by Eva Grace
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
The Duke's Inconvenient Bride
Eva Grace
Copyright © year Eva Grace
All rights reserved.
M.M.M. Publishing: Dublin
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
"Another season is set to begin."
Raff William James D'Alton, Sixth Duke of Albright, stifled a sigh at his mother's rather melodramatic statement. Not for her, the standard greeting of "Hello son, how are you?", or even a reproach for not having seen her for the best part of a year. Instead, Dorothy, Dowager Duchess of Albright, had sighed and begun the opening lines of what, he knew, would be a rather long monologue on his status as a bachelor —unless he cut her off quickly, that is.
"You're not wrong, Mother," he said, in a low drawl, as he came to stand beside her by the balustrade, where she was facing the garden beyond. Before them lay acres of parkland; sweeps of gently rolling lawns were set against groves of trees, beyond which the great lake was visible. It was all terribly pastoral, Raff thought with disdain, suddenly wishing that he had ignored his mother's invitation and simply stayed in London.
"Another set of debutants shall launch this season, dear," Dorothy said, watching him from the corner of her eye. "What do you make of that?"
"I find it rather wonderful," Raff replied, keeping his voice even, despite the irritation he felt. "There's a wonderful continuity to the way that, every Spring, a fresh crop of girls appear on the scene, like daisies."
"Gracious, Raff," his mother started, and turned to look at him fully, her eyebrows drawn together in surprise. "That was almost poetic."
Raff gave a shrug, as though it were nothing, before calling out to Harry, the gardener, who was clipping a rosebush nearby.
"I say, Harry," he called to the stoop-backed old man, "What do you think of daisies?"
"They're a weed, Your Grace," Harry replied, standing straight and taking off his cap, as he addressed the Duke. "A cursed weed."
"And what do you do with daisies when you find them growing in my gardens?" Raff continued easily, watching his mother for her reaction.
"Why, I pluck them your Grace," Harry called earnestly, "Then I burn them in a bonfire, to make sure they're good and proper dead."
To his mother's credit, she did not flinch as Harry finished his elegant description of how to deal with unwanted daisies, though she had clearly understood Raff's intended analogy.
"Goodness," she sighed, after a moment, "I hope the fruit of my womb is not a secret pyromaniac."
"I have never gone so far as to burn a debutant alive, Mother," Raff laughed, before adding as an aside; "Though that's not to say I have never been tempted."
Which was only slightly true, he thought guiltily, as his mother's expression changed to one of great distaste. For he had never deigned to spend enough time with any of the silly chits in white dresses to feel anything toward them bar apathy. No, Raff's preferences ran in the opposite direction of debutants, toward more experienced women — women with skills, women with passion, or even better, women with husbands.
For married women, he had quickly learned when he had first begun his career in debauchery, lacked the goal that every other woman decided upon when they looked at him—namely marriage. Married women already had husbands, and from what he heard from them after lovemaking, as they shared a pillow, one husband was quite enough.
His clandestine affairs were a perfect arrangement for both parties, well they would have been, if his mother was not so intent on becoming a grandmother.
"Do you want your cousin to inherit?" Dorothy snapped, her beautiful face portraying the annoyance she felt at his indolence toward the Albright line. "You know that Cedric is an utter dolt and that Highfield Palace will fall to wrack and ruin under him."
"I have no intention of dying before Cedric, Mother," Raff replied blithely, running a hand carelessly through his dark hair. "He won't inherit, his son will. I think you would be far better placed ensuring that my dear cousin marries a woman with half a brain, so that any future offspring might have a hope of inheriting at least a quarter of one. Thusly, you shall secure the future of Highfield and end this tiresome campaign against my bachelorhood, in one fell stroke."
"I don't know why you won't marry," his mother sighed in return, ignoring his rather practical plan of action and the fact that she knew exactly why Raff had no intention of marrying. The reason was she, and the unhappiness that her father had caused her for nearly two decades. The Fifth Duke of Albright had been a brute of a man, with a foul temper and two fists to match it. His appetite for violent outbursts was only matched his ferocious hunger for housemaids, and Raff had spent his entire childhood watching his mother sob over her husband's beatings and infidelities.
Few would think it now, looking at the fearsome, muscular, six foot Duke, but as a child Raff had been rather sensitive, and he had absorbed his mother's unhappiness, so that it had become a part of his own make-up. As he had grown into a strapping young man, he had inherited his father's looks, temper and insatiable appetites, which had led him to the conclusion that marriage was completely off the table for him. He was well known as a rake and a cad, but something of the small boy he had been still lingered, and the knowledge that he most certainly would do what his father had done, to some poor, unfortunate woman, had steeled his resolve.
He would never marry.
"Let us not quarrel, Mother," Raff ignored her question and spoke in a commanding tone that could broker no argument. "Let us just enjoy the week before us. Tell me, which dullards have you invited to vex me for the next seven days?"
