Dukes In Disguise

by Grace Burrowes, Susanna Ives, Emily Greenwood

  “We’ll visit often,” Connor said. “Your first love is buried here, the children adore their farm, and somebody will need to listen to MacTavish fret about the crops and the sheep and Horty’s moods.”

  MacTavish would have the tenancy on generous terms until the children were of age to decide what to do with their legacy. Julianna had suggested this, and Connor had been delighted with the idea.

  Connor seemed delighted generally, a veritable Duke of Delight.

  “I’ll be sorry to leave this place,” Connor said as the argument shifted from peafowl to the best route up the hill for viewing the farmstead. “I’m not at all sorry I came. In fact, I don’t think that was a bullet that creased my fundament after all. I think it was Cupid’s arrow.”

  Antigone’s head came up. “You were shot in the… the… nether parts with a bullet, Mowne?”

  Con abruptly looked very much the duke. “Did I say that? I must have misspoken, for a duke would never tolerate such an indignity. Shot in the hindquarters? Never. I was felled by the arrow of true love and intend to remain in that blessed state for all the rest of my days and night.”

  As it happened, he did just that, and so did his duchess of the dales.

  As for his friends Lucere and Starlingham… well, those stories took somewhat different turns…

  To my dear Readers,

  This entire anthology grew out of a conversation between me, Susanna Ives, and Emily Greenwood at a romance writer’s conference, (and yes, the bar was still open). We came up with a premise, a few plot basics, and the name of the village, and next thing you know… well, you’re holding the result in your hands. I hope you enjoyed Con and Julianna’s story, because this whole project has been sheer fun for the authors.

  My next Regency tale is Duke of My Dreams, a Regency novella set a summer house party. Some of you might recall Elias, Duke of Sedgemere from Dancing in the Duke’s Arms. His story is bundled with Another Dream, a novella by Mary Balogh set in the Bedwyn world, and both stories will be released in April as Once Upon a Dream. Over the summer, I’ll publish Jack: The Jaded Gentlemen, Book IV. (You know Jack as Sir John Dewey Fanning, but Madeline Hennesey knows him as a very accomplished kisser!)

  You can keep up with all of my releases and author events by signing up for my newsletter. My newsletters are infrequent—I might do six a year—and I will never, ever, no never, part with your email address.

  You can also stop by my website at graceburrowes.com and get all the latest news, read excerpts, and find the occasional giveaway on the blog.

  Happy reading, and before we get to Lucere’s story… I tucked in a little sneak peek from Duke of My Dreams.

  Grace Burrowes

  Duke of My Dreams

  * * *

  “You are my oldest and dearest friend, Sedgemere. I do not ask this boon of you lightly.”

  Elias, Duke of Sedgemere, strolled along, damned if he’d embarrass Hardcastle with any show of sentiment in the face of Hardcastle’s wheedling. Hardcastle was, after all, Sedgemere’s oldest and dearest friend too.

  Also Sedgemere’s only friend.

  They took the air beside Hyde Park’s Serpentine, ignoring the stares and whispers they attracted. While Sedgemere was a blond so pale as to draw the eye, Hardcastle was dark. They were both above average in height and brawn, though Mayfair boasted any number of large, well-dressed men, particularly as the fashionable hour approached.

  They were dukes, however, and to be a duke was to be afflicted with public interest on every hand. To be an unmarried duke was to be cursed, for in every ballroom, at the reins of every cabriolet, connected to every parasol, was a duchess-in-waiting.

  Thus Sedgemere endured Hardcastle’s importuning.

  “You do not ask a boon,” Sedgemere said, tipping his hat to a fellow walking an enormous brindle mastiff. “You demand half my summer, when summer is the best time of year to bide at Sedgemere House.”

  They had known each other since the casual brutality and near starvation that passed for a boy’s indoctrination at Eton, and through the wenching and wagering that masqueraded as an Oxford education. Hardcastle, however, had never married, and thus knew not what horrors awaited him on the way to the altar.

  Sedgemere knew, and he further knew that Hardcastle’s days as a bachelor were numbered, if Hardcastle’s estimable grandmama was dispatching him to summer house parties.

