Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 1-3: A Regency Romance
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Digital Starter Library
Contents
A DIAMOND FOR A DUKE
Introduction
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 1
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 2
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 3
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 4
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 5
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 6
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 7
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 8
A Diamond for a Duke: Chapter 9
A Diamond for a Duke: Epilogue
ONLY A DUKE WOULD DARE
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 1
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 2
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 3
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 4
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 5
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 6
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 7
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 8
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 9
Only a Duke Would Dare: Chapter 10
Only a Duke Would Dare: Epilogue
A DECEMBER WITH A DUKE
A December with a Duke: Chapter 1
A December with a Duke: Chapter 2
A December with a Duke: Chapter 3
A December with a Duke: Chapter 4
A December with a Duke: Chapter 5
A December with a Duke: Chapter 6
A December with a Duke: Chapter 7
A December with a Duke: Chapter 8
A December with a Duke: Chapter 9
A December with a Duke: Chapter 10
A December with a Duke: Epilogue
SEDUCTIVE SCOUNDRELS SERIES BOOKS 1-3
By
COLLETTE CAMERON
Blue Rose Romance®
Portland, Oregon
Sweet-to-Spicy Timeless Romance®
Seductive Scoundrels Series Books 1-3
Copyright © 2019 by Collette Cameron
Art Illustration by The Midnight Muse-Teresa Spreckelmeyer
Cover Design by Dar Albert
A Diamond for a Duke
Copyright © 2017 by Collette Cameron
Only a Duke Would Dare
Copyright © 2018 by Collette Cameron
A December with a Duke
Copyright © 2018 by Collette Cameron
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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ISBN eBook: 9781950387014
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A DIAMOND FOR A DUKE, Book One
A dour duke and a wistful wallflower—an impossible match until fate intervenes.
Jules, Sixth Duke of Dandridge disdains Society and all its trappings, preferring the country’s solitude and peace. Already jaded after the woman he loved died years ago, he’s become even more so since unexpectedly inheriting a dukedom’s responsibilities and finding himself the target of every husband-hunting vixen in London.
Jemmah Dament has adored Jules from afar for years—since before her family’s financial and social reversals. She dares not dream she can win a duke’s heart any more than she hopes to escape the life of servitude imposed on her by an uncaring mother. Jemmah knows full well Jules is too far above her station now. Besides, his family has already selected his perfect duchess: a poised, polished, exquisite blueblood.
A chance encounter reunites Jules and Jemmah, resulting in a passionate interlude neither can forget. Jules realizes he wants more—much more—than Jemmah’s sweet kisses or her warming his bed. He must somehow convince her to gamble on a dour duke. But can Jemmah trust a man promised to another? One who’s sworn never to love again?
ONLY A DUKE WOULD DARE, Book Two
A Duke. A vicar’s daughter. A forbidden love.
Marriage—an unpleasant obligation
A troublesome addendum to his father’s will requires Victor, Duke of Sutcliffe to marry before his twenty-seventh birthday or lose his fortune. After a three-year absence, he ventures home, intent upon finding the most biddable and forgettable miss in Essex. A woman who will make no demands upon him and won’t mind being left behind when he returns to London. Except, Victor meets Theadosia Brentwood again and finds himself powerless to resist her—even if she is promised to another and the exact opposite of what he thought he wanted in a duchess.
Marriage—an impossible choice
Secretly in love with Victor for years, Theadosia is overjoyed when he returns. Until she learns he must marry within mere weeks. When he unexpectedly proposes, she must make an impossible decision. How can Thea elope with him when he’s marrying out of necessity, not love? Besides, if she does wed Victor, her betrothed—a man she loathes—will reveal a scandalous secret. A secret that will send her father to prison and leave her sister and mother homeless.
A DECEMBER WITH A DUKE, Book Three
He’s entirely the wrong sort of man. That’s what makes him so utterly right.
After a horrific marriage, widow Everleigh Chatterton is cynical and leery of men. She rarely ventures into society, and when she must, she barely speaks to them. Her one regret for refusing to marry again is that she’ll never bear children. As a favor to a friend, she reluctantly agrees to attend a Christmas house-party. Unfortunately, Griffin, Duke of Sheffield is also in attendance. Even though Everleigh has previously snubbed him, she can’t deny her attraction to the confident, darkly handsome duke.
