Dangerous
Page 1
“IN SHORT, SIR, I WOULD LIKE A MARRIAGE WITHOUT EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT.”
The marquess’s eyebrows, his only expressive feature, crept up his forehead, as if he had a difficult time imagining something as foreign as an emotion—not to mention becoming entangled by one.
They took each other’s measure before she broke the silence. “What of you, my lord? Why do you wish to marry? It does not sound as if your two experiences with marriage were felicitous.” Mia did not mean to be cruel, but she needed to know what he wanted and why he was here tonight—a place he clearly wished not to be.
“I need an heir.” His pupils flared until his eyes were almost black, as if he were imagining the process of getting an heir. With her.
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Dangerous
Minerva Spencer
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
“IN SHORT, SIR, I WOULD LIKE A MARRIAGE WITHOUT EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT.”
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Shantal M. LaViolette
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4719-3
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4722-3
eISBN-10: 1-4201-4722-6
For Alicia Condon. Thanks for loving my book.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost I’m deeply grateful to Alicia Condon for picking my manuscript out of the pile that day in February. I am also grateful to the numerous people at Kensington who work like crazy to produce such a beautiful cover and tidy contents. Thanks to my agent, Jessica Alvarez, for gracefully putting up with my hundreds of questions. A HUGE thanks to Elizabeth Hoyt for agreeing to read a complete stranger’s book and giving me such a lovely blurb!
To George McFetridge and Marla Murphy who both told me 2017 would be my year—and they were right! Thanks for the hours and hours of time you spent reading, discussing, and listening. Thanks for the type of friendship and support that helped me keep going through the rough patches. You guys are just too damned cool.
I’m also very grateful to Nancy Mayer, who knows so much about Regency England it is scary. Also a big thank-you to the wonderful Land of Enchantment Romance Authors. I am particularly grateful to my fellow historical author Louise Bergen, my carpool buddy/Yoda Jeffe Kennedy, and Tamra Baumann—all of whom are kind, knowledgeable, and all-around fabulous. Thanks to Mary Lane and Doug for listening so patiently. Thank you, Theresa Romain, for being generous to a stranger. A huge thanks to Bernard Cornwell for his invaluable help on the subject of eighteenth-century sailing times/distances—sorry my questions made your eyes cross....
Love and gratitude to my mom, who really is The Best Mom in the World.
Last but not least, words cannot express my appreciation for my “hugsband” Brantly for his cheerful willingness to get in the car and buy me Pepsi and M&Ms, no matter the time of day or night.
Chapter One
London, 1811
Euphemia Marlington considered poisoning the Duke of Carlisle. After all, in the harem poison was a perfectly reasonable solution to one’s problems.
Unfortunately, poison was not the answer to this particular problem.
First, she had no poison, or any idea how one acquired such a thing in this cold, confusing country.
Second, and far more important, poisoning one’s father was considered bad ton.
The Duke of Carlisle could have no idea what was going through his daughter’s mind as he paced a circuit around his massive mahogany desk, his voice droning on in a now familiar lecture. Mia ensured her father’s ignorance by keeping her expression meek and mild, a skill she had perfected during the seventeen years she’d spent in Baba Hassan’s palace. Appearing serene while entertaining murderous thoughts made up a large part of days spent among sixty or so women, at least fifty of whom would have liked to see her dead.
Mia realized the duke’s cavernous study had gone silent. She looked up to find a pair of green eyes blazing down at her.
“Are you listening to me, Euphemia?” His bristly auburn eyebrows arched like angry red caterpillars.
Mia cursed her wandering attention. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but I did not fully comprehend.” It was a small lie, and one that had worked well several times in the past six weeks. While it was true she still thought in Arabic, Mia understood English perfectly well.
Unless her attention had wandered.
The duke’s suspicious glare told her claiming
a language-related misunderstanding was no longer as compelling as it had been weeks before.
“I said, you must take care what you disclose to people. I have gone to great lengths to conceal the more lurid details of your past. Talk of beheadings, poisonings, and, er . . . eunuchs makes my task far more difficult.” Her father’s pale skin darkened at being forced to articulate the word eunuch.
