The Duke Is a Devil
Karen Lingefelt
Published by Karen Lingefelt, 2021.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE DUKE IS A DEVIL
First edition. July 6, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 Karen Lingefelt.
ISBN: 979-8201008505
Written by Karen Lingefelt.
Also by Karen Lingefelt
As the Chair Turns
Dust a Bit of Magic
Standalone
Playing the Princess
True Pretenses
Playing the Duchess
All About Evangeline
The Duke Is a Devil (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Karen Lingefelt’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Karen Lingefelt
Dedication
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
About the Author
Books by Karen Lingefelt
To Lorelei Confer, with hugs and gratitude for suggesting the title that led to this book. Thanks for giving me something dangerous to do while staying safe at home!
Cover Art by Beetiful Book Covers
Chapter One
Yorkshire, England, September 1816
The first thing Cecily Logan noticed upon returning to her bedchamber was the surface of her dressing table, where anything that could be tipped over, whether it was the candlestick or toilet water or worst of all, her precious bottle of ink...was tipped over.
She tossed her bonnet onto the bed and gaped in horror at the hideous black puddle spread across the surface of the table, all the way to the edge where it slowly dripped to the floor in a big ugly blotch.
It couldn’t be the toilet water. Oh, no. Not the faintly pink, clear liquid that smelled like roses. Of course not. Why, that might be too easy to clean up. That would leave her room smelling like roses for a few days, not at all unpleasant, hardly the end of the world.
It just had to be the ink, didn’t it?
With thumb and forefinger, she gingerly lifted the candle, now half white and half black. With her other hand, she picked up her hairbrush. If she used it again, she’d have black streaks in her hair.
How did this happen? She’d only been out walking for a half hour this morning, to clear the cobwebs from her mind and ponder fresh ideas for a new story. If there’d been an earthquake, which would easily explain the upset objects, then surely she would have felt it at some point. Not to mention Cousin Rebecca would still be screaming in terror.
There was only one other explanation. In her absence, someone had moved the dressing table away from the wall without any regard for easily jolted objects on its surface.
Surely not the maid? One didn’t need to move the dressing table away from the wall to sweep under it. Indeed, there were only two reasons to move it. One was to rearrange the furniture.
The other was to search for any stories Cecily had written and hidden between table and wall or even...Her heart dropped into her stomach. Surely Harry hadn’t found the loose floorboard beneath the back legs of the dressing table while she was away in Bath this past summer with Aunt Thea and Cousin Rebecca?
With all her strength, she pulled the dressing table away from the wall, heedless of the upset objects. The damage, after all, was already done.
She crouched down to pry up the loose floorboard, and peered into the dark space beneath.
Empty.
The one story she never wanted anyone to see was gone.
Was nothing sacred?
By now, she was out of hiding places. Harry always knew where to look—under the bed, beneath the mattress, inside the mattress, inside the pillow, buried in a drawer, behind the chest of drawers. At that thought, she shot a glance at the bureau against the opposite wall. Sure enough, something white peeked out of the top drawer. She’d long since given up hiding her work beneath her unmentionables after he found it there—only to smirk and sift through the unmentionables themselves and make comments that even now made her skin crawl. You wear some dreadful rags beneath your skirt. Maybe you shouldn’t wear any. Thereafter, he never searched her bedchamber without first going into that drawer.
She turned back to the vacant space beneath the loose floorboard, as if in hope the manuscript might have magically reappeared.
“It’s not there,” said his voice from the doorway.
She jerked her head up to see a stocky figure with pomaded auburn hair and an embroidered waistcoat too garish for the country. Her least favorite cousin, Mr. Harcourt “Harry” Armstrong, leaned against the door jamb, wearing his usual smirk.
“Obviously,” she snapped. “Where is it? Give it back.”
“Too late. It’s gone.”
“You burned it? The whole thing?” It wouldn’t be the first time, but in the case of this particular manuscript, maybe it was just as well. It wasn’t exactly something she was keen to share with the rest of the world. Some things she wrote for her own amusement. Or even to get something negative out of her system. It hurt no one else—as long as no one else saw it.
But Harry always made it his business to see it and use it against her.
“Who’s the duke?” he asked.
“What?”
“The duke. That’s what it’s about. You wrote a long story about a duke named Madfury. Don’t you mean Bradbury?” He sneered. “Are you in love with him, Cecily? Yes, you are. And he doesn’t even know if you exist. Why would he? So you wrote that story to get back at him—or draw his attention. Which is it?”
Cecily clenched her hands into fists and tightened her jaw. How she wished she could ram those fists into his mocking face! Once she’d tried slapping him, and he nearly broke her arm fending her off. What if he broke her fingers? She might never be able to hold a quill again.
“If I wrote it to draw his attention,” she seethed, “then why would I hide it under the floorboards?”
