The Duke of Darkness

by Cora Lee

He’d sent a note back the following day with one of his stable lads, asking after her physical comfort, her health, and Artie’s welfare. The stable lad told her he was to wait for a reply but she hadn’t known what to write under pressure. She sent the stable lad back with a message to pass along to Rhuddlan: thank you for the reply, we are both well, more to follow. She’d then composed a reply later, and sent it with Mrs. Andersen on her way to the village.

  The letter exchange turned into something of a ritual, something she looked forward to every week. But it didn’t make up for the feel of his hands on her body, the fun of playing cards with him, the comfort of lying in his arms, or any of the hundred things she’d come to love about him.

  “Has His Grace come to call yet?” Mrs. D. asked during her own visit. She was sitting with Olivia and Miss H. in Olivia’s drawing room while they worked from their respective sewing baskets.

  “No,” Olivia answered, shifting her gaze to the beams of autumn sun shining through her windows. “I’ve asked him not to yet.”

  “Yet?” Miss H. asked, eyebrows raised. “It’s been over a month since you left him.”

  Left him. Well, that was what she had done. She’d packed her things and gone with no promises and no hope for the future. “I wanted to be on my own for a while.”

  “After what you went through, I don’t blame you,” Mrs. D. said. “It was nearly a year after Mr. Davies met his maker before I found myself wanting a companion, and his death was peaceful.”

  “What is that you’re working on, Olivia?” Miss H. asked.

  Olivia held up the red satin waistcoat she’d been embroidering. “What do you think?”

  The two older women twittered over the quality of the fabric and the tiny dragons that roared across the garment at regular intervals.

  “He’ll wear it with pride, I’m sure,” Miss H. said with a smile.

  “I haven’t even told you who it’s for,” Olivia protested, but it was a weak effort. Blood red and dragons meant only one person for her.

  Mrs. D. patted Olivia’s knee. “Perhaps it’s time to invite him to call, eh?”

  The women stayed another hour, then Olivia found herself walking with Artie to the dark-paneled study for a sheet of paper. “What shall I say to him, Loup Garou? Should I ask him to call, as Mrs. D. suggested? Or shall I simply tell him how much I miss him?”

  She sat down at what had been Lord Hadley’s desk and began to write, telling Rhuddlan how she was finally starting to feel like herself again, and yes, that she missed him. She extended an open invitation to come calling at his convenience and signed it “Livie.”

  When she appeared in the kitchen with the sealed letter in her hand, Mrs. Andersen smiled broadly. “Tomorrow isn’t market day, Miss Lockwood.”

  “I know,” Olivia replied. “You wouldn’t happen to be going to the village anyway, would you?”

  “No,” the housekeeper said slyly. “But I could be going to Rhuddlan Hall if you wanted me to.”

  “It’s not too much trouble?”

  Mrs. Andersen shook her head. “If you’re sending him a note on a different day this week, I’m guessing it’s because it’s important.”

  “I think it is,” Olivia replied, handing over the letter. “We’ll see if he does.”

  Two days went by with no word from Rhuddlan, and Olivia began to wonder if she’d missed her chance. While she was figuring out how to go on in this new life of hers, had he found clarity and a future that didn’t include her? Had he begun looking for a woman who would stabilize his reputation and make an excellent duchess?

  On the third day, a knock sounded at the front door. Mr. Andersen was outside chopping wood and Mrs. Andersen was baking bread in the kitchen, the smell permeating every room, so Olivia went to answer it herself.

  “I’m not too late, am I Miss Stone?”

  Rhuddlan stood there before her, his unbuttoned greatcoat swirling around him in the breeze, a hopefully expression on his face.

  She was frozen for what felt like minutes but was likely only a few seconds. Then she managed a smile and gestured him inside. “Of course not, Your Grace.”

  He walked just a few steps into the house, then turned to her and took her hand. “I’m sorry for not coming sooner. My summons arrived for Parliament, and I must return to London in a few weeks. I’ve spent the last two days issuing orders and signing papers in preparation for the journey. This was the first moment I could get away.”

