No Dukes Allowed

by Grace Burrowes, Kelly Bowen, Anna Harrington

His father had slunk away from the prospect of holding a duke accountable. That course—bitter retreat—was unthinkable for Adam.

  “Do you know,” he said, “how strong a man becomes when he spends his youth wrestling good English stone? Do you know how determined that man learns to be when turning stone into art?”

  “You should go. For your own sake, Adam, you should go.”

  She confirmed his suspicions with that warning, bless her proud, obstinate heart.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you put aside your tiara long enough to tell the man who loves you which varlet has set himself against us and why he has you so frightened.”

  Genie didn’t take a seat on the sofa, but rather, she deflated, from a proud duchess to a woman overwhelmed.

  “I hate tiaras,” she said. “My tiaras are heavy and old, and they give me awful headaches. I’m frightened—you’re right—but I’m also bitterly, mortally angry.”

  Adam shifted to the sofa and put an arm around her shoulders. “Angry is good. With a little anger and a trusty sledgehammer, you can bring down almost any edifice. Now tell me where I need to swing my hammer and why.”

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  The parlor door was open, and Genie did not care. She cared only that Adam had his arm around her and wasn’t put off by a rival suitor.

  Not by anything.

  She could make another attempt to dissemble, to persuade him to give her time to deal with Dunstable on her own, but she’d been dealing with Dunstable, and her efforts had only made the cad bolder.

  “I have been dissembling since the day I became betrothed to a duke,” Genie said. “Wearing a tiara forged of lies. I’m a sheep farmer’s daughter, and I am proud of that.”

  Adam kissed her hand. “No tiaras, I promise, but you have to tell me the rest of it.”

  A tiara of truths, then. “You cannot swing your hammer at a ducal family,” she said. “Seymouth takes his consequence seriously, and though he might not respect his son, he’ll take any affront to Dunstable as a slight to himself.”

  “As he should. An affront to my father, even fifteen years ago, offends me still.” Adam scooped Genie into his lap, an exceedingly comfortable perch. “An affront to my intended will see me laying about with any tool I can grasp.”

  His intended. Not his duchess, thank the kind powers.

  “Dunstable wants my money,” Genie said. “I’ve rather a lot of it, and I gather his debts are enormous. He can’t afford to open the house your father built here in Brighton, which has been deeded to Dunstable. I’ve seen the interior, Adam. It’s a jewel of modern convenience and excellent taste, worthy of a ducal family trying to discreetly rival the sovereign.”

  Adam’s hand on her back went still. “You’ve seen my father’s house?”

  She withdrew the pin from his cravat and snuggled closer. “Toured it from top to bottom. Dunstable’s man of business attempted obstinance, but duchesses have reserves of stubbornness mere lawyers cannot hope to achieve. I found no hint of damp, not a whiff of subsidence, not so much as a stuck window. Seymouth would have known that if he’d bothered to inspect his own premises.”

  Which dukes rarely did. They relied on stewards, men of business, solicitors, and an overworked duchess to keep all running smoothly. Augustus would not be such a duke, but Seymouth exercised every privilege of his station.

  “Thank you,” Adam said, kissing her temple. “I knew my father would not cheat a customer, but I haven’t been able to prove it. Your eyewitness testimony erases my last doubt.”

  She sat up to peer at him. “You would doubt your own papa?”

  “Not his integrity, but the best architect can be hoodwinked by a dishonest builder, the best builder can be taken advantage of by a lazy master mason, and the best mason can be cheated by the quarry. Constant vigilance is impossible when an architect’s practice is going well.”

  “You sound like a duke.” Adam smelled like himself, though, mostly cedar with hints of linseed oil and sawdust in the far corners of his fragrance. Genie loved the scent of him, loved the feel of his arms around her.

  Loved him for telling her to put her tiara aside.

  “I have not the resources of a duke,” Adam said, “but I have the ability to take a bare patch of ground, and from nothing more than a sketched elevation, I can build an edifice that will last for centuries. Tell me why you haven’t laughed in Dunstable’s face on the dance floor at Almack’s.”