For almost a year, Griffin has searched for the perfect duchess to help care for the orphan he’s taken on. He sets his sights on the exquisite, but unapproachable widow after her sweet interactions with the child impress him. Everleigh vows she’s not intere
sted in him or any other man. But Griffin is convinced he can thaw her icy exterior and free the warm, passionate woman lurking behind the arctic facade. Only, as he pursues her, it’s his heart that’s transformed.
Can Everleigh learn to trust and love again? Will Griffin get his Christmas wish and make her his bride? Or, has he underestimated her wounds and fears and be forced to let her go?
Other Collette Cameron Books
About the Author
From the desk of Collette Cameron
Excerpt from THE EARL AND THE SPINSTER
“A Diamond for a Duke” is loosely based on Charles Perrault’s 1697 French fairytale, “Les Fées" or “The Fairies,” also known as “Toads and Diamonds” or “Diamonds and Toads.” I’d never heard of this tale until I began research for an unusual fable to base a Regency novella upon.
As in Perrault’s tale, there are two sisters, Adelinda Dament, the eldest—contentious, self-centered, rude, and who values all things related to the socially elite. Metaphorically speaking, because of her inner ugliness, her words manifest as vipers and toads. The sisters’ mother, Belinda, blatantly favors Adelinda, who resembles her in looks, attitude, and behavior.
Jemmah, the younger sister, is portrayed as gentler, kinder, and as someone who cares more about people than their status. She possesses a beautiful soul, and when she speaks, her words spill forth as jewels and flowers. She, too, is banished from her home, as is the younger daughter in “Diamonds and Toads.”
The fairy takes the form of two feisty characters, Faye, the Dowager Viscountess Lockhart, and the Viscountess Theodora Lockhart. Theodora is Adelinda and Jemmah’s aunt, and godmother to Jules, the sixth Duke of Dandridge. He plays the role of the hero and has his own nemesis to contend with in the form of Phryne Milbourne.
My quirky humor worked overtime when I selected the characters’ names. Several of them were chosen specifically for their meanings:
Adelinda - noble snake
Belinda - beautiful snake
Charmont - charming
Dament - diamond
Jasper - bringer of treasure
Jemmah - gem
Jules - well, it sounds like jewels!
Faye - Fairy
Phryne - toad
A final thought about “A Diamond for a Duke”...
In today’s culture, Belinda would be considered an abusive parent—unfortunately, a common and often accepted motif threaded throughout fairytales of old, as was parental partiality. The authenticity of my tale required both of these unpleasant themes.
I want to encourage everyone who has experienced or is experiencing abuse that, as in the fairytale and my novella, there is hope for you.
Help is available in many forms.
Please ... please, don’t wait another day to seek it.
April 1809
London, England
A pox on duty.
A plague on the pesky dukedom too.
Not the tiniest speck of remorse troubled Jules, Duke of Dandridge as he bolted from the crush of his godmother, Theodora, Viscountess Lockhart’s fiftieth birthday ball—without bidding the dear lady a proper farewell, at that.
She’d forgive his discourtesy; his early departure too.
Unlike his mother, his uncles, and the majority of le beau monde, Theo understood him.
To honor her, he’d put in a rare social appearance and even stood up for the obligatory dances expected of someone of his station. Through sheer doggedness, he’d also forced his mouth to curve upward—good God, his face ached from the effort—and suffered the toady posturing of husband-stalking mamas and their bevy of pretty, wide-eyed offspring eager to snare an unattached duke.
Noteworthy, considering not so very long ago, Jules scarcely merited a passing glance from the same tonnish females now so keen to garner his favor. His perpetual scowl might be attributed to their disinterest.
Tonight’s worst offender?
Theo’s irksome sister-in-law, Mrs. Dament.
The tenacious woman had neatly maneuvered her admittedly stunning elder daughter, Adelinda, to his side multiple times, and only the Daments’ intimate connection to Theo had kept him from turning on his heel at the fourth instance instead of graciously fetching mother and daughter the ratafia they’d requested.
A rather uncouth mental dialogue accompanied his march to the refreshment table, nonetheless.
Where was the other daughter—the sweet-tempered one, Miss Jemmah Dament?
Twiddling her thumbs at home again? Poor, kind, neglected sparrow of a thing.
