Spinster and the Duke (London Ladies Book 2)
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Spinster and the
Duke
{ London Ladies, Book Two }
JILLIAN EATON
Dear Readers,
There aren’t a lot of historical romances–or romances, period–that feature an older heroine, and I’m especially proud of Abigail. I’ve always felt that love between mature adults can be just as profound (if not more so) than the heated passion of 20-somethings, and I hope you find that to be true within the pages of this novella.
Along with a new cover and complete re-edit, there are also 10+ pages of never-before-read bonus content. I hope you enjoy!
Fondly,
Jillian
Old Passions Still Burn…
“You never thought of me during all this time?”
Abigail’s lips compressed to form a hard, flat line. “I would be lying if I said I hadn’t. Of course I thought of you, Reginald. I loved you. I was going to marry you. What I felt for you…it did not vanish when you left.”
He took one step towards her, then another. He saw the quiver of her pulse in her neck and smelled honeysuckle on her skin. She had her hair pulled up in a bun, coiled loosely beneath a lace cap. A few tendrils had escaped and dangled down on either side of her flushed cheeks, tempting him to reach out and see if her hair felt as silky as he remembered.
“Is what you felt for me gone now, Abby?”
She stared at him, her hazel eyes unflinching even as her bottom lip wobbled.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Liar.” He dipped his head, closed his mind to what should have been, and indulged in what was…
Spinster and the Duke is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events
portrayed in this novel are either products
of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © by Jillian Eaton 2013
2nd Edition © 2020
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
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All Rights Reserved.
Except for use in any review, the
reproduction or utilization of this work in whole
or in part in any form is strictly forbidden.
Four stories about four independent, high-spirited women
and the handsome scoundrels who capture their hearts…
Runaway Duchess
Spinster and the Duke
Forgotten Fiancée
Lady Harper
Praise for the London Ladies Series
“[The Runaway Duchess] is fast paced and filled with chemistry. A must read for any historical romance readers who love a good romp through England.” – My Book Addiction and More
“[The Runaway Duchess] will sweep readers off their feet and into a whirlwind of romance and intrigue.” – Night Owl Review Top Pick
“I cannot get enough of Jillian Eaton’s writing! [Spinster and the Duke] is up there in my favorites from her.” – Jessica Williamson, Goodreads
“[Forgotten Fiancée] is an enjoyable story that is difficult to put down.” – InD’tale Magazine
“What stands out to me the most about [Forgotten Fiancée] other than the romance is how well Eaton can tell a story.” – The Bookish and the Romantic
“[Lady Harper] is a very cute little story of love at first sight!” – Beverly Ross, Amazon
Other Books by Jillian Eaton
London Ladies
Runaway Duchess
Spinster and the Duke
Forgotten Fiancée
Lady Harper
Secret Wallflower Society
Winning the Earl of Winchester
Courting the Countess of Cambridge
Desiring the Devil of Duncraven
Bow Street Brides
A Dangerous Seduction
A Dangerous Proposal
A Dangerous Affair
A Dangerous Passion
A Dangerous Temptation
Duke for All Seasons
The Winter Duke
The Spring Duke
The Summer Duke
The Autumn Duke
Duchess for All Seasons
The Winter Duchess
The Spring Duchess
The Summer Duchess
The Autumn Duchess
Wedded Women Quartet
A Brooding Beauty
A Ravishing Redhead
A Lascivious Lady
A Gentle Grace
Swan Sisters
For the Love of Lynette
Taming Temperance
Annabel’s Christmas Rake
Christmas Novellas
A Rake in Winter
The Winter Wish
The Risqué Resolution
Natalie’s Christmas Rogue
Marquess Under the Mistletoe
Table of Contents
Praise for the London Ladies Series
Other Books by Jillian Eaton
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
September, 1775
Ashburn Estate
The ring felt heavy on her finger.
Staring down at the thick gold band with the Ashburn family crest engraved into the middle, Abigail blinked back tears.
Do not cry in front of him, she ordered herself silently. Don’t you dare.
“Abby, I…I am sorry.” Looking supremely uncomfortable, Rocky–better known to his peers as Reginald Browning the Third, Marquess of Rutherford and future Duke of Ashburn–ran his fingers through his thick brown hair and scowled down at the floor. “I never wanted it to end like this.”
Abigail had never wanted it to end at all, even though some small part of her knew–had always known, perhaps–that it would. She was the third daughter of a baron. Reginald was the sole heir to a dukedom. Their love was never meant to last.
“I want you to take the ring,” she said softly.
