The Duke she Desires

by Violet Hamers

  Peter was so taken aback he could not speak.

  A hero? Me? Surely she must be lying. It cannot be true. Can it?

  “You were harmed helping your country, an extremely noble endeavour that sets you apart from anyone else of your set. Not many dukes would willingly walk onto a battlefield and sit behind an iron catapult, lighting fuses that send heavy balls of fire flying in the direction of the enemy!”

  Miss Bell was flushed and breathing hard when she finished, and her voice had raised in octave with practically each word. Peter had never seen her look so spirited about anything, not even when she was admonishing.

  She’s rather fetching like this, was his first thought. His second was of the far more proper variety, and it was of appreciation.

  “How did you know all that?” he couldn’t help asking.

  “All what?” she asked, still breathing hard.

  “About what I did…back then? About the cannon and all that? I never told you the part I played.”

  “I asked Stevens. You were so reluctant to talk about the siege, and I had to get the information somehow. For scientific purposes, you understand,” she added.

  Peter held back a laugh as he nodded. “Indeed.”

  “But now, back to Lady Magdalene and your argument. What happened?” Miss Bell asked ever so casually, taking a sip of her tea.

  Her eyes looked up at Peter’s, and he couldn’t help thinking again of just how beautiful and truly confusing she was. Really, the best sort of combination in a woman.

  Chapter Eight

  “Well, I’m dreadfully sorry that happened, Your Grace,” Miss Bell told Peter as she finished her cup of tea.

  “Thank you,” Peter said, nodding. He had just relayed the whole drama of the morning, including the delightful insults that Lady Magdalene had thrown at him on her way out the door. Insults like “unlovable,” “gimp,” “utterly useless,” and other such choice phrases a gentleman longs to hear from his betrothed.

  “You will find someone else. Someone who loves you for exactly who you are,” she said with force.

  Peter looked over at Miss Bell with a raised eyebrow. “Oh really?”

  “Yes! Of course! You are an accomplished duke who has risked his life and lived to tell the tale. Ladies of the ton love that sort of thing, I am sure,” she said with a wave of her hand.

  And yet Peter couldn’t help thinking that he did not want another lady of the ton. Rather, he wanted someone rather a lot like Miss Bell.

  Miss Bell dropped the biscuit she had just bitten into on her gown, and as she bent over, she released a whiff of scent that Peter immediately recognized as being a mixture of lilac and lavender. They were his mother’s two favorite scents, and she had ensured that every drawer and closet of linen in the house was stuffed to the gills with sacks of the flowers. Peter found himself smiling at the scent, as well as at the memories of his mother that suddenly flooded his mind.

  Henrietta Cadden, Duchess of Kingwood, had been the kindest, gentlest of creatures. Originally a seamstress, she and Peter’s father had fallen in love and, against both families’ wishes, gotten married in Gretna Green at a blacksmith’s shop when his mother was just eighteen and his father twenty-seven.

  Despite the unorthodox start to the marriage, however, Peter’s mother had quickly ingratiated herself to her husband’s family by simply being herself. She was a kind, amiable creature, could make even the sternest of gentlemen laugh, loved and was loved in return by children, and it was generally agreed that a person was unable to be in her presence without smiling at least thrice in an hour.

  After bearing her husband an heir, she had gone on to bear two more children, a girl and boy. Peter had few memories of his younger brother and sister, for they had died of childhood illnesses not long after their births.

  And yet even after these tragedies, his mother had remained a wonder. She had thrown herself into charity work, favoring a visit to the local orphanage or hospital over yet another ball or country house party. She had doted on him, helping him learn to read and write, taking him on walks where she pointed out various flora and fauna, including her treasured lilacs and lavender.

  She was also formidable, unlikely to be swayed by anyone, least of all a gentleman. In fact, Peter realized, Lavinia Bell shared rather a lot of traits with his dear mother.

  If only Mother could have met Miss Bell.

  Peter’s mother would have no doubt found the female physician a fascinating person, and he could just imagine his mother and Miss Bell spending an afternoon together in the garden, talking about all and sundry while they admired flowers and let the sun dapple golden rays on their hair.

  But this would never be. Peter’s mother was gone now, and had been for a good seven years now. She had taken ill soon after Christmas the year of his eighteenth birthday. She was sick for precisely ten days before succumbing to a mysterious illness that had her bedridden and, for the final three days of her life, entirely unable to speak. Peter had been holding her hand when she passed, and had felt the strength slowly go out of her, the light in her eyes leave as she ascended to some higher plain of existence.

  “Your Grace? Don’t you think you will find someone else?”

  Peter was so lost in thoughts, memories, and the residual pain of grief and loss that at first he was confused by the words coming out of Miss Bell’s plump, pink mouth.

  What is she talking about?

  “Oh, Miss Bell. You have not the remotest idea of how the ton works if those are your thoughts on the matter.”

  “Are people of the ton not allowed spouses who love them? Are they not allowed love and affection in addition to familial alliances and an increase in landholdings resulting from marriage?” Miss Bell asked, her voice rising with feeling.