Mia ducked her head to hide a smile.
The duke—apparently interpreting her bowed head as a sign of contrition—resumed pacing, the thick brown and gold Aubusson carpet muffling the sounds of his booted feet. He cleared his throat several times, as if to scour his mouth of the distasteful syllables he’d just been forced to utter, and continued.
“My efforts on your behalf have been promising, but that will change if you insist on disclosing every last sordid detail of your past.”
Not every detail, Mia thought as she eyed her father from beneath lowered lashes. How would the duke react if she told him about the existence of her seventeen-year-old son, Jibril? Or if she described—in sordid detail—some of Sultan Babba Hassan’s more exotic perversions? Was it better to appall him with the truth or to allow him to continue treating her as if she were a girl of fifteen, rather than a woman of almost three and thirty?
The answer to that question was obvious: the truth would serve nobody’s interest, least of all Mia’s.
“I am sorry, Your Grace,” she murmured.
The duke grunted and resumed his journey around the room. “Your cousin assures me you’ve worked hard to conduct yourself in a respectable manner. However, after this latest fiasco—” He shook his head, lines creasing his otherwise smooth brow.
Her father was referring to a dinner party at which she’d stated that beheading criminals was more humane than hanging them. How could Mia have known that such a simple statement would cause such consternation?
The duke stopped in front of her again. “I am concerned your cousin Rebecca is not firm enough with you. Perhaps you would benefit from a stricter hand—your aunt Philippa’s, for instance?”
Mia winced. A single week under her aunt Philippa’s gimlet eye had been more terrifying than seventeen years in a harem full of scheming women.
The duke nodded, an unpleasant expression taking possession of his handsome features. “Yes, I can see that in spite of the language barrier you understand how your life would change were I to send you to live at Burnewood Park with my sister.”
The horrid suggestion made Mia’s body twitch to prostrate itself—an action she’d employed with Babba Hassan whenever she’d faced his displeasure; displeasure that caused more than one woman to lose her head. Luckily, Mia restrained the impulse before she could act on it. The last time she’d employed the gesture of humble respect—the day she’d arrived in England—the duke had been mortified into speechlessness to find his daughter groveling at his well-shod feet.
She bowed her head, instead. “I should not care to live with Aunt Philippa, Your Grace.”
The duke’s sigh floated above her head like the distant rumble of thunder. “Look at me, Euphemia.” Mia looked up. Her father’s stern features were tinged with resignation. “I would have thought you would wish to forget your wretched past and begin a new life. You are no longer young, of course, but you are still attractive and within childbearing years. Your history is something of an ... obstacle.” He stopped, as if nonplussed by the inadequacy of the word. “But there are several respectable men who are quite willing to marry you. You must cultivate acceptance and learn to accept minor, er, shortcomings in your suitors.”
Shortcomings. The word caused an almost hysterical bubble of mirth to rise in her throat. What the duke really meant was the only men willing to take an older woman with a dubious past were senile, hideous, brainless, diseased, or some combination thereof.
She said, “Yes, Your Grace.”
“I know these are not the handsome princes of girlish fantasies, but you are no longer a girl, Euphemia.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were speaking about the state of Carlisle House’s drains, rather than his only daughter’s happiness. “If you do not mend your ways soon, even these few choices will disappear and the only course open to you will be a quiet life at Burnewood Park, and we both know you don’t wish for that.” He let those words sit for a moment before continuing. “The Season is almost over and it is time you made a decision about your future. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Grace, I understand.” All too well. Her father wished to have Mia off his hands before she did something so scandalous she would be unmarriageable.
“Very good, then.” The duke’s forehead reverted to its smooth, unlined state. “This ball tonight will be an excellent opportunity to further your acquaintance with several of the men who have expressed an interest in you. You need merely behave with decorum and enjoy yourself—ah, within reason, of course.” He patted her on the shoulder, returned to his chair, and resumed examining his ledger.
The audience was at an end.