  Delicious thought. “He has threatened me, which would be of no moment, but he’s also threatened Augustus, and—lest that not be sufficient—he’s thrown a few vague aspersions in your direction as well.”

  Adam kissed her cheek. “He’s promised to ruin me.”

  “Promised with a casual cheer that makes me uneasy.”

  Adam was quiet for a moment, his hand resuming a soothing rhythm on Genie’s back. “Do you esteem the present Duke of Tindale?”

  “Augustus? I adore him. He danced with me at my presentation ball, a great, growling brute of a man whom nobody dared cut, but nobody wanted to acknowledge. He was the cousin they had to invite and wished to never see. He told me not to let a parcel of prancing ninnyhammers send me to bedlam. He also told me we were to be family, and I was entitled to his unquestioning loyalty for the rest of my days.”

  “I like him already, but you are a woman of great sense, and you feel you have to protect Augustus from Dunstable. What is the rest of the story, Genie?”

  Genie wiggled from his grasp and rose, an undignified undertaking. Adam made no move to thwart her and had sense enough to remain on the sofa.

  “I betrayed my husband in one sense and in one sense only.”

  “You failed to conceive a child, which is hardly your fault.”

  Any other man would have dodged that topic, brushed it aside with platitudes about the will of God, the futility of dwelling on the past. Adam started his enterprises from bare ground, though, and planted his foundations securely on truth.

  “That is not quite accurate. I did conceive. I’m almost sure of it.” Even now, Genie had to leave herself a reprieve, a hope that her sorrow had been unfounded. “The early signs were there, the very early signs, that is. I hadn’t said a word to Charles, on the advice of the midwife. She suggested I wait at least another two months to be certain. I was counting the days, my hope nearly eclipsed by my anxiety.”

  The hope had been excruciating, and the sorrow proportional.

  “You lost the child.”

  “If a child there was. We were having a dinner party, and I told myself the discomfort I was experiencing was from the wine, the candle smoke, anything. When I found a moment to use the retiring room, I learned my courses had started. Augustus came across me sitting on the stair, unable to speak, unable to return to my guests. I could not cry—duchesses don’t cry in the middle of their own entertainments—and the tale came out. I never told Charles, but I hoped desperately to conceive again.”

  The weight of that hope had dragged at every moment of her marriage, added to her grief, and still threatened to overwhelm her. She braced herself on the mantel, and then Adam’s arms were around her and she was sobbing against his shoulder.

  She cried not simply for a barren marriage, but for a happy Derbyshire girl who’d come to London with stars in her eyes and been handed a cold, heavy parure. She cried for all the girls and all the busy, self-important men casually crushing their spirits because those men had never been taught better. She cried for her widowed self, looking after those young women and spreading graciousness in all directions, while longing for the rural splendor of the north.

  “I told Augustus,” she said, her voice made low from tears, “and he has kept my secret to this day. Dunstable saw me in Augustus’s arms, saw Augustus kiss my forehead, and has made a great salacious interlude out of it. Nobody would have cared if I discreetly dallied with my husband’s cousin—though I ought by rights to have produced sons first—but now that cousi
n has the title, and Dunstable has debts.”

  Adam walked her to the sofa, came down beside her, and tucked her close. “So Dunstable must threaten a woman who has done him no wrong rather than take up an honest profession or tell his father he’s in dun territory. If he’d stolen from the poor or turned the elderly out of their homes, I might not hold him in greater contempt.”

  “He’s threatened you and Augustus. He sought to marry me, but he can ruin you and make false accusations to the authorities regarding Augustus. Augustus is not a typical duke.”

  “For which we must commend him. I need to think.”

  While Genie needed to be quiet, recover her composure, and for once let somebody else consider her situation while she dozed against his side and dreamed of chubby lambs and lush meadows.

  * * *

  “Luddy,” Dunstable said, taking a seat at the luncheon table, “you see before you a man in anticipation of matrimonial joy. Pass the wine.”

