The Duke's Christmas Bride

Book 3: 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.

Alarmed by the sound of an intruder, Rose St. Claire fetches her pistol. She’s shocked to discover that the trespasser is a handsome gentleman—one who states that the house, which Rose recently inherited from her late benefactor, was stolen from his father decades ago. He claims it is now his. And it is—but not entirely. As it turns out, Hammond Court has been left to them both—and neither can evict the other without forfeiting their right to the property . . .

Wealthy and ruthless, Maxwell Burke, Duke of Grantham, has spent years regaining the many properties his father lost to bad wagers. Only Hammond Court remains. But Rose has no intention of leaving. In fact, as Christmas draws near, circumstances force Max to plan a holiday party, and Rose is all too happy to help. Max despites such merriment—until he sees it as an opportunity...

Max will forgive the debt of another young duke’s family if the attractive gentleman woos Rose at the party, ultimately marries her—and returns her share of the estate to Max. It’s foolproof. Except that Rose’s spirited joy is seductive, recalling within Max long ago feelings of happiness—and awakening a deep attraction. Has Max cooked his own Christmas goose—or is there a chance love will prevail? . . .

Release date: September 24, 2024

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

It was snowing inside Rose’s bedchamber.

The chill woke her, the draught of wintery air biting at her nose and setting her toes atingle, rousing her from a fitful sleep. She struggled onto her elbows and peeked over the edge of the coverlet. Muted morning light filtered through the thin draperies, catching the pale gleam of downy snowflakes swirling through a jagged fissure in the window.

The snowflakes were pretty, but alas, it wouldn’t do. A glittering flurry of harmless flakes could become a blizzard in the blink of an eye, and the steely gray clouds beyond the window promised more snow.

More snow, and here was Fairford, already half smothered in it as it was. It had begun snowing in early November and had hardly let up for a single day since.

Now the dratted flurries had found their way indoors.

She tossed the coverlet aside with a sigh. If it had been any window, in any other bedchamber, in any other manor house, an indoor squall would have been shocking indeed, but at Hammond Court, the boundary between indoors and outdoors had grown increasingly indistinct as the golden days of autumn slid into the deep chill of winter.

At least, that’s how Ambrose would have put it. He’d always fancied himself something of a poet. It was one of the things she’d loved most about him.

A hot ache pressed behind her eyelids, but she shook off the tears that threatened with an impatient jerk of her head. He wouldn’t have wanted her tears and mournful sighs. Why, if he could see her now, he’d scold until her ears burned.

Anyway, when had sniveling ever helped anything?

She rolled out of bed, snatched up the coverlet, and wrapped it around her shoulders, then skidded over the wooden floorboards in her stockinged feet to inspect the snowdrift gathering under her window.

Or puddle, rather. A large puddle. It had been snowing for some time then, likely most of the night. She jerked the worn draperies aside to get a better look at the damage to the glass. It was early still, the gray light too weak to dispel the shadows lingering in the corners of the bedchamber, but there was no missing the fracture splitting one of the upper panes.

Well, that explained that menacing crack that had woken her last night. It hadn’t been a ghost after all, then. That was some comfort, at least. Not that she believed in ghosts, of course. She wasn’t such a fool as that. But in the deepest dark of the night, with the house creaking and moaning around her, it had occurred to her that if there was ever a man who’d find a way to walk amongst the undead, it was Ambrose.

Yes, he’d take great delight in haunting her, the scoundrel.

She edged closer to the window, careful to avoid the puddle, and squinted at the crack in the gloomy light. Yes, it was certainly longer than it had been. She’d marked the end of it yesterday with a smudged thumbprint, and it was well past that point now. It reached the top edge of the windowsill and was surrounded by a spiderweb of finer cracks, like wrinkles fanning out from the corner of an eye.

It was spreading, along with the dozens of other cracks that decorated the walls.

She could stuff rags into the gap at the top, but already the windows were more rag than glass. It was a wonder the ceilings hadn’t toppled down upon their heads by now. If she didn’t come up with some way to put a stop to the deterioration, they’d have to leave.

