Duchesses in Disguise

by Grace Burrowes

  He resorted to a manly display of consideration and swept her up into his arms. “A logical place to start the expedition, though you will have to give me directions.”

  “It will be my pleasure.”

  Francesca directed him up to her bedroom, and from there through the weeks of preparation for their next adventure.

  On the way to India—they named the vessel Tiger—she frequently directed him in their private cabin, and as the wildly lucrative Trenton tea garden became productive, she remained an invaluable source of guidance.

  By the time Francesca, Grey, and their two sons sailed back to England some five years later, the family finances had come gloriously right. When His Lordship—Grey was raised to a barony—wanted a taste of the wild, he had to look no farther than the other side of the bed, where his duchess in disguise was always ready to pounce and, in a single leap, love him as wildly as ever his heart desired.

  —THE END—

  To my dear Readers,

  I hope you enjoyed Francesca and Grey’s happily-ever-after. My family includes many scientists, and every one of them contributed to Grey’s charming character (I mean that in the nicest possible way). Of the nine people in my immediate family, I’m the only one still living east of the Mississippi River, though I grew up in Pennsylvania. Two of my brothers own ranches, another works in the Utah mountains, and yet another is raising a family in Montana’s Big Sky country.

  Maybe that’s why I had so much fun writing my April 2017 release, Tartan Two-Step, which I’m publishing in a two-novel bundle with contemporary romance author M.L. Buchman. In my contribution to the Big Sky Ever After duet, Scottish distiller Magnus Brodie needs an expert to rescue his signature batch of whisky, while Montana native Bridget MacDeever needs a miracle to outwit an old enemy. Even so, Bridget refuses to sell her distillery to the Scotsman who’s stolen her heart. Big fun under a Big Sky! You can read an excerpt below, and look for the sequel, Elias in Love, in May 2017.

  And of course, I’m writing more Regencies! I hope to have my next True Gentleman out in May 2017, and my second Windham Bride, Too Scot To Handle, hits the shelves in July 2017. To keep up with all of my releases, signings, and sales, sign up for my newsletter at the link below.

  Happy reading!

  Grace Burrowes

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  Tartan Two-Step

  * * *

  (featured in Big Sky Ever After—a Montana Romance duet)

  “I’m asking a reasonable question,” Bridget MacDeever muttered. “Montana State has more than fifteen thousand students, and out of all those young minds eager for knowledge, why do the ones who are also eager for a beating have to show up here on Friday night, as predictably as saddle sores and taxes?”

  Bridget’s brother Shamus turned and hooked his elbows on the bar, so he faced the room. “A fight means Juanita can change up the Bar None’s décor. You ladies like hanging new curtains.”

  Bridget didn’t bother kicking him, because Shamus was just being a brother. In the mirror behind the bar, she watched as Harley Simmers went nose to nose with yet another college boy.

  “One of these days, Harley’s going to hurt somebody who has a great big trust fund, and then our Harley will be getting all his mail delivered to Deer Lodge.”

  Montana State Prison, in the southwest quarter of the state, called Deer Lodge home.

  “What’s it to you if Harley does a little more time?” Shamus asked, taking a sip of his beer.

  “He’ll ask me to represent him, and I can’t, though he’s a good guy at heart.”

  Also a huge guy, and a drunk guy, and a guy with a temper when provoked. College Boy was provocation on the hoof, right down to his Ride A Cowboy T-shirt and the spankin’ new Tony Lama Black Stallions on his feet.

  “Pilgrims,” Shamus muttered as College Boy’s two friends stood up, and the other patrons drifted to the far corners of the Bar None’s dance floor.

  “Do something Shamus. Harley’s had too much.”

  Bridget’s brothers—half-brothers, technically—were healthy specimens, all over six feet, though Harley came closer to six foot six.

  “He has too much too often,” Shamus said. “This is not our fight. Let’s head out the back.”

