Never Desire a Duke

Book 1: One Scandalous Season

by Lily Dalton

Genres: Regency Romance; General Fiction; Erotic & Steamy Romance

Synopsis

Lady Sophia has long been estranged from her husband, Vane Barwick, the Duke of Claxton, whose rumored list of amorous conquests includes almost every beautiful woman of the ton. Yet a shocking encounter with him in a crowded ballroom—and a single touch—are all it takes to reawaken her furious passion for him. But how can she trust the man who crushed her dreams and took away the one thing she wanted most?

Claxton has never forgiven himself for the youthful mistake that ruined his marriage to Sophia. Now, after nearly a year abroad, the reformed rogue vows to win back the only woman he's ever truly loved. He'll do whatever it takes to prove he can be the honorable husband she deserves—and the passionate lover she desires. As the snowdrifts deepen outside their ancestral home, can they rekindle the flame that burned so bright and find a new path to forever?

Release date: September 24, 2013

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 386

Sample

Prologue

Tell me now, what has happened?” demanded Vane Barwick, fourth Duke of Claxton, tenth Earl of Renclere, as he swept through the front doors of his London residence, the frigid chill of the winter’s day clinging to his greatcoat.


“Your Grace.” The grim-faced butler gave a hurried bow and led him toward the grand marble staircase at the center of the house. “The Duchess of Claxton has taken a fall. The physician is with her now.”

“Oh my God,” he uttered, not waiting for details. Panic cut through his veins, and he took the stairs two at a time. Sophia. Our baby.


Having received the urgent summons while in sessions, he knew something terrible had happened. His feet couldn’t carry him fast enough. His heart beat so hard and fast he thought it might explode. He had to get to her.

Several maids stood outside the duchess’s door, wearing expressions of concern. Upon seeing him, they started and rushed away. He heard voices inside and entered straightaway.

“Sophia?”

In one shattering instant, he took in the scene before him. His beautiful, dark-haired wife lay curled on her bed, her face stricken and tearstained. Her lady’s maid, also in tears, held her hand. The surgeon approached him, softly speaking regrets.

“No,” he whispered, stunned by such a magnitude of grief, his legs nearly failed him.

“My love,” he murmured, crossing the room toward her.

“Stay away,” she cried. His feet staggered to a stop.

Turning from him, she collapsed again into the pillows and gave the most heartrending sob.

Certainly he misunderstood. He took several more steps, but her maid threw him a sharp glare and raised a warding hand before rushing round to the far side of the bed to soothe the duchess there.

The unexpected rejection stung, like a slap to the face. Why did Sophia turn him away when certainly she needed comfort? Not their comfort, but his.


Their baby. The reality of the moment still crashed over him in waves. Everything had been so perfect. They’d been so happy. How could this have happened? Grief cut through him, scoring his heart into shreds. Didn’t she know? He needed her comfort too.

Suddenly the housekeeper was there, attempting with all discretion to lead him away.

“How did this happen?” His voice sounded as hollow as he felt.

In a quiet voice, the woman answered. “All I know, your Grace, is that after the duchess read the letter—”

“What letter?” he asked dazedly.

The housekeeper’s cheeks flushed as she indicated the duchess’s escritoire. An envelope and a letter lay there, beside the pearl-handled letter opener he’d given Sophia for Christmas. “After that, she was inconsolable.”

Inconsolable? Because of a letter? Heartsick, he raised a hand to his head, wanting more than anything to wish the moment away, to wake up from this nightmare. “Who wrote the letter, and what does it say?”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t know, sir. Needless to say, I did not read it.”

Yet strangely, in the next moment, she averted her gaze.

“Tell me the rest. Where did she fall? Here in her room or the stairs—?”

He had to see the letter. To understand why this had transpired.

The housekeeper accompanied him toward the desk. “After she read the letter, the duchess packed a valise and insisted the carriage be summoned to take her to her family’s home. But she was in a state, your Grace. A terrible emotional state. In her haste to quit the house, she pushed past the footman, heedless of all warnings of ice and efforts to assist her and—and I regret to inform you, she fell on the steps outside, mere feet from the front door.” Her gaze fell to the carpet. “I’m so sorry, sir.”

At the desk, she fell away, giving him privacy as he lifted the letter. He stared down at the words…and understanding washed over him in a sickening wave. No, God, no. The letter had clearly been intended for him.


