Never Met a Duke Like You

Book 0: Taming of the Dukes

by Amalie Howard

Genres: Feminist; Victorian Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Clueless meets Bridgerton in this spicy opposites-attract Regency romance told with “self-assured style, wit, and energy” (Lisa Kleypas, New York Times bestselling author).

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst is beautiful, clever, and popular. Afforded every luxury as a duke’s daughter, she fills her days with friends, intrigues, and a self-professed knack for matchmaking. She may have sworn off love for herself, but she is rather excellent at arranging it. 

Faced with an insolvent estate, the Duke of Greydon has no choice but to return to England in a final attempt to revive his family’s fortunes. He’s been gone for years, happy to have escaped his mother and the petty circles of the ton. To his dismay, not much has changed, including the beautiful and vexing heiress next door.  

But when an accident of fate traps the friends-turned-enemies in an attic together, the explosive attraction between them becomes impossible to ignore and even harder to resist. They are total opposites and their lives don’t align in the slightest, but fate, the ultimate matchmaker, appears to have other plans . . . 

"Refreshing, steamy, and stocked with characters you don’t normally get to see in the genre—a must-read author." —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst marched through the garden, wrenching the petals from a daisy though she had yet to end up with an answer other than he loves me not. She flung the mutilated flower to the ground and crushed it with her bootheel for good measure. It was a silly child’s game that had no meaning whatsoever.

Flowers couldn’t tell a person if someone loved them.

Look at what happened to poor Marguerite in Faust. She’d succumbed to a he loves me petal and was seduced by a devilish sinner who left her high and dry with child. Vesper shuddered to imagine where such a scandal would lead her. She would be ruined, and her family would be shamed.

Not that Vesper didn’t love the idea of love for other people—she adored seeing her friends happy and was quite good at playing matchmaker. So good, in fact, that her bosom friend Briar had nicknamed her Cupidella. A smile touched Vesper’s lips as she ducked under a twisting bough that snatched the untied bonnet from her hair and tossed it into the wind. She let it fly.

Secretly, she rather liked the name. After all, she’d earned it, with not one, not two, but three love matches to her credit.

Three, because she was counting the Duke of Montcroix, who had just married a charming French ballerina after a scandalous arrangement that had been too delicious for words. Vesper hadn’t technically orchestrated their happy ending, though she had been the one to practically push Nève into the duke’s arms and convince him to go after the woman of his dreams. Even if she hadn’t had a direct hand in it, she still counted them as a win.

Dukes, of course, were a generally easy lot when it came to matchmaking. They might need a good shove in the right direction, and spend their youth frittering away their inheritances, but dukes were expected to marry. And while the shining pinnacle of her matchmaking efforts was certainly Laila and Marsden, her latest coup was an upstairs-downstairs affair between Evans, the Duke of Montcroix’s footman, and her own cousin, Georgina.

A small sigh escaped Vesper’s lips. She’d seen the two glancing at each other and it had required only a nudge or four to set things in motion. Sometimes a couple needed a helping hand to find their way. A tiny worry gnawed at the edge of her mind—upstairs and downstairs matches weren’t de rigueur. Evans might have been pretty, but he was certainly lacking in worldly experience, and her cousin wasn’t much wiser either, which meant, unfortunately, they’d had to rush to the altar with a baby on the way.

That had been a small tarnish on her matchmaking reputation.

When Vesper had made the announcement of the wedding during their monthly ladies’ afternoon tea, her friends—Laila, Nève, Effie, and Briar, the Hellfire Kitties as Vesper had fondly nicknamed them, much to Laila’s dismay—had been shocked and quick to air their concerns about expenses and babies, and whether Georgina and Evans would prevail. It was the first time her friends had treated her as if she’d done something troublesome by bringing a couple together, and their disapproval had lodged itself deep. She was not accustomed to having her efforts criticized, yet she could see some merit to their argument. Perhaps next time, she would try to keep her efforts within her own circles.

Vesper reached out to pluck another daisy and wrenched the petals from the stem. He loves her, he loves her not. He loves her… he loves her… not.

Heavens, even the bloody daisy was judging her!

