The Duke of Kisses

by Darcy Burke

“May I call on her at Stour’s Edge, then?” David asked deferentially.

  “I might suggest writing to her first, but I have no objection—provided you keep your word to me.”

  David had been about to say he was a man of honor, that he always kept his word. Except he hadn’t. Not to his father. The anguish inside him drove him to say, “If I break her heart, you have my permission to thrash me, destroy me, utterly ruin me.”

  “We’ve an agreement, then.” Clare nodded, and his demeanor lightened. “You can’t be planning to leave London now? You just took your seat in the Lords.”

  In truth, he shouldn’t leave until the Season was over. Or at least nearly over. “I won’t go—not yet. I will, however, write to her. Thank you for the suggestion. And your permission.”

  “Just remember that Fanny has a father,” Clare said. “If you desire to move past courtship, you’d best speak with him—John Snowden in Pickering, Yorkshire.”

  “I will do that, thank you.” David made to leave, but Clare pivoted, which halted David’s progress.

  Clare pinned him with a steady stare. “Ivy and I care for Fanny very much. It seems she may care for you—I would hope that the depth of her feelings would be reciprocated.”

  “I believe they are.” David could only hope that she would return his affection. “And maybe more so,” he added softly.

  “Excellent.” Clare grinned. “See you later, then.”

  David inclined his head and left, feeling a bit less enthusiastic than when he’d arrived. He hated that she’d left town and hoped it wasn’t his fault. He’d write to her immediately and eagerly await her response.

  As soon as he returned home, his mother intercepted him before he could reach his study. “David, might I have a word?”

  He could well imagine what she wished to speak with him about. He’d successfully avoided her all day. And while he’d prefer to continue doing so, he acknowledged that he couldn’t put her off indefinitely. “If you plan to discuss Miss Stoke, I recommend you don’t bother. My decision is firm.”

  He continued his path to his study, unsurprised that she followed behind him.

  “You barely gave her a chance,” his mother said.

  David went to his desk and turned to face her. He lowered himself to perch on the edge and regarded her with a restless glower. “It isn’t about her. I’m sure she’s lovely. However, I met someone before I had the chance to make Miss Stoke’s acquaintance. Fate delivered me a different path, and I’m going to take it.”

  “Fate also stole your father.” Her voice was dark and bitter, like the coffee he drank on cold mornings. “Fate is cruel and chaotic. You must make your own choices.”

  He gave her a wry stare. “That’s precisely what I’m doing.”

  She exhaled in exasperation. “You can’t mean to choose Miss Snowden.”

  “I do, and I don’t care what you have to say about the matter.”

  “She comes from a working-class family, and her sister was ruined by a viscount.”

  David rose from the desk and angrily stalked toward his mother. “Do not slander her.”

  The countess lifted her chin. “It’s true. Lord Bothwick ruined her more than a decade ago. He even got her with child.”

  The denial died on his tongue. This was more than reason for Clare to have challenged the man to a duel. “None of that matters,” David said, thinking he might want to challenge Bothwick too.

  His mother’s gaze flared with outrage. “Of course it matters! You can’t marry someone like that. As if that isn’t bad enough, she is a Snowden.”

  David blinked at her, perplexed. “What the hell is that supposed to signify?”

  Taking a deep breath, she went to the window and looked outside briefly before turning back to face him. “You know of the footman who abducted your aunt.”

  Ice crystallized along his spine. Though they hadn’t spoken of her often—it had been too painful for David’s father and Uncle Walter—David knew of the story about his Aunt Catherine. She’d gone missing with a footman and had later been brought home dead along with a babe. “What does that have to do with Miss Snowden?”

  “The footman was her relation.”

  The footman who’d supposedly killed his aunt after getting her with child. His father had carried the grief all through his life, as had Walter. Even now, the subject of his sister sent him into the blackest of moods.

