by Lenora Bell
“There are only four eligible dukes this Season,” said Grizzy. She was an expert on eligible dukes. “I don’t count Thorndon—since he never comes to London, and I won’t mention Borthwick, since he’s seventy-five and Wilhelmina’s just turned twenty.”
Mina shuddered. “Thanks ever so much.”
Grizzy perched on the edge of her chair. “There’s Granwall, but they say he murdered his first wife. And Westbury, but he hasn’t a farthing to his name—lost it all in the gaming hells. Marmont might do, though he’s quite peculiar. He invents a new illness every day of the week.”
“Thorndon,” said Sir Malcolm. “He’s the only clear choice.”
Mina stifled a snort of disbelieving laughter. Thorndon happened to be Lord Rafe Bentley’s elder brother, but the two of them were like night and day. “Uncle,” she said, “Thorndon is a recluse who shuns society. I heard that he wanders the moors at night, howling at the moon. They say village maidens have gone missing.”
“Oh no, Sir Malcolm, Thorndon will never do,” said Grizzy. “Everyone knows he’s gone quite mad living in that cursed house in Cornwall.”
The very name Thornhill House conjured images of vine-twisted walls. Wind howling across moors. An ancient, haunted house. Craggy cliffs and crashing seas.
A prison.
“Utter rubbish,” said Sir Malcolm. “Those ridiculous rumors are complete fabrications. I have incontrovertible proof that the sixth duke of Thorndon is as sane and hale as I am. It’s all detailed in the dossier.”
“Yes, but Thorndon never visits London, and therefore I’m not likely to meet him, much less elicit an offer of marriage,” said Mina firmly.
Sir Malcolm’s impassive expression took on a hint of smugness. “He arrived in Town today. He’s staying at his club. And he’s in want of a wife.”
Blast. Mina should have known her uncle had a card up his sleeve. “He may be in want of a wife, but I’m not in want of a duke.”
“Nonsense.” Grizzy patted the black lace cap perched atop her towering mound of iron-gray curls. “Every young lady desires a duke.”
“Not this one,” Mina said.
“His mother’s ball tonight is your best chance,” said her uncle. “A preemptive strike will be best. The other young ladies will be frightened of his reputation but you will be armed with the truth.”
Blast all dukes to eternity! Tonight was when she’d been planning to approach Lord Rafe. This duke dossier business could ruin everything.
“And just how am I supposed to launch this preemptive strike?” Mina cocked an imaginary firearm. “Waylay Thorndon and hold him at pistol point in the gardens?”
Sir Malcolm’s upper lip twitched. “You are quite fearsome with a pistol. Steadier hand than most gentlemen I know.”
“Pray don’t encourage her, Malcolm,” said Grizzy. “She’s unconventional enough already.”
“Do you still have that flintlock pocket pistol?” asked her uncle.
Mina patted the silk reticule sitting on a side table. “Right here.”
“Do you mean to tell me you have a firearm in your reticule? What if it should discharge accidentally and harm a footman?” asked Grizzy.
“Mina’s an expert markswoman,” replied Sir Malcolm with a touch of pride. “She must be ready to defend herself should a gentleman make unwelcome advances. A pistol tends to cool the ardor.”
“No gentleman will dare take liberties under my piercing gaze,” promised Grizzy.
First order of business: evade Grizzy’s piercing gaze.
“I expect you’ll find that Thorndon is already predisposed to court Wilhelmina,” said Sir Malcolm. “I wrote him a letter describing her excellent managerial skills, her facility with a ledger, and her suitableness for a solitary life in the countryside. I told him that she was delicate in stature, yet strong as a horse.”
“I’ll be sure to neigh loudly and nuzzle his palm for apple slices while we dance,” said Mina tartly.
“Really, Wilhelmina,” said Grizzy. “What’s wrong with you? You should be grateful to your uncle. He’s trying to make you a duchess.”
He was trying to protect her, lock her away someplace safe, silent, and hidden away.