  Behind the bar, Preacher Martin was polishing a clean glass with a white towel. Bridget knew a loaded sawed-off shotgun sat out of sight within reach of his left hand. Preacher looked like the circuit parsons of the old west—full beard, weathered features, slate gray eyes—and he’d had been settling fights by virtue of buckshot sermons since Bridget had sat her first pony.

  “We can’t let Harley just get in trouble,” she said, “or let that idiot jeopardize what few brain cells he hasn’t already pickled.”

  “Bridget, do I have to toss you over my shoulder?”

  “Try it, Shamus, and Harley will come after the part of you still standing when I’ve finished putting you in your place.”

  Bridget hadn’t the family height, so she made sure to punch above her weight in muscle and mouth. Three older brothers had taught her to never back down and never make empty threats.

  The musicians—a pair of fiddlers—packed up their instruments and nodded to Preacher. A few patrons took their drinks outside.

  Bridget was off her stool and wrestling free of the hand Shamus had clamped around her elbow when Harley snarled, “Step off, little man,” at the college boy.

  A stranger strolled up to Harley’s left. “Might I ask a question?”

  “Who the hell is that fool?” Shamus murmured.

  “Never seen him before,” Preacher said, towel squeaking against the glass. “Bet we won’t see him again either.”

  The stranger was on the tall side, rangy, and dressed in blue jeans and a Black Watch flannel shirt. His belt buckle was some sort of Celtic knot, and his hair was dark and longish. Bridget put his age about thirty and his common sense at nearly invisible.

  He was good looking though, even if he talked a little funny.

  “A shame to see such a fine nose needlessly broken.” Bridget took noses seriously, hers being one of her most valuable assets.

  Shamus shot her a “women are nuts” look.

  Harley swung around to glower at the stranger. “What did you say?”

  “It’s the accent,” the guy said, patting Harley’s arm. “I know. Makes me hard to understand. I wanted to ask what it means when you tell somebody to step off. I haven’t heard that colloquialism before, and being far from home, I don’t want to offend anybody if I should be told to step off. Does it mean to turn and count my steps like an old-fashioned duel, or move away, or has it to do with taking back rash words?”

  The stranger clearly expected Harley to answer.

  “He’s either damned brave or a fool rushing in,” Shamus said.

  “He’s just standing there,” Bridget replied, because a brother in error should never go uncorrected. “He sounds Scottish.”

  “He sounds like he has a death wish.”

  “You don’t know what step off means?” Harley sneered.

  “Haven’t a clue,” the stranger said. “I’m a fancier of whisky, and I’m sipping my way through my first American holiday. Don’t suppose I could buy either of you a drink, if that’s the done thing? I wouldn’t want to offend. My name is Magnus, and this is my first trip to Montana.”

  He stuck out a hand, and Harley was just drunk enough to reflexively stick out his own.

  “That was brilliant,” Bridget said. In the next instant, College Boy was shaking hands too and introducing himself, then shaking with a puzzled Harley.

  “Never seen anything like that,” Preacher commented. “Harley Gummo ambushed by his mama’s manners.”

  There had also been a mention of whisky, which recommended the Scotsman to Bridget more highly than his willingness to intervene between a pair of fools. Somebody should have intervened. For
a stranger to do so was risky.

  Bridget should have intervened.

  Harley and College Boy let their new friend escort them to the drink station a yard to Bridget’s left at the bar. She overhead earnest explanations of the rivalry between Cowboys and the 49ers, which then degenerated into an explanation of American football.

  Man talk. Safe, simple man talk. Thank God.

  “I do believe I see Martina Matlock all by her lonesome over by the fiddles,” Shamus said. “If you’ll excuse me, Bridget.”

  He wasn’t asking. Martina was all curves and smiles, and Shamus was ever a man willing to smile back on a Friday night. He embodied a work hard/play harder approach to life, and of all Bridget’s brothers, he was the one most likely to miss breakfast at the ranch house on Saturday morning.

