The Duke's Dilemma: Regency Romance Menage Short Stories

by Lacoste, G. G.

  Owen was surprised to find a young woman, not a day over twenty, standing on his doorstep. She was an odd looking girl, unattractive and not without resemblance to Beatrice. Perhaps most unusual of all, the young girl was dressed in a maid's uniform.

  "I am so sorry to disturb you, my lord" she began, "but it seems my mother has forgotten her satchel in the kitchen and she has sent me to retrieve it."

  "What is the meaning of this?" the Duke demanded, "Who are you?"

  "Why I am Sarah, the daughter of Beatrice and maid of the manor."

  THE END

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   Copyright 2015 by Rosamund Talbot - All rights reserved.

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  The Duke’s Tryst

  Regency Romance

  By: Rosamund Talbot

  The Duke’s Tryst

  Chapter One

  "Madam, the guests are arriving."

  "Thank you, Rowan. I will be down shortly."

  Rowan removed his head from the door and closed it behind him before retreating back to the kitchen or his living quarters or wherever it is butlers go. The Duchess, meanwhile, returned to making herself beautiful; or at least, more beautiful than she already was. She lifted some loose strands of hair from her ear and gently prodded the stud of her earring through the small hole that had been present on her earlobe since she was nine years old. Once it was in and secure, she allowed those disobedient strands of hair to fall over her ear once again. While the Duchess took great pride in her appearance, she always made sure to allow a small clump of her locks to roam freely over her face, while the rest of her hair was tied neatly in a bun. It was a trick her mother had thought her when she was but a little girl.

  "Geraldine" her mother would say with a hunched back and busy hands, "when you have money and status, it is important to have a unique look. That way people will remember you." The ageing socialite was right; as soon as Geraldine began to leave one of two strands of hair over her face, she was recognised by more women and proposed to by more men. It was probably thanks to her eye-catching hairstyle that she had met her husband, the Duke. The couple had married five years prior to our introduction to the Duchess. Actually, to be precise, the couple had married four years and three hundred and sixty-four days prior.

  On this night, the Duke had organised an anniversary party in honour of his wife and himself, and had invited many respected members of the royal family. Those who were not respected members of the royal family were respected businessmen, the wealthiest in London at the time. For this reason, it was taking the Duchess longer than usual to prepare herself for the evening. She had now been in her chamber for two hours and was only just putting the finishing touches to her outfit and skin. She was in no rush, however, for her husband was downstairs greeting the guests as they arrived and he was more than capable of keeping them busy until she was ready to present herself. Though the Duke had been brought up by royal, and therefore wealthy parents, living a life free from any trauma or struggle or plight, he had always fancied himself as an entertainer and had long harboured a dream of taking to the stage with his jokes and stories. Of course, as soon as his parents found out that their son was interested in pursuing a career as an entertainer they cut off his inheritance until he saw sense. After two days of having nowhere to sleep and no food to eat, the seventeen-year-old future-duke agreed to give up his aspirations and return to the manor to be the son of his parents. Now, ten years later, the Duke still had not dared to pursue the career he wished to pursue, but managed to fill the void by regaling visitors to his home with witty comments and improbable tales of mischief and on this evening, he was doing just that.

  "Ah, cousin! How do you do!" The Duke shook the hand of his cousin Michael, whom he had not seen in a number of months; basic manners at the time lead to every good man being addressed as "cousin", so it is important to remember Michael and the Duke were biologically related. The two relatives exchanged pleasantries for a couple of moments before Michael asked a question which he had been dying to know the answer to for quite some time. In his carriage, on the way over, he had planned to ask it later in the evening when everybody was more relaxed, but he just couldn't help himself.

  "Tell me, Jacob" he began, knowing his cousin to be much more privy to the higher workings of the royal family than he was, "does the King George ever expect to return to the throne?"

  "I believe, cousin, that he is on the throne as we speak. Now that he has all this free time, I'm sure he does a lot of sitting around."

  "Do not joke, Jacob. Is the King to return to power or is he to perish?" The Duke grew serious for a moment. He had known King George on a slight but personal level and knew him to be a good man who he wished nothing but the best for. It seemed remiss to continue joking about him and not to provide those who asked with a genuine update about his health.

  "I do not believe that King George is expected to return to the throne at any time in the future, but he is also not going to perish. The King is a good man and is certainly going to be well looked after by those around him for the remainder of his life. He had sired a good heir in the Prince Regent and the Kingdom is in safe hands with him."

  There was a moment of awkward silence as Michael struggle to think of an appropriate response. He was not used to hearing his cousin speak so earnestly and so was caught of guard by the serious update and heartfelt sentiments that proceeded it. Thankfully, the silence was broken by the noise of somebody rapping at the door and gleefully calling for the Duke to answer them.

