Damned If I Duke

Book 2: Drop Dead Dukes

by Anna Bradley

Genres: Regency Romance; Siblings; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Set against the Bridgerton-era backdrop of Regency London, Anna Bradley’s witty and sexy trilogy sets fiercely alpha dukes against the duchesses who are determined to transform their delinquent husbands by any means necessary. A delight for fans of Mary Jo Putney, Sabrina Jeffries, Ella Quinn, Diana Quincy and Julia Quinn.
 
Bold and adventurous, Prudence Thorne is not the kind of woman to stand by meekly when someone she loves has been wronged. And she’s quite certain that Jasper Vincent, Duke of Montford, somehow duped her father into racking up enormous gambling debts. When fate offers her a chance to blackmail Jasper into forgiving her father’s losses, she seizes it . . . only to have her scheme backfire.
 
Jasper enjoys London’s illicit delights too much to wed. Too bad his grandfather has decided that a woman with the nerve to blackmail might be exactly the sort of wife to tame him. Pressed into a marriage neither wanted—and fighting a desire neither expected—Prue and Jasper torment and tempt each other beyond reason.
 
Surely a proper duchess should be subdued, obedient, and dignified? Yet just as he begins to get his wish, Jasper realizes how much he wants his unconventional wife—and only her—if it’s not too late to win her . . .

Release date: March 26, 2024

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Jasper St. Vincent, the Duke of Montford, had a talent for sin.

Some gentlemen excelled at sport, others at art or music, and still others were notable for their wit or fashionable eccentricities, but there wasn’t a single gentleman in London who could rival him for creative, inspired wickedness.

It was a curious gift, really, and not one he’d chosen. It had been foisted upon him, bred into his bones, a bequest from either his mother or father. He couldn’t be certain which, as both of them had been felled by a fever before he’d reached his sixth year, but one or the other had infected the St. Vincent bloodline with a truly dazzling streak of devilishness that was as much a part of him as the dimple in his left arse cheek.

Some days it was a blessing, others a curse. It depended on what was passing at the time.

“You’ve the most absurdly bewildered expression on your face, Your Grace. One would think we were playing chess rather than a simple game of vingt-et-un.”

Tonight, it was a curse. A scourge, a plague, a torment visited upon him from the very depths of the fieriest pit of hell, and atop a shockingly bright green silk divan on the other side of a baize table perched Satan’s favorite mistress herself, the plump, scarlet lips he’d once found so alluring curled in a malicious smirk.

Pure poison, those lips. It was a pity he’d drunk so deeply from them before he’d regained his wits. It had been a temporary madness only, but getting free of her had been no easy feat. She’d left scars behind. Not figurative scars, either, but actual mutilated flesh. He touched a finger to the thin, jagged line her silver hairbrush had left on his forehead. Half an inch to the right, and he might have lost his eye. As it was, his eyebrow would never be the same.

The scuffle with the hairbrush had put a final, irrevocable end to their affair—he drew the line at maiming, as every proper gentleman should—but in the month since he’d broken with her, Lady Selina Archer, once his delight, had become his greatest torment.

“It’s your play, Your Grace. Do try and attend to the game, won’t you?” Her smirk widened, her lips pulling back to reveal sharp, gleaming incisors. “Oh, dear. Are you unwell? You’re rather pale.”

Dear God, that smile was chilling, and how was it he’d never noticed before how unpleasant her voice was? Like the grind of shattered glass under a boot heel. His shredded nerves shrieked in protest with every word that fell from her lips. “I’m aware it’s my play, my lady.”

“Indeed? Forgive me, Your Grace. It’s been so long since you stirred, I thought perhaps you’d fallen asleep. It wouldn’t be the first time you’d slipped into a doze in my dressing room when you’d much better have remained awake.”

Once. That had happened once, and he’d been in his cups at the time.

But she was only trying to distract him, and he wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t allow it, not when there was so much at stake. Another outrageous scandal was lurking on the horizon, right on the heels of the last outrageous scandal. That one had sent his grandfather to his bed for a week, and the one brewing now was a good deal worse.

If he didn’t put an end to it tonight, it might finish the old fellow off for good.