  The earl obliged, though he took the precaution of pouring for himself first. Dunstable started his serious drinking with the midday meal, and Luddington had no reason to believe today would be an exception.

  “Has the young lady accepted your addresses?”

  Dunstable filled his glass to the brim. “She’s not young, but her fortune compensates for a host of shortcomings. I do fancy a hearty merlot, though not usually so early in the day.”

  “Jones,” Luddington said to the footman at the sideboard, “please serve his lordship some of the soup, and then you may be excused.” Not that Dunstable would bother with excellent beef and barley stew when he could instead be swilling wine. “What does your papa think of your choice of bride?”

  More to the point, what would the Duchess of Seymouth think? Dunstable’s dame could make any young woman’s life merry hell on a good day, and bachelors regarded time in her company as durance vile.

  “Haven’t told Papa yet, but he’s been after me for years to ‘start conducting my affairs like an adult.’ To hear him tell it, he was meeting with his stewards before he was breeched, and Mama was stitching prayer samplers before she could read. Why do we teach women to read anyway? All they do is correspond with each other the livelong day and tattle on their menfolk.”

  By which means, family and social ties were preserved despite great distances and years of separation. “Are you drunk already?”

  “Believe I am. Drunk with joy at the prospect of putting aside the lonely tedium of bachelorhood and accepting the responsibilities I was born to shoulder. Certain funds will come under my control when I marry—certain needed funds—and my lady wife will add to those funds nicely. Should have married long ago, but never met the right sort of female.”

  “What sort would that be?” Besides desperate.

  “One wants a wife whom one can control,” Dunstable said, downing half his wine. “I need look no farther than my dear parents to see what havoc a female can wreak when she don’t know her place. I won’t have that problem.”

  “You’d marry a simpering featherbrain?” Luddington shuddered to contemplate the offspring of such a union.

  “I’d marry a mature woman who knows how to respect her duke. Fortune is smiling on my choice. I’ve had an omen.” He nodded sagely and finished his wine.

  “You’ve taken to reading bird entrails.”

  “Mock me all you please, Luddy.” Dunstable helped himself to another bumper of merlot. “That dreadful property Papa tried to foist upon me when I came of age has caught the interest of a buyer. Have you another bottle of this vintage? It’s quite good.”

  Luddington set aside his empty soup bowl. “I generally buy by the lot when I find a wine I enjoy. I didn’t know your Brighton property was for sale.”

  “It’s not. The damned solicitor said I’d have to load it up with furniture and art and servants to get a decent price for it. I’m letting it go for a mere bagatelle, but between us, the construction ain’t sound. Papa said. Damned place will be somebody else’s problem. Caveat empty, and all that.”

  “Caveat emptor,” Luddington murmured. Let the buyer beware. “I congratulate you on your good fortune, both as regards the real property and the marital prospects. Might I know the name of your intended?” He asked out of simple expedience, for he himself was in the market for a spouse. No need to court another man’s prospective duchess.

  “You may ask, though you are sworn to secrecy. Have to inform Papa of my choice, and he’ll have to talk Mama ’round. I intend to offer for none other than Eugenia, Dowager Duchess of Tindale.”

  Luddington nearly got a snoutful of merlot. “You think she will make you a biddable and docile duchess?” The lady had brooked no nonsense from her haughty husband and was held in very high esteem by the matchmakers. The fortune hunters had learned not to approach that citadel, and King George was said to owe her favors.

  “I’m certain of my ability to maintain the upper hand in the marriage. For me, the duchess will be the epitome of domestic subservience.”

  “Have some more wine,” Luddington said, though clearly poor Dunstable was already either half-seas over or showing signs of early dementia. “Did I mention that I’m removing to London at the end of the week? You’re welcome to bide here as long as you please, but I must look in on my sister.”

  For under no circumstances did Luddington want the task of consoling Dunstable when the duchess sent the marquess packing with a flea in his ear.

  * * *

  With Genie tucked against his side, Adam could think more efficiently. She was snoring gently, spent from unburdening herself, while he mentally constructed a project schedule complete with elevations, landscape plans, and a budget.