Written in a former lover’s hand—someone he’d known before they were married—the letter extended a salacious invitation and described various proposed intimacies in shocking detail. Sophia wasn’t nosy. She would have opened the letter by accident. It sometimes happened and never bothered him because things were so good and happy between them. He could only imagine the moment she’d innocently begun to read.

He crumpled the page in his fist. His stomach twisted, and he thought he might retch.

While he’d been out, his past had come for a reckoning. Regret and shame thundered through him. Because of him, they’d lost their baby.

Please, let him not have lost Sophia too.

Chapter One

The scent of gingerbread in the air!” exclaimed Sir Keyes, his aged blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Winter wind swept through open doors behind him, carrying the sound of carriages from the street. “And there’s mistletoe to be had from the peddler’s stall on the corner.”


Though his pantaloons drooped off his slight frame to an almost comical degree, the military orders and decorations emblazoned across his chest attested to a life of valor years before. Leaning heavily on his cane, the old man produced a knotty green cluster from behind his back, strung from a red ribbon, and held it aloft between himself and Sophia.

“Such happy delights can mean only one thing.” He grinned roguishly—or as roguishly as a man of his advanced years could manage. “It is once again the most magical time of year.”

He tapped his gloved finger against his rosy cheek with expectant delight.

“Indeed!” The diminutive Dowager Countess of Dundalk stepped between them, smiling up from beneath a fur-trimmed turban. She swatted the mistletoe, sending the sphere swinging to and fro. “The time of year when old men resort to silly provincial traditions to coax kisses from ladies young enough to be their granddaughters.”

At the side of her turban a diamond aigrette held several large purple feathers. The plumes bobbed wildly as she spoke. “Well, it is almost Christmastide.” Sophia winked at Sir Keyes, and with a gentle hand to his shoulder, she warmly bussed his cheek. “I’m so glad you’ve come.”


A widower of two years, he had recently begun accompanying Lady Dundalk about town, something that made Sophia exceedingly happy, since both had long been dear to her heart.

Sir Keyes plucked a white berry from the cluster, glowing with satisfaction at having claimed his holiday kiss.

“I see that only a handful remain,” Sophia observed. “Best use them wisely.”

His eyebrows rose up on his forehead, as white and unruly as uncombed wool. “I shall have to find your sisters, then, and posthaste.”

“Libertine!” muttered the dowager countess, with a fond roll of her eyes.

Behind them, two footmen with holly sprigs adorning their coat buttonholes secured the doors. Another presented a silver tray to Sir Keyes, upon which he deposited the price of Sophia’s kiss and proceeded toward the ballroom, the mistletoe cluster swinging from the lions’ head handle of his cane. Together, Sophia and the dowager countess followed arm in arm, through columns entwined in greenery, toward the sounds of music and voices raised in jollity.

With Parliament having recessed mid-December for Christmas, the districts of St. James’s, Mayfair, and Piccadilly were largely deserted by that fashionable portion of London’s population oft defined as the ton. Like most of their peers, Sophia’s family’s Christmases were usually spent in the country, but her grandfather’s recent frailties had precluded any travel. So his immediate family, consisting of a devoted daughter-in-law and three granddaughters, had resolved to spend the season in London.


But today was Lord Wolverton’s eighty-seventh birthday, and by Sophia’s tally, no fewer than two hundred of the elusive ton had crept out from the proverbial winter woodwork to wish her grandfather well. By all accounts, the party was a success.


In the ballroom, candlelight reflected off the crystal teardrops of chandeliers high above their heads, as well as the numerous candelabras and lusters positioned about the room, creating beauty in everything its golden glow touched. The fragrance of fresh-cut laurel and fir, brought in from the country just that afternoon, mingled pleasantly with the perfume of the hothouse gardenias, tuberose, and stephanotis arranged in Chinese vases about the room.

Though there would be no dancing tonight, a piano quintet provided an elegant musical accompaniment to the hum of laughter and conversation.

“Lovely!” declared Lady Dundalk. “Your mother told me you planned everything, to the last detail.”

“I’m pleased by how splendidly everything has turned out.”

The dowager countess slipped an arm around Sophia’s shoulders and squeezed with affection. “The only thing missing, of course, is the Duke of Claxton.”