Paying more attention to the mangled flower in her hand than to where her footsteps led her, Vesper let out a muffled shriek as she nearly tumbled over a low wall of crumbling stone. Her directionless journey had led her to the abandoned neighboring estate. The castle in the distance was limned by the descending sun, giving it an eerie, almost otherworldly glow. She frowned, taking in the neatly tidy grounds. For a property neglected for such a long time by its owners, the gardens seemed well-kept.

A memory of a dark-haired boy roaring from the ramparts arose.

Vesper shoved the thought of him away.

Once upon an absurd time, she’d imagined them declaring a grand love for each other, combining their estates, and living happily ever after. But Aspen had scorned her terribly with his cold rejection at her come-out, crushing her heart and every one of her hopes into dust. The affection she’d so carefully treasured crumbled to ash, and she’d locked her fragile, broken heart away forever after.

In moments of silly nostalgic weakness, she had thought of the boy who’d been her first love, but those moments were few and far between. Her best friends knew of the heartbreak, of course, but none of them would dream of mentioning him. At least not without dreadful consequences!

Vesper hesitated for a moment and then hopped over the wall. A feeling of uncommon daring overtook her as she strolled through the tidy garden paths, not encountering a single soul. Shouldn’t there be at least a gardener or a groom about so she could announce her presence? Then again, it wasn’t like any of them would care whether the girl from the neighboring estate was wandering through the hedgerows.

You’re trespassing.

She ignored that thought, too. Perfect, poised Vesper Lyndhurst never broke the rules and never did anything untoward. But it wasn’t as though the family was at home and Greydon certainly wasn’t at the estate.

Considering the dwindling number of dukes, most of London remained on constant tenterhooks wondering if and when the esoteric duke would return from his travels, but Greydon remained conspicuously absent from both town and his ancestral seat. His dazzling, influential mother, however, ruled the ton with a diamond-studded fist.

Vesper squashed the twinge in her belly at the notion of running into him after so long. It’d been years since she’d laid eyes on him. He would look different now, no longer the tall, gangly youth with bent spectacles and the crooked grin she remembered. He’d worn his deep brown curls flopped onto his wide brow back then, and his singular brown eyes were always focused on the text of some thick book. His eyes would forever make her think of the tiger’s eye gemstone he’d shown her from his father’s collection of rarities.

Was Greydon even still alive?

Vesper hadn’t seen an obituary, and her father would have said something if the estate had been taken over by a new duke. She had gathered from accounts in the newssheets over the years as well as tidbits from her papa that the duke led archaeological digs and conservationist efforts into areas of the world that no aristocrat would dare enter. She’d read that he had built wells with his bare hands while unearthing monstrous fossils in some obscure part of the west in America.

Although a part of her admired him for his courage to venture off and follow his passion, Vesper thought about his responsibilities here in England.

Not that she was worried about him or his marital future. The Duke of Greydon wasn’t her problem, even if she could find a lady who would enjoy stepping out with a man who likely embodied the ossified skeletons he so loved. Any man who preferred dead fossils to people had to be a complete bore.

Chuckling under her breath, Vesper hitched her skirts and hopped over the wall, hissing when her ankle caught the ragged edge of a stone. Peering down, she caught a hint of red against her white silk stocking. It seemed to be a small scrape, nothing for her to cry over. Though perhaps that was a sign it was time for her to turn back. The hour was growing late in any case, and she could smell the threat of rain on the evening breeze.

Tilting her face up to the sky, she saw it had shifted into tones of gilded crimson and blushing purple, and a few ominous storm clouds had gathered overhead. She tugged her pelisse around her shoulders, glad she’d worn the thing, and wondered if she’d make it back to Lyndhurst Park before the rain.

Lightning flashed in answer.

Well, that couldn’t be good.

She glanced behind her toward her home and squinted, then turned back to the castle that was a dozen lengths away. Rain showers in the country were frequent—the little squalls came hard and fast—and, given how far she’d trespassed, she’d be drenched to the bone if she made for her own residence now. She didn’t mind a bit of rain, but those incoming thunderclouds looked very angry.

