Regency Romance Omnibus 2018: Dominate Dukes & Tenacious Women

by Virginia Vice

  “I... m’lady, the world we function in, it’s a complicated place,” he stammered, trying to save his floundering chances of leaving the exchange with Anne on a positive note.

  “And you think it possible that you, a man in a position of power, could explain precisely to me just how complicated it is?” Anne brimmed with vitriol at the suggestion. “You do not think a woman like myself has already faced all of those complications, and many more than you could hope to conceive of?”

  “I... m’lady, I had not meant it in that manner, simply that...” he struggled.

  “You had meant that you found it inconvenient to lobby for the inheritance of your sister over yourself, and that you had no interest in doing so,” Anne retorted sharply. “I certainly cannot blame you - the system that we’ve built up for men like yourself has certainly helped you to do quite well, hasn’t it, m’lord?”

  “I had no interest in inheriting over my sister, in point of fact,” the duke exclaimed rather unceremoniously, a deep, baritone wave of emotion creeping into his voice. “I did not think myself completely worthy of the position. And yet, father wanted it that way - when he passed, neither my sister nor myself could stand against his wishes, or the old-fashioned manner in which he saw that such decisions needed to be made,” the duke sighed. “We are sometimes prisoners of our own opulence, of the success of our families.”

  “What do you know of being a prisoner?” Anne struck back. “I’ve my own shackles under which I labor - and I’m certain they weigh just as heavy as the burden upon your own shoulders. Those burdens of wealth and title, mostly certainly must be quite painful,” Anne imparted with dripping sarcasm. “Instead, I find myself shackled to the concept of marriage, to...” she took a deep breath. “Of the manner in which this society treats women.” The duke fell into melancholy thought, glancing across the rows of carriages; a cool breeze passed between them as Anne quietly lamented her situation. “I shall not think you know the curse a woman bears in struggling to keep her family and home singular, while also fighting to maintain her own independence.”

  “I... apologize, m’lady,” the duke resigned himself, full of pained dread. “It was presumptuous of me to assume I could understand the burden upon you. I should bid you good eve, then,” he said with a defeated nod. She watched him; something inside of her screamed out, begging for her not to let him go - the honesty in his words felt like knives against her heart.

  But she did not call out to him. Instead, he disappeared with shoulders slumped amid the sea of carriage wheels and cabins, and Anne breathed out in dusky disappointment. She had felt something elemental when she saw him - when she heard him speak, when they exchanged those pleased laughs over her confusion. She knew him to be charming, and she had discovered him to be honest.

  But no matter the charm or the pleasure of company he may have brought to her, she could never find herself falling for someone who had so crassly benefited from the system that chained her. For her whole life, she had fought to be something independent, something strong - something standing apart from all of the ‘well-behaved’ women who simply lived to bear children and attend fancy balls, clad in expensive dresses, giggling at bad jokes. She had seen those types of women, lined up along the Earl of Carteret, eager to prove themselves worthy of his attention.

  But why should a woman seek to attract the attention of a man? Why should she not, with her own great merits, deserve the eyes and the interested ears of the right man?

  Nonetheless, the weight of her father’s condition bore down on her as she approached her carriage, a simple black iron-and-wood cabin with a broad, gleaming window. She would find someone who could accept her as she was - eventually.

  But it could not be a man like that... a man who benefited from this wretched system.

  “M’lady,” Smith imparted in his thick Londoner drawl, his expression perking pleased when he saw her. “I had not expected your arrival quite so soon. By my count of time, they’ll only be serving the twentieth course right about now,” he joked.

  “The first nineteen filled me up quite more than I could manage, Smith,” Anne replied wryly. “Shall we depart, then?”

  “I’m quite ready when you are, m’lady,” Smith nodded.

  Chapter Five

  The carriage pulls round the ragged roadway leading to a towering manor striped in black and gossamer white and the powerful gray-eyed gaze of the man inside turned dour. He glanced nervously upon the invitation lain out in his hands to check and to double-check that he had read the name properly. When he saw the letters hand-written with talented precision upon expensive white paper, his heart sank, full of embarrassed dread.