She was so tired of hiding. She longed to be more than her uncle’s secretary. She was going to make her own mark on the world, instead of making entries in his ledgers. The world had no idea what she was capable of.
“Thorndon is the very pinnacle of English manhood,” said Sir Malcolm. “Dignified, statesmanlike, admirable, and, above all else, honorable. He’ll keep you out of trouble and out of harm’s way.”
Trouble was her reason for being here. Trouble, adventure, revenge . . . freedom.
Everything she’d been denied her whole life.
“He’s a remarkably fine figure of a man,” said Sir Malcolm, continuing the plaguing topic of the Duke of Thorndon. “He towers over me and I’m not small. His features are noble and his eyes are an unusual shade of amber—rather like honey.”
“Sounds like you want to marry him,” said Mina.
“Don’t be impertinent, Wilhelmina,” Grizzy scolded.
“Study the dossier carefully,” Sir Malcolm instructed. “Memorize portions of Thorndon’s excellent treatise on the rotation of turnips and clover to produce hospitable soils and quote them back to him while you dance.”
Turnip rotation. Good Lord. Mina would rather poke out her eyes with a pitchfork than memorize agricultural treatises. She was here for adventure.
“Marry Thorndon and your future will be assured,” said Grizzy. “You’ll be a duchess.”
“In a crumbling haunted house on the moors,” said Mina.
“A small price to pay,” replied Grizzy. “I’m sure that Thorndon would allow you to travel to Town after you give him an heir and a spare.”
Frustration sizzled through Mina’s mind like a fuse ignited by a spark.
No man was going to allow her to do anything, ever again.
She was going to seize control of her life. Shape her own destiny.
A destiny that most certainly did not involve being imprisoned on the moorlands as a brooding duke’s broodmare.
Chapter 2
“There he is, Wilhelmina,” Grizzy whispered, staring reverently across the crowded ballroom. “The Duke of Thorndon.”
Holy Hell, he’s handsome, thought Mina.
Jaw-dropping-on-the-floor handsome. Drool-on-your-lace-fichu handsome.
Distract-her-from-her-plan-with-his brother handsome.
Her uncle had been right. Thorndon was a fine figure of a man. Objectively speaking, the finest she’d ever beheld.
Tall as a door frame, with a face hewn from the same granite as the rugged Cornish coastline.
A face rendered seductive by contrasts: sharp cheekbones and curved, sensuous lips. Gleaming ebony hair brushed his collar. His eyes were a light, gold-tinged brown—the only warm thing about him.
He owned this ballroom. Literally. And he owned everyone in it by dint of his oversized presence and the cold, unsmiling arrogance scrawled across his face.
He didn’t even follow the dictates of fashion, preferring plain black attire to the white pantaloons and gaily-colored waistcoats of the other gentlemen.
Why should he follow the dictates of fashion? Everyone should follow him.
“When you’re introduced to Thorndon, pray speak as seldom as possible,” Grizzy whispered. “Attempt to appear biddable and do try to recall my decorum lessons. Remember, no one in London knows anything about you, thank the Lord.”
Mina had seen several polished, elegant young ladies staring at her, nudging one another and whispering. She was an outsider, a usurper, her proper place in the social hierarchy not yet established.
They needn’t worry. She had no designs on their prize duke. And she was about as unpolished as a debutante could be—as rough as an unsanded plank. If anyone touched her they might get splinters.
She longed to shed her country
skin swiftly and emerge as the sophisticated social butterfly her mother had been. But she knew that it would take time, observation, and experimentation.
Her first flirtatious conversation, first kiss, first taste of brandy, first adventure . . . it was all ahead of her.
She couldn’t wait to taste it all.
“There are many lovely young ladies here but we have the advantage,” Grizzy continued, “because Sir Malcolm has already written to Thorndon about you. The duke will regard your secluded country upbringing favorably as he’s seeking a bride able to thrive in the wilds of Cornwall.”
He wanted a biddable lady that he could control—a secretary he didn’t have to pay. An investment expected to produce a return in nine months’ time.
