Primrose and the Dreadful Duke: Garland Cousins #1

by Larkin, Emily

  All Primrose could do was laugh.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Oliver went in search of Lord Cheevers while Primrose went upstairs to fix her hair. He found the viscount in his study. “May I have a word with you, sir?”

  They discussed the details of the funeral. Cheevers was taking Algernon’s death hard. He had to dab a handkerchief to his eyes several times.

  “Thayne, Lady Primrose, and I will leave the day after the funeral,” Oliver told him. “Ninian is welcome to come with us, but he may wish to stay here.”

  “He can stay as long as he likes. All summer if he wishes. Now that his father is gone . . .” Emotion trembled in Cheevers’s voice. To him, Lord Algernon wasn’t a villain, but a beloved friend. “Algernon’s son will always be welcome here. Always.”

  Oliver wondered whether Cheevers valued Ninian for himself, or only because of who his father was. And then he grimaced inwardly. That was the only reason he’d tolerated Ninian initially: because of Uncle Algy.

  Well, he was going to rectify that. And he’d do his best to make certain that Lord Cheevers saw Ninian’s worth, too.

  To which end . . .

  “I haven’t told Ninian yet, but . . . I’m going to sign one of my estates over to him.”

  Cheevers lowered his handkerchief and looked at him, startled. “That’s extremely generous, Westfell.”

  “Ninian saved my life,” Oliver said bluntly. “I can’t tell you the particulars, because it involves someone else, but I can tell you that I wouldn’t be here today if not for him.”

  Cheevers looked even more startled.

  “Ninian has more integrity and personal courage than most men. Your daughter will be extremely lucky if he offers for her.”

  Lord Cheevers stopped looking startled and looked uncomfortable instead—and Oliver could guess why: Cheevers wanted a duke for a son-in-law.

  “Lady Primrose and I will be making an announcement in a few days,” he said. “You understand, of course, why we can’t make it now. It would be . . . inappropriate.”

  “Oh,” Cheevers said, taken aback. He kneaded the handkerchief between his fingers. “I quite understand. Of course. Yes. Absolutely.” He gave a weak smile. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Oliver said.

  * * *

  He left Cheevers in the study and went in search of Primrose—and found her coming down the main staircase. He met her on the third step from the bottom. “You look lovely.”

  She blushed a very fetching shade of pink. “Thank you.”

  Oliver took her hand, squeezed it gently and discreetly, then released it. “Your brother?”

  “My brother.”

  They found Rhodes in the library, writing letters.

  Oliver closed the door, and took Primrose’s hand again. They crossed to the great library desk, with its cabriole legs and tooled leather top, and waited for Rhodes to notice them. Oliver held his breath, anticipating Rhodes’s surprise when he saw them holding hands, the stupefied expression on his face.

  Rhodes looked up. His gaze flicked to their faces, flicked to their clasped hands. “About time.”

  “About time?” Oliver said. “What do you mean ‘about time’?”

  Rhodes laid down his quill. “I mean that I saw this coming years ago.”

  “The devil you did!”

  Rhodes smiled smugly and leaned back in his chair. “I told Father you’d make a match of it one day. Told him the summer after our first year at Cambridge. How long ago was that?” He wrinkled his brow and pretended to think. “Ten years?”

  “You did not,” Oliver said.

  “Did, too.”

  “But how could you know when we didn’t?” Primrose said.

  Rhodes smirked. “Well, I am very intelligent.”

  Oliver rolled his eyes. He was fairly certain that Primrose did, too. “He’s humbugging us,” he told her. “He had no idea at all.”

  “Scoff all you like, but I have proof. Look . . .” Rhodes picked up one of his finished letters. “To Mother and Father,” he said, as he unfolded it. “Listen: ‘I think Oliver and Primrose are finally going to make a match of it. They’ve been smelling of April and May all this past week. I anticipate a wedding before the end of summer.’” Rhodes turned the letter around and pointed to a paragraph.

  Oliver read the lines, and discovered that he was telling the truth.