“Let’s get on with it, shall we, Your Grace?” Selina rapped her knuckles on the table. “Unless, of course, you wish to forfeit? Luck hasn’t been with you tonight, has it?”

Luck be damned. Luck hadn’t a thing to do with it. There was only one way to win a wager, and that was to never risk anything you couldn’t afford to lose.

He eyed the earrings she’d tossed on top of the pile of discarded cards.

Too bloody late for that now.

A bead of sweat inched its way underneath the white linen of his cravat and joined its brothers at the base of his neck. He longed to tear the damn thing off and toss it on the floor, but he wouldn’t give Selina the satisfaction of knowing she’d rattled him.

He was Montford, for God’s sake. He didn’t get rattled. He didn’t panic, fret, fuss, agonize, or fall prey to excesses of emotion of any kind. Once he made up his mind to transgress, he did it with a style and aplomb that made him the envy of all of London’s scoundrels, and he was never much troubled with regrets afterward.

He was meant to regret it—there must be some Bible passage or other that warned a man’s past sins would catch up to him sooner or later—but there didn’t seem to be much point in fretting over some hazy, far-distant future punishment when the sins of the present were already crashing down upon him with all the brutal force of a runaway carriage.

“It grows late, Your Grace. I have another engagement this evening, and I’m certain you’re eager to return to whatever shiny new bauble has captured your attention. I daresay you’ve already replaced me. You’d think nothing of humiliating me in such a cruel manner, would you, Montford?”

“Ah, we’re back to this now, are we, my lady? Yes, I’m a rake and a scoundrel, a man devoid of all proper feeling, a man of no tenderness, a cold-hearted blackguard who treats his lovers as if they’re nothing more than playthings.”

And so on, and so forth. It was her usual harangue. In the end, her dramatics and endless recriminations were the reason he’d put an end to what had been a rather agreeable arrangement between them. Well, that and the fact that she’d been encouraging the attentions of other gentlemen. He’d never been particularly good at sharing with others. It was an affliction, alas, common among young children, and dukes.

“You’re a beast, Montford.” Selina thrust out her lower lip in a tremulous pout. As recently as a month ago, that pout would have so inflamed his passions he’d have tumbled her into the nearest bed, but he was no longer taken in by her performances.

Now, it left him cold. “A beast, indeed. If I recall correctly, you rather liked that about me at one time.”

“Is mockery the best you have to offer, Montford, after we once meant so much to each other? After months of only living when we were in each other’s arms?”

“So romantic, Selina, but do permit me to point out that you appeared lively enough when you hurled your hairbrush at my head, and I don’t recall you being in my arms then.”

“Oh! I might have known you’d throw that in my face.”

“Mere words, my dear. They land rather more gently than your hairbrush did.”

Selina’s face darkened, two ominous spots of color rising in her cheeks. “That’s it, then, Montford? Reproaches, and accusations? You have nothing else to say for yourself?”

“Not a blessed thing. I believe you’ve said more than enough for both of us.” At this point, the less he said, the sooner he’d be free of her forever.

“Well, I don’t know why I’m surprised at it.” A sneer turned Selina’s lovely face ugly. “My mistake was in thinking you cared about my feelings, but you care only for your own selfish pleasures.”

“Then you’re well rid of me, aren’t you?” And he of her, and not a moment too soon. After an hour with Selina, his head ached as if a swarm of miniature she-devils had insinuated themselves into the veins at his temples and were stabbing at him with tiny pitchforks.

Wasn’t having a mistress meant to be pleasurable? Hadn’t there been a time when Selina’s smile had transported him? There must have been, but it was all a blur now, like a mirage shimmering just out of his reach.

“That, Your Grace, is the one point on which we can agree.” She tossed her head, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulders. “As I said, I’ve another engagement this evening. I can’t sit about all night while you puzzle over your cards.”

“Far be it for me to delay any pleasure of yours, my lady.” He ran his finger under the damp linen clinging to the moist skin of his neck. The gold earrings glinted dully in the firelight, the enormous, teardrop-shaped rubies winking at him like a pair of blood-red eyes, a glittering symbol of his folly.