  David couldn’t imagine someone like the murderous footman being related to Fanny. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “The same way I know about her sister’s indiscretion. Lady Bothwick—the dowager viscountess—is a friend of mine. The Duchess of Clare was born Mary Snowden, and her great-uncle was the footman at Huntwell who killed your aunt.”

  David felt unsteady, as if the floor had caved in beneath him. “You’re certain?”

  “Of course I am. You couldn’t possibly betray our family by marrying her. It’s bad enough you won’t honor the promise you made to your father, but to wed someone from that family?” She shuddered. “It’s perhaps best he is dead so that he wouldn’t have to suffer such heartache.”

  David sank back onto the desk, his body folding under the weight of this terrible revelation. None of this was Fanny’s fault. She’d had nothing to do with any of it. Nor had David. Still, his mother’s words about honor and his father burned his heart and mind.

  The touch of his mother’s hand on his arm startled him. He twitched, and she pulled away.

  “I’m sorry about this, David, truly. But surely you understand how a future with Miss Snowden is simply impossible.”

  He didn’t believe that. He couldn’t. The thought of never seeing her again, of not pursuing what he believed they could share filled him with a sharp pain. Was it worse than the regret and sorrow he felt for betraying his father?

  His mother left without saying another word. She’d barely gone before Graham came inside and closed the door behind him. He walked silently to the sideboard. The sound of liquid splashing into a glass reached David’s ears.

  A moment later, Graham pressed a tumbler into his hand. “Drink.”

  David did as his secretary—no, his friend—instructed. Then he looked at Graham. “You heard?”

  Graham grimaced. “The lot of it. What a bloody mess.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” He knew what he wanted to do.

  “What had you planned—before you walked in here with your mother?”

  David’s chest tightened. “I was going to write to her. To Fanny. I was going to ask if I could court her.”

  “Marry her, you mean. Because courtship leads to that. There’s no going back.” Graham’s tone was stern yet caring at the same time. “At least not without considerable difficulty.”

  David shot him a skeptical look. “How did you become the marital expert?”

  He gasped in mock affront. “Don’t you dare cast me in that role. I’m acting as your counselor. My father said I may need to do that from time to time.”

  “I can’t help thinking what my father would say if he were alive. He’d be horrified to hear I wanted to marry a Snowden.”

  “Do you really think so?” Graham cocked his head to the side. “Is there no chance he’d understand that she isn’t to blame for her relation’s crimes? The man I knew possessed a kind nature.”

  That was true, but Graham hadn’t seen everything. “He rarely spoke of his sister, but when he did, his fury simmered just beneath the surface. More than once, he said he’d wanted to kill the man.”

  And now, as David recalled his father’s threats, the name of the footman came back to him: Snowden. He felt as though he were being ripped in two.

  His mother was right. Fate was incredibly cruel to have put Fanny in his path only to have her be from the one family he could never join with his.

  “You don’t have to make any decisions right now,” Graham said. “But perhaps you should avoid Miss Snowden for the time being—until you w
ork things out in your mind.”

  “I don’t have to. She’s gone.”

  Graham arched a brow in question.

  “I just paid a call to Clare House. The Duke said she’s returned to the country with her sister. I don’t need to avoid her. I could simply never contact her again and let the entire…matter between us fade into the past.” God, that sounded awful, to relegate the feelings he had for her to some small moment in time that had come and gone like a migration.

  “Perhaps that’s for the best.” Graham winced, then took a drink of his whisky.

  David did the same, only he swallowed every drop. “I think more drinking is for the best.” He tracked across the study to the sideboard and refilled his glass.

  He had time to work things out in his mind—and he would. But what was he to do about his heart?

  Five more days.

  Fanny could endure five more days at her parents’ house. She owed it to her brother John to see him wed. Plus, he was marrying Mercy, the younger sister of Fanny’s oldest and dearest friend, Patience Jeffers. Rather, Patience Smithson now.

  Ivy had not accompanied Fanny. She was within the last several weeks of her pregnancy and had no desire to travel. Furthermore, she had no interest in visiting her estranged parents for more than a few hours at a time, and Fanny couldn’t blame her.