  Her smile widened, and she suspected the relief showed on her face. “I understand,” she said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t we go and sit in the drawing room?”

  Their eyes met when she said the words “drawing room,” and she knew he was remembering the last time they’d been in such a place together. She was remembering it, too. She took a breath and held it for a moment, trying to calm her racing heart. “I’ll order tea and we can talk.”

  She showed him to the drawing room, popping briefly into the kitchen to request a tea tray. When she returned to the drawing room, she found Rhuddlan standing by one window looking out over the grounds, his greatcoat draped over a nearby chair.

  “It’s a beautiful view this time of year, with the leaves turning colors,” she said, coming up beside him.

  He took her hand once again and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I’m glad you like it. You seem at home here.”

  “I am,” she said, realizing the truth of the statement. “And thanks to your generosity, I’m finding my way as lady of this little manor.”

  “I’m glad to see someone in this house who loves it as much as Hadley did,” he said with a small smile.

  “That’s not exactly what I meant,” she said, turning to take his other hand. “Your generosity in giving me this property was amazing, certainly. But I meant the generosity you showed when you let me go on my own terms. I know how hard it was for me to leave you behind, but I can only imagine how painful it was for you to watch me go with no guarantee we’d ever be together again.”

  He brought both her hands to his chest, and she could feel his heart beating almost as rapidly as her own.

  “It was the hardest thing I ever did,” he confessed. “But you said you loved me, and I trusted you with my heart. When your note came this week and it was signed ‘Livie’…” He paused for what sounded like his own calming breath. “I knew I’d done the right thing. You are the family I’ve chosen, Livie. You’re the person I trust most in the world.”

  Her heart took off at a gallop and those blasted tears came to her eyes. Why was she crying when she’d never felt happier? She took one of her hands back to swipe at her eyes, then laughed, giving it back to him. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

  “Adoration for your betrothed, perhaps?”

  “But we’re not— We can’t— Lucas, I can’t be a duchess,” she said, finally getting a whole thought out. “My mother’s debts might be paid, but I am still a ruined woman.”

  “If Devonshire can live with his wife and mistress in the same house at the same time and not suffer for it, I can marry a woman who was forced into the arms of a footman,” he replied, planting a kiss on each of her hands. “That is, if you will make me the happiest of men.” He arched a dark eyebrow at her and laughed a little. “But you already do. Livie, please just say you’ll marry me so I can stop talking and kiss you.”

  “Yes!” She released his hands and threw her arms around him. Her eyes closed when his arms wrapped around her, and his warm lips found hers. When they parted, she blurted out, “I will likely be a disaster of a duchess, my love, but if it means being with you for the rest of our lives, I’ll do it.”

  The drawing room door flew open and Artie came racing into the room, barking at the sight of a newcomer until he got close enough to sniff.

  “There’s the Loup Garou,” Rhuddlan grinned, reaching down to scratch the dog’s ears. “You’re cold, pup. Have you been outside?”

  Mr. Andersen appeared a moment l
ater followed by his wife with the tea tray, blushing and apologizing for the interruption. “I took him for a walk, Miss Lockwood, but he got away from me once we got back to the house.”

  “He knew someone else was here today,” Olivia said with a laugh. Then an idea struck her. “Would you mind taking him out again, Mr. Andersen? I think he needs to run around a bit more yet.”

  “Of course,” Mr. Andersen replied, glancing at Mrs. Andersen. “Come on ye old dog, let’s let your mistress have her privacy.”

  When he and Mrs. Andersen had taken Artie out and shut the door firmly behind them, Olivia turned back to Rhuddlan, ignoring the tea tray and tracing a finger down the edge of his waistcoat. “I have a gift for you,” she said with a slow smile.

  “You do?”

  “Mmhmm. It’s a waistcoat in Rhuddlan colors. Would you like to see it?”

  His mouth spread into a matching smile at the seductive tone in her voice.

  “It’s in my bedchamber. And you’ll have to try it on to be sure of the fit.”