Mind made up, she hiked her skirts and raced toward the looming turrets of Greydon Abbey. Glancing overhead, she caught sight of the towers of the north wing, a flash of lightning illuminating what looked to be a face in one of the narrow upper windows. A man’s face. The duke’s face. In the next second, it was gone. Vesper blinked. Her imagination was working overtime, considering she’d just been thinking about him.

Feeling the first of several large drops splash onto her bare head—in hindsight, she should have retrieved her bonnet—a feminine shout reached her ears, and she veered in that direction.

“Quickly, my lady!” the woman urged from the kitchen entrance. The minute she crossed the threshold, the deluge began in earnest, coming down in a thick white sheet that obscured her vision.

“Goodness, that storm came out of nowhere,” Vesper panted, pleased to see her rescuer was Mrs. Dempsey, the Greydon Abbey housekeeper. The woman had always had a kind word for a younger, much too impulsive, and very talkative Vesper.

“Sweet April showers do spring May flowers, my lady,” the housekeeper said with a warm smile. “I seem to recall you dancing in the rain with fairy wreaths in your hair and galoshes on your feet proclaiming the same.”

The memory was fleeting but Vesper let out a puff of laughter, staring through the archway at the tempest in the courtyard currently creating quite a pond and tiny rivers on the cobbled stone. That loud, impatient, free-spirited girl was long gone… buried under countless hours of decorum and drilled-in etiquette.

She removed her damp pelisse and shook it out. “Alas, there’s nothing sweet about that, Mrs. Dempsey. That is a monsoon that will drown any flowers in its path!”

“Let’s get you some hot tea while you get dry, shall we, my lady?”

“Is Greydon here?” she asked, remembering the face she thought she’d imagined in the north tower.

“No, my lady. His Grace is not in residence. Hasn’t been for some time. Though we have had word that he is in London.” Vesper’s breath hitched. Since when?

She’d spent most of the little season at Lyndhurst Park in Dorset. Surely her father would have said something, but he’d been busy with his work in Parliament.

The housekeeper let out a small sigh, a slightly doleful expression on her face as if she’d given up hope that the master of the house would ever return to the ducal seat. It had been an age. Not, of course, that Vesper was keeping track.

She turned, taking notice of the servants who were standing at attention around a table laden with what was obviously their supper. “Oh, please, do not trouble yourself on my behalf. This storm will pass soon and then I shall be on my way, Mrs. Dempsey.”

“It’s no trouble, my lady.” She flicked a hand and one of the maids disappeared.

After the staff bobbed in unison and resumed their seats, Mrs. Dempsey ushered Vesper into a sitting room where the fallow hearth had been hastily lit. Vesper rubbed her arms as a chill sank into her bones and the rain pelted against the windowpanes in sheets. With the howl of a rabid beast on the prowl, the wind picked up and reminded Vesper her predicament could be much worse.

In moments, Mrs. Dempsey returned with a tea tray, which included a few plain neatly cut sandwiches and sweet tea cakes. With a sigh of happiness, Vesper sipped the hot tea, feeling it warm her insides and then glanced up at the kindly housekeeper.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dempsey. Please don’t let me keep you from your supper. I will be fine. This tea is all I need. And besides, I well know my way around this house, and I can let myself out once the rain slows. Do not worry about me.”

The woman frowned, as though unsure, but then gave a brisk nod. “If you need anything—”

“I will call for you,” Vesper said with a smile. “I promise.”

After a second cup of tea and several of the sandwich bits, the rain showed no sign of lessening, and Vesper felt restlessness stir. Sitting here eating alone felt uncomfortable. She wrapped the remainder of the cut cold chicken and egg salad sandwiches along with two of the cakes in a napkin and stood. Her legs were stiff and aching. Perhaps a brisk walk would help. There was no one in the adjacent hallway, although she heard the quiet rumble of other servants from some not-too-distant location.

Munching on a simple but tasty triangle of fresh bread and crushed hard-boiled egg, she walked through the dimly lit foyer, noticing there was only a single candelabra illuminated. Grabbing the candlestick, she ambled into the gallery beyond, the light just enough to see the portraits that hung in their gilded frames. She paused in front of one that showed the duke as a boy with his parents.