  Rhodes smiled even more smugly. “Told you so.”

  Oliver looked at Primrose. “He’s very irritating when he says that, isn’t he?”

  “Extremely.”

  Oliver bent and gave her a loud, smacking kiss.

  “Oi,” Rhodes said. “Not in front of me, you barbarian.”

  “Did he just call me a barbarian?” Oliver asked Primrose.

  “He did, yes.”

  Oliver kissed her again, even more loudly.

  Rhodes covered his eyes, like a prude at the opera when the dancers came on stage. “Go away.”

  “Aren’t you going to wish us well?” Oliver asked.

  Rhodes lowered his hands. “I don’t need to. The pair of you will deal extremely well together.” His gaze dropped to Oliver’s neckcloth. “For God’s sake, Ollie, fix your neckcloth. Anyone would think you’ve been tumbling my sister.”

  “Well, actually—”

  Rhodes winced, and covered his ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  Oliver laughed, and tugged Primrose towards the door. His heart was light with relief. Rhodes had taken their news even better than he’d hoped.

  “You are a degenerate,” Primrose told him, once they were in the corridor. “Kissing me like that in front of my brother!”

  “A degenerate duke,” Oliver agreed, and then heard what he’d said. “That’s alliteration.” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Honestly, Oliver, you’re dreadful.”

  “A dreadfully degenerate duke,” he said, and then grinned at her. “Come on, Prim. Surely that’s worth a kiss?” He bent his head and pointed helpfully to his lips.

  Primrose’s mouth tucked in at the corners as she tried to suppress a smile. “Heaven only knows why I agreed to marry you.”

  “Because you love me,” Oliver told her. He picked her up, his hands at her waist, and swung her around. “And I love you.” He swung her around a second time, lifting her higher, making her laugh and clutch at his shoulders. “And we are going to be very happy together.”

  Afterwards

  Ninian Dasenby laid his father to rest and then, the following month, attended his cousin’s wedding in Gloucestershire. After that, he accompanied the duke and duchess on their tour of the Westfell estates.

  At the end of the tour, the duke said, “Nine estates. It’s too much for one man to bear. I shall go into a decline under the strain of it all.” And then he gifted one of the estates to Ninian, and not just any estate, but Ninian’s favorite, a fifteenth-century manor house nestled in one of Shropshire’s gentle valleys.

  Ninian spent a very happy month selecting colors for his new home.

  In November, he went to London with the duke and duchess, so that the duke could attend the House of Lords and Ninian could choose the colors for the Westfell residence on Berkeley Square. He and the duchess were discussing the color scheme for the drawing room when the duke returned from his very first parliamentary session.

  “How was it?” the duchess asked.

  “An ordeal that I barely survived,” the duke said, advancing into the room. “I was crushed by the tedium of it.”

  “Were you?” the duchess said mildly.

  “Crushed,” the duke repeated. “Crushed.” And then he toppled back onto the floor and lay with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched.

  Ninian was used to his cousin’s theatrics by now. He bit his lip and glanced at the duchess.

  The duchess rolled her eyes. “About this red,” she said, as if her husband lying on the floor was nothing out of the ordinary. Which, t
o tell the truth, it wasn’t.

  After a moment, the duke opened his eyes. “Brandy,” he said plaintively.

  The duchess stood and went to the decanters and poured her husband a glass of brandy, then she crossed to where he lay on the floor and handed it to him. “Idiot,” she said, with great affection.

  The duke pushed up on one elbow to accept the brandy. “Yes, but I’m your idiot.”

  They exchanged the sort of smiling, intimate look that always made Ninian blush, and then the duchess returned to the sofa and the discussion of colors.

  The duke survived his first parliamentary sessions, and Ninian and the duchess agreed on the colors, and come spring the redecoration of the residence on Berkeley Square was complete. It was a profoundly different house from the one it had been under the previous dukes’ occupations. As soon as one set foot inside, one knew it was a happy house. A house where people laughed.