“Are you listening to me, Wilhelmina?” asked Grizzy. “You only have one chance to make a favorable first impression. Pray do not squander this precious opportunity.”
“I’m planning to be absolutely memorable.” Memorable for her utter lack of desirability.
Grizzy sniffed. “Not too memorable. Practice restraint, delicacy—your speech must be measured, your laughter modulated. Not one flash of temper.”
“I’ll do my best,” Mina said sweetly. She’d do her best to be everything the duke disdained.
Thorndon was everything she was escaping—duty, restrictions, and boundaries. He was the jailer her uncle wished her to wed—could legally force her to wed.
A huge, unyielding obstruction of a duke, standing between her and her true target.
She was merely biding her time until Lord Rafe arrived. She’d done her research. He never appeared anywhere before midnight, preferring to make a fashionably late entrance. Once he arrived, she could set her plan in motion.
She would evade Grizzy’s sharp gaze long enough to secure a private audience with Lord Rafe in the moonlit gardens. During which, Mina would propose an espionage partnership in such a compelling way that Lord Rafe would accept her offer immediately.
Her life of freedom and adventure began tonight.
But first she must repel the duke.
As soon as one dewy-eyed debutante left Drew’s arms, his mother introduced another one.
There seemed to be an endless supply of them. All encased in frothy layers of white or yellow or pale pink. All with impossibly slender waists and delicate arms emerging from enormous ruffled sleeves that reminded him of abandoned wasps’ nests.
Hair adorned with bows and feathers.
Eyes adorned with fear.
They touched him gingerly, as though he were made of eggshells and might crack in front of them. Which made him irritable. So he growled and glowered but it only made them smile with more determination, bat their eyelashes harder, and pile on the flattery.
He shouldn’t have agreed to attend the ball. He was exhausted from days of hard travel and frustrated by his conversation with Rafe—which had gone nowhere, damn him. His brother had stubbornly refused to admit anything and had escaped at the first opportunity, literally leaping from the carriage and racing away.
Drew would be out searching for him if he didn’t have to be here, to warn his sister.
Lady Beatrice will be kidnapped.
Not on his watch.
He shouldn’t have agreed to the ball, but it had made his mother so happy that he hadn’t had the heart to say no. Especially when he’d seen the hurt in her eyes when she spoke of how long he’d been absent.
The same hurt in Beatrice’s hazel eyes.
The violins were out of tune, couldn’t anyone else hear it? The shrill scraping sound of strings about to snap.
The gossips clustered in knots, waiting for him to slip up and display some sign of madness, their sharp gazes dissecting him like a fresh cadaver in the lecture hall of a medical college.
He knew what London thought of him.
Such a dreadful shame, a duke gone so far astray. Hiding in that cursed house. Wild and uncivilized as the Cornish coastline. Gone half mad because of his ordeal, sympathizing with his kidnapper and ranting about tenant rights. Sweating in the fields like a common laborer.
He must be as mad as they said he was. He couldn’t bring any of these London hothouse flowers to Thornhill House. They would wither after one winter.
He wanted a marriage of convenience with a stouthearted and sturdy lady who wouldn’t suffer an attack of vapors at the sight of cobwebs, leaky roofs, or mold creeping along a wall.
A lady who had experience with living in the countryside beyond the occasional summer retreat to a well-tended, luxurious family seat.
He loved Thornhill House in all its time-eaten, rickety-boned glory. It had been long deserted when he arrived, cared for by only a skeleton staff of elderly retainers nearly as decrepit and tottering as the desolate mansion they tended.
He’d renovated one wing of the house, and would start on the next section soon, but it was in no state to receive a pampered young lady with expectations of luxury and modern amenities.
Beatrice twirled past him in the arms of a bored-looking dandy with ridiculously forward-swept hair. How did the dandies make their hair stay that way? It looked like tree branches trained by sea winds to grow all in one direction.