The earrings were part of a parure he’d given to her as a token of his affection from their earlier, fonder days together. Extravagant little baubles, those rubies, but the expense was nothing. Jewels came and went, much like mistresses did. He didn’t give a damn about the other pieces—a magnificent ruby necklace and a set of diamond and ruby combs. She’d kept those, with his blessing.

But the earrings were another matter entirely.

If they’d been ordinary jewels, she might have kept them, too, as a token of his once-ardent affections, but there was nothing ordinary about those rubies. He’d given them to her during the most violent throes of his lust, when nothing less than the most, er . . . intimate expression of his regard would do for his lovely Selina. It had given him a thrill to see them dangling from her ears, knowing what was hidden inside.

Now his reputation, such as it was, hinged on him getting the earrings back. Christ, what a bloody fool he’d been, handing such a weapon over to a viper like Selina, but God knew there was nothing more ridiculous than a man with an aching cock.

It had taken another, far more valuable sapphire parure to persuade her to even wager the ruby earrings tonight. She’d refused at first, claiming she couldn’t bear to part with a gift he’d given her in the first flower of their love.

Flower of their love, indeed. What bollocks. Selina only understood one kind of love, and that was the love of money. As for true love—the hearts-and-flowers, yearning-sighs-and-breathless-kisses love? She wouldn’t know it if it reared up and bit her on her big toe.

But then, neither would he. They were the same sort of creature, he and Selina. It was a humbling thought, indeed, though at least he lacked her viciousness. His heart was impenetrable, yes, but it wasn’t the black, shriveled thing that lurked in the deep, cold depths of Selina’s chest.

But for all that Selina was the devil’s handmaiden, she wasn’t a fool.

Those ruby earrings were the perfect cudgel, the sword hanging above his head, the blade at his throat. As long as she had them, she still had power over him, and she knew it well. She wanted to keep them nearly as badly as he wanted to take them from her.

Not because she loved them, but because she despised him.

Fortunately for him, there was one thing Selina loved even more than revenge.

Jewels. Sapphires were her particular weakness, because they brought out the deep blue color of her eyes. In the end, the lure of the sapphire parure had proved too tempting for her to resist, and so, here they were, a fortune in jewels tossed carelessly onto the table between them.

“Come, Your Grace.” Selina studied her fingernails, all casual negligence. “Show your hand, or forfeit the game.”

He glanced down at his cards. A queen, a seven, and a three. Twenty points. It was a promising hand, yes, but like all of Satan’s minions, Selina had the devil’s own luck. Still, there was nothing for it but to lay down his cards and pray she hadn’t drawn an ace.

He spread them out on the baize. “Twenty, my lady.”

Selina’s face went white, then red, and he held his breath as slowly, slowly, she lowered her cards to the table.

“Dratted, cursed thing!” Prue snatched up her ruined letter, balled it in her fist, and in a fit of pique, threw it on the floor next to the four other crumpled bits of paper.

The fire had burned down to embers in the grate, and the garden beyond the glass doors behind the desk had turned an inky, impenetrable black, yet all she had to show for her efforts were a few scrawled lines and a heap of ink-blotted paper.

No matter how much she scribbled, her brain refused to produce a single line of the cheerful, amusing letter she’d envisioned flowing from the tip of her pen, and now she’d made a mess of the Duke of Basingstoke’s study. He’d regret his generosity to her when he sat at his desk tomorrow morning with a dry inkwell and an empty drawer where his paper had been.

Try as she might, she’d been sitting here for hours with her pen poised above a blank page, her head empty of words. The trouble was, she had nothing to say. Well, no, that wasn’t it, precisely. There were plenty of shadowy thoughts tumbling about in her head that she might have spun into a dark, dramatic tale of the evils that befall penniless young ladies who get too far above themselves and gad about London with the aristocracy when they’d much better have stayed at home.

But she didn’t like to trouble her father with her dire predictions. It would only worry him, and he’d had enough worries these past months to last him a lifetime. No, only sunny, optimistic thoughts would do.

Surely, she could think of something pleasant to say?