  “Well,” Peter said, unsure how to continue his thoughts beyond the introductory word. He had rarely seen Miss Bell so ferocious with feeling. Lady Magdalene had looked similarly affected earlier that day, but her appearance had not stirred anything in Peter beyond a relief than she was no longer his.

  Miss Bell, however, was exceedingly attractive in such a state. Her color was high, her chest heaving with breath, and she was the most striking thing he had ever seen. Were he a stronger man, he would drag her over to him and kiss her, ravish her, exploring the reaches of her mouth and exposed skin until they were both gasping with pleasured breath.

  But I am not a stronger man, he reminded himself. I cannot even stand on my own two feet at present.

  “Well?” she repeated, her eyes glistening with challenge.

  “I… I imagine we are allowed those things. It is not often done, you understand, to marry for those sorts of benefits. But my parents did it, and it worked out rather well for them.”

  “Then perhaps that is the sort of union you ought to seek, once you are healed and back out in society,” Miss Bell suggested as she stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Peter asked with rather more alarm than he had hoped to make known.

  He was disconcerted by the smile that spread across Miss Bell’s face at his remark.

  “I am going to get Stevens, and we are going to carry you to bed. It has been an eventful morning, and now that it is the afternoon, I believe it is time for you to have a nap. You need your rest after so much drama. I will leave you to relax, and then check on you later on, to help you with your stretches,” she said, and with that, she turned around and walked out of the room, leaving Peter thinking a few things.

  Chief among them was that odd thought from earlier, that he hoped his next marriage prospect was rather a lot like Miss Bell. The second time around, this thought was no less shocking, but it also calmed him, strangely.

  For with a woman like her around, he might just have a shot at the happiness he’d found so easy to feel before his injury. With a woman like Miss Bell around, Peter thought, he might even be able to find love, something he’d always thought himself incapable of. With Miss Bell, he might be able to hav
e a relationship echoing that of his parents, which he remembered as exceedingly full of love, often disgustingly so.

  He laughed to himself as Stevens entered the room and scooped him into his arms, marvelling at the idea of wanting to be disgusting.

  Lord, but what is this Miss Bell doing to me?

  Chapter Nine

  Lady Magdalene Stewart was looking at her finger, which was now bare of the gold engagement ring that had graced the thin digit these past six months.

  Magdalene found that she liked the lightness she felt without the ring weighing her down. It had been a distasteful-looking thing, with a strange design that the Duke told her was supposed to make one think of flowers.

  Magdalene knew that this was the fashion of engagement rings right now—indeed, four of her female acquaintances wore similar rings on their hands, and all waxed poetic about how charming the little trinkets were to behold. But Magdalene did not want what was usual. She had wanted something extraordinary from the Duke to celebrate their union, something so sparkling and filled with jewels that it could blind someone if they happened to be in a certain light at a certain angle.

  Instead, she had to settle for the ring the Duke gave her, because it belonged to his mother, and that was somehow important. Magdalene hated her mother, who was a silly and silent Lady who let her husband speak for her on almost every occasion. Peter, however, loved his mother, and had told her many stories that made the lady sound positively angelic.

  Magdalene had found herself growing rather jealous of Peter’s good opinion of his mother by the end. Talking about her was, in fact, the only thing that seemed able to make him smile. Magdalene couldn’t put a grin on his face, but reminiscing about his mother could have the gentleman smiling for hours.

  She had done her best to hide her jealousy, but now, she supposed, there was no longer any need for that. She’d made those and other feelings perfectly plain that morning. Indeed, it seemed as though everything that she and the Duke had been feeling, all the thoughts and sentiments they had been bottling up for months like expensive wine, had come tumbling out. It had been distressing, of course, screaming at each other and saying all those horrible things, Magdalene had also found it strangely cathartic.

  Yelling at His Grace, when she had for so long had to tiptoe around him, an omnipresent smile on her face, a cheering lilt in her voice, was refreshing. She had felt like a shadow of herself these last few months, trying to maintain their relationship when it was so clear he was no longer invested in their union. Her spirit wilted with every visit to the Duke where he seemed not cheered in the least to see her, and today, she’d finally had enough.

  I deserve to be cherished, not ignored or merely tolerated. She had known this all along, but when His Grace actually visibly winced when she entered the room, she had known that the time had come to end their association. Magdalene had known from the outset that hers and the Duke’s would never be a love match, but at first there had at least seemed to be an attraction between them. After he returned from the war, however, that disappeared, as did his will to live.

  The wincing was the last straw, waking her up to the fact that Peter would never appreciate her efforts to heal him. The fact that he had gone and gotten his own physician without even telling her was proof enough of that.

  That the physician was a woman was even more of an affront; His Grace had sent countless expensive physicians from the continent away, yet he was accepting the help of someone whose gender rendered their skills necessarily inferior? It was an insult, and she would not bear it.

  Which was exactly what she had shouted at him, along with a few select insults and other grievances she had felt it necessary to air.

  And now, with her finger bare and her afternoon free, she was rid of Peter Cadden, The Duke of Kingwood. Magdalene was finally able to find a fit, healthy gentleman with whom to start the family she had been so longing for these last few years. She could start going to balls again, start socializing, without the burden of having to answer countless questions about the Duke’s health.