  The room Fanny had once shared with Ivy—when she’d been Mary—seemed small and sparse when compared with the elegance of both Stour’s Edge and Clare House. Fanny’s bed, in which she and Ivy had both squeezed, took up a large portion of the space, while a tall, slim dresser occupied one corner, an ancient, rickety armoire stood in another, and a compact writing desk sat beneath the window.

  She’d come upstairs to fetch her bonnet for a walk but found herself drawn to the desk. More accurately, to the pair of letters tucked into the top drawer. She pulled them out but didn’t open the parchment. It was enough to look at his handwriting, and she’d read them so many times to have memorized their contents.

  David had sent the first one a week after she’d left London. In it, he’d apologized for his behavior and said he’d called on her at Clare House. He’d asked if he was the reason she’d left London. Then he’d asked to visit her at Stour’s Edge at the end of the Season. Which would be soon as June had just begun.

  She wasn’t sure if she ought to expect him or not since she hadn’t responded. Not to that letter, nor to the second one he’d sent a fortnight later.

  He’d asked if she’d received his first correspondence. Then he’d asked if she’d decided not to answer. He’d said if he didn’t get a response to that letter, he’d leave her alone.

  She hadn’t yet written to him and wasn’t sure she would. It seemed he wasn’t courting Miss Stoke. There hadn’t been any news of a courtship or a marriage, much to her relief.

  Not that any of that mattered. His mother’s threats weighed heavy on her mind whenever she thought of David. So she tried very hard not to.

  Shoving the letters back in the desk, she slammed the drawer closed. She turned and fetched a bonnet from a hook on the wall and strode from the room, eager to escape the confines of the house and enjoy the late-spring day.

  She’d grab her sketchbook from the sitting room and see if she could improve upon her drawing of the common pochard ducks she’d seen yesterday at the pond. Setting her bonnet atop her head as she descended the stairs, she heard her mother’s voice from the back of the house.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times to leave your boots outside, Jacob!”

  Fanny ducked into the sitting room, hoping she’d be able to escape before drawing her mother’s notice. She sounded particularly testy today.

  The table where Fanny had left the book and pencil earlier was now empty. Which meant her mother had moved it. Fanny turned and surveyed the immaculately kept room. Her mother preferred tidy, open spaces, which meant there was a minimum of clutter. It also meant monochromatic color schemes. The entire sitting room was decorated in a single shade of yellow. It wasn’t even a particularly cheery yellow. It was faded and dingy and, due to her mother’s thriftiness, would never be replaced.

  The sketchbook was nowhere to be seen. Resigned to leaving without it, Fanny turned to make her way out. Her mother stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

  “Are you looking for that drawing book?”

  “Yes.” Fanny hoped she hadn’t burned it.

  Her mother adjusted her apron. “That’s the second time you’ve left it in here.”

  And the last. “My apologies.”

  “It’s no surprise to me that Mary allows you to be careless with your things. She coddles you, as far as I can tell.” Mother’s gaze swept over Fanny’s walking dress. She’d already made a fuss over Fanny’s new, expensive clothing, as well as Fanny having a maid, which she’d also done when Fanny had come home in March for the birth of Patience’s babe.

  Fanny ignored her mother’s gibe. She adopted her most polite and deferential tone. “Where might I find it now?”

  “I gave it to Jacob.”

  Jacob was her other brother. Two years older than her, he’d been a lifelong nemesis, joining with their brother John to torment Fanny. John had seemed to grow out of his ill behavior, but Jacob was still as obnoxious as ever. And now Fanny had to get her sketchbook back from him? She wouldn’t even bother trying.

  As if conjured by their conversation, Jacob strolled by the open door. Tall, with a chest the size of a keg, he was an imposing figure. He waved at Fanny as he made his way to the stairs.

  Mother didn’t even turn to look at him, her attention focused entirely on Fanny. “Where are you going?”

