photo (stepback)
Avon, Avon & logo, and Avon Books & logo are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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