  "It is my brother" he told Michael amid the exterior shouts of "Jacob" and ventured to the door.

  "Who is it?" Jacob called gleefully from inside the manor.

  "It is your father. I have returned from the dead, it was too hot and I did not enjoy it. I demand you allow me to enter your house!" Jacob and Michael both laughed, as did the Duke's brother on the opposite side of the door.

  "Father! How nice it is to hear your voice again. I'd love to let you in, but I have a woman here and she is not decent."

  "Oh my son, you have never been with a decent woman before!" With this, all three men broke out it an uncontrollable fit of laughter; none of their family had been able to get along with Jacob's father and so he was usually a prime target for satire, especially since he could no longer strip them of their birth rights.

  With his hand shaking as he chuckled, the Duke opened the door to the manor welcomed his brother - he had reverted back to his brother and not his father - to his home. Almost immediately, Jacob's brother took him in his arms and squeezed the air from his lungs in a tight but well- intentioned show of brotherly love. Neither man had seen the other in over six years and they had both been looking forward to their reunion, since the day Jacob found out his brother would be returning to London. Jeffery, which had been his brother's name before he embarked on his travels, had always been somewhat of a loose cannon and held an appreciation for the unknown world. When he revealed to his parents his hopes to someday travel the globe, he too had his inheritance frozen until he agreed to be the son they wanted. However, unlike Jacob three years prior, Jeffery did not agree to such a thing. Instead, he withdrew all monies in his possession (some came from past allowance, the rest he had earned himself), and set out to travel as far as his money and status could take him. This turned out to be quite far and for the next three years he journeyed throughout the lesser-charted portions of the ear
th, experiencing new tastes and cultures and learning of a history entirely different to the one he had been taught as a boy.

  Three years after he had left the family home, Jeffery began the journey home to England after receiving a letter from Jacob informing him of their mother's passing. He set out on a boat from Arabia, anxious of the reception he was to receive. In none of his letters to his family did he mention he had converted to the religion of Islam and was now going by the name of "Ali"; he knew his new faith would not be accepted if it were disclosed by letter and so he decided to wait until he could inform his family of his life-altering decision, in person. Unfortunately, Ali's family were not so receptive of his new identity even when he broke the news while sitting at the end of the dining table (more specifically, his father was not so receptive). It was already two months after the burial of his mother. Getting back to England was a little tricky at the time, and the only reason he had made it into the house in the first place was because Jacob snuck him in without telling their father. Jacob had no problem accepting Jeffery's new identity and took to calling him Ali almost immediately. Their father, however, was thrown into a rage by the mere sight of his prodigal son sitting at his dining table when he entered the room.

  "What is he doing here?" the elder-Duke demanded, turning to Jacob with fury in his eyes.

  "I came back to see you" Ali interrupted, a little sheepish.

  "Have you come back to apologise? Have you come back to beg me for my forgiveness? Have you changed your ways?"

  "Yes father, I have changed my ways. I have found a better way." Ali paused for a moment, his father was a proud Englishman and he knew what he was about to tell him could bring on a heart attack. "I am a Muslim."

  Surprisingly, Ali's father did not die from shock, though Ali very nearly died from stab wounds. The furious Duke grabbed a knife from the table and literally chased his son from the manor, threatening to puncture his side if he were ever to return. For the next two years, Jacob maintained steady but secret contact with his brother. Their father would not tolerate any mention of Ali and refused to admit he had more than one son, so Jacob was forced to keep quiet about his letters from and too Arabia. Though he never said it to Jacob, it was clear that his father would disown him also if he had anything more to do with "the bastard". Of course, once the old man died four years later, Jacob instantly began planning his brother's return. This proved to be a little more difficult than he had imagined as in those four years Ali had become involved with some of the most influential people in the Muslim world and could not simply walk away from his duties. Finally, Ali was able to make time to return home to England for twelve months, news which made the Duke tremendously excited. By coincidence, Ali's arrival back home coincided with the marriage anniversary of the Duke and Duchess, making the homecoming even more meaningful. Now, for the first time in six years, here was Jacob's brother; he seemed more at peace with himself and those around than ever before.

  Chapter Two

  "Geraldine! Geraldine!" Jacob called up the stairs, hoping his voice would find its way to the main chamber in which the Duchess was still getting ready for the evening.

  "What is it?" she replied, the sound muffled by the numerous walls it was forced to travel to in order to reach the ears of the Duke.

  "Ali has arrived! My brother has returned!"

  "I'm here too!" Michael added in a successful attempt to make his cousins laugh.