His mother reeled off a list of some of society's more notable families, as well as a few names that he did not know, before filly dropping a names so familiar that Raff felt as though he had been struck in the stomach by a cannonball.
"Lord and Lady Drakefield are coming?" he asked, trying to keep his tone calm. Lady Drakefield had been Raff's last mistress, a fact that his mother, whom he fully believed was omnipotent, knew full well.
"Yes, of course," his mother tucked a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear, fidgeting, as she always did, when she was nervous. "Are you acquainted?"
"Vaguely," Raff answered mildly. Lord Drakefield he knew from many a tedious session at the House of Lords; he was well past seventy and a cantankerous old boot. His wife, who had previously been an actress, was still in the full flush of her youth. Constance, Lady Drakefield, was a curvaceous, passionate woman of just five and twenty, and had shared Raff's bed for the past six months. That is, until he had discovered that the only constant thing about Constance, was that she was stark raving mad. After, yet another, argument, sparked by Constance's fierce jealousy, which had resulted with a black eye for Raff, he had called off their arrangement, despite her many protests. He had been certain, that with enough care, their paths might never cross
again; yet now, here she was, a guest in his home.
His suspicions were considerably aroused; it was not like his mother not to know what lady he was rumoured to be acquainted with, so much so, that he had often thought that she had missed her calling to become a spy instead of a Duchess. What reason had she for inviting Constance down to stay? The only one that he could think of, was that his mother wished him suffering and discomfort —which were a surety with Constance present. And also rather alarming; was he such a bad son that his own mother wished him to the devil? The answer didn't bear thinking about, for if there was one thing Raff was not, it was a good son.
"When are we expecting the first of the intruders?" he asked, as they turned back towards the house. The French doors, which led to the Dowager Duchess's private parlour were open, the light curtains ruffling in the crisp Spring breeze.
"The first of our guests," his mother emphasised the word guests with an accompanying frown, for she was ever the consummate hostess. "Arrived this morning. Lady Melchamp, you remember her- my old friend from Dorset, arrived with her Godchild, Lady Catherine Fitzgerald."
"I would be lying if I said I remembered Lady Melchamp," Raff replied honestly; his mother had so many friends that it would be impossible for anyone bar a ... to keep track of the women in her social circle. As for the other; Lady Catherine Fitzgerald was not a name that was familiar to Raff, which meant that she was either as old as Britain herself, or a white-dressed daisy that his mother had invited in the hope that he might suddenly become stricken by marriage fever. Which wasn't one of the better known diseases, but every bit as real and deadly as typhus, in Raff's opinion.
As it turned out, Lady Catherine was neither of the things that Raff suspected she might be. She was a tall, slender girl of about five and twenty, with a shock of red hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose. She was seated in the parlour beside a woman, who Raff assumed was Lady Melchamp. Both ladies were engrossed in reading the books in their laps, so much so, that they did not look up when Raff and his mother entered through the French doors. The Duke allowed himself a moment to assess this Lady Fitzgerald, while she was unaware she was being assessed.
It took Raff all of three seconds to decide on the best adjective for his mother's newest offering: dull. There was nothing inspiring about Lady Catherine, her clothes, her figure —gracious-even her posture, belonged to a woman who wished only to remain in the shadows.
It was only when his mother made their introduction, that Raff revised his first impression somewhat.. For when Lady Catherine's eyes met his, he momentarily felt as though he had received a swift kick to the gullet. Never before had he seen eyes so vividly green, they brought to mind rolling green fields, dappled in Spring sunshine. This image was further compounded when Lady Catherine bid him hello, for her accent held an unmistakable lilt to it.
"Lady Catherine has recently arrived in England from Scotland, Raff," his mother rather helpfully supplied, placing what he had thought was Lady Catherine's implacable accent.
"Her mother and I were fast friends, when we were children," Dorothy continued in a sing-song voice, glancing between her son and Lady Catherine with excitement. Raff stole a glance at the Dowager Duchess, and saw that she had intuited his momentary stillness as interest in the insipid Lady Catherine, and was about to launch into a painful attempt at cajoling him into playing along with her ridiculous plan of joining the pair in marriage. If his mother could have produced a special license and a vicar at that moment, she would have.
"If that is so, then I'm sure that Lady Catherine will be most interested in hearing you recount your childhood tales of her mother," Raff interrupted, rather bluntly, "I however have little interest in such stories and have much to discuss with my estate manager. Good day ladies."
With a curt bow, Raff turned on his heel and left the room, not caring to glance back at the trio of women he had left in his wake. Honestly, he thought with exasperation, his mother was becoming most tiresome in her attempts to find him a bride. At least her previous offerings had been pretty; this Lady Catherine was far too tall, far too old and far too plain to be a Duchess —green eyes or no.