His sister had a martyred expression on her face. She wasn’t enjoying the dance any more than the dandy was. Mother had forced her to remove her spectacles. She stumbled and her partner sneered.
Drew’s heart clenched into a fist. If any man in the room so much as cracked a joke at his sister’s expense he would pummel him to within an inch of his life.
The dance ended and Beatrice chose an opportune moment to slip behind the wall of potted ferns in front of the glass doors that led to the gardens, one of her favorite hiding places as a young girl.
He began making his way toward her hiding place, hoping to finally be able to seize a moment alone with her, when his mother pounced.
“There you are, Thorndon.” Her round face wreathed into a hopeful smile as she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “I have a lady to introduce—Miss Wilhelmina Penny, Sir Malcolm Penny’s niece.”
“I’m afraid that I’m rather exhausted from my—” he began, but his mother blithely ignored him.
“Miss Penny is a lovely young thing, raised entirely in the countryside. She has such a charming, rustic air. She’s very good with bookkeeping and estate management, and her great-aunt tells me that she has a fascination with agricultural pursuits.”
Of course she did.
His mother rose to her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “I think she could be the one.”
Drew cleared his throat. “I truly am tired from—”
“No refusals.” His mother tugged him toward Miss Penny and her black-garbed pirate ship of an elderly chaperone. “She would be devastated. Just look at that angelic face.”
Yet another fair-haired wisp of a lady encased in frothy white. Miss Penny looked as though a stiff breeze could carry her away. A duke’s refusal to dance with her might crush her entirely. Her name rang a bell, though he couldn’t recall why.
“One more, Mother, and then I’m finished for the evening.”
Moments later he clasped a tiny-boned wrist. “Miss Penny, may I have the pleasure?”
A panicked expression crossed her pretty face but then she smiled one of those sugar-spun smiles that would melt so quickly outside the comforts of London. “Your Grace, the pleasure would be mine.”
He led her out for the waltz.
She was so dainty that he had to stoop slightly to reach her waist. One of her hands drifted onto his shoulder like a petal falling from a flower onto a brick wall. He clasped her other hand gently, cognizant of how huge his hands were in relation to hers.
The music started and his feet followed the order to dance.
She smelled good, like the honey of clover buds when you crush one between your fingers.
They all smelled good.
Artificial blooms raised in the confines of London, raised to be ornam
ental.
She floated in his arms like a wraith, her gaze fixed at some remote point in the distance.
Were her eyes blue or gray? Some color in between, he decided. More gray than blue. Like a tide line in an ocean. Or the sky before it rained.
She had an oval face with a pointed chin and lush, full lips.
Kissable lips.
Sir Malcolm Penny’s niece. Ah, that was it. He’d received a letter from the eminent antiquarian right before he left for London. He had it in his traveling trunk, unopened.
“I believe your uncle wrote to me recently, Miss Penny.”
Her gaze snapped to his face. The panic returned to her eyes. “All lies.”
“Pardon?”
“Lies. He lied to you. I hate the countryside. I’m hopeless with account books and estate management. I’m not useful in the slightest. My health is delicate. I catch a cold at the slightest provocation.”
“Uh . . . you hate the countryside?”
“I hate open fields. Sheep are such insipid creatures. I detest sunshine. I’m only happy in lamplight. And I can’t abide nature walks. I only consent to walk when there is a trinket or a new pair of gloves for purchase at the end of my exertions.”
She told him all of these details in a rush, as though she’d been rehearsing the speech and hadn’t quite perfected her delivery.
Drew stared at her, taken aback. While he couldn’t agree with the sentiments she was expressing, this was at the very least a far cry from the other conversations he’d had this evening.
The last lady he’d danced with had professed a hyperbolic adoration for all things Cornwall, from grazing sheep to legendary ghosts, to a profound ambition to stand on the cliffs at Land’s End and “absorb the transcendent power of Nature.”
“You hate taking nature walks,” he echoed.
“Especially along the moors. Or on cliffs overlooking the ocean,” she confirmed, with a decisive little nod of her determined wedge of a chin.