  Early in the Season, the Duke and Duchess of Westfell hosted a dress ball, which proved another ordeal for the duke. Planning a ball, he declared, was even harder than planning a military campaign. In fact, it was so difficult that he succumbed to a dramatic attack of the vapors two days prior to the event. The duke’s performance made his audience—Ninian, the duchess, and one extremely fortunate footman—laugh so hard that they cried.

  Despite the duke’s vapors—or perhaps because of them—the ball was a great success. Ninian danced with Chloé Cheevers. Twice. He danced with her many times that Season, and on the last day of May he gathered his courage and requested Lord Cheevers’s permission to pay his addresses to her.

  Not long after that, Ninian went down on one knee and asked Chloé Cheevers to marry him.

  She said yes.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading Primrose and the Dreadful Duke. I hope you enjoyed Primrose and Oliver’s story!

  The second novel in the Garland Cousins series, Violet and the Bow Street Runner, will be on the shelves in 2019.

  The Garland Cousin books are part of the Baleful Godmother series. If you haven’t yet read the other books in the Baleful Godmother series, I invite you to join my Readers’ Group and receive a free digital starter library.

  Click the link below to get free copies of the first novel in the series, Unmasking Miss Appleby, and the series prequel, The Fey Quartet.

  www.emilylarkin.com/starter-library

  Praise for Unmasking Miss Appleby:

  “Sexy, unusual, and vastly entertaining. The best historical romance I’ve read this year.”

  ~ Anna Campbell, author of the Dashing Widows series

  www.emilylarkin.com/starter-library

  Thank You

  Thanks for reading Primrose and the Dreadful Duke. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you’d like to be notified whenever I release a new book, please join my Readers’ Group.

  I welcome all honest reviews. Reviews and word of mouth help other readers to find books, so please consider taking a few moments to leave a review at your e-bookstore or on Goodreads.

  Primrose and the Dreadful Duke is the first book in the Garland Cousins series. The next book, Violet and the Bow Street Runner, will be released in 2019.

  The Garland Cousins series is part of the Baleful Godmother series. The first Baleful Godmother novel, Unmasking Miss Appleby, and the series prequel, The Fey Quartet and are available for free when you join my Readers’ Group. Here’s the link: www.emilylarkin.com/newsletter.

  If you’d like to read the first two chapters of Unmasking Miss Appleby, please turn the page . . .

  Unmasking Miss Appleby

  Chapter One

  October 10th, 1805

  London

  Marcus Langford, Ninth Earl of Cosgrove, strode down the steps of Westminster Palace. Clouds streamed across the face of the moon.

  “Excellent speech, sir,” his secretary, Lionel, said.

  Marcus didn’t reply. His mind wasn’t on the address he’d made to the Upper House, it was on the sniggers he’d heard as the debating chamber emptied, the whispers that followed him down the corridor. Cuckold Cosgrove.

  A black tide of rage swept through him. “We’ll walk back,” he said abruptly, and lengthened his stride. The icy wind gusted, making the torches flare in their brackets, almost snatching his hat from his head, filling his mouth with the stink of the Thames.

  Lionel tucked the satchel of papers more firmly under one arm and trotted to keep up. “Did you see Hyde’s face, sir? He was so angry, he went purple. I thought he’d have apoplexy, right there in the chamber!”

  “I wish he would.” St. James’s Park loomed dark on their left. “We’ll cut through here.”

  The clatter of carriage wheels faded behind them. The fetid smell of the Thames receded, overlain by the scents of dank soil and dead leaves. Gravel crunched beneath their boots.

  “You’re correct, sir,” Lionel said, puffing faintly alongside him. “It’s the best course. Abolition of the trade, not of slavery itself. Slavery will disappear as a natural consequence.”

  Marcus grunted. He spread his hands wide, clenched them. He needed an outlet for his anger. A bout with Jackson or—

  “Did you hear that?” Lionel swung back the way they’d come. “Sir . . . I think someone’s following us.”