As children and adolescents, he and Jemmah had been comfortable friends, made so by their similar distressing circumstances. But as must be, they’d grown up, and destiny or fate had placed multiple obstacles between them. He trotted off to university—shortly afterward becoming betrothed to Annabel—and for a time, the Daments simply faded from his and society’s notice.
Oh, on occasion, Jules had spied Jemmah in passing. But she’d ducked her shiny honey-colored head and averted her acute sky-blue gaze. Almost as if she was discomfited or he’d somehow offended her.
Yet, after wracking his brain, he couldn’t deduce what his transgression might’ve been.
At those times, recalling their prior relaxed companionship, his ability to talk to her about anything—or simply remain in compatible silence, an odd twinge pinged behind his ribs. Not regret exactly, though he hardly knew what to label the disquieting sensation.
Quite simply, he missed her friendship and company.
Since Theo’s brother, Jasper, died two years ago, Jules had seen little of the Daments.
According to tattle, their circumstances had been drastically reduced. But even so, Jemmah’s absence at routs, soirees, and other ton gatherings, which her mother and sister often attended, raised questions and eyebrows.
At least arced Jules’s brow and stirred his curiosity.
If Jemmah were present at more assemblies, perhaps he’d make more of an effort to put in an appearance.
Or perhaps not.
He held no illusions about his lack of social acumen. A deficiency he had no desire to remedy.
Ever.
A trio of ladies rounded the corner, and he dove into a niche beside a vase-topped table.
The Chinese urn tottered, and he clamped the blue and white china between both hands, lest it crash to the floor and expose him.
He needn’t have worried.
So engrossed in their titillating gossip about whether Lord Bacon wore stays, none of the women was the least aware of his presence as they sailed past.
Mentally patting himself on the back for his exceptionally civil behavior for the past pair of vexing hours, Jules permitted a self-satisfied smirk and stepped back into the corridor. He nearly collided with Theo’s aged mother-in-law, the Dowager Viscountess Lockhart, come to town for her daughter-in-law’s birthday.
A tuft of glossy black ostrich feathers adorned her hair, the tallest of which poked him in the eye.
Hell’s bells.
“I beg your pardon, my lady.”
Eye watering, Jules grasped her frail elbow, steadying her before she toppled over, such did she sway.
She chuckled, a soft crackle like delicate old lace, and squinted up at him, her faded eyes, the color of weak tea, snapping with mirth.
“Bolting, are you, Dandridge?”
Saucy, astute old bird.
Nothing much escaped Faye, Dowager Viscountess Lockhart’s notice.
“I prefer to call it making a prudently-timed departure.”
Which he’d be forced to abandon in order to assist the tottering dame back to her preferred throne—er, seat—in the ballroom.
He’d congratulated himself prematurely, blast it.
“Allow me to escort you, Lady Lockhart.”
He daren’t imply she needed his help, or she’d turn her tart tongue, and likely her china-handled cane, on him too.
“Flim flam. Don’t be an utter nincompoop. Yo
u mightn’t have another opportunity to flee. Go on with you now.” She pointed her cane down the deserted passageway. “I’ll contrive some drivel to explain your disappearance.”
“I don’t need a justification.”
Beyond that he was bored to his polished shoes, he’d rather munch fresh horse manure than carry on anymore inane conversation, and crowds made him nervous as hell.
Always had.
Hence his infrequent appearances.
Pure naughtiness sparked in the dowager’s eyes as she put a bony finger to her chin as if seriously contemplating what shocking tale she’d spin.
“What excuse should I use? Perhaps an abduction? Hmph. Not believable.” She shook her head, and the ostrich feather danced in agreement. “An elopement? No, no. Won’t do at all. Too dull and predictable.”
She jutted her finger skyward, nearly poking his other eye.
“Ah, ha! I have just the thing. A scandalous assignation. With a secret love. Oh, yes, that’ll do nicely.”
A decidedly teasing smile tipped her thin lips.
Jules vacillated.
She was right, of course.
If he didn’t make good his escape now, he mightn’t be able to for hours. Still, his conscience chafed at leaving her to hobble her way to the ballroom alone. For all of his darkling countenance and brusque comportment, he was still a gentleman first.
Lady Lockhart extracted her arm, and then poked him in the bicep with her pointy nail.
Hard.
“Go, I said, young scamp.” Only she would dare call a duke a scamp. “I assure you, I’m not so infirm that I’m incapable of walking the distance without tumbling onto my face.”