“No, Abby, you keep—”
But it was already off her finger. She clenched it tight in her fist, feeling the weight of it, the smoothness. It had felt so right on her hand that she’d almost let herself believe…but no. Some things were simply not meant to be, no matter how much you wished otherwise.
“It was never mine to keep.” She opened her fingers and the ring fell with a quiet plink onto the table between them. Straightening in her chair, Abigail gazed past Reginald to the window. It was partially open, allowing a warm breeze to flutter through the stuffy parlor. She pulled at the high collar of her gown and took a deep, steadying breath. “I should be going now.”
For one fleeting moment, she thought Reginald was going to change his mind. A tiny flame of hope flickered within her, only to be abruptly extinguished when he stood up and formerly offered his arm as though she was a passing acquaintance instead of the girl he had pledged his heart to.
Do not cry. Whatever you do, do not cry.
Her chest aching with the force it took to hold her tears at bay, Abigail walked beside him in stiff legged silence. When they reached the grand foyer she hesitated, her gaze trained on the door that would not only take her outside to the carriage that waited to take her home, but out of Reginald’s life forever.
“Abby…”
She detested the quiet plea in his voice. He wanted her to leave without a fuss, so he could go on
with his life as though she had never existed. So he could sweep the memory of her beneath the rug as though she were dust.
Abigail lifted her chin. She may not have been the woman the Duke of Ashburn wanted his eldest son and heir to marry, but that did not make her dirt. She was not some secret mistress or scandalous affair. She was Reginald’s fiancée–or at least she had been, before she took his ring off her finger and put it on the table.
“I am going to live with my sister in Leeds,” she informed him.
Reginald’s blue eyes went wide. “I do not want you to leave.”
Abigail regarded him steadily, schooling her countenance to hide the fact that she was perilously close to tears. “But you do not love me enough to want me to stay.”
He dropped her arm and stepped back, his jaw tightening and clenching as he fought to disguise his own emotions. At twenty years of age to her seventeen, Reginald was a boy on the verge of manhood. He was undeniably handsome with dark hair, piercing eyes the same color of the sky on a cold winter’s day, and chiseled features. He would be handsomer still in time, and Abigail felt a renewed sense of loss as she realized she would never know the man he would one day grow to be.
“Do not do this Abby,” he said gruffly. “We said our goodbyes. There is no need to make this harder than it already is.”
There was every need, but Abigail merely nodded. The time for words had passed. There was nothing else she could say. Nothing else she could do.
“I hope you have a happy life.” Shoulders pulled back, hazel eyes sparkling with unshed tears, she took a deep breath and walked out the door.
As he watched her leave, Reginald knew only one thing for certain: with his Abby gone, he would never know true happiness again.
Chapter One
Forty Years Later
Marseilles, France
The funeral was short and bittersweet.
Standing over the freshly dug grave of the woman he had called his wife for twenty seven years, Reginald disguised his quiet grieving behind a mask of stoicism. The stiff autumn air pulled at his cloak, sweeping it off his shoulders. Beneath the swath of black fabric he stood tall, a formidable man even at the progressed age of sixty.
His hair was more gray than brown now, and wrinkles creased his face, but time had treated him fairly and aged him well, rather like a fine wine that grew more potent as the years passed it by.
Murmuring a quiet prayer, Reginald knelt to lay a single white rose on the overturned earth and with a final, lingering glance, bowed his head and walked away from Theresa’s final resting sight. She was beside her parents now, which he knew she would have vastly preferred to being brought back to England and buried at Ashburn, an estate she had only visited twice and never cared for.
Their lives had been in France. It was where they built a home. Where Theresa bore him three daughters. Where one of them died before her fifth birthday. Where they learned to live, and even occasionally laugh, together. Their union was never intended to be a love match, but there had always been affection and respect both given and received.
If they found physical comforts beyond the marriage bed, neither complained, and in the later years of their marriage when they lived completely separate lives, both of them were content in the knowledge that they had always been kind to each another.
Leaving the private graveyard behind, Reginald followed a narrow footpath to the bluffs that ran along the edge of the property. It was a cold, blustery day, and the salt air stung his eyes, summoning tears he wiped briskly away.
Soon it would be winter. Theresa’s beloved gardens would go dormant and the cold would gnaw mercilessly at his bones. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Reginald wondered when the bloody hell the time had gone. Four decades spent, in the blink of an eye. Years given to a wife he cared for but had never loved. To children he loved but did not know. To a country that had welcomed him but never felt like home.