The warm smile on Sophia’s lips froze like ice, and it felt as if the walls of the room suddenly converged at the mere mention of her husband. It didn’t seem to matter how long he had been away; her emotions were still so raw.

Lady Dundalk peered up at her, concern in her eyes. “I know you wish the duke could be here tonight, and certainly for Christmas. No word on when our esteemed diplomat will return to England?”

Sophia shook her head, hoping the woman would perceive none of the heartache she feared was written all over her face. “Perhaps in the spring.”

A vague response at best, but the truth was she did not know when Claxton would return. His infrequent, impersonal correspondence made no such predictions, and she had not lowered herself to ask.

They came to stand near the fire, where a delicious heat warmed the air.

“Eighty-seven years old?” bellowed Sir Keyes. “Upon my word, Wolverton, you can’t be a day over seventy, else that would make me—” Lifting a hand, he counted through its knobby fingers, grinning. “Older than dirt!”

“We are older than dirt, and thankful to be so.” Her grandfather beamed up from where he sat in his bath chair, his cheeks pink from excitement. His party had been a surprise for the most part, with him believing until just an hour ago the event would be only a small family affair. He appeared truly astounded and deeply touched. “Thank you all for coming.”


Small, gaily beribboned parcels of Virginian tobacco, chocolate, and his favorite souchong tea lay upon his lap. Sophia gathered them and placed them beneath the lowest boughs of the potted tabletop yew behind them, one that would remain unadorned until Christmas Eve, when the family would gather to decorate the tree in the custom of her late grandmother’s German forebears.

Her family. Their worried glances and gentle questions let her know they were aware that her marriage had become strained. But she loved them so much! Which was why she’d shielded them from the full magnitude of the truth—the truth being that when Claxton had accepted his foreign appointment in May, he had all but abandoned her and their marriage. The man she’d once loved to distraction had become nothing more than a cold and distant stranger.


But for Sophia, Christmas had always been a time of self-contemplation, and the New Year, a time for renewal. Like so many others, she made a habit of making resolutions. By nature, she craved happiness, and if she could not have happiness with Claxton, she would have it some other way.

She had given herself until the New Year to suitably resolve her marital difficulties. The day after Christmas she would go to Camellia House, located just across the Thames in the small village of Lacenfleet, and sequester herself away from curious eyes and the opinions of her family, so that she alone could pen the necessary letter.

She was going to ask Claxton for a legal separation. Then he could go on living his life just as he pleased, with all the freedoms and indulgences he clearly desired. But she wanted something in return—a baby—and even if that meant joining him for a time in Vienna, she intended to have her way.

Just the thought of seeing Claxton again sent her spiraling into an exquisitely painful sort of misery. She had no wish to see him—and yet he never left her thoughts.

No doubt her presence would throw the private life his Grace had been living into chaos, and she would find herself an unwanted outsider. No doubt he had a mistress—or two—as so many husbands abroad did. Even now, the merest fleeting thought of him in the arms of another woman made her stomach clench. He had betrayed her so appallingly that she could hardly imagine allowing him to touch her again. But a temporary return to intimacies with her estranged husband was the only way she could have the child she so desperately wanted.

Sophia bent to adjust the green tartan blanket over Wolverton’s legs, ensuring that his lordship would be protected not only from any chill but also the bump and jostle of the throng gathered about him.

“May I bring you something, Grandfather? Perhaps some punch?”

His blue eyes brightened.

“Yes, dear.” He winked and gestured for her to come closer. When she complied, he lowered his voice. “With a dash of my favorite maraschino added, if you please, in honor of the occasion. Only don’t tell your mother. You know just as well as I that she and my physician are in collusion to deprive me of all the joys of life.”

Sophia knew he didn’t believe any such thing, but still, it was great fun to continue the conspiratorial banter between them. Each moment with him, she knew, was precious. His joy this evening would be a memory she would always treasure.

“I’d be honored to keep your secret, my lord,” Sophia said, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“What secret?” Lady Harwick, Sophia’s dark-haired mother, approached from behind.

A picture of well-bred elegance, Margaretta conveyed warmth and good humor in every glance and gesture. Tonight she wore violet silk, one of the few colors she had allowed into her wardrobe since the tragic loss of her son, Vinson, at sea four years ago—followed all too soon by the death of Sophia’s father, the direct heir to the Wolverton title.