  “If you do not come with me to this houseparty, Sedgemere, I will become a bad influence on my godson. I will teach the boy about cigars, brandy, fast women, and profligate gambling.”

  “The child is seven years old, Hardcastle, but feel free to corrupt him at your leisure, assuming he does not prove to be the worse influence on—good God, not these two again.”

  The Cheshire twins, blond, blue-eyed, smiling, and as relentless as an unmentionable disease, came twittering down the path, twirling matching parasols.

  “Miss Cheshire, Miss Sharon,” Hardcastle said, tipping his hat. Though Sedgemere discreetly yanked on his friend’s arm, nothing would do but Hardcastle must exchange pleasantries as if these women weren’t the social equivalent of Scylla and Charybdis.

  “Ladies.” Sedgemere bowed as well, for he was in public and the murder of a best friend was better undertaken in private.

  “Your Graces! How fortunate that we should meet!” Miss Cheshire gushed. The elder by four minutes, as Sedgemere had been informed on at least a hundred occasions, she generally led the conversational charges. “I told Sharon this very morning that you could not possibly have left Town without calling upon us, and I see I was right, for here you both are!”

  Exactly where Sedgemere did not want to be.

  Abruptly, three weeks trudging about the hills of the Lake District loomed not as a penance owed a dear friend, but as a reprieve, even if it meant uprooting the boys.

  “My plans are not yet entirely made,” Sedgemere said. “Though Hardcastle and I will both be leaving Town shortly.”

  Miss Sharon was desolated to hear this, though everybody left the pestilential heat of a London summer if they could. She cooed and twittered and clung from one end of the Serpentine to the other, until Sedgemere was tempted to push her into the water simply to allow some blood to flow back into his lower arm.

  “We bid you adieu,” Hardcastle said, tipping his hat once more, fifty interminable, cooing, clutching yards later. “And we bid you farewell, for as Sedgemere says, the time has come for ruralizing. I’m sure we’ll see both of you when we return to London.”

  Hardcastle was up to something, Sedgemere knew not what. Hardcastle was a civil fellow, though not even the Cheshire twins would accuse him of charm. Sedgemere liked that about him, liked that one man could be relied upon to be honest at all times, about all matters. Unfortunately, such guilelessness would make Hardcastle a lamb to slaughter among the house-party set.

  Amid much simpering and parasol twirling, the Cheshire ladies minced back to Park Lane, there to lurk like trolls under a bridge until the next hapless title came along to enjoy the fresh air.

  “Turn around now,” Sedgemere said, taking Hardcastle by the arm and walking him back the way they’d come. “Before they start fluttering handkerchiefs as if the Navy were departing for Egypt. I suppose you leave me no choice but to accompany you on this infernal frolic to the Lakes.”

  “Because you are turning into a bore and a disgrace and must hide up north?” Hardcastle inquired pleasantly.

  “Because there’s safety in numbers, you dolt.”

  “I say, that is a handsome woman,” Hardcastle muttered. Hardcastle did not notice women, but an octogenarian Puritan would have taken a closer look at the vision approaching on the path.

  “Miss Anne Faraday,” Sedgemere said, a comely specimen indeed. Tall, unfashionably curvaceous, unfashionably dark-haired, she was also one of few women whose company did not send Sedgemere into a foul humor. In fact, her approach occasioned something like relief.

  “You’re n
ot dodging off into the rhododendrons,” Hardcastle said, “and yet you seem to know her.”

  Would Miss Faraday acknowledge Sedgemere? She was well beyond her come out, and no respecter of dukes, single or otherwise.

  “I don’t know her well, but I like her very much,” Sedgemere said. “She hates me, you see. Has no marital aspirations in my direction whatsoever. For that alone, she enjoys my most sincere esteem.”

  * * *

  Effie was chattering about the great burden of having to pack up Anne’s dresses in this heat, and about the dust of the road, and all the ghastly impositions on a lady’s maid resulting from travel to the countryside at the end of the Season.