Her journey from Wiltshire had been agreeable, the weather dry, and the roads tolerable. Lovely views, as well, with the English countryside dressed in her best gold and green summer garb. The duke’s carriage was as comfortable as any she’d ever traveled in—it was astonishing, really, what a difference superior springs made—and the duke’s coachman only permitted the finest carriage horses near the equipage.

Yes, that would do. Her father was always interested in horses.

She drew a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer, carefully blotted her pen, and ignoring the cramp in her neck, bent over her task and let her pen flow over the page.

Her dear friend Franny, now the Duchess of Basingstoke by a truly stunning twist of fate worthy of a fairy tale, was in the pink of health, as was her husband, the duke, and their eight-month-old son, Giles Frederick Charles Alexander Drew, the future Duke of Basingstoke.

It was a mouthful of a name for such a tiny mite of a boy, but then that was the way with dukes. He was called Freddy, and he was a perfect, laughing cherub of a child, a tiny prince blessed with his mother’s bright blue eyes, his father’s crown of curly golden locks, and a sweet, toothless smile.

Yes, that was very good. It was best if she focused only on pleasant things. Dinner menus, the baby’s antics, harmless gossip, and the like.

She dipped her pen into the inkwell again, prepared to launch into a description of the excellence of tonight’s curried eggs and the beauty of the roses still in bloom in the gardens, but she’d only gotten as far as “a spectacular array of blushing pink,” before the study door flew open and a whirlwind in dark evening dress stormed into the room. “How d’ye do, Basingstoke?”

Her hand froze, but her fingers went so tight around the pen she tore a jagged hole in the paper underneath it, and a pool of dark ink blossomed under the nib.

That voice. It made no difference that she hadn’t heard him speak in more than eight months, and then no more than a few dozen words.

She’d know that voice anywhere. Since her disastrous first season, that voice had crept its dastardly way into her dreams every time her head touched her pillow.

Jasper St. Vincent, the Duke of Montford.

Scoundrel. Rake. Blackguard. Villain.

She hadn’t had a single moment of peace since her father had lost fifteen hundred pounds to His Grace, the Duke of Montford, during a game of piquet at Lord Hasting’s ball last year.

Fifteen hundred pounds, lost in a single evening. Poof, and just like that it was gone, vanished into the ether as if a magician had waved his wand over it.

Or not so much the ether, as the Duke of Montford’s pockets.

Because of that wager, Lord Hasting’s ball had been both the first and the last of her season. She and her father had hardly had a chance to unpack their bags in their rented lodgings before they were back in Wiltshire, in far tighter financial circumstances than they’d been when they’d left.

It had been an ill-conceived wager, and it made no sense that her father should have made it at all. Major Thomas Thorne wasn’t a man who wagered money he didn’t have.

That is, he hadn’t been, until he’d stumbled across the Duke of Montford.

She didn’t excuse her father’s part in it, any more than he excused himself. She’d never seen him more ashamed than he was when he’d confessed the whole of it to her. For the first time she could recall, he’d looked every one of his fifty years.

It had been one of the most dreadful moments of her life.

Her father had realized soon after they arrived in London that the expense of her season would far exceed his means, yet he’d been desperate to see the thing through, for her sake. The worst of it was, she hadn’t even wanted a season. She was the last lady in the world who should be twirling about a grand ballroom in a tight silk gown.

But there they’d been, in London, and by the ugliest twist of fate, in the same ballroom as the Duke of Montford.

Her father’s desperation had led to predictably catastrophic results.

But surely most of the blame for their ruination must rest upon the Duke of Montford’s shoulders? He was known to play deep, and often. A man so accustomed to wagering must have seen at a glance that her father wasn’t a gaming man, yet he’d sat down with him anyway, and in the space of a few hours, he’d taken every penny they had.

No, more than that. Every penny they had, and every penny they could ever hope to have.

“Christ, what a bloody disaster of an evening.” Montford threw himself into one of the chairs in front of the fire and propped his booted feet on the table in front of him without sparing a glance at the desk. “You won’t believe where I was, Basingstoke.”

Indeed, the mind boggled. A Covent Garden brothel, perhaps? A gaming hell in St. James’s Street? His mistress’s bedchamber? She set the pen aside and rose to her feet with a smothered sigh. She’d best stop him now, before he launched into a lurid description of his debauchery. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I’m not the Duke of Basingstoke.”