  “Find your own way home, Shamus,” Bridget said.

  Harley and his recently acquired buddies had found a table, and College Boy’s companions took the two remaining free seats. The musicians unpacked their instruments, and Preacher left off washing glasses to help Juanita with the line forming at the drink station.

  Magnus—was that a first name or a last name?—ordered a round of Logan Bar twelve-year-old single malt for table, the first such order Bridget had heard anybody place all night.

  As Preacher got down the bottle, Bridget approached the stranger. “May I ask why you drink Logan Bar?”

  “Because it’s the best single-malt I’ve found thus far. Would you care to join us?”

  His answer could not have pleased Bridget more. “You’re on your own with that bunch of prodigies, but if you want to dance later, come find me.”

  “The lady doesn’t dance with just anybody,” Preacher said, setting tasting glass shots on a tray and passing over a menu. “Get some food into Harley, and this round will be on the house.”

  Magnus took the tray. “My thanks, and my compliments on a fine whisky inventory.”

  His voice sounded like a well-aged whisky, smooth, sophisticated, and complex but forthright too. A touch smoky, a hint of weathered wood and winter breezes.

  He leaned a few inches in Bridget’s direction as the fiddles warmed up on the stage. “I’ll take you up on that dance, miss, just as soon as I instruct my friends regarding the fine points of an excellent single malt.”

  The finest single malt in the country. “You do that.”

  Bridget didn’t wink and didn’t smile, and neither did Magnus. He appreciated her whisky and was about to teach others to do likewise. If he made a habit out of advertising her single malt, Mr. Magnus could be her new best friend.

  Or the Logan Bar Distillery’s new best friend, which amounted to the same thing.

  Order your copy of Tartan Two-Step in the Big Sky Ever After duet!

  TO TEMPT A DUCHESS

  * * *

  EMILY GREENWOOD

  Chapter One

  * * *

  “I had not planned on being a damsel in distress today,” Olivia remarked to her friend Mary Alice from the doorway of their overturned coach. “And I’m sure you did not either. Though Francesca, as usual, is making the whole business look stylish, even in this weather.” She swiped at a trickle of melting sleet making its way down her cheek.

  The cold, early spring rain and sleet that had been falling all day had made the roads muddy, and their coach had taken a curve a little too hastily, with the result that it was now lying on its side on a road at some miles from the spa town that was their destination. Poor Mary Alice had bumped her head when the coach overturned, though she’d assured her friends it was nothing. Their coachman had left a groom to see to the horses and gone in search of assistance, but fortuitously, three gentlemen had just happened upon the scene and offered the ladies shelter at a nearby estate called Rose Heath.

  The third member of their party, their friend Francesca, had already been helped onto the mount of Sir Greyville Trenton, one of their rescuers, and the pair was now riding away. Olivia and Mary Alice had not yet met the other gentlemen.

  Olivia began to get down from the coach.

  “And look, here’s your very own knight in shining armor,” Mary Alice said as a dark-haired man on a gray horse approached them. “Perhaps you will regret that we all agreed to travel incognito. He is handsome.”

  “I thought the plan was to avoid gentlemen, handsome or otherwise,” Olivia said, but Mary Alice had no chance to reply because the man was now in earshot. He inclined his head and introduced himself as Mr. Christopher Stirling. The name did not initially mean anything to Olivia, but then he swept her a bow with a slant to his mouth that was unmistakably mocking, and a thought niggled. Stirling…

  She just had time to gather the details of his height—rather tall—and his dark brown hair and chocolate eyes when he extended a hand from atop his horse with the bored expectancy of a lord waiting for a servant to produce some requested object. He had not even paused to hear her name!

  Being that she was in fact the dowager Duchess of Coldbrook and that her two friends were also duchesses, she suspected he might have offered her a far different greeting if he’d known her identity. Ever since becoming a duchess when she’d married her beloved Harold years before, she had discovered for herself how very differently a duchess was treated than the plain fourth daughter of a baronet.