  The Viscount of Roxborough formally invites you to a meeting of particular importance concerning the future and disposition of all estates and titles of Roxborough, it read triumphantly. Memory had indeed not failed him - he knew quite well whose manor he stood poised to step out into.

  He knew the woman who waited inside - Anne, whom he had made a fool of himself in front of at the Earl of Carteret’s gala. The night of his failure he had cursed himself every clop of the horse’s hooves, back to the Amhurst estate - when he arrived he had grasped at bottles of fine brandy and drunken himself into a misery-mired stupor, lamenting the loss of perhaps the only fledgling spark of feeling he had experienced for so tempestuous a woman, in as long as he had lived. It proved again to him that he had only failure to offer to this world, and to the women within it - even when his charm and coy manner seemed to draw interested eyes, he failed to truly stand up for what he felt in the face of scoundrels and conservatives like the young, rapacious earl. That painful night had ended with him lain upon the armchair of his study, the fireplace dead and an empty bottle at his feet, dreams of misery running muddied through his mired mind.

  Yet less than a fortnight later and here Lawrence stands, in a place he had never expected to see - upon the cobblestones leading to the grand oak doorway of the Roxborough estate. He had considered not even coming to this place - but it would be dreadfully impolite to refuse the request of a man as important as the viscount of the estate. He had long served as friend both political and financial advisor to much of the nobility and estates of much of England, and to refuse his request would not doubt send scandal and whispers through the festering, choking vines the nobles called their social circles. The talk of titular disposition drew his interest - he had wondered at the meaning of Anne and her curious attitude over dinner weeks before, and had deduced that perhaps some urgent matter had pressed her into the painful position of searching for an heir.

  And all at once, as the lord of Amhurst stepped from his carriage and waved to his chauffeur, did he push together disparate pieces of scattered thought in his mind and realized just what lay before him. She had talked about the chains of her life - the chaos of her estate. So flustered had Lawrence been, that he did not think upon the logical conclusion of the way she had acted and the consternation evidenced in her confrontation of him among the carriages.

  He had been sent for by the master of the estate to... evaluate. For marriage.

  The very thought turned his stomach, and he spun back to where his carriage had set only moments before, to find it and its driver continuing dutifully along the path to the stables. His breath hitched as he feared disappointment - the same disappointment he had battered upon poor Anne that night, in the presumptuous manner he had shown to her. He considered fleeing; calling upon the chauffeur once more and hastily pretending he had never arrived upon the doorstep. Unfortunately, that particular plan ceased as a possibility when the doors to the manor swung open; Lord Amhurst’s chest thumped in fearful anticipation, expecting to be met by that excoriating gaze of the fiery young woman he had offended at the dinner that night.

  Instead, he came upon a most unexpected sight waiting for him across the small courtyard, a sight that churned his stomach nearly quite as much. Leaving the manor, flanked by attendants (beautiful young female attendants,
of course), came the Earl of Carteret, his expression twisted into a mirthful and carefree smirk as he descended the small staircase leading away from the Roxborough manor’s impressive and booming, heavy doors. A heady concoction of disappointment and disgust conspired to paint Lawrence’s expression dour, in fear that he had perhaps come too late, and that the hand of the lovely and rather unconventional woman he had met before had been claimed already by this lugubrious and wanton fellow, for whom the bile in Lawrence’s chest rose each time he encountered the man.

  “Ah! Is that the Duke of Amhurst I spy, then?” Of course, Lawrence had no way of avoiding the earl’s notice, and the ostentatious young personality, amid a sea of delighted giggles from his attendants, made a mirthful advance in Lawrence’s direction, his smirk beaming and full of an intolerable sort of confidence.

  “Hello, Martin,” came the duke’s dour reply, dismissive of the formalities so often observed in these manner of introductions. “I had not quite expected to see you, here.”