One would think that would be obvious, but here they were.

Montford peered over his shoulder, but when he caught sight of her, he leapt to his feet and whirled around to face her. “You!”

“Me, indeed. Miss Prudence Thorne, Your Grace.” She offered him a reluctant curtsy. “We met at the theater at the end of last season,” she added, as he certainly wouldn’t remember someone as insignificant as her.

He let out an impatient huff. “I know who you are, Miss Thorne. What I don’t know is where the devil you came from, and what you’re doing here.”

“I came from Wiltshire, and I was writing a letter, if you must know.”

“In Basingstoke’s study? How singular.” He threw himself back into his chair, his boots landing atop the table with a thud. “Where’s Basingstoke? He might have warned me you were coming to London.”

Yes, it would be disconcerting to have one’s nemesis spring upon you from cover of darkness, wouldn’t it? Goodness only knew what he’d nearly just confessed to.

Then again, Montford likely hadn’t any notion she was his nemesis. Fifteen hundred pounds was a mere pittance to him, and nothing to bear a grudge over. “The duke and duchess have retired already. I believe they gave up on you when you didn’t turn up for dinner this evening.”

He blinked. “Was that tonight?”

The sweep of his long, dark lashes against his cheeks was irrationally irritating, and her reply was sharper than it needed to be. “It was, indeed. If you’d turned up as you’d said you would, you might have avoided being so startled by my presence, and—”

“Is this going to be a long lecture, Miss Thorne?” He flopped his head back against the chair with a yawn. “If so, you won’t mind if I have a nap, will you?”

Odious man! “It’s nothing to me what you do, Your Grace, though one might ask why, if you’re so fatigued, you don’t return to your own house.”

He peered up at her for a moment, then a slow, infuriating grin curved his lips, and he settled himself more comfortably in the chair, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. “No, I’m quite content as I am. So, Miss Thorne, what brings you to London? I trust you had a comfortable journey from . . . er, from . . .”

“Wiltshire, Your Grace, as I said. It’s a small county in southwest England, near Trowbridge. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar, yes. I believe I visited some ancient stones there once that used to be some sort of burial ground or other. Dreadfully dull, really. I do hope you didn’t come all the way from Trowbridge just for Basingstoke’s dinner party.”

Why, how absurd. “It’s a two-day journey from Trowbridge to London, Your Grace. You can’t truly think I’d come all that way for a plate of roasted fowl.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Basingstoke’s cook does a very nice roasted fowl.”

She glanced down at her unfinished letter sitting on top of the desk and stifled an impatient sigh. For pity’s sake, did he really intend to make her stand about while he chatted about the merits of roasted fowl? “I’ve come at Franny’s . . . that is, at Her Grace’s invitation, though why that should matter to you—”

“Your timing is a bit off, Miss Thorne.” He eyed her, one long leg crossed over the other knee. “London’s as dull as a tomb, now the season’s ended.”

“I’ve no interest in the season, Your Grace.” To put it mildly. It was closer to the truth to say she’d rather die than ever set foot in another London ballroom. Franny had offered to sponsor her for a second season, but she’d refused, not only because she wouldn’t put her friend to such an expense for her sake, but also because the mere thought of it tied her stomach in knots.

“Perhaps not, but if you’re on the hunt for a husband, Miss Thorne, you’ve quite missed your chance. You should have come weeks ago.”

Goodness, that was rather too close to the truth for comfort, wasn’t it? “I just told you I’ve come to London to visit the duchess. How curious that you should take that to mean I’ve come to London to hunt for a husband. I can’t think of any reason why you should make such an assumption.”

A lie, of course. She could think of fifteen hundred reasons, and if the duke had any sense at all, he’d wish her luck in her matrimonial endeavors. If she didn’t make an advantageous match, he may as well have set fire to the last five hundred of his fifteen hundred pounds, as he’d never see a penny of it again.

Her father was a proud man and would never willingly default on a debt of honor. He’d already sold the property that surrounded their small estate to a neighboring squire, who’d bought it as a favor to them. But the land had only fetched a thousand pounds. They still owed Montford the remaining five hundred, and there was nothing left to sell but their home and their cherished possessions.