“Well, that’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”

Rose turned around to find Abby hovering in the doorway, her grizzled gray hair standing on end. “It’s just a bit of water, Abby. Nothing that can’t be cleaned up.”

“It’s a miracle you haven’t caught your death in this damp, drafty room.”

“All the rooms are damp and drafty.”

“None so much as this one.” Abby pointed an accusing finger at the puddle. “For pity’s sake, Rose, why won’t you come and share my bed with me? It’s dry, and we’d both be warmer that way.”

Warmer, yes, but not safer. She’d taken to sleeping in this room after one of their creditors in the village had appeared on their doorstep in a rage, demanding payment and making all manner of unpleasant threats. Fortunately, she’d managed to intercept him before he broke the door down, but he wouldn’t be the last of them.

They had a great many creditors, and all of them as angry as spitting cats. She didn’t fancy being caught unawares again. This bedchamber looked down onto the front drive, and so here she would stay. “I like this room. It’s, er . . . cozy.”

Abby snorted. “Cozy, is it?”

“Quite so, yes.” The lie slipped easily enough from her tongue, but Rose took care not to meet Abby’s eyes. Abby could always tell when she was lying, and she didn’t fancy a blistering scold just now.

“Cozy, my eye.” Abby turned on her heel and disappeared through the bedchamber door, her slow, heavy tread echoing down the hallway. When she returned she was carrying a bundle of dark red cloth in her arms. “Here, help me with these.”

Rose skirted the puddle and crossed the bedchamber, taking up a fold of the cloth from the bundle, but she paused with it clutched in her hands. “This isn’t a rag. It looks like—”

“It’s one of the silk panels from Mr. St. Claire’s bed hangings.” Abby thrust her chin into the air. “Now, don’t fuss, pet. We’re nearly out of rags, and anyway, the silk is thicker. This will keep the draughts out much better than some old kitchen scrap.”

“But it’s silk.” It was a ridiculous objection, of course. What use did they have for silk bed hangings? It was too old and worn to be of any value, and yet . . .

These had belonged to Ambrose, once. She resisted the urge to bury her face in it, knowing she’d get nothing but a nose full of dust for her troubles, but it seemed wrong that a person should leave so many odds and ends behind when they died—wrong, that all these things that had been so secondary to Ambrose during his lifetime, mere afterthoughts, should have somehow outlived him, and be all that remained of a once-vibrant man.

She expected Abby to scold, but when she looked up, Abby was staring down at the red silk panel, her faded blue eyes damp with tears. “Curse him, anyway,” she whispered, dragging the back of her hand over her eyes. “I can’t think why I miss him so much, the troublesome old villain.”

“He was troublesome, wasn’t he? And it’s just like him to go off and die right before the weather turned foul. I daresay he planned it out that way. It’s the sort of thing he’d do.”

Abby gave a shaky laugh. “I daresay he did.” She grabbed the other silk panel from the pile and made her way to the window.

“Mind the puddle there. Don’t get your stockings wet.” Rose trudged across the bedchamber and got down on her hands and knees to wipe up the puddle. The icy water soaked through the silk, turning her fingers numb.

Perhaps this would be the last of the snow for a while. Perhaps she’d wake tomorrow to find the sun had emerged from behind the clouds. It would warm up a touch then, just enough to take the bitterest edge off the cold. Perhaps good fortune was just around the corner. Perhaps it would find them today, even, and then—

“My goodness, who can that be?”

Rose stilled, the dripping silk panel clutched in her hands. “What?” But she could already hear the carriage wheels rattling up the drive.

“There’s a carriage.” Abby peered through the glass, her brow creased. “How strange. It’s not yet seven o’clock in the morning. Who would be coming here so early?”

Who, indeed? No one they wished to see, that was certain. Rose leaped to her feet, the puddle forgotten. “Come away from the window, Abby.”

But Abby didn’t come away from the window. She remained where she was, in plain sight of anyone who happened to look up at the house, staring down at the drive as the grind of the carriage wheels over the ruts grew louder. “Heavens. That’s no ordinary carriage, but a right fancy one, and I think . . . Rose, come and look! Is that a crest on the door?”