  “I could certainly say the same for you, friend,” the earl announced confidently. “You’ve never quite struck me as the... marriage type. To a woman. Anyway.” The lord nursed no resentment for the silly gossiping he knew floated about regarding his supposed preferences; those who knew him knew the truth, and those who mongered such silly tales could think quite whatever they wish, as far as Lawrence was concerned.

  “My presence was in fact requested by the lord of the manor, and I thought it rather gauche to refuse such an invite,” Lawrence said, a cutting reference to the earl’s own rather blunt and painful obsession with his ostentatious manner. A tension rose between the nobles, eyes exchanging outward pleasantness, though each knew the other to be something of a rival. Lawrence found this a mite curious; he had his reputation for being closed off to eligible women, and it was for that very reputation that he often earned the appreciation and attention of men like the earl, looking to surround themselves with men who could offer balance without offering rivalry. Instead, his arrival on this doorstep, it seemed, put him dead into the sights of the man who for so long had disregarded Lawrence as either a fop or a loveless fool.

  “Perhaps the viscount of this manner doesn’t know you quite as well as I, then?” the earl joked, his sycophantic assistants offering their own echoing chorus of chuckles to accompany their master’s mirth. “I should think he knows, then, that you do not think quite so much of women like his daughter.”

  “I suppose I shall have to go in and let him down, then,” Lawrence responded with an anxious laugh.

  “I suppose you shall,” the earl retorted. “Besides,” he continued, “the woman - Anne, that rueful little thing - her father has taken quite a liking to me, after all. He thinks my rather stern feelings on the position of a woman in the world would do quite well for his daughter,” the earl mused; Lawrence silently balked, though he knew that perhaps there was some truth to the earl’s statement. A woman like Anne would certainly earn the ire of men of the establishment. “Perhaps I’ll take her hand as mine and teach her how she ought to be living life, eh, friend?” the earl commented with that obnoxious, red-cheeked smile on his lips; Lawrence recognized the same chauvinistic ramblings from that night at the earl’s dinner table. He remained quiet, shaking his head.

  “I suppose, then, this meeting with the lord of the manor will be rather quick,” Lawrence announced with a shrug.

  “Renetta, do be a darling and fetch the carriage driver for us, will you?” Martin implored from one of his servants, who gave him a giggly nod in reply. “Lawrence, I’ll be having another lovely party in the weeks coming... perhaps to celebrate my engagement to this wonderful young woman. You’d certainly deserve a place at the table, if you fancy it,” the earl tried to play friendly.

  “I’d adore the opportunity,” Lawrence said deadpan.

  “Farewell, then, and I’ll be in touch,” Martin responded with a sarcastic smile. Lawrence had not come to this manor with the expectation that he would see Anne again; that he would interact with her father, or argue for his own merits as a suitor. And in fact, he still did not expect such a turn of events to unfold. But as he watched the earl leave he realized that some hidden part of him knew this - that he had simply chosen to bury it, or ignore it, or drown it beneath a sea of self-loathing. He had hoped, in some weird and wicked way, to parlay this trampling trip across the hills to the Roxborough estate into a second opportunity with Anne - not for marriage, no, but simply to fix all that he had broken on the eve they’d spent next to one another.

  Certainly not with a mind for courting, or marriage. No. He didn’t deserve that. He couldn’t fathom it, no matter how much his heart had throbbed when he shared those laughing and joyous moments next to her at that dinner. But now that he knew the Earl of Carteret had a mind for caging poor Anne... he felt at least compelled to warn her.

  Lawrence came upon the steps leading to the door and rapped upon the towering portal, the sound loud and echoing. It opened hastily, a gaunt figure of a man nodding and quiet as he invited Lawrence in with the sway of his hand. The dark entryway carried sensible style - blacks and browns and maplewood running along delicately polished floors, with tasteful dark-colored rugs and tables holding richly-burning candelabras. The manor felt far afield of the rather gaudy nature of the man who had just left it, and doubt about the earl’s heady confidence crept in to Lawrence’s mind. Perhaps the young rake had simply been bluffing. Of course, Lawrence could not quite tell why he cared so deeply - he had no intention of marrying this woman - but something sparked in his chest when he thought of the blaze inside of Lady Roxborough extinguished by so crass a hand.