“For that matter, why even write it in the first place and hide it there, if you don’t want him or anyone else to see it? What do you think he would do if he happened to see it? Do you think he’d marry you after reading about how much you love him? That would scare any man, even him. Or maybe he’d be so outraged that you called him Madfury and accused him of all kinds of atrocities, that he’d find a way to punish you for it. How do you think he’d do that, Cecily?”
That was a good question, but only worth answering if by some remote chance Bradbury were to read the manuscript.
“Where is it?” she asked again. “Did you burn it?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Singular. You almost sound as if you hope that’s what I’ve done. That’s not like you.”
She struggled for patience. “Are you going to give it back to me?”
“Have I ever given your rubbish back to you, Cecily?”
Never. After he shared it with the rest of the household and enjoyed a good laugh over her nonsensical ideas, the “rubbish” usually went straight into the fireplace.
/> By now, her only recourse was to take her work with her, wherever she went.
Or, to just quit.
Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She felt as if she had no choice but to write. She was driven to do it. She had to do it. It was like breathing.
She forced herself to shrug. “So it’s ashes already. Oh, well. I suppose I should see about cleaning up this mess you left.”
“Do you really want it back, Cecily?”
Was the king mad? Was Cecily furious? Was Harry a dolt? “Of course I’d like it back. But you said it’s gone.”
“Gone from its hiding place. It can still be retrieved, if you really want it.” He smirked again. “How badly do you want it back?”
“Don’t you dare ask me that.”
He snickered. “Oh, come. A little experience might enhance your storytelling. Make it more realistic. All I’m asking—”
“You’re not asking. You’re stating your terms. And I have no intention of meeting your terms.”
“Don’t like being kissed, eh?”
Not by Harry. And not just the kissing, either. Even now, she felt queasy at the memory of the one time she’d foolishly agreed to let him kiss her in exchange for getting her purloined story back. He hadn’t just kissed her. He’d grabbed. And seized. And squeezed. And—she shuddered at this thought—slobbered. Things her romantic heroes never did. Somehow, it wasn’t as disgusting when they did it.
Maybe because she’d never been kissed by a romantic hero. She only knew they didn’t grab and seize and squeeze the heroine. And they certainly didn’t slobber all over her like some salivating ogre.
“I’ll wager you wouldn’t mind being kissed by Bradbury,” said Harry. “That’s what your book is about, isn’t it, Cecily? A long dream about the Duke of Bradbury having his wicked way with you.”
“If you say so. Do with it as you please.” As long as he didn’t do with her as he pleased.
He folded his arms across his chest. “You really don’t care what happens to it, do you? Then you must have a copy somewhere.”
“Or maybe I don’t care what happens to it, since it’s not one of my better efforts.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. We can make money from a book like that.”
Then he hadn’t burned it, after all. She eyed him suspiciously. “We? And a book like that? How did you manage to read it in so little time?”
“You think I just now found it there, while you were out this morning? I found it the day after you and Mother and Rebecca left for Bath, and the day before I left for London—and gave it to a publisher who happens to be the cousin of a friend of mine. Would you believe he likes it so much, he not only wants to publish it, but he wants to see more of your writing. That’s why I moved your dressing table just now. Where’s the rest of your writing?”
“Check the fireplace,” she bit out, even as excitement battled with dismay within her. A publisher in London liked her work—enough to publish it and ask for more. But why, oh why (not that she didn’t know why—she knew why—because she was cursed with bad luck) did it have to be that damning book about the duke?
“You mean you didn’t write anything while you were in Bath?”
“I have no wish to see that book published.”
“But I thought you wanted to be published. Why else do you write?”
“I do want to be published, but not that book,” Cecily declared.
“I don’t think you have any say in it. We need money. As it is, we can barely afford your paper and ink.”
“That comes out of my pin money from Lord Frampton.” The Marquess of Frampton was her maternal uncle, whom she’d never met.
“You mean from Frampton’s man of affairs. I doubt Frampton even knows you exist. But it would be better spent on something else.”
Her bubbling rage finally boiled over. “Maybe the money you keep losing at the gaming tables would be better spent on something else. Did that ever occur to—”
Wrong thing to say. This was one of the reasons Cecily wrote. She was less likely to say the wrong thing with her pen. If she did, she could always start over with no one with the wiser.
His eyes blazing, Harry lunged for her, and she swiftly dodged to one side, falling onto her bed where she dared not stay for even a second. She didn’t doubt he’d seize the opportunity to dive right on top of her.
She rolled off the bed just as he crashed into the dressing table. The bottle of toilet water fell to the floor and shattered. Now her bedchamber would smell like roses for the next few days.
Harry pushed himself back from the dressing table and held up his blackened hands. “Bloody hell! My new waistcoat is ruined! You and your damned ink!”