Outside the duke’s study a pair of towering footmen stood sentry. One of them broke from his frozen state long enough to close the door behind her.
“Thank you,” Mia said, even though she knew it was not done to thank servants.
The man’s eyes remained fixed on some point over her left shoulder but a dull flush climbed up the muscular column of his throat.
Mia had been back in England for weeks but she was still distracted by the presence of attractive men who weren’t eunuchs. That fascination often worked both ways and she could feel the weight of curious eyes on her back as she made her way toward the library.
It was the same no matter whether she went to a shop or a ball or her family’s dining room; people were desperate to learn more about the Duke of Carlisle’s mysterious daughter. Her father’s servants, the crowds of strangers who waited for hours outside Carlisle House every day just to catch a glimpse of her, and, most especially, the men who wrote for the various scandal sheets available on every street corner in London.
Newspapermen couldn’t generate stories about her fast enough to satisfy their hungry readers. The most intrepid men had tried to get those stories firsthand. They had climbed into Mia’s carriage—once while it was still moving; hidden in the boot of the duke’s town coach; and sneaked into the fitting room at her favorite modiste. One enterprising man had even masqueraded as a female and secured a scullery maid position at Carlisle House.
The entire country clamored to know more about Mia’s mysterious past. Everyone, that was, except the members of her own family, who lived in a state of perpetual terror that she would do or say something horrific to push their family name beyond the pale.
Mia opened the library door and stopped. Her younger brother sat at the massive desk that dominated the far side of the book-lined room. Only the top of his head was visible above the teetering piles of books and papers. She stifled a groan. Was there nowhere in this enormous house she could be alone and think? She met her brother’s startled green eyes.
“I’m sorry, Cian. I did not know you were working. I will leave you to your studies.” She began backing out of the room but Cian leapt to his feet.
“Please, stay. I’d love your company.” He gestured to the mountain of books. “I’m having a wretched time thinking today.”
Mia sighed and closed the library door behind her.
“You think too much, Cian.” She crossed the gleaming expanse of dark wood between them and lowered herself onto the oxblood leather sofa across from his desk.
“So Father says.”
Mia grimaced. “Ah, Father.” She pulled on the ribbons that held her thin kid slippers to her ankles and kicked them off before tucking her feet beneath her. She looked up to find Cian staring and held up a hand. “Please, Brother, I have just come from one scolding. Do not give me another.”
Cian shook his head, the action causing a lock of auburn hair to fall over his brow. “I don’t give a
rap how you sit, Mia. But you know Father does. You’d better get used to rakings if you insist on sitting that way.” He shifted a stack of books to one side to see her better. “But enough of that. Tell me, are you excited about tonight?”
“No.”
Cian laughed.
“I am not jesting. Tonight is just another opportunity for me to do or say something mortifying and draw Father’s censure.”
“Oh come, Mia. I’ve read nothing about you in the betting book at my club.” He grinned. “Not in the past week, at any rate.”
“Ha. Very amusing. I should think my behavior at the Charrings’ ball provided enough to fill several books.” Mia propped an elbow on the back of the settee and dropped her chin into her palm.
Cian’s smile faded. “You must forget about that, er, incident, Mia. I’ve not heard it mentioned in ages.”
That incident was Mia’s disastrous first ball. Mia thought her brother’s reassurance was naïve and optimistic. Just because men were no longer putting wagers in betting books did not mean the matter had been forgotten.
“In any event,” he continued. “I understand there will be numerous swains in attendance this evening.”
Her brother appeared determined to put the best face on an event that was no better than a public auction.
Mia shrugged. “Yes, there will be no undesirables at tonight’s dinner, only the finest pedigrees. After Father caught me talking to the scion of a coal magnate at the Powells’ soiree, I now understand that wealth derived from coal or textiles is considered detrimental to the bloodline. Imbecility, decrepitude, and foppery are, however, quite acceptable.”
Cian glanced at the door, as if somebody—the duke?—might be listening at the keyhole.
“My dear sister, you must curb your tongue if you are to catch even such men as fit those descriptions.”