Her heart gave an odd lurch. Dressed in a fitted coat with white breeches, Greydon had tied his long hair away from his face in a queue, but those wayward curls could not be tamed and sprang free to dance upon his temples. He was smiling in the portrait, the gleam of mischief visible in those singular brown eyes. Arrogance was stamped on that proud brow, innocence in the curve of his cheek… a boy on the precipice of becoming a man.

Her best friend and first love. Then her sworn, mortal enemy.

How things had changed.

“Hide-and-seek is a game for children, and I am a man,” he’d told her one summer afternoon when she’d jumped out from her clever hiding place in the garden’s hedgerows. “Go play with Judith.”

Stung, Vesper had bristled at the mention of his mother’s new ward who’d arrived from America six months earlier, not because she didn’t like the girl, but because the dolt had had the audacity to lump her in with a child five years her junior. Judith was seven, for heaven’s sake!

“She’s a baby.”

“I am not a baby!” Vesper remembered Judith shrieking. She and Aspen had both yelled in unison for Judith to go away. Vesper had felt a pang at the girl’s tearful expression as she’d run inside, but she had bigger fish to fry. Namely, her supposed best friend who was suddenly too big for his stupid britches.

“One year at Eton and already you’re too good for everyone?”

Brown eyes had flashed with ire behind his new spectacles—fancy wire-rimmed ones that made him seem older. It was the first time Vesper remembered thinking that Aspen had looked unfairly winsome, and the tiniest wing of a butterfly had brushed her untried heart.

Until he’d opened his mouth anyway. “You cannot be traipsing after me willy-nilly, sniffing at my bootheels like a sad little mongrel!”

The butterfly had died an instant, horrible death. “I am not a dog! You take that back, you pompous, bloody bird-witted ass, you take that back right now!”

“Or what?”

She hadn’t given it much thought until her fingers had curled into a fist of their own accord, and she’d punched upward and struck him right in the nose. Her former best friend had toppled head over heels. His new glasses had gone flying and the blood had fountained everywhere, gushing like an old broken pipe.

She had been mortified, as usual acting without thinking, but Aspen had been even more so, especially when his mother—the most perfect duchess in existence—had arrived in the midst of the commotion on the heels of a sniffling Judith. The duchess’s soft mellifluous concern had echoed through the courtyard and Vesper had instantly burst into tears at being caught brawling like a hoyden. She hadn’t even been able to do much other than bite the inside of her cheek to stop her sobs when Aspen had refused to look at her, his humiliation complete.

To be bloodied by a girl two years younger? Oh, the disgrace of it!

Vesper pinned her lips between her teeth, remembering how devastated and sorry she’d been. She’d written him countless unanswered letters, been turned away at the door by a younger and saddened Mrs. Dempsey, and then Aspen had left for his second year at Eton. Their childhood friendship had taken an irreparable turn after that.

Over the years after his father died, she’d heard gossip from the servants that the young duke was in residence, though he rarely stayed in Dorset for long. And he never called upon her, no matter how much she wished and wished he would. He, Judith, and the duchess seemed to prefer the air at their residence in Brighton.

His return to London coincided with Vesper’s first season, and the nineteen-year-old Duke of Greydon, all grown up, serious, and debonair, had set all the debutante hearts aflutter. Hers included.

Vesper had already been declared an Original and the season’s catch, but her sentimental heart had always secretly pined for the boy she’d once adored. However, the solemn duke had been unfailingly polite when they’d finally come face-to-face at her come-out, and after a cool, impersonal inspection of her person, he’d turned away without even requesting a dance.

A ruthless cut direct.

The slight had not gone unnoticed, especially by the other debutantes vying for his attention, and nothing could have stung more. Crushed and heartbroken, his callous dismissal had been a declaration of war. In response, Vesper had gone out of her way to ignore him for the entirety of the season.

The scandal sheets had had a field day.

The season’s most eligible bachelor shunned. The season’s loveliest lady ignored.