“If we told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Sophia answered jovially, sidestepping her. “His lordship has requested a glass of punch, and since I’m his undisputed favorite, at least for this evening, I will fetch it for him.”

Wolverton winked at Sophia.

“I shall have the secret pried out of him before you return.” With that, Margaretta bent to straighten the same portion of Lord Wolverton’s blanket her daughter had straightened only moments before.

Still a beautiful, vibrant woman, Margaretta drew the gazes of a number of the more mature gentlemen in the room. Not for the first time, Sophia wondered if her mother might entertain the idea of marrying again.

Sophia crossed the floor to the punch bowl, pausing several times to speak to friends and acquaintances along the way. Though most of the guests were older friends of Lord Wolverton, the presence of Sophia’s pretty younger sisters, Daphne and Clarissa, had assured the attendance of numerous ladies and gentlemen from the younger set. Her fair-haired siblings, born just a year apart and assumed by many to be twins, would make their debut in the upcoming season. That is, if favored suitors did not snatch them off the market before Easter.

At the punch bowl, Sophia dipped the ladle and filled a crystal cup. With the ladle’s return to the bowl, another hand retrieved it—a gloved hand upon which glimmered an enormous sapphire ring.

“Your Grace?” a woman’s voice inquired.

Sophia looked up into a beautiful, heart-shaped face, framed by stylish blonde curls, one she instantly recognized but did not recall greeting in the reception line. The gown worn by the young woman, fashioned of luxurious peacock-blue silk and trimmed with gold and scarlet cording, displayed her generous décolletage to a degree one would not normally choose for the occasion of an off-season birthday party for an eighty-seven-year-old lord.

“Good evening, Lady…”

“Meltenbourne,” the young woman supplied, with a delicate laugh. “You might recall me as Annabelle Ellesmere? We debuted the same season.”

Yes, of course. Annabelle, Lady Meltenbourne, née Ellesmere. Voluptuous, lush, and ambitious, she had once carried quite the flaming torch for Claxton, and upon learning of the duke’s betrothal to Sophia, she had not been shy about expressing her displeasure to the entire ton over not being chosen as his duchess. Not long after, Annabelle had married a very rich but very old earl.


“Such a lovely party.” The countess sidled around the table to stand beside her, so close Sophia could smell her exotic perfume, a distinctive fragrance of ripe fruit and oriental spice. “Your grandfather must be a wonderful man to be so resoundingly adored.”

“Thank you, Lady Meltenbourne. Indeed, he is.”

Good breeding prevented Sophia from asking Annabelle why she was present at the party at all. She had addressed each invitation herself, and without a doubt, Lord and Lady Meltenbourne had not been on the guest list.

“I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to Lord Meltenbourne.” Sophia perused the room, but saw no more unfamiliar faces.

“Perhaps another time,” the countess answered vaguely, offering nothing more but a shrug. Plucking a red sugar drop from a candy dish, she gazed adoringly upon the confection and giggled. “I shouldn’t give in to such temptations, but I admit to being a shamefully impulsive woman.” She pushed the sweet into her mouth and reacted with an almost sensual ecstasy, closing her eyes and smiling. “Mmmmm.”

Meanwhile, a gentleman had approached to refill his punch glass and gaped at the countess as she savored the sugar drop, and in doing so, he missed his cup altogether. Punch splashed over his hand and onto the table. Lady Meltenbourne selected another sweet from the dish, oblivious to his response. Or perhaps not. Within moments, servants appeared to tidy the mess and the red-faced fellow rushed away.

Sophia let out a slow, calming breath and smothered her first instinct, which was to order the countess to spit out the sugar drop and immediately quit the party. After all, time had passed. They had all matured. Christmas was a time for forgiveness. For bygones to be bygones.


Besides, London in winter could be rather dreary. This one in particular had been uncommonly foggy and cold. Perhaps Annabelle simply sought human companionship and had come along with another guest. Sophia certainly understood loneliness. Whatever the reason for the woman’s attendance, her presence was of no real concern. Lady Meltenbourne and her now candy-sugared lips were just as welcome tonight as anyone else. The party would be over soon, and Sophia wished to spend the remainder with her grandfather.

“Well, it was lovely seeing you again, but I’ve promised this glass of punch to our guest of honor. Enjoy your evening.”

Sophia turned, but a sudden hand to her arm stayed her.