A crest? Good Lord, she hoped not. Nothing good ever came in a crested carriage.

“We can finish this later.” Rose took the silk panel from Abby’s hand, then herded her away from the window toward the door. “Go on back to your bedchamber now and let me take care of our visitors. No doubt they’ve come to offer their condolences and will be gone again in a trice.”

Condolences, indeed. No one came to offer condolences at seven o’clock in the morning. No, they’d come for something else entirely.

Whatever it was, they’d almost certainly be obliged to leave without it.

“Did Ambrose know any lords?” Abby peered over Rose’s shoulder, trying to see out the window. “Because I’m certain I saw a crest—”

“I daresay he must have known a lord or two. Ambrose knew everyone.” More to the point, they knew him. “I’ll come and tell you all about them once they’ve left. Go to your bedchamber until then, and stay there until I come and fetch you, all right?”

Abby gave her a worried look, but she shuffled toward the bedchamber door. “Yes, all right, but come up as soon as they’re gone.”

“I will, but promise me you won’t venture out of the bedchamber until I come for you.” Rose hesitated, then added, “No matter what you hear.”

Abby’s eyes widened. “My goodness. I don’t like the sound of that.”

No, but whatever was about to unfold downstairs, odds were she’d like the look of it even less. “Promise me, Abby.”

“I promise, but you be careful, pet. You hear me?”

“Yes, I will.” Rose waited in the doorway until Abby had hobbled down the hallway to her bedchamber and disappeared inside, closing the door behind her.

Then she flew back into her own bedchamber and peered out the window.

The carriage had come to a stop halfway up the drive. She stared down at it, her heart pounding hard enough to reduce her rib cage to a powder. Abby was right. It was no ordinary carriage, but a vision in glossy black lacquer, with shiny black wheels, gold spokes and fittings, and a sleek pair of matched bays dancing restlessly in the traces, their dainty feet pawing at the ground.

The word “grand” didn’t even begin to describe it. It was the sort of elegant, fashionable equipage one might find promenading in Hyde Park. At least, she imagined it was, having never set foot in Hyde Park herself, or anywhere else in London.

There was a crest on the door, too, something in black, gold, and royal blue. She couldn’t make it out from this angle, but that combination of colors was familiar. Hadn’t she seen something similar on some of Ambrose’s correspondence?

She waited for the occupants to emerge, her breath held, but no one came out. A minute passed, then another, but just as she’d begun muttering a prayer that they’d go away again, the driver descended from the box, leaped out onto the drive, and opened the carriage door.

Whoever was inside felt no urgency to alight, but left his coachman standing on the drive, his greatcoat flapping about in the wind, and snowflakes gathering on his shoulders, until finally, finally, a long leg encased in a pair of fitted, dark gray pantaloons appeared, ending in a shiny black boot with handsome gold tassels.

A large, immaculately gloved hand landed on the top edge of the door, and then the rest of the man unfolded himself from the carriage. He turned to say something to his coachman, then marched up the drive until he was standing directly below her window.

Rose sucked in a breath. This man was undoubtedly the owner of the carriage.

He was . . . goodness, she’d never seen anything like him before. His face was partially obscured by the brim of an elegant beaver hat, but she caught a glimpse of a straight, aristocratic nose and a mass of thick, dark hair. He was exceptionally tall and broad shouldered as well, perhaps the largest and most ideally formed gentleman she’d ever laid eyes on, the power of his body tightly leashed, like a coiled spring.

He marched toward the house, his stride loose limbed and confident, like a man who was accustomed to everyone scurrying out of his way. A moment later there was a brisk knock on the front door, the thud echoing throughout the house.

She waited, her every muscle tensed, her hands clenched, fingernails biting into her palms.

Go away, damn you. Just go—

Her only answer was a second thump, this one louder and more impatient than the first, and then, after a few moments of decidedly ominous silence, there was another thud, followed by a cracking noise like wood splintering.

Her hand flew to her mouth to smother a shriek. Was he attempting to break down the door? No, surely not! Even the most determined of Ambrose’s creditors wouldn’t dare to force their way into—

Thump!