Stifling the annoying ache at the still-raw memory, Vesper wandered down another hallway and climbed a set of steps that led to the upper level of the residence where the private library and music room she’d loved were situated. Perhaps it had been the best for everyone that Greydon had left England not long after the whole debacle. For her, especially.

No matter. That was a long time ago and she was no longer an easily wounded girl.

Upstairs, the carpets were plush, the ballroom floor polished and shiny. Although no one knew when the duke would be back from his travels, the servants kept the place spotless as if expecting his return any day. It was common knowledge that the dowager duchess never came to Dorset. She spent her time between London and Brighton while the ancestral seat of the Duke of Greydon sat in melancholy disregard.

Vesper couldn’t imagine why. It had so much history. Her fingers trailed over the pianoforte’s ivory keys in the music room. She’d played it so many times during her childhood. She and Greydon used to make up ditties and perform for the servants. Vesper huffed a laugh, playing a chord and hearing the echoes of the categorically terrible shanties in her head. She supposed her memories of the duke weren’t all bad.

After leaving the music room, her exploration took her to the west wing—and the private ducal apartments—where an odd sound like a thump caught her attention. Perhaps she’d imagined it. But then she heard it again. The hairs on the back of her nape rose.

Goodness, was it a rat?

“Hullo?” she said into the first bedchamber, and then laughed at herself. As if a rat would answer. She breached the threshold and waited, holding her breath as if the lord of the manor would magically appear and demand to know why she was invading his private space. But despite the immaculate nature of the chamber, it was obvious by the slightly musty smell that no one had occupied it for some time. Her shoulders relaxed a smidge.

A distant rumble made her frown. That might have been thunder.

Curious now, she strained her ears, but there was nothing more. Old houses made strange noises all the time, and besides, she should not be in here anyway. This was where the duke slept… when he was in residence, which he was clearly not.

Still, it was untoward of her to trespass. Propriety was everything, after all. And she’d spent years refining herself until she’d learned exactly how to present her face, her body, and her mind so that there would never be any indication of the maelstrom that swirled inside.

Unless she was with her friends—they appreciated the spark and energy that burned within her and loved her as she was.

She left the room, then peered out a window in the corridor overlooking the courtyard and noticed that the sky was lightening. Finally. She was retracing her footsteps to the staircase when she heard the strange muffled thump again like something being dragged across a floor. Above. That definitely wasn’t thunder! She peered upward to the ceiling, a hand to her chest, ears alert.

Surely there wouldn’t be any danger in a ducal residence? Besides, the servants were just belowstairs. One scream and they’d come running. Sucking in a breath, she went against her instincts to flee and crept along a tapered corridor with a staircase at the end. The sound, though dulled, was clearer now. There was another floor above. A sprawling old attic in this tower, if she recalled correctly.

She pinned her lips. Perhaps she should call for help rather than venture up there herself. But then it might be nothing but a marauding rodent and she would look the fool. Maybe just a quick looksee then. The candelabra was heavy. If worse came to worst, she would have protection, if indeed the face she’d seen in the window was actually real.

Creeping down the narrow passageway that led to the attic, she huffed a breath before pushing open the absurdly heavy door. Honestly, who still used doors made of iron? Her brain registered three things before a furious roar of Hold it open! met her ears and she let go of the massive door in a fright and heard it slam shut behind her.

One, she was not alone.

Two, the face she’d seen had most definitely been real.

And three, the Duke of Greydon was very much in residence.

“Devil take it!”

Aspen Drake, the Duke of Greydon, palmed his nape and swore a blue streak in frustration. He should have been waiting near the bloody door, but he’d been on the other end of the attic thinking about smashing a window so that he might climb out onto the cracked stone gable beyond. The gargoyle out there seemed solid enough to hold his weight even if the fascia was crumbling in places. Then perhaps someone would finally be able to hear his shouts for rescue.

If he didn’t tumble to an ignominious death first.

By the time he’d heard the very welcome squeak of the door hinge and bolted across the width of the attic to secure the door, he’d been much too late and his frantic shout had gone unheeded. Barely an arm’s length away, he watched in gut-clenching slow motion as the edge of the heavy door released from the tips of pale, elegant fingers and swung shut almost immediately. Instead of securing his escape, Aspen’s fist pounded on hard, unyielding metal. One glimpse of blessed freedom and he was trapped once more. Only now he wasn’t alone.

