“Sir Christopher,” Ambrose said from the doorway, “would you leave off kissing your wife long enough to do the honor of cutting the cake?”
“With his sword!” one of his sons suggested from the staircase, peering through the balustrade like a prisoner behind bars.
Violet took Kit’s hand. “It seems only fitting that you should be the one.”
His gaze traveled to the dining room, where the guests had gathered. It was the reunion that five young friends had promised one another long ago. It was a pledge fulfilled. With a loving glance at his wife, Kit shook off the bonds of the past and stepped forward to embrace the future.
Read on for a glimpse of the
next captivating romance in
the Bridal Pleasures series
by Jillian Hunter
The Duchess Diaries
Available from Signet Select in January.
It was the best of balls; it was the worst of balls. It was the annual graduation ball honoring the Scarfield Academy for Young Ladies in London. It was an evening of hope, which Miss Charlotte Boscastle had resolved would not end in disgrace. It was an evening of beginnings and farewells.
As the academy’s headmistress, Charlotte would receive accolades for her efforts in training another class of young ladies to enter society. She would be praised for any marriage proposals offered to her students as a result of their elite schooling.
She would also be blamed for any scandals that she allowed to besmirch the academy’s name. Her archenemy, Lady Clipstone, the headmistress of a lesser school, had predicted to the newspapers that some social misfortune was bound to occur during the event. Charlotte took little comfort in the knowledge that she was surrounded by members of her own family— everyone in the ton knew how controversy tended to follow the Boscastles. It was said that whenever more than two of them were gathered in one place, the devil came into active play.
Still, she was grateful that the Marquess of Sedgecroft, her cousin, had agreed to host the affair at his Park Lane mansion. She appreciated the fact that he had invited his battalion of friends to fill the ballroom and impress the girls.
Perhaps, after tonight, she might be able to draw a breath. For good or for evil, the graduates would venture forth into the world. Until dawn broke over the occasion, however, she was obligated to stand guard against any rogues who thought to take advantage of an inexperienced girl. She had her eye on one rogue in particular. He had looked at her only once. The Duke of Wynfield was without question the most intimidating guest at the ball, and Charlotte wasn’t about to let him steal her glory.
She wondered if he even remembered the last time they had seen each other, at the emporium in the Strand. They hadn’t exchanged a single word. Charlotte had been shopping for the academy that day. He had been shopping for the pair of strumpets draped over either of his elbows.
He had kissed one of the tarts on the neck—and merely smiled when Charlotte, at the opposite end of the counter, had gasped in shock.
She had returned to the academy hours later to record the incident in her diary, changing a detail here and there until, en fin, the actual event bore little resemblance to her fabricated but far more satisfying version.
Fancy. Yes, she knew. Her diaries simmered with illicit truths and vicarious pleasures. She had been keeping a journal ever since she could hold a pen, but it was only recently that she’d decided to record her family’s history. Not that those chronicles needed any enhancement.
Unfortunately her private life did. In the pages of her secret musings, the duke not only adored her; he had been pursuing her for months. In actual life, he was domineering, indecent, and inexcusably taken with disgraceful women. In his fictional encounters with Charlotte, he was domineering, indecent, and inexplicably taken with her alone.
In Charlotte’s revision of the incident in the emporium, the duke had noticed her across the counter and had immediately dismissed the other women. He had walked straight up to Charlotte and, without a word, grasped her hand.
“My carriage is outside,” he said, his sinful smile mesmerizing her. “May I take you away?”
His face receded. Another voice, breathy and excited, was whispering in her ear. “That’s the Duke of Wynfield you’re staring at, Miss Boscastle. Do be careful. Everyone is saying that he’s in the market for a mistress.”
Charlotte gripped her fan and turned to regard her favorite student in dismay. “Lydia Butterfield, reassure me that he has not found one in you.”
Lydia gave her a wistful grin. “Dear Miss Boscastle, I shall miss you with all my heart.”
“You shall miss my guidance—that is clear.”
“I won’t need it any longer,” Lydia said in regret. “But I will miss your history lessons.”
“All the battles and beheadings?” Charlotte asked, stepping to the side to stop Lydia from staring at the duke. Or him from noticing her. “But don’t be so melodramatic, or I shall start to cry. Your family still lives in London. You may visit the academy whenever you wish.”
“My family—Well, my betrothed’s family lives in Dorset, and he is eager to start a family—”
“Your betrothed?” Charlotte said faintly.
Lydia bit her lip, nodding toward the short gentleman standing a few feet behind her. “Sir Adam Richardson, the architect.”
“Lydia, I am so—” Envious? Overcome? Relieved? “—proud,” she said firmly. “He appears to be a fine gentleman.”
Lydia laughed, her gaze drifting to the duke, who was not known to be a gentleman at all. “I was told that he is a wildly jealous lover.”
“Your fiancé?”
“The duke,” Lydia said, laughing again. “He has a reputation for being a possessive suitor.”
“Lydia.” Charlotte attempted to look shocked, although the same rumors had not escaped her attention. Such gossip should have stamped the duke as an unacceptable person instead of engendering wicked daydreams about him in Charlotte’s imagination. Why did it feel so pleasant to picture him tearing off his long-tailed evening coat to defend her from . . . ? Oh, since it was her flight of fancy, the other man might as well be Marcus Moreland, the cad who had broken her heart years ago.
She could picture it so vividly. The ballroom would be cleared for a duel; the duke had studied swordfight-ing at Fenton’s School of Arms. Charlotte had watched him perform at a benefit ball in this very mansion. She’d had nothing to do with him on that past night, and it was doubtful that she would capture his interest in the future.
“I don’t think that either of us need worry about the duke’s amorous proclivities,” she assured Lydia, thus uttering the fateful words that would come back to mock her before morning came....
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