  He pulled her closer, cupping her derriere with both hands. “You’ll help me remove my current clothing, won’t you?”

  “If you trust me to do so,” she murmured, brushing her lips over his.

  “I will always trust you to disrobe me, Livie my love,” he chuckled. Then he became serious, sliding his hands up her back. “And to handle my heart gently.”

  “I promise to do both,” she said, smiling, “with equal measures of care.”

  “I love you,” he said softly, dipping his head to capture her mouth with his.

  “And I love you,” she replied. “Always.”

  Author’s Note

  When we first started planning this series, I made a joke about using Vlad Dracula as my legend. I’d been having a hard time coming up with a figure who could be adapted to a Georgian-or Regency-set story, and on the surface, Vlad is about as far away from a romantic hero as a person can get. But I’ve always been rather contrary, and once I’d articulated the idea of transforming the Impaler Prince into a swoon-worthy fictional character, I started wondering if it could actually be done.

  As it turns out, Vlad was not really the man legend has made him out to be. By modern standards he was most certainly cruel, and he really did use impalement as his preferred method of punishment. But what most people don’t realize is that he was a man of his time and place. He spent his childhood at a hostile court as a hostage to ensure his father’s compliance. He had to fight—literally—to become ruler of Wallachia, and was dethroned twice. He wasn’t the only, or even the first, ruler to impale his enemies. Stephen III of Moldavia, for example, was at least as enthusiastic about employing the stake as his neighbor in Wallachia, and he was later sainted by the Orthodox Church.

  He also received what I’ve been calling the Richard III treatment, where history and literature have made him out to be a rather different man than his contemporaries probably knew. Where Shakespeare characterized Richard III as a murderous, hunchbacked villain, the Transylvanian Saxons spread rumors, some based in truth, some unverifiable, that Vlad III Dracula was the devil of Wallachia. The use of the brand new printing press and the public’s love of gothic tales, helped spread the Saxons pamphlets similarly to theater companies performing Shakespeare’s plays. A fellow named Bram Stoker may have added a bit more to the public’s opinion of Vlad, as well.

  For this book, I adapted the basic outline of Vlad’s adult life: he was deposed as Prince of Wallachia, then became a fugitive and the commander of a rebel army before restoring himself to the throne. At the beginning of Rhuddlan’s story, he is the ruling prince as it were, then he goes on the run to Liverpool with Olivia before the final showdown with his brother. Lord Nicholas, too, is loosely based on Vlad’s brother, Radu the Handsome, who deposed his brother as Prince of Wallachia with the help of Sultan Mehmed II (played here by the Duke of Cumberland).

  The personalities of historical figures are often difficult to discern, and these characters are no different. As Vlad was a man of his time and one to whom history has not been kind, so too was Rhuddlan. I also gave him a bit of a Hades aesthetic to round him out—a man who took his job very seriously, who was responsible for (in Rhuddlan’s case) thousands of souls and who carries that weight with him always. It’s always why he makes a joke about Artie being Cerberus in disguise. Olivia was not meant to be the embodiment of Persephone, but she did get a little of Pers’s aesthetic as well. Rhuddlan calls her the light of his life and compares himself to the darkness in the world. And Olivia got to be a badass when she needed to be, but was still her feminine, fabric-loving self.

  There are lots of other historical tidbits sprinkled throughout the story, too. You can visit the Pinterest board I made for this book and check them out.

  If you’re interested in reading more about Vlad III Dracula, my two favorite books were Radu Florescu’s Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times (nonfiction) and C.C. Humphreys’s Vlad: The Last Confession (fiction).