She gasped, her heart vaulting into her throat.

Dear God, he was! He was breaking into her house, forcing his way inside like a common criminal. She backed away from the window, her legs shaking, and crept toward the clothes press on the other side of the bedchamber.

Ambrose’s pistol was already loaded. After their last unwelcome visitor, she always kept it so. She threw her cloak on over her nightdress, stuffed the pistol into the pocket, and slipped from her bedchamber in her stockinged feet.

She paused when she reached the landing, taking care to keep out of sight, and froze, listening, her fingers tight around the pistol.

The noise had ceased. She peeked around the corner, then darted back out of sight behind the edge of the wall. The front door was wide open. It appeared to be still intact, but goodness only knew what his next target would be. He hadn’t barreled his way inside with such viciousness only to give up now.

This man . . . he was the sort accustomed to getting what he wanted. His carriage, with that elaborate crest, his arrogant stride, that costly beaver hat, and those gold-tasseled boots—anyone could see at a glance that he wasn’t the sort to trifle with.

But then, neither was she.

It had taken fifteen years, one battered carriage, two lost horseshoes, and irreparable damage to his right arse cheek for Maxwell Alastair Hammond Burke, the Tenth Duke of Grantham, Viscount Hammond, to return to the village of his birth.

Fifteen years and eight hours, that is. Eight interminable, bone-rattling hours of travel from London to Fairford, the carriage tilting crazily with every inch of rutted road that passed under its wheels, his body aching and his backside battered beyond the telling of it, only to find ruin at the end of his journey.

Not figurative ruin, either, but actual ruin.

A heavy blanket of snow covered the gardens, but choked weeds and gnarled roots jutted up from underneath the thick carpet of white like bony fingers, and the once-tidy pathways were now a wilderness of overgrown shrubs and untrimmed hedges.

It was positively uncivilized to a gentleman accustomed to the manicured grounds of Hyde Park, but if possible, the house was in even greater disarray than the gardens. Crumbling stone walls staggered under the weight of a sagging roof, and three of the four bedchamber windows on the third floor were cracked, the slashes in the glass like ugly scars on an otherwise smooth cheek, the raw edges glinting in the weak light.

If he’d had a smidgen of forbearance left, even the thinnest thread of good humor, the sight of the old place after all these years would have extinguished it in an instant.

He didn’t, as it happened.

He’d lost any claim to proper human feeling when they’d reached Hermitage, and his flask of brandy had run dry. Why hadn’t he thought to bring two flasks? Or the whole bottle, come to that? He wasn’t given to heavy drinking, but a sojourn in the godforsaken village of Fairford could drive the soberest of men into his cups.

Was it any wonder his father had found his death at the bottom of a bottle?

But this was no time to think about his father’s disgraceful end. There was never a proper time to think about that. He generally made a point of not doing so, but damned if the mere sight of Hammond Court didn’t set all those old ghosts free again.

He’d only just arrived, and already he was growing mawkish.

But he was here now, and the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could leave and forget about Fairford for another two decades. He stepped up to the front door, seized the knob, and gave it a hard twist, but for all that the rest of the house was falling to bits, the iron lock on the front door appeared to be maddeningly intact.

He backed up and scanned the front of the house. It was early, not yet seven o’clock, but there wasn’t a flicker of light to be seen behind the windows, or a curl of smoke rising from any of the four soot-stained chimneys ranging across the lopsided roof.

Abandoned, of course, and just as well. The place was a bloody hazard.

Behind him, his coachman stirred. “All right, Your Grace?”

Max turned and glanced back at Bryce. He’d ordered him to stop halfway up the drive to save his carriage springs, which had been popping loose with every turn of the carriage wheels over the rutted drive. “Just a bit of trouble with the door, Bryce.”

He grasped the knob again and gave it a vigorous shake. The lock held steady, but the same couldn’t be said of the doorknob itself, which rattled in its setting, the wood around it cracked and shredding.

A hard kick would see the thing done. It wasn’t quite the dignified entrance he’d envisioned, but he had, after all, been invited. He retreated a step, braced himself, and struck the knob with the side of his boot.