He lifted his glance to take in the shocked features of the woman who had entered in a fragrant waft of spring rain and freshly tilled earth. Her small palm was lifted toward him as if she’d expected him to collide with her. A small crease marred her brow, pink lips parted in stunned surprise. But it was the eyes that pierced him—those blazing lapis lazuli eyes that no amount of distance or time could erase from memory. He sucked in a breath, his chest tightening.

Curse his luck that it had to be her.

One Lady Vesper Lyndhurst… neighbor, beautiful heiress, and insufferable know-it-all with a fearsome uppercut. He resisted putting his fingertips to the slight bump on the bridge of his nose as a phantom ache settled there. It didn’t miss his notice that she’d grown even more stunning, though absence—a nearly seven-year one at that—had a way of distorting perception. Lady Vesper had always been fetching. He rubbed a balled fist against his spasming chest and exhaled loudly.

“Greydon? Is that really you?” she whispered in a hushed voice.

“Yes. I’m not a ghost. It’s truly me. In the flesh.” Turning, he thumped his head backward on the door and groused at the ache reverberating through his skull. “God damn it!”

“I beg your pardon?” she said to him, blond brows shooting high at the coarse oath.

Aspen groaned as the reality of their predicament returned in full force. It wasn’t her fault. It was bloody well his. He should have been glued to the deuced wall! “The door. Never mind. It’s jammed for some reason and there’s no way out from inside.”

Blue eyes met his, widened, and swung back to the door without its inside lever. Her lips parted in disbelief. “Jammed?”

She wedged the tips of her free hand into the thin seam, not that he hadn’t been doing that for hours, but the sodding thing had refused to budge. “There’s no handle,” he told her.

“I can see that,” she said under her breath. “Where on earth is it?”

“How should I know?”

She spun. “Perhaps because you’re in here?”

An accusatory gaze slammed into his, and Aspen threw his hands wide. “Don’t look at me for answers. I had nothing to do with it going missing, and now you’re stuck here just like me. That won’t work by the way.” He let out a sullen gust of air as she propped the candelabra on a nearby ledge. “Trust me, I’ve been here much longer than you and I have tried everything possible.”

She peered at him over her shoulder, both hands now scrabbling for purchase she would not find, despite his warning. She’d always been stubborn. Aspen rolled his eyes, then glanced down at his own torn fingernails. She’d learn when those delicate fingertips were aching and bleeding. “How long have you been in here?” she asked in despair.

“Hours. I lost count when the rain set in and blocked out the sky.”

Pausing, she sent him a look. “Did it occur to you to call for help, Your Grace?”

He shot her a glare that rivaled hers in intensity. “No, of course not. I sat here enjoying a spot of tea and crumpets while conversing with the charming dust motes about their hopes and dreams.”

“No need to be sarcastic, Greydon.”

“Then don’t be obtuse.”

She hissed through her teeth at him and went back to prodding at the doorjamb.

Her blond hair was coiled in a loose knot, though tendrils escaped all around her flushed face, and her blue walking dress was muddied at the hem. A muscle in his jaw leaped as he took in her face again—the promise of youth had been more than fulfilled, though he knew a spoiled and cold heart lurked beneath. She might be beautiful, but peel away the layers and there was nothing beneath them but vanity. Not that he should fault her for that he supposed, after all, she was just like his mother and most of the aristocracy.

“Lady Vesper,” he said, his voice coming out harsher than he’d meant it to. “What are you doing here?”

She paused. “I was caught in the rain, so I sought shelter until it passed.”

“Here?”

“Your house was closer than mine,” she replied.

Aspen frowned. “Which meant you were on my property.”

“On the boundary between our estates,” she said with a sniff. “Your residence was closer, as I said. Besides, what does it matter? You were not at home.”

“I am clearly at home,” he countered.

Her eyes went skyward. “Not supposed to be here then. Even your housekeeper is unaware of your presence. Did you arrive in secre. . .