  A Legend To Love Series

  When The Marquess Returns by Alanna Lucas

  The Lady and Lord Lakewood by Aileen Fish

  Lady Soldier by Jillian Chantal

  My Wild Irish Rogue by Saralee Etter

  Between Duty and the Devil’s Desires by Louisa Cornell

  A Wulf in Duke’s Clothing by Renée Reynolds

  The Promise of the Bells by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Rogue of the Greenwood by Susan Gee Heino

  A Gift From A Goddess by Maggi Andersen

  The Duke of Darkness by Cora Lee

  His Duchess at Eventide by Wendy La Capra

  Chapter One Excerpt from

  His Duchess At Eventide

  A Legend To Love

  Copyright © 2018 by Wendy LaCapra

  Purchase His Duchess At Eventide

  Chapter One

  November 1805

  Wind whipped Captain Lord Cheverley’s improvised sail against his raft’s mast. Salted sea-spray stung his lips and gusts roared in his ears. Using his shoulder, he wiped rain from his eyes and then re-wedged the paddle between his left arm and leg. Thighs straining, he gripped the groaning rudder.

  He hadn’t survived the unspeakable—seven years of war, a shipwreck, the loss of his right arm below the elbow, and six excruciating years of captivity—only to fail now.

  Had he?

  Wine-dark depths did not defer to long-serving officers of the Royal Navy. Frothy white waves were indifferent to sons of dukes. And life-hungry storms didn’t give a damn if they stripped wives of their husbands, or sons of their fathers.

  Penelope. Thaddeus. Vast emptiness yawned. Instinctively, he beseeched the heavens. Please. I must survive.

  No god answered, only darkness without direction, no land, no guiding stars. The blank, shifting water beneath promised death—the same, slow demise that had claimed the lives of Chev’s fellow seamen stationed with him on the HMS Defiance.

  That gale, too, had materialized as if summoned by Poseidon’s trident, without warning and yet powerful enough to devour his sixty-four-gun ship. Rocks like rusted knives protruded from a deadly shoal. Waves thundered without reprieve, breaking the Defiance into pieces unfit for kindling. And his ship’s end had been only the beginning of his nightmare.

  Tu n'es rien. You are nothing. Je possède chaque partie de tu, maintenant. I own every part of you, now.

  His raft listed. He spit over the side.

  How much adversity could a man face before he surrendered to annihilation’s mercy? How god-damned much?

  The wind bellowed. Siren whispers sounded, sensing weakness—supplicate, surrender, submit.

  What did he have to offer the world he’d left behind? He’d thought he’d return a hero. Instead, he was broken in body and soul. If he yielded to the storm, would it not be kinder to his family and a just restitution for his sins?

  Memories feathered through his thoughts. His face buried in the softness of Penelop
e’s hair. Her fingers, drifting in soothing circles against the small of his back.

  He inhaled deep, straining against invisible bonds and roaring back into the wind. He cursed fate. He cursed God. He cursed the pirate witch who’d kept him captive. Then, he cursed himself.

  His anger crystalized in breath, clouding the chilled air. He’d escaped captivity, darkness, restraints. Zephyr’s winds and Poseidon’s waves demanded the final say, but he would not give up without a fight.

  Not tonight.

  The bundle strapped across his back held what little remained of hung beef and brandy. His cask of fresh water ran low, but he had enough to last another day.

  He smothered his weakness, gritted his teeth, and held fast to the rudder.

  He’d survive.

  He’d survive on the pure need for vengeance.

  ~~~

  For years, while Penelope labored to transform her husband’s estate, Pensteague House, into a haven, she’d done her best to ignore the specter of neighboring Ithwick Manor, her husband’s birthplace. At her worst, she’d wished the house and grounds would simply wither away. Then, however, the duke had been hale, his heir, Piers, alive, and she and her son superfluous to the duchy.

  Now, everything had changed, and light filtering through the ducal library’s windows chastised her for those fancies—the carpets were worn, the centuries-old relics, dust-laden, and a must-heavy scent burned inside the bridge of her nose. Hour by listless hour, time had been devouring what was left of her husband’s boyhood world. And Ithwick’s slow demise provided none of her hoped-for triumph.

  Still, having done her duty, called on the duke, and reported on Thaddeus’s education and care—not that His Grace had appeared to understand a word—she itched to leave this place full of ghosts and greed, mother to the heir or not.

  Mrs. Renton—the duke’s devoted housekeeper, and one of the few Ithwick residents Penelope trusted—wrung her liver-spotted hands.