  “Just out for a walk,” Fanny said brightly.

  Her mother frowned. “Don’t be gone too long. Mr. Duckworth will be paying a visit later.”

  Fanny stifled a groan. “I hope he isn’t coming to see me.” He’d tried to visit in March too, but Fanny had spent most of her time with Patience.

  “Of course he is.” Her mother looked at her as if she were daft. “He considers it a boon that you’ve returned from London without a husband.” She shook her head. “I can’t understand how that’s possible. The entire reason to have a Season is to marry, and you didn’t even stay for the whole thing. I daresay your coming home to be with Patience ruined your options.”

  “It didn’t, actually,” Fanny said flatly. She hadn’t told her mother a thing about London, only that she and Mary—Ivy—had left due to Ivy’s pregnancy.

  “Well, now that you’re home, you will likely see that Mr. Duckworth is an excellent choice. His house is quite large and well-appointed, and you won’t want for anything.” Her gaze dipped again to Fanny’s costume. “Though you won’t need to dress like that here.”

  It wasn’t even a fancy dress! But it had come from London and was made of fine fabric and was the latest style. Fanny suspected the real reason her mother didn’t like her clothing was because Ivy and West had paid for it. She made no secret that she didn’t regret turning her eldest child out. It baffled Fanny that she wouldn’t let the past go, nor would she be happy for Ivy.

  Unable to hold her tongue, Fanny blurted, “What is it you have against Ivy? And West, for that matter?”

  Mother stepped into the room with a deep breath. “Her name is Mary in this house. She was always a foolish chit, hoping to marry above her station. She thought to trap Bothwick with her machinations, but men like him are not to be trusted.”

  “And men like Mr. Duckworth are?” Fanny didn’t understand what her mother had against titled men in particular.

  “Far more than men like His Grace. Men like him are arrogant and privileged. They think they’re better than everyone else.” She said this with such vitriol that Fanny was taken aback.

  Lavinia and Sarah came to Fanny’s mind. They weren’t any of those things. And neither was David. “I met many nice people from titled families. They aren’t all like that.”

  “Of course they ar
e. They are above us mortals—above the law, even. Don’t you remember Uncle George?”

  Fanny tried to recall… And then suddenly did. “You mean my great-uncle?”

  “Yes. He was a footman in a great house. They accused him of something terrible, and he disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.” Her lip curled. “Your grandfather was devastated, as was your father.”

  She’d never known the story, just that her great-uncle had disappeared. Then her parents had invariably lowered their voices to angry whispers. “You think they did something to Uncle George?”

  “I know they did. He and the earl’s daughter fell in love and eloped.”

  “They did?” Her footman great-uncle had run off with the daughter of an earl? “That sounds so romantic.”

  Her mother’s eyes turned the color of the pond in winter. “It was foolish. The earl and his family hated your Uncle George. He never should have run off with the girl, regardless of how they felt about one another.” Her shoulders twitched as she scoffed. “They defied her family—they defied reason.”

  It still sounded romantic to Fanny. “What happened?”

  “Uncle George wrote to your grandfather about their marriage, but when we never heard from him again, your grandfather became worried. He wrote to the earl to ask after Uncle George and his wife, but his letters were ignored. Then he went to speak with the earl, who told him George’s wife had died and George had left the country. Your grandfather didn’t believe him. George wouldn’t have left England without telling his brother. So your grandfather went to the magistrate. But he refused to look into the matter.” She sniffed in indignation. “They won’t interfere when a powerful, wealthy family is involved.”

  This was why her parents hated nobility. It was probably best she didn’t have a future with David. Her parents would have loathed the union as much as they loathed Ivy’s. Not that she and David would have ended up married. The space between them had never felt more vast. He was an earl, and she was the daughter of a cabinetmaker and the grand-niece of a footman who’d been a victim of power and privilege.

  “I’ll just go for my walk,” Fanny said, starting toward the door. As she came abreast of her mother, the older woman touched her arm, startling Fanny with the contact.