  Anne half-listened, but mostly she was absorbed with the effort of not noticing. She did not notice the Cheshire twins, for example, all but cutting her in public. They literally could not afford to cut her. Neither could the Henderson heir, who merely touched his hat brim to her as if he couldn’t recall that he’d seen her in Papa’s formal parlor not three days ago.

  “It’s that dook,” Effie muttered, “the ice dook, they call him.”

  “He’s not icy, Effie. Sedgemere is simply full of his own consequence.”

  And why shouldn’t he be? He was handsome in a rigid, frigid way, with white-gold hair that no breeze would dare ruffle. His features were an assemblage of patrician attributes—a nose well suited to being looked down, a mouth more full than expected, but no matter, for Anne had never seen that mouth smile. Sedgemere’s eyes were a disturbingly pale blue, as if some Viking ancestor looked out of them, one having a grand sulk to be stranded so far from his frozen landscapes and turbulent seas.

  “Your papa could buy and sell the consequence of any three dooks, miss, and well they know it.”

  “The problem in a nutshell,” Anne murmured as Sedgemere’s gaze lit on her.

  He was in company with the Duke of Hardcastle, whom Anne had heard described as semi-eligible. Hardcastle had an heir, twelve estates, and a dragon for a grandmother. He was notably reserved, though Anne liked what she knew of him. He wasn’t prone to staring at bosoms, for example.

  Always a fine quality in a man.

  Sedgemere was even wealthier than Hardcastle, had neither mama nor extant duchess, but was father to three boys. To Anne’s dismay, His Grace of Sedgemere did not merely touch a gloved finger to his hat brim, he instead doffed his hat and bowed.

  “Miss Faraday, hello.”

  She was so surprised, her curtseys lacked the proper deferential depth. “Your Graces, good day.”

  Then came the moment Anne dreaded most, when instead of not-noticing her, a scion of polite society did notice her, simply for the pleasure of brushing her aside. Sedgemere had yet to indulge in that particular sport with her, but he too, had visited in Papa’s parlor more than once.

  “Shall you walk with us for a moment?” Sedgemere asked. “I believe you know Hardcastle, or I’d perform the introductions.”

  A large ducal elbow aimed itself in Anne’s direction. Such an elbow never came her way unless the duke in question owed Papa at least ten thousand pounds.

  “Sedgemere’s on his best behavior,” Hardcastle said, taking Anne’s other arm, “because if you tolerate his escort, then he’ll not find other ladies plaguing him. The debutantes fancy Sedgemere violently this time of year.”

  “The young ladies fancy unmarried dukes any time of year,” Anne replied. Nonetheless, when Sedgemere tucked her hand onto his arm, she allowed it. The gossips would say that the presuming, unfortunate Anne Faraday was after a duke. No, that she was after two dukes.

  “Will you spend the summer in Town, ma’am?” Hardcastle asked.

  “Likely not, Your Grace. Papa’s business means he will remain here, but he prefers that I spend some time in the shires, if possible.”

  “You always mention your father’s business as early in a conversation as possible,” Sedgemere said.

  Anne could not decipher Sedgemere. His expression was as unreadable as a winter sky. If he’d been insulting her, the angle of his attack was subtle.

  “I merely answered His Grace of Hardcastle’s question. What of Your Graces? Will you soon leave for the country?”

  Miss Helen Trimble and Lady Evette Hartley strolled past, and the consternation on their faces was almost worth the beating Anne’s reputation would take once they were out of earshot. The gentlemen tipped their hats, the ladies dipped quick curtseys. Hardcastle was inveigled into accompanying the ladies to the gates of the park, and then—

  Like a proud debutante poised in her newest finery at the top of the ballroom stairs, Sedgemere had come to a full stop.

  “Your Grace?” Anne prompted, tugging on Sedgemere’s arm.

  “They did not acknowledge you. Those women did not so much as greet you. You might have been one of Mr. Dorning’s mongrel dogs.”

  Well, no, because Mr. Dorning’s canines were famously well-mannered, and thus endured much cooing and fawning from the ladies. Abruptly, Anne wished she could scurry off across the grass, and bedamned to manners, dukes, and young women who were terrified of growing old without a husband.