With Theresa dead and buried, there was nothing left for him here. His two daughters had moved on years before, drawn back to England to raise families of their own. He missed them, but as he stood on the edge of the cliff and stared down at the waves crashing violently in a spray of raging white against the rocks below, Reginald did not think of his daughters or his grandchildren or even his deceased wife. He thought, as he always had, as he always did, of Abby.
And he yearned.
Abigail had only one thing on her mind.
Crumpets.
Bustling through her small, tidy townhouse–the past thirty years have given her more gray hairs than she would have liked, but it had done nothing to dull her energy–she zipped through the parlor, whisked through the foyer, and came up short in the kitchen, an expression of horror slowly dawning upon her face as she took in the porcelain plate sitting empty on the table.
“The crumpets. What happened to the crumpets?”
“I ate them all.” Stepping out from behind an open cupboard, balancing a stack of white serving plates trimmed with delicate pink roses, Miss Dianna Foxcroft–Abigail’s beloved niece and apparent devourer of sweets–smiled guiltily at her aunt.
A remarkably pretty young woman with blonde curls, shoulder-length curls, a heart shaped face boasting two matching dimples, and cornflower blue eyes, Dianna lived on the other side of the park with her parents, but frequented Abigail’s townhouse more than she did her own. The two shared a close bond, one that had been forged during Dianna’s childhood when her parents had dedicated more time to their various social causes than to their only child.
Since her best friend Lady Charlotte Vanderley (Graystone now, following her impromptu and rather scandalous wedding to Gavin Graystone, a handsome entrepreneur) had decided to spend the Season in the country, Dianna had been calling upon her aunt more often than usual. Normally Abigail would have welcomed the extra attention, but not at the expense of her beloved crumpets.
“Did you truly eat them all?” she said, aghast.
Dianna giggled. “No, Aunt Abigail, I did not eat them all. Calm yourself,” she said with a disapproving cluck of her tongue. “You know too much excitement is not good for your digestion. I put them by the window to cool. They will be ready to eat in a moment or so.”
“Brat,” Abigail said with great affection. “I thought I raised you better than to play practical jokes on poor old women.”
Dianna set the serving plates down on the table and pulled a chair for Abigail and a chair for herself before she went to the window to fetch the crumpets. She set them down in the middle of the table, then sank into her seat with a graceful flutter of green muslin.
“First of all, you are not old,” she scolded, wagging her finger. “Second of all, you are the one who used to encourage my pranks! Do you remember when you coaxed me into putting a frog in Mother’s drawer of unmentionables?”
“I am certain I have no idea what you are referring to,” Abigail said with a sniff even as she hide a smile behind her hand. Dianna may have inherited her poise and perfect manners from her mother, but her mischievous nature came purely from her aunt.
On days when she was feeling particularly melancholy (which, thankfully, were not very often), Abigail believed she would have very much liked to have had a daughter just like Dianna. As it so happened, destiny hadn’t seen fit to make her a mother. But she was an aunt to the most wonderful niece in the world, and surely that was the next best thing.
“Mother was cross with me for weeks,” Dianna said as she served out the crumpets. “Although not quite as angry as when we put some of my father’s scotch in the lemonade at the picnic–”
“Eat your food dear,” Abigail said primly. “It is getting cold.”
They ate in companionable silence, and when their plates were empty and the dishes wiped clean, they retired to the parlor for a spot of tea. Dianna sat in front of the pianoforte and began to play a soft, lilting tune that brought to mind flowers in the springtime and rolling fields covered in sparkling dew.
“
You have been practicing,” Abigail observed with no small amount of pride. Crossing her legs at the ankle, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes on a little sigh, letting the music wash over her in a tinkling wave of notes.
This was what a part of her had always secretly wanted. A house filled with music and children, light and laughter. She’d been blessed enough to have gotten two of the four. But the pianoforte was for Dianna’s benefit, as Abigail had never been able to play a note, just as she’d never had children.
She had considered it, of course.
The children.
But try as she might, she could never imagine having them with anyone else but Reginald. And so the years had slipped by, one after the other, until she was too old to try. But she remained content in the knowledge that she’d never settled for less than what her heart desired.
“Aunt Abigail, I have been thinking about what you said all those weeks ago in the carriage,” Dianna said suddenly.
Abigail opened her eyes to find Dianna had stopped playing and was watching her, a troubled expression marring her fair countenance.
“Oh?” she said, her brow creasing as she struggled to recall what conversation her niece was referring to. As Dianna’s chaperone, she accompanied the younger woman on nearly every outing, and they often discussed a myriad of topics ranging from the weather to the latest gossip to Dianna’s tenuous relationship with her parents. “What did I say?”
“Charlotte was with us,” Dianna began, “and we were on our way to Twinings Tea Shop.”