  “You’re awaited in the grand dining hall, Lord Strauss,” the wisp of a man at the door instructed Lawrence. Taken aback, he nonetheless followed the fellow’s directions through the darkened foyer - its few windows bore curtains drawn across the crystalline glass, muffling the overpowering glow of the midday sun. Sequestered in a rear corner of the foyer, cramped full of bookshelves and silvered dishware placed on display, Lawrence found the entrance to the manor’s dining hall. He pulled the door open to a surprisingly cozy and small room; Lawrence had grown accustomed to the dizzyingly long tables so commonly found in the manors of prestigious nobility, where one could sit at one end and not even be able to see the face of the man at the other end.

  “Duke Amhurst, I presume?” A ragged voice the lord could tell once spoke full of life and pride beckoned Lawrence into the chamber. Lawrence’s gaze fell upon the man at far end of the table and immediately he felt a pit gnaw at his stomach. The man, ostensibly the Viscount of Roxborough, the man who had a storied history of subtle heroism among the nobles of England, now looked to be wasting quite literally in front of the duke’s eyes. His shoulders broad and bony and his expression sunken, the viscount nonetheless served as a slave to appearances, wearing a jacket that he had long shrunk away from, frumpy and loose across his ravaged frame. Hair fallen off his head and his eyes glazed in a medicated malaise, the lord nonetheless kept what he could of his dignity by standing to introduce himself to Lawrence. From the grimace, Lawrence could tell that just standing caused the ailing old man intense pain.

  “Y-yes,” Lawrence replied, swallowing hard. “Lawrence Strauss, Duke of Amhurst, as you’ve requested, m’lord,” Lawrence bowed in a gesture of grace, one which the older man tried painfully to reproduce, though he abandoned the motion only half-way through.

  “I apologize for my look, and I should hope it doesn’t put your stomach too off, for I’d like to invite you to have afternoon tea with me,” the old man asked. Vexed with thoughts of Anne and the earl, and driven by his insecurities, Lawrence paused.

  “M’lord, I don’t think that’s quite necessary, as I have a suspicion of why you’ve invited me here today,” Lawrence stated politely.

  “Do you?” came the canny response from the sickened man. “I’m guessing you ran face-first into that incorrigible rapscallion who dares call himsel
f an earl, didn’t you?” the viscount scoffed with as much venom as his ragged, wheezing cough of a voice could manage. “Blustery and full of bollocks, if you’ll excuse my language.” Lawrence nearly choked on a shining, brief moment of pleasant surprise at the lord’s dismissive attitude towards what most men would see as a suitable match for a wayward, wild daughter. “Anne would certainly put him out into the streets with not a stitch of clothes on his back and leave him to wander the moors, before she’d listen to a crass word he had to offer on what her position in life ought to be.”

  “I did catch the sense at the earl’s dinner party that she had... quite an... independent, streak,” Lawrence observed with a sigh. “I should think she would do quite the same to me, should she know you had invited me here to speak with you.”

  “Aye, Tamblyn sent word to me that you had the pleasure of meeting my Anne at that particular event,” the old man spoke with a ragged edge, before breaking into a weak fit of coughs. That would explain, Lawrence surmised, just why he had been chosen for the list of potential suitors for Anne, in her father’s head. “Crazy old bastard he is, but there’s not a man on this whole damned island I respect more when it comes to these sorts of opinions.”

  “And he offered the Earl of Carteret as a potential suitor?” Lawrence implored quizzically.

  “Oh, dear god no,” the viscount hoarsely chuckled. “I simply hadn’t the inclination to inspire scandal by inviting only a single man - you - to the manor, in the discussion of delicate matters. We’re all shackled by expectations, unfortunately,” the dying man grumbled.

  “M’lord, I’m... not certain, what you’ve heard, but I’m... well, I’m certainly not... quite ready, for a marriage to a woman such as your daughter. She’s... well,” he thought on just how to approach the odd situation between himself and Anne, and melancholy struck his heart at the thought.