  Most importantly, once she found the gentleman who would be her husband, there would be no reason to postpone their nuptials. Why, by this time next year, she could be wed with a child on the way.

  What an exciting thought!

  It was a good thing, really, to be ringless and without a betrothed. Magdalene was quite looking forward to her freedom.

  Her good spirits and cheer were short-lived, however. Magdalene looked up from her left hand to find the carriage stopped, and her door being drawn open by one of the footmen. She had just alighted the carriage and was about to step through the doorway leading into the house’s front hallway when she heard the tell-tale shout of her father’s voice booming down the hallway.

  She saw the footman and butler flinch slightly, preparing themselves for the onslaught of noise. She sympathized with them, greatly, though at least they did not have to actually converse with her father. She, however, was forced to do so on a regular basis.

  Karl Stewart, Marquess of Stafwood, operated at two volumes: loud, and louder. Whispering was a foreign concept to him, and Magdalene had early on adapted a particular affinity for silence, no doubt the result of living with a loud brute whose very footsteps could be heard echoing all through the house.

  “Maggie!” the gentleman himself shouted, raising his cane at Magdalene. Her father was perfectly able, but liked to carry a cane with him, explaining that it intimidated the servants and staff. “They never know when I might make use of it for disciplinary purposes,” he often joked, though Magdalene had seen him swat at some of the younger, more inexperienced footmen once or twice. She made certain to always give her father and his weapon a large berth when she could.

  “Good afternoon, Father,” she said, taking off her gloves and hat and handing them to one of the anxious-looking footmen, who immediately scurried away, practically sprinting down the hall. He was soon followed by the butler and the other footman, thereby leaving Magdalene alone with her father.

  “Come, let us go to the morning room and you can tell me of your visit with the Duke,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her rather roughly toward one of the closed doors on the right side of the hallway.

  Magdalene relaxed her hand, knowing from experience that doing so lessened the chance of a bruise on her wrist from her father’s fingers. Though she was one-and-twenty now, her father still treated her like a child in some ways, grabbing her hand to lead her places and ordering her about. It was one of the many reasons why she had decided to marry Peter Cadden, The Duke of Kingwood. Wedding him would get her out of her father’s house, out of his grasp, both literally and figuratively.

  They entered the morning room to find her mother already seated inside, staring off into the distance, her face slack, her eyes glazed over. This was her usual expression, one Magdalene was certain her mother had adopted the day she wed her father.

  She’d heard rumors of her mother once being a forthright, even happy person from one of her mother’s long-time maids, but apparently those traits had disappeared after her wedding to the marquess, who liked his ladies silent and biddable.

  Theirs was an arranged marriage that gave her family the money they needed and his the prestige they desired, and it had left both sides of the couple profoundly unhappy. Not that either of them seemed to mind very much. Or at least, neither of them voiced their displeasure.

  It’s the only thing Father doesn’t voice.

  To distract herself, she turned to greet her mother.

  “Good afternoon, Mama,” she said, walking toward her and kissing her on the cheek. Her mother flinched at the contact, looking up at Magdalene with a vague smile.

  “’Afternoon, Maggie,” she said placidly, glancing briefly at Magdalene’s eyes before returning to whatever dot on the wall had thus far commanded her attention.

  Magdalene hated being called Maggie, a nickname her parents had given her as a child, but she had ceased b
egging for the disuse of it. It was such an ingrained habit for both her mother and father, to call her Maggie, and so she bore it with as much good humor as she could muster, which, on a day like today, was not much. Not now that she was going to be forced to relay the tale of her morning.

  She knew her father would not be pleased with the dissolution of the engagement. She had thought he would be out when she returned, offering her a few hours to rest and plan what to say. Clearly, her information had been faulty, for here her father sat, his thick, curled mustache fairly quivering in anticipation.

  Lord, give me strength, she prayed, hoping that God was willing to hear her pleas, despite a lifetime of neglecting them.

  “So, tell us, tell us. Any improvements in His Grace? Is the leg at all better?” her father asked, rubbing his hands together as he took a seat in an armchair next to the settee on which her mother was resting.

  “Some,” Magdalene said, lacing her fingers and planting them in her lap. She knew she would have to be careful with her words from now on. If she spoke carefully, she might be able to prevent one of her father’s fits of anger. She didn’t have the energy for such an outburst today of all days. The fits always ended with broken crockery, her mother sobbing, and all the household servants too afraid to enter the room to begin cleaning up the broken bits of porcelain.

  It was a situation best avoided, so Magdalene took a deep breath and girded herself for the conversation.

  “Some? Well, that is news! Do tell us the details. Is he walking? Has he mentioned anything about the wedding date?” her father pleaded, leaning forward in anticipation.

  Oh God, how I wish I didn’t have to do this.

  Magdalene knew her father would erupt when she told him that the duke was better. Not because of the many physicians that her father had paid to travel to England, but rather to that of an upstart bluestocking with no proper training or expertise.