Nothing. The blasted thing held fast.

“Damn it.” He struck it a second time, giving in to a fit of temper utterly unworthy of a gentleman, and most particularly a duke.

Bryce let out a startled gasp. “Your Grace?”

Max sucked in a deep draught of freezing air until he was able to face his driver with his usual sangfroid. “It’s all right, Bryce. Remain with the carriage.”

It was just as well if Bryce wasn’t close enough to witness what he intended to do next. Kicking doors down was not proper ducal behavior, but this was his house, his door, and his doorknob, or they would be, soon enough, and he may abuse them as he pleased.

“Can I help, Your Grace?” Bryce called out again, clearly alarmed.

Help? No, he was well past the point of help now. If he hadn’t been, he would have returned to his carriage, ordered Bryce to take him to Grantham Lodge where a meal, a bath, and a comfortable bed awaited him, and return later with a few sturdy footmen in tow.

But where his past was concerned? He was a perfectly rational duke, run mad in the Cotswolds. “No. I’ve got it, Bryce.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Bryce cast a dubious glance at him. “If you’re quite sure, Your Grace.”

He wasn’t sure of a damned thing anymore, except that he would get into this house, one way or another. “I’m sure. Wait there.”

He retreated a few steps, then ran at the door, aiming a kick at the doorknob. This time he struck it dead on with his heel. A crack echoed in the frosty air as the wood splintered, and the knob and the plate that affixed it to the door dropped to the ground like birds shot from the sky.

Ah, good. That would do.

He pushed the door open and ducked through it, coughing as a cloud of dust rained down on him, ruining a perfectly good beaver hat. He paused on the threshold, but there wasn’t much to see with the dull gray sky above greedily hoarding what little light there was.

But he didn’t need any light to know the way. Even after so many years, and with half the furnishings shrouded in dust cloths, he moved easily from room to room, memory guiding him.

It was strange, how little things changed.

It had been nineteen years since he’d set foot inside this house—fifteen since he’d set foot in Fairford itself—but he knew it as well as he knew the lines intersecting the palm of his hand. Every decorative plaster cornice, every one of the hundreds of pieces of crystal dangling from the heavy chandelier in the entryway, and every inch of the wooden floorboards under his feet.

Time had taken liberties with the cursed old place, but otherwise, it hadn’t changed as much as he’d expected. It was still the same house in which he’d run wild as a small boy—or what was left of it, after nineteen years in Ambrose St. Claire’s careless hands.

It wasn’t surprising. Everything Ambrose touched, he ruined.

Not just houses, but people, too. Lives.

Ambrose was the reason he would never be able to truly come home again—the reason his boyish adoration for his once-beloved home had turned into a man’s implacable hatred. But that was the way of things, wasn’t it? Love and hate were inextricably linked, different sides of the same coin, a mere flick of a thumb the only thing separating one from the other.

He ambled through the rooms on the main floor, taking care to sidestep the floorboards that had swollen and warped with age and damp, wandering from the entryway with the grand, carved-wood staircase down the hallway toward his father’s study, with the library on the left, and the drawing and music rooms on the right, each a faded version of what they’d once been, and everything hidden under a thick layer of dust.

He made his way down the corridor and the servants’ staircase, the thud of his footsteps much too loud in the silent house. The kitchen hadn’t changed. The same copper pots still hung from the rack over the stove, and the old table still took pride of place in the center of the room.

He rested his hand on the scrubbed wooden surface. He and his mother used to sit here together on cold winter afternoons, feasting on warm chocolate and her special ginger biscuits, the same recipe his grandmother had used to make for her when she was a girl. He’d never tasted any as delicious. Even Gunther’s, for all that it offered the most celebrated sweets in London, couldn’t produce a ginger biscuit to rival his mother’s.

He cleared the sudden thickness from his throat. How absurd. That had been a lifetime ago, and his mother was long since dead and buried. Still, he couldn’t resist running his hand under the edge of the table, a smile rising to his lips when he felt the familiar indentation under his fingertips.

Four letters—M, A, H, and B, for Maxwell Alastair Hammond Burke.

He’