  Marcus half-turned. He saw leafless branches whipping in the wind, saw shadow and moonlight patterning the ground. “There’s no one—”

  His ears caught the faint crunch of gravel.

  There. Not half a dozen yards distant, in the deepest shadows: three men, mufflers hiding their faces.

  Footpads.

  His pulse kicked, and sped up.

  “Run, sir!” Lionel cried.

  Marcus ignored him. He stepped forward, hands clenched, teeth bared in a snarl. This was exactly what he needed. A fight.

  The footpads abandoned their stealth and rushed from the shadows.

  Marcus threw a punch at the nearest man, connected solidly, and followed with a left hook that brought the footpad to the ground.

  A second man aimed a sloppy blow at him. Marcus grabbed his attacker’s wrist and twisted, tossing him over his hip. A perfect cross-buttock throw. Pity Jackson didn’t see that.

  “Sir!” Lionel cried, his voice high with panic. “Run!”

  Marcus swung again, striking the third man in the mouth. Lips split beneath his knuckles. The satisfaction of drawing blood made him laugh, a harsh sound that echoed in the night.

  The first footpad scrambled to his feet. Marcus sank his fist into the man’s belly. The footpad collapsed with a whoosh of gin-scented breath.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the second footpad lurch upright. Lionel hit him over the head with the satchel.

  Marcus ripped off his torn gloves and gulped a breath, gulped a laugh. He’d rarely felt so alive—the cold air in his throat, the sting of broken skin on his knuckles, the savage exhilaration in his blood.

  He whirled to face the third footpad. The man ducked his punch and grabbed him in a bear hug that smelled of sour sweat and ale. They grappled for a moment, muscles straining. The footpad slammed his forehead against Marcus’s.

  The night dissolved into stars—then snapped back into focus: the moon, the scurrying clouds, the skeleton shapes of the trees. A knee jabbed into Marcus’s stomach. “Cuckold Cosgrove,” the footpad growled.

  Marcus tore free of the man’s grip, stumbling back, almost winded. He knows who I am?

  The footpad struck at him with both fists.

  Marcus brushed aside the first blow and caught the second on his brow, threw an uppercut that snapped the man’s head back, grabbed the footpad and buried his knee in the man’s groin.

  The footpad doubled over with a choked cry. He collapsed when Marcus shoved him away. Two yards away, the first footpad was on hands and knees, retching.

  Marcus gulped a breath of icy air. He tasted blood on his tongue, felt it trickle down his brow and cheek. His exhilaration hardened into anger. The
footpads knew his name; this wasn’t a random attack.

  From behind came the crack of bone breaking and a cut-off cry of agony.

  He spun around.

  Lionel lay sprawled on the gravel path. The last footpad stood over him. Sheets of paper spilled from the satchel, scurrying across the ground, spinning in the wind like large white moths.

  Marcus uttered a roar. He charged at the footpad, knocked him down. “You son of a whore!” He grabbed the man’s hair and smashed his fist into the upturned face, battering him until he sagged senseless.

  Marcus shoved the footpad aside. “Lionel?” He fell to his knees alongside his secretary. The anger snuffed out. In its place was a deep, sucking fear. “Are you hurt?” Blood trickled into his eyes. He blinked it back and shook his head, spraying droplets. “Lionel! Answer me!”

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  October 13th, 1805

  Westcote Hall, Essex

  Charlotte Appleby laid down her needle and flexed her fingers. The handkerchief was almost finished: her uncle’s initials intertwined, and beneath them a tiny red hand, the symbol of a baronet. As if it helps Uncle Neville blow his nose better to know he’s a baronet. She snorted under her breath.

  The back of her neck prickled, as if someone had moved noiselessly to stand behind her.

  Charlotte turned her head sharply.

  No one stood behind her. The corner of the parlor was empty.

  Charlotte rubbed her nape, where the skin still prickled faintly. A draft, that’s all it was. She flicked a glance at her aunt and cousin, seated beside the fireplace.