“What of Claxton?” the countess blurted.

The punch sloshed. Instinctively Sophia extended the glass far from her body, to prevent the liquid from spilling down her skirts, but inside her head, the intimate familiarity with which Lady Annabelle spoke her husband’s name tolled like an inharmonious bell.

“Pardon me?” She glanced sharply at the hand on her arm. “What did you say?”

Annabelle, wide-eyed and smiling, snatched her hand away, clasping it against the pale globe of her breast. “Will his Grace make an appearance here tonight?”

Sophia had suffered much during her marriage, but this affront—at her grandfather’s party—was too much.

Good breeding tempered her response. She’d been raised a lady. As a girl, she’d learned her lessons and conducted herself with perfect grace and honor. As a young woman, she’d maneuvered the dangerous waters of her first season, where a single misstep could ruin her prospects of a respectable future. She had made her family and herself proud.

Sophia refused to succumb to the impulse of rage. Instead she summoned every bit of her self-control, and with the greatest of efforts, forbade herself from flinging the glass and its scarlet contents against the front of the woman’s gown.

With her gaze fixed directly on Lady Meltenbourne, she answered calmly. “I would assume not.”

The countess’s smile transformed into what was most certainly a false moue of sympathy. “Oh, dear. You do know he’s in town, don’t you, your Grace?”


Sophia’s vision went black. Claxton in London? Could that be true? If he had returned without even the courtesy of sending word—

A tremor of anger shot down her spine, but with great effort she maintained her outward calm. However, that calm withered in the face of Lady Meltenbourne’s blatant satisfaction. Her bright eyes and parted, half-smiling lips proclaimed the malicious intent behind her words, negating any obligation by Sophia for a decorous response. Yet before she could present the countess with a dismissive view of her train, the woman, in a hiss of silk, flounced into the crowd.

Only to be replaced by Sophia’s sisters, who fell upon her like street thieves, spiriting her into the deeper shadows of a nearby corner. Unlike Sophia, who could wear the more dramatically hued Geneva velvet as a married woman, Daphne and Clarissa wore diaphanous, long-sleeved white muslin trimmed with lace and ribbon.

“Who invited that woman?” Daphne, the eldest of the two, demanded.

Sophia answered, “She wasn’t invited.”

“Did you see her bosoms?” Clarissa marveled.


“How could you not?” Daphne said. “They are enormous, like cannonballs. It’s indecent. Everyone is staring, even Clarissa and I. We simply couldn’t help ourselves.”

“That dress! It’s beyond fashion,” Clarissa gritted. “It’s the dead of winter. Isn’t she cold? She might as well have worn nothing at all.”

“Daphne,” Sophia warned. “Clarissa.”


Daphne’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly did she say to you?”

Sophia banished all emotion from her voice. “Nothing of import.”

“That’s not true,” Clarissa retorted. She leaned close and hissed, “She asked you if Claxton would be in attendance tonight.”

Stung at hearing her latest shame spoken aloud, Sophia responded more sharply than intended. “If you heard her ask me about Claxton, then why did you ask me what she said?”

Her hands trembled so greatly that she could no longer hold the punch glass without fear of spilling its contents. She deposited the glass on the nearby butler’s tray. Within seconds, a servant appeared and whisked it away.

Clarissa’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t hear her. Not exactly. It’s just that she’s—”

“Clarissa!” Daphne interjected sharply, silencing whatever revelation her sister had intended to share.

“No, you must tell me,” Sophia demanded. “Lady Meltenbourne has what?”

Clarissa glared at Daphne. “She deserves to know.”

Daphne, clearly miserable, nodded in assent. “Very well.”

Clarissa uttered, “She’s already asked the question of nearly everyone else in the room.”

Despite the chill in the air, heat rose into Sophia’s cheeks, along with a dizzying pressure inside her head. The conversation between herself and Lady Meltenbourne had been shocking enough. With Clarissa’s revelation, Sophia was left nothing short of humiliated. She’d tried so desperately to keep rumors of Claxton’s indiscretions from her family so as not to complicate any possible future reconciliation, but now her secrets were spilling out on the ballroom floor for anyone’s ears to hear.