  “The ladies often don’t acknowledge me, Your Grace. I wish you would not remark it. The agreement we have is that they don’t notice me, and I don’t notice their rudeness. You will please neglect to mention this to my father.”

  As calculating as Papa was in business, he was a tender-hearted innocent when it came to ballroom warfare. In Papa’s mind, his little girl—all nearly six feet of her—was simply too intelligent, pretty, sophisticated, and lovely for the friendship of the simpering twits and lisping viscounts.

  “An agreement not to notice you?” Sedgemere snapped. “Who made such an agreement? Not that pair of dowdy poseurs. They couldn’t agree on how to tie their bonnet ribbons.”

  The park was at its best as summer advanced, while all the rest of London became malodorous and stifling. The fashionable hour was about to begin, and thus the duke’s behavior would soon attract notice.

  “Your Grace will please refrain from making a scene,” Anne said through gritted teeth. “I am the daughter of a man who holds the vowels of half the papas, uncles, and brothers of polite society. The ladies resent that, even if they aren’t privy to the specifics.”

  Anne wasn’t privy to the specifics either, thank heavens.

  Sedgemere condescended to resume sauntering, leading Anne away from the Park Lane gates, deeper into the park’s quiet greenery. She at first thought he was simply obliging her request, but a muscle leapt along his jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” Anne said. “If you owe Papa money, I assure you I’m not aware of it. He’s most discreet, and I would never pry, and it’s of no moment to me whether—”

  “Hush,” Sedgemere growled. “I’m trying to behave. One mustn’t use foul language before a lady. Those women were ridiculous.”

  “They were polite to you,” Anne said.

  “Everybody is polite to a duke. It’s nauseating.”

  “Everybody is rude to a banker’s daughter. That’s not exactly pleasant either, Your Grace.”

  “Everybody is rude to you?”

  Sedgemere carried disdain around with him like an expensive cape draped over his arm, visible at twenty paces, unlikely to be mislaid. His curiosity, as if Anne’s situation were a social experiment, and she responsible for reporting its results, disappointed her.

  “Must you make sport of my circumstances, Your Grace? Perhaps you’d care to take yourself off now. My maid will see me home.”

  He came to a leisurely halt and tucked his gloved hand over Anne’s knuckles, so she could not free herself of him without drawing notice.

  “You are sending me away,” he said. “A duke of the realm, fifty-third in line for the throne, and you’re sending me packing like a presuming, jug-eared footman who neglected to chew adequate quantities of parsley after overimbibing. Hardcastle will not believe this.”

  Incredulity was apparently in the air, for
Anne could not believe what she beheld either. The Duke of Sedgemere, he of the icy eyes and frosty condescension, was regarding her with something approaching curiosity. Interest, at least, and not the sort of interest that involved her bosom.

  “Perhaps you’d better toddle on, then,” Anne said. “I’m sure there’s a debutante—or twelve—who will expire of despair if she can’t flaunt her wares at you before sundown.”

  “I’m dismissed out of hand, and now I’m to toddle. Dukes do not toddle, madam. Perhaps the heat is affecting your judgment.” His tone would have frozen the Serpentine to a thickness of several inches.

  Sedgemere, poor man, must owe Papa a very great deal of money.

  “Good day, Your Grace. Have a pleasant summer.”

  “I must make allowances,” he said, his grip on Anne’s fingers snug. “You’re not used to the undivided attention of so lofty a personage as I, and the day is rather warm. When next we meet, I assure you I will have the toddling well in hand. I enjoy a challenge, you see. You have a pleasant summer too, Miss Faraday, and my kindest regards to your dear papa.”

  Sedgemere’s demeanor remained crushingly correct as he bowed with utmost graciousness over Anne’s hand. When he tipped his hat to her, she could have sworn those chilly blue eyes had gained a hint of warmth.

  Or more than hint?

  Order your copy of Once Upon a Dream, and enjoy the rest of Duke of My Dreams!

  DUCHESS OF LIGHT

  * * *

  SUSANNA IVES

  Chapter One

  * * *

  “Just hang me,” the Duke of Lucere declared. He stood, holding his bag and surveying the teeming metropolis that was Lesser Puddlebury.