  "Oh, how wonderful" she called back, "I'll be with you all momentarily." In the chamber, there wasn't much left for the Duchess to do. She double-checked her appearance in the mirror, leaning as close as her breasts would allow her to make sure she had not missed some tiny detail which would bother her all night. She was getting a little nervous now. She always felt butterflies in her stomach before hosting any well-known man, woman or man and woman in her manor, but the presence of Ali on this night made those butterflies much larger than they had ever been before. Geraldine had never met Ali before, but the way the Duke talked about his brother really made him seem like a person worth making a good first impression on.

  Satisfied with her appearance (for now), Geraldine rose from her place in front of her dresser and left the chamber. Standing on the landing, her left hand resting on the banister, the Duchess could hear the sound of her husband and Michael and Ali laughing in the dining room; the dining room and hallway where not separated by any wall and so any sound made in the dining room would easily drift through the rest of the house. The three men were loud. Quite loud. They talked of old times and the trouble they caused together throughout their childhoods. Jacob and Ali joked about their father while Michael insisted the former-Duke had always been nothing but kind to him until he was forced to admit that the deceased man was a tad on the awful side. Appearing sporadically and with no real reason in Jacob's sentences were words which Geraldine didn't even realise her husband knew how to use. He never employed any four letter words in his conversations with her, something which she greatly appreciated as she felt her ears were too delicate to hear such things. With a sigh and a deep breath, the Duchess braced herself for an evening she probably was not going to enjoy as much as she had initially thought and began to descend the staircase into the hallway and dining room.

  "Pause a moment, gentlemen" said the Duke to his family upon hearing the soft clacking of his wife's nervous footsteps on the wooden steps of the stairs. "The Duchess is on her way to join us."

  Ali lifted his hand to his head and gently guided it just above his hair, in search for any hair that was sticking up or sticking out or in some other way unappealing. However, he soon found that such a task was needless when the Duchess entered the room with those strands of golden fibres hanging carelessly over one ear.

  "Duchess" the brother of the Duke said respectfully, reaching his hand out and bowing slightly, though not too much.

  "You must be Ali" she replied as she drew closer, "I have heard so much about you."

  "And I have heard a great deal about you. Distance has prohibited my brother and me from engaging in frequent communication, but in all of his letters he had been sure to mention you." Ali and Grenadine shook hands in an awkward display of respect for each other, which felt far too formal for in-laws.

  Twenty minutes passed, maybe twenty-five, and the reunited family continued to laugh and joke; even the Duchess made an effort to contribute to the conversation, despite the fact a great deal of the inside jokes were lost on her. Finally another knock came to the front door and the Duke and Duchess momentarily excused themselves to tend to whatever esteemed member of society was about to enter the manor. The arriving guest was revealed to be one Henry Rhodes, one of London's most prominent moneylenders and actually quite a nice man when you were not engaging in business with him.

  "Jacob" Henry said with a smile on his face nearly the instant the door was opened to him, "how do you do?"

  "I am well, Henry. Welcome to our home." The Duke spoke the latter sentence in almost perfect unison with his wife. They had hosted a number of parties in their home and grew closer to achieving an exact simultaneous pronunciation of that phrase with each new guest. The couple lead Henry through the hallway, stopping once they reached what was generally considered to be the beginning of the dining room.

  "I believe you know my cousin, Michael."

  "Oh, of course. It is nice to see you once again." Henry and Michael shook hands before Henry retreated back to where he had been standing to await his next formal introduction.

  "And, you may not remember him, but this is my brother."

  "I knew I recognised this young man,” declared Henry before extending his hand with far more vigour that he had done previously, "it's been a long, long time."

  "Indeed it has" agreed Ali, "indeed it has."

  Once all hands had been shaken and the maid of the manor had provided Henry with his drink, the moneylender turned to the Duke and spoke loud enough for everybody else to hear.

  "I must say,
Jacob, I'm surprised to see your brother return to England. I'm especially surprised to see him here in your manor."

  "Why is that?" asked Jacob nervous, just knowing the man was about to say something to offend but his brother and himself.

  "He so blatantly disrespected your father by going against his wishes and everything which he stood for." He raised his drink to his mouth and took one strong sip before pointing to, but not looking at Ali. "When he fled this great country, he broke your father's heart. When he returned as a follower of some far out religion, he set fire to what remained of that all important organ. Far be it from me to judge a man by the company which he keeps, but if your father where alive today he would greatly disapprove of you having your brother in this great manor."

  "Well, Henry, I..." Jacob was not entirely sure what he was supposed to say but spoke anyway in order to avoid an awkward silence. "I think..." he spoke again, conscious of the fact Michael might say something regrettable if given the chance to get a word in. He didn't need to worry about Ali, his religious beliefs practically forbid him from saying anything negative to anyone; but his cousin had a tendency to let his mouth get him into trouble and had made more than a few powerful enemies in the past.