As he passed down the long corridor of the East wing, Raff spotted a carriage from the window, snaking its way up the drive. It was too far away to be certain, but he thought that the coat of arms emblazoned on the door belonged to Lord Drakefield —which meant that soon Constance would be under his roof, attempting to seduce him with a wicked smile...or more. What was his mother up to, he wondered with mild alarm, for she was most certainly up to something but he was blasted if he could work out what it was.
"You mustn't take any notice of Albright," Lady Melchamp fussed, as she escorted Catherine down the stairs.
"I had not intended to," Catherine snorted, as her elderly godmother slipped her arm through her own for support. "Even in the wilds of Kerry, I had heard rumours of his despicable manners. Now that I am here, I can see they were not rumours, but fact. I would have to be a very silly woman indeed, to pay any heed to the Duke."
Even if he did have the most piercing blue eyes that Cat had ever seen...
She shook her head to banish the image of the Duke that was etched in her mind; tall, muscular, imposing and handsome. All those things he might be, she thought, but he was also rude, obnoxious and soaked in gin —if the smell of him had been anything to go by.
The Duke of Albright's manners, or lack thereof, was also the last thing that Catherine had time to worry about. Her current living situation was most precarious, and needed immediate rectification. Her father, the Earl of Skye, had died unexpectedly six months before —which was a most fitting death for a man who in his lifetime had revelled in surprises. The main problem with his sudden departure from the land of the living,however, was that he had not made any provisions for his only child, leaving Catherine at the mercy of the kindness of strangers.
Lady Melchamp, her godmother and one of her late mother's closest friends, had invited Catherine to stay with her in Dorset after the new Earl of Skye, a distant cousin whom Catherine had never met, had seen fit to sell the house and estate on the island that had been Catherine's home for five and twenty years, leaving her homeless.
Lady Melchamp and her husband, Norbert —as he insisted she call him, had been most welcoming, though of late Catherine had begun to despair that she would spend the rest of her life sequestered in the English countryside, only to find herself in the same situation in ten years time, when Helena and Norbert, eventually passed.
Then an invitation had arrived at Figtree Hall, from the Dowager Duchess of Albright. She had heard of Catherine's plight and had decided that she would give her a season to help her to find a husband, out of fondness for Catherine's late mother. The letter had invited Catherine to spend a weekend at Highfield Palace, where she would mix with some of the more illustrious members of society, before joining the Dowager Duchess in town for the season.
It had all sounded rather grand, and indeed Highfield Palace was the most beautiful building that Cat had ever seen, but her arrival at the gathering had brought a realisation, one that she had quashed for weeks, to the forefront of her mind...
I really have no interest in marrying, she had thought with despair, as the Dowager Duchess had presented her with a list of men that she thought might make a great match for her.
Widowers, second sons and merchants had featured highly on the list. At Catherine's advanced age, as Lady Melchamp so elegantly referred to it as, Catherine could not hope for any better.
"Lord Dulbard has seven children, all ranging in age from nought to ten. Perhaps it would be nice to join a household that is already a home?" Lady Melchamp had offered dubiously.
Catherine rather thought it sounded like she would be joining a home as an unpaid governess —which was not an attractive prospect. At least if I was a governess, I would be paid, she though rebelliously, and I would not be expected to add to Lord Dulbard's brood, with yet more children.
All talk of prospective husbands had come to an end, when the ladies had retired to change for dinner. Catherine had been a little shocked to learn, that changing for dinner could take anywhere up to two hours -everything was so much more formal in England. Whilst Lady Melchamp had rested in her chambers, Catherine had settled in the window seat of her own room. She had been staring idly out into the grounds, when a striking figure on horseback had caught her eye.
It had been the Duke; dressed only in his shirtsleeves, riding tall, atop an enormous stallion. Feeling like a spy, Catherine had watched, as horse and rider cantered elegantly across the lawns toward the stables. He was a beautiful specimen of a man, she had thought objectively, as she noted the hard muscles of his arms and shoulders, visible even from a distance. Though he was a brute, a rake, and obnoxious to boot...
The stirring image of him stayed with her,however, so that when she and Lady Melchamp finally arrived in the dinning room for dinner, she almost could not look at him for fear of blushing.
Catherine was seated quite close to Albright at the top of the table, though any fear she might have had that he would try to engage her in conversation soon disappeared. It became apparent quite quickly, that the only thing the Duke desired from dinner, was to drink deeply from his goblet of wine and glower at his assembled guests.
"Have you visited Highfield before, my Lady?" the handsome man to her right asked, as the second course —wild fowl—was placed upon the table.
"Never," Catherine confessed, as she picked up her fork. "I have only lately arrived in England from Scotland, sir. Everything is new to me. I'm fear I'm quite the provincial."
"From Scotland?" the young man's eyes lit up with delight, "I know it well. I have docked many a time in Aberdeen."
For the remainder of the five courses, Catherine chattered quite happily to the young man, who it transpired was a Captain by the name of DeWitt. He was a most engaging dining companion, so much so, that Catherine was almost able to completely ignore the Duke, who was glaring daggers at her from across the rim of his glass.