Even if they could sell it, it might not bring in enough money to settle the debt. What would become of them, then? One couldn’t get blood from a stone, no matter how hard they squeezed. And once Thornewood was gone, then what? Where would they go?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Come now, Miss Thorne. There’s no need to be coy. Every unmarried lady in England is on the hunt for a husband. Preferably a wealthy, titled one.”

“On the contrary, Your Grace. I can think of few things more troublesome than a husband.” That was true enough, but that she didn’t want a husband, wealthy or otherwise, mattered not a whit. She’d be obliged to have one, and it was all the Duke of Montford’s fault.

“Unless it’s a wife.” He tipped his head back against his chair again and scowled at the ceiling. “It’s odd, Miss Thorne, but those ladies who claim a disinclination for the married state inevitably change their minds once they’ve sunk their claws into you.”

Dear God. Had there ever been a more arrogant man than he? No doubt he thought every lady in England was angling to become the Duchess of Montford.

Indeed, perhaps they were, but she wasn’t. “Not to worry, Your Grace. The gentlemen of London are safe from my claws. I’ve come to visit the duchess. That’s all.”

It wasn’t all, not by a good measure, but the Duke of Montford didn’t need to know about her matrimonial schemes. Or, more accurately, Franny’s matrimonial schemes on her behalf. Oh, he’d find it out soon, along with every other scoundrel and gossip in London.

There were no secrets among the ton.

Until then, however, she didn’t intend to provide him with any illumination about her reasons for being in London. It was bad enough she’d be plagued with his tiresome presence on this visit, yet there was no helping that, as he was a good friend of the Duke of Basingstoke’s.

But he was no friend of hers, and thus there was no reason for her to be standing about chatting with him. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace, I believe I’ll retire for the evening.”

“You’re excused, Miss Thorne.” He’d closed his eyes and didn’t bother to open them, but merely waved his hand, as if he were dismissing a servant. “Go on then, off to bed with you.”

She turned to go, but before she could even reach the door, a low, buzzing drone made her pause, and she turned back around to find the Duke of Montford still sprawled in his chair, his head thrown back and his mouth wide open.

He was snoring. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Why, how mortifying for him! So very . . . un-ducal.

The kind thing to do would be to wake him so he might be on his way, but she didn’t owe the Duke of Montford any kindness. So, she left him where he was, in front of a dying fire with his boots propped on the table and his head tipped back against the chair at an awkward angle.

It was too perfect.

She skipped out the door and hurried up the stairs to her bedchamber, and if she wished him an aching back and a crick in his neck, well . . .

No one ever needed to know it but her.

The searing pain began below Jasper’s left ear. The icy burn of it would have been enough to jolt him from his slumber, but it didn’t end there. It streaked from his neck to the hollow between his shoulder blades before it slid down to the center of his back.

And there it stayed, throbbing with enough intensity to wake the dead.

It was the villainess again, the one with the glittering red rubies where her eyes were meant to be. She was creeping about in the darkness, her glassy gaze locked on him, her bow lips curled in a ghastly smile full of sharp, gleaming teeth. She’d buried a blade in the arch of his neck, right where it gave way to his shoulder, and she was twisting, twisting . . .

He let out a pained groan. “Begone, witch, and let me sleep!”

The villainess didn’t answer, and when he reached out blindly to slap the knife from her hands, he found only emptiness.

An invisible villainess then, wielding an invisible knife. “Loftus, the villainess has gotten loose in my bedchamber again. Toss her out at once, will you?”

There was no reply from Loftus, which was strange. His valet was always fluttering about in the mornings, brushing coats and sharpening razors and whatnot. Had the villainess stabbed poor Loftus, too?

That wouldn’t do. Not only because Loftus was a kind, gentle soul who didn’t deserve such a bloody death, but also because Jasper would never find another valet who’d take such exquisite care of his linens. “Loftus? Are you there?”

Still no answer, only the twist of the knife in his neck, his blood gushing from the gaping wound. He could taste it, thick and coppery on his tongue. She’d take his eyes next, then his heart, skewered on the tip of her blade, and his grandfather would . . .