“Trollop,” whispered Daphne. “It’s none of her concern where Claxton is. It is only your concern, Sophia. And our concern as well, of course, because we are your sisters. Someone should tell her so.” Though her sister had been blessed with the face of an angel, a distinctly devilish glint gleamed in her blue eyes. “Do you wish for me to be the one to say it? Please say yes, because I’m aching to—”


“Erase that smug look from her face,” interjected Clarissa, fists clenched at her sides, looking very much the female pugilist.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Sophia answered vehemently. “You’ll conduct yourselves as ladies, not as ruffians off the street. This is my private affair. Mine and Claxton’s. Do you understand? Do not mention any of what has occurred to Mother, and especially not to our grandfather. I won’t have you ruining his birthday or Christmas.”

“Understood,” they answered in unison. Her sisters’ dual gazes offered sympathy, and worse—pity.

Though Sophia would readily offer the same to any woman in her circumstances, she had no wish to be the recipient of such unfortunate sentiments. The whole ugly incident further proved the insupportability of her marriage and her husband’s tendency to stray. Though Lady Meltenbourne’s presence stung, it made Sophia only more certain that Claxton would agree to her terms. Certainly he would prefer to have his freedom—and he would have it, just as soon as he gave her a child. Seventeen months ago when she spoke her vows, she’d been naïve. She’d had such big dreams of a life with Claxton and had given her heart completely, only to have it thrown back in her face when she needed him the most. Claxton would never be a husband in the loyal, devoted sense of the word. He would never love her completely, the way she needed to be loved.

Admittedly, in the beginning, that aloofness—his very mysteriousness—had captivated her. The year of her debut, the duke had appeared in London out of nowhere, newly possessed of an ancient title. His rare appearances at balls were cause for delirium among the ranks of the hopeful young misses and their mammas.

Then—oh, then—she’d craved his brooding silences, believing with a certainty that once they married, Claxton would give her his trust. He would give her his heart.

For a time, she’d believed that he had. She closed her eyes against a dizzying rush of memories. His smile. His laughter. Skin. Mouths. Heat. Completion.


It had been enough. At least she thought it had been.

“Well?” said Daphne.

“Well, what?”

“Will Claxton make an appearance tonight?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Sophia.

Clarissa sighed. “Lord Tunsley told me he saw Claxton at White’s this afternoon, with Lord Haden and Mr. Grisham.”

Sophia nodded mutely. So it was confirmed. After seven months abroad, her husband had returned to London, and everyone seemed to know but her. The revelation left her numb and sadder than she expected. She ought to be angry—no!—furious at being treated with such disregard. Either that or she ought to do like so many other wives of the ton and forget the injustice of it all in the arms of a lover. She’d certainly had the opportunity.


Just then her gaze met that of a tall gentleman who stood near the fireplace, staring at her intently over the heads of the three animatedly gesturing Aimsley sisters. Lord Havering, or “Fox” as he had been known in the informal environs of their country childhood, always teased that she ought to have waited for him—and more than once had implied that he still waited for her.

With a tilt of his blond head, he mouthed: Are you well?


Of course, Lady Meltenbourne’s indiscreet inquiries about Claxton would not have escaped Fox’s hearing. No doubt the gossipy Aimsley sisters were dissecting the particulars at this very moment. Sophia flushed in mortification, but at the same time was exceedingly grateful Fox cared for her feelings at all. It was more than she could say for her own husband.

Yet she had no heart for adultery. To Fox she responded with a nod and a polite smile, and returned her attention to her sisters. While she held no illusions about the pleasure-seeking society in which she lived, she’d grown up in the household of happily married parents who loved each other deeply. Magnificently. Had she been wrong to believe she deserved nothing short of the same?

Clarissa touched her arm and inquired softly, “Is it true, Sophia, what everyone is saying, that you and Claxton are officially estranged?”

In that moment, the candlelight flickered. A rush of frigid air pushed through the room, as if the front doors of the house had been thrown open. The chill assaulted her bare skin, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. All conversation in the ballroom grew hushed, but a silent, indefinable energy exploded exponentially.

Both pairs of her sisters’ eyes fixed at the same point over her shoulders.

“Oh, my,” whispered Daphne.

Clarissa’s face lost its color. “Sophia—”

She looked over her shoulder. In that moment, her gaze locked with the bold, blue-eyed stare of a darkly handsome stranger.

Only, of course, he wasn’t a stranger, not in the truest sense of the world. But he might as well have been. It was C. . .