  He would need the services of one duke and one duchess—possibly two of both—and the timing would be delicate. Funds would be required and some luck.

  The most critical asset, however, was determination. “My love, wake up.” He kissed Genie’s temple, because he could.

  “Chocolate.”

  “I can think of many ways to wake a lady that are more enticing than chocolate.”

  She straightened to peer at him. “You are a resourceful man. I must look a fright.”

  “You look splotchy and tired, also lighter in spirit and very dear. If you can gather your wits enough to plot a strategy with me, I have need of your keen intelligence and remarkable powers of observation.”

  She kissed his cheek, lingering near enough that the scent of her addled Adam’s wits. “Nobody has ever valued my keen mind before.”

  “When you are the wealthiest sheep farmer in Derbyshire, they’ll learn of their error.” For she would be. She’d see which flocks prospered in which fields, which ewes produced the most twins, which shepherds truly loved their occupation, and soon, fat, fluffy sheep would dot every hillside she owned. Adam would build snug byres for the sheep and model cottages for the tenants…

  “We will own property in Derbyshire?”

  Why hadn’t anybody, not her damned ducal cousin, not her brothers, not her man of business, bought her an estate in Derbyshire?

  “You will own property in Derbyshire. We’ll tie it up in a trust for our daughters, and when you are wroth with me, you will remove there to torment me. I won’t dare trespass, or you’ll have me ejected and bound over for the assizes, and your neighbor, His Grace of Devonshire, will see me transported.”

  Genie curled down to rest her head in his lap, as she had on their picnic blanket. “Your vivid imagination is surely why you are such a success as an architect, but before I become a sheep nabob, might we decide what to do with Lord Dunstable?”

  Might we decide. Adam had never taken a partner for his building projects. He suspected that was about to change.

  “What is needed,” he said, “is truth, and somebody with enough consequence to make that truth compelling, for the same source authored my father’s downfall as can author Dunstable’s.”

  “His Grace of Seymouth.”

  “Their
Graces of Seymouth. I know not what role Her Grace played in Papa’s troubles, but if she’d taken so much as a single tour of the Brighton property, she might have intervened. The house was built to her specifications.”

  Adam closed his eyes, the better to learn the curve of Genie’s cheek against his palm, the better to savor the texture of her skin. Her face was warm, her hair silky. For the first time in years, he felt the urge to take up a mallet and chisel to craft cold stone into a living form.

  Instead, he must sculpt a solution to Genie’s troubles, and to his own.

  “Her Grace is formidable,” Genie said. “Quite the force of nature. I’ve arranged to buy that house. I’d thought to sell it to you for your gentlemen’s club.”

  An odd effervescence cascaded through Adam’s heart. “You bought my father’s house for me?”

  “You needn’t get all masculine and affronted. The business called for some subtlety, and nobody suspects a duchess of anything other than self-indulgence. I will charge you exactly what I paid for the place, and you may do with it as you please.”

  She’d bought the property, protected Adam’s pride, and done so with Dunstable prancing about her parlor. She was a terror in a tiara, and if Adam hadn’t been in love with her before…

  He was in love and he was in awe, a stirring combination of sentiments. “What are you paying for the house?”

  She named a figure, perhaps one-tenth what the dwelling was worth, and Adam just had to hug the stuffing out of her.

  “The Duchess of Seymouth might be intimidating,” he said when he had stopped laughing, “but you are the more formidable, for you bring the element of surprise to every battle. You are so gracious and charming that others miss your determination and strength. I must learn to be formidable as well.”

  Genie patted his thigh. “You can be grouchy and direct. That’s a fine start on formidable, and an aptitude for numbers helps.”

  “Anybody can work an abacus and eschew idle talk.”

  “I’ve done what I could, Adam, but Dunstable will now have the funds from the sale of the house, and he’ll be pleased with himself for having liquidated an asset his father could not. He means to offer for me and to create serious trouble for Augustus and for the man I love if I refuse.”