  But while she appreciated the frequent kindness she was shown because of her title, sometimes she missed being simply Miss Thorpe. That her friends also yearned for a holiday from the duties of rank was one of the reasons the three of them had decided on this jaunt into the hidden corners of Yorkshire, during which they planned to pass themselves off as mere ladies. Though they had not, of course, foreseen the coach accident, which looked as though it was going to seriously delay their holiday plans.

  Olivia gave an inward sigh of resignation. She had been so looking forward to the spa town, and to being with Francesca and Mary Alice, just the three of them again, as they hadn’t been for quite some time. Mary Alice and Francesca had been friends since finishing school, and Olivia had first met them some years before when they were all staying at Lyme Regis.

  Francesca and Olivia had envisioned that this holiday to the spa town would be a welcome escape from the London Season and its fortune-hunting gentlemen, though Mary Alice had taken some convincing. Now, instead of it being just the three of them, they were to be cast on the mercy, however temporary, of these gentlemen.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” Olivia said, ignoring his proffered arm. “I am Miss Olivia Thorpe. It’s kind of you and your friends to come to our aid with an offer of shelter.”

  “Shan’t be able to aid you if you don’t take hold of my hand and mount up, ma’am,” he said in a tone that suggested he had little interest in whether she did. “You may set your foot atop mine in the stirrup.”

  Olivia hesitated, wishing none of this was necessary. She disliked relying on others for help. And after nearly four years as a widow, she was accustomed to being independent and doing for herself.

  But Francesca was already departing with Sir Greyville, and the third gentleman was making his way toward Mary Alice. Olivia did not have much choice. She took hold of Mr. Stirling’s outstretched hand and was pulled neatly, and with some force, to sit before him. His arm came around her, and he pressed her firmly against him with apparent unconcern for propriety. He promptly urged his horse into a walk.

  “Sir.” She attempted to lean away and put some decorous space between herself and this stranger, though the chill and damp of the day had long since penetrated to her bones, and his body was exuding a welcome warmth.

  “Yes?” he inquired.

  Exasperating man! Any gentleman ought to intuit that a lady who was a stranger to him would not wish to be clutched tightly against his body. And that was the moment when she finally absorbed who he was: Christopher Kit Stirling, the Wastrel of White Horse Street, one of the most notorious rakes of the ton.

  She knew the man only by reputation. T
hey hardly moved in the same circles, and in any case, Olivia and Harold had spent the least amount of time possible in London each season—fulfilling the sorts of duties a duke and duchess could not evade—before returning gratefully to their country estate at the first opportunity.

  Mr. Kit Stirling was the heir to the Earl of Roswell, from whom he was estranged, Olivia knew from ton gossip. Apparently, Mr. Stirling kept company with actresses and drunkards. He’d been involved in a notorious duel with Lord Candleford a few months before and had injured the man. It was rumored that he paid all his bills by gambling.

  It was this last bit she knew the most about, because the nephew of her friend Lydia Woodson had recently lost his entire year’s allowance to Mr. Stirling at cards. Mr. Stirling held frequent high-stakes games in his home, Lydia had told Olivia. She had also whispered that the man was known to change one mistress for another with dizzying regularity.

  Which thought made Olivia hide a secret smile. However long she would be required to be in Mr. Stirling’s company, she was unlikely to be of any interest to such a handsome, fast fellow. She had never been of interest to rakes and rogues, nor did she wish to be.

  “There is no need for you to hold me in this manner,” she told him. “I will be quite stable without your assistance.” This was not entirely true, but as their pace on the wet road was necessarily sedate, she did not think she would fall.

  “As you wish.” He removed his arm.

  “Does Rose Heath estate belong to Sir Greyville?” she asked.

  “No, to Colonel Stratton.”

  “Colonel Nathaniel Stratton?”

  “Yes.”