Cecily dashed for the door, hampered by her long skirt. Harry had no such problem. She was barely into the hallway when he grabbed her arm and yanked her back. She glimpsed his other hand flying toward her face. She held up her free arm in hopes of fending him off. It only slowed him down. Instead of slapping her outright, his fingertips only grazed her face.
“What is going on up there?” demanded the voice of Aunt Thea from the staircase.
Harry promptly let go of Cecily, whose knees nearly buckled as she slumped against the door, pushing it back into the wall. It took all her strength not to slide to the floor.
Harry bounded into the hallway as his mother reached the top of the staircase. “Harry, did I hear you cursing again? You know I don’t approve of you doing that. What’s the matter? What happened to your waistcoat?”
“Cecily ruined it, that’s what. I was only going down the hallway to my own bedchamber when she stepped out of hers and threw a bottle of ink at me. And all because she thinks I stole her latest piece of rubbish.” He savaged her with a murderous glare.
“You did steal it!” Cecily cried. “And then you gave it to someone else without my permission.”
Aunt Thea heaved a deep sigh. “Cecily, we’ve told you this many times before. If you don’t want anyone reading your writing, then maybe you should give it up and find something more suitable to do with your time. Why not watercolors, or embroidery? Then you wouldn’t have ink all over your face, and Harry’s new waistcoat wouldn’t be ruined. Watercolors wash off without too much trouble, and stray embroidery threads are easily picked off.”
“Mother, she’s finally written something that could clear all of our debts,” Harry said. “I took it straight to a publisher in London. It’s about the Duke of Bradbury—only she calls him Madfury.” He skewered Cecily with another contemptuous sneer.
“Suppose no one buys the book?” she argued.
“After the success of Glenarvon? And that was only about a poet.”
Not just any poet, Cecily thought. While in Bath, she’d started reading Glenarvon—Lady Caroline Lamb’s salacious albeit fictionalized account of her affair with Lord Byron—until Aunt Thea discovered it in her possession and duly confiscated it, leaving Cecily holding only her bookmark. The next day, Cecily spotted her contraband copy, front cover down, on Thea’s bedside table, with the tassel of a different bookmark trailing from its middle.
“Harry, you didn’t!” exclaimed Thea. “Does your father know about this?”
“Of course.” Harry jerked his ink-stained thumb at Cecily. “But we’ll let His Grace think this is all her doing. She’s the one who will be ruined.”
Aunt Thea gasped. “Not the way Lady Caroline Lamb has been ruined? In Bath, there was talk of Lady Jersey revoking Lady Caro’s vouchers to Almack’s. If that happens to Cecily, she’ll have to be sent away, for who will marry her then?”
Cecily, who’d never had any vouchers from Almack’s to revoke, could hardly believe—well, yes, she could—that they were talking about her this way, as if she wasn’t standing right here staring at both of them as if they’d gone mad. Since it was far from the first time they’d done this, why did she—a writer who essentially made things up—find it so incredible?
Sometimes, fiction r
eally was more believable than reality. It certainly seemed to make more sense.
She blinked and shook her head. What did Harry just say?
“That’s what I meant,” his mother was saying. “That’s why I said she’d have to be sent away if he did that.”
“What’s why?” Cecily inquired.
“Head in the clouds again, eh?” Harry scowled. “I suppose when I mentioned you’ll be ruined, you immediately thought he’d have to marry you and make you a duchess. That’s your silly writing muse whispering in your ear again. What’s her name again? You never did say.”
Not once did it occur to Cecily that the Duke of Bradbury would ever marry her. Well, maybe only in her dreams, once transferred by pen to paper. But never in reality. He’d been betrothed several times before, all to women with scandalous reputations, yet every one of his would-be brides had jilted him—a duke! One even jilted him right at the altar. For scandalous women to jilt a duke who might have saved their reputations, he must have done many scandalous and shocking things that made Cecily wonder if he wasn’t much better than Harry. And why would she ever want to marry a man who was even remotely like Harry?
“I don’t want that book published,” she said again. “It was never meant for publication.”
“Neither, it seems, is anything else you write. So why even bother to write?”
She knew she was asking for more trouble, but she couldn’t help herself. Besides, he wouldn’t dare put a hand on her in front of his mother. “Why even bother to gamble?”
Fury flashed in his eyes, as his mother asked, “To what? Gamble? Are you suggesting Harry gambles, Cecily? Why, that’s nonsense! That’s your imagination running riot yet again. You really do need to stop writing...”
Cecily matched, as best she could, Harry’s thunderous look. He would never touch her when his mother, or for that matter, anyone else was around. The Duke of Bradbury, on the other hand, had no compunction about letting the entire world see his scandalous ways, but maybe that was because he was, after all, a duke. A duke could get away with just about anything and everything, making him a rich mine of material for a writer like Cecily.
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