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Read on for an excerpt from
The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife
by
Jillian Hunter
Published by Ballantine Books
It had taken Miss Harriet Gardner two years of intensive training in the social graces to become that mysterious creation known in polite Society as a gentlewoman. It took the stormy young Duke of Glenmorgan less than two days to undo months of discipline, of tears and sweat, to reawaken every gutter instinct Harriet had learned to subdue.
He stood in the doorway, silent, his presence so imposing that Harriet felt as if time had stopped. Suddenly the butler, the footmen, the maid bringing another platter of sandwiches for tea, seemed at a loss as to how they should proceed. They stared at Harriet, awaiting her direction.
But she was staring at the cloaked duke who must have wondered whether he’d arrived at a house of eccentrics. Raindrops slid from the brim of his black silk hat and ran into the faint lines carved into his cheeks. He glanced back at the carriage parked in the street. She studied his profile. He had a sharp blade of a nose and a cleft in his chin. When he turned again, his blue eyes cut straight to Harriet, riveting her to the spot.
He’s young, she thought. And he looks a proper beast.
He wrenched off his sodden top hat. The thunderclap that accompanied this impatient gesture deepened the tension holding his audience spellbound.
“Is this or is this not Lady Lyon’s Academy for Young Ladies?” he demanded.
His voice, the deep, lyrical lilt, reminded Harriet of her duty. He was bringing his niece from the Welsh–English border to the academy in preparation for her presentation at court. Only a genuine peer claimed that honor. “Your grace,” Harriet said, sinking into a curtsy, “we are called the Scarfield Academy now. And—”
She lowered her gaze in embarrassment. The butler was bowing, the two footmen followed suit, and the maid dipped so deeply that her sandwiches slid to the edge of her tray. Harriet cringed. They must look like a collection of windup toys whose springs had gone askew.
“Well, whatever this place is called,” the duke said over Harriet’s head, “I hope that my aunt and niece might be allowed to take refuge from the storm.”
Harriet glanced up from his black mud-splattered Hessian boots and straightened instantly. Through the curtain of rain that shimmered in the open doorway, she could see his coachman conversing with the academy’s stable master. From the carriage, a silver-haired lady was waving a lace hand kerchief at the house like a naval officer flagging a ship down in distress.
“I do apologize, Your grace.” She darted toward the door. “I shall bring them in straightaway.”
He stepped in front of her. “Have a footman attend to the task. With umbrellas if possible.” His disgruntled gaze seemed to absorb every detail of her appearance. “I’m in no mood to hear another lady complain that the wretched rain has ruined her hair.”
A test, Harriet told herself. This was one of those social trials that sooner or later a woman in her position must face. She would remain unmoved by his curt manner. She would stand, in her mentor’s words as, “a beacon of civility when battered by a storm of rudeness.”
What misfortune that Harriet had loved thunderstorms since her earliest years.
A Wicked Lord at the Wedding is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2009 by Maria Hoag
Excerpt from The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife by Jillian Hunter copyright
© 2009 by Maria Hoag
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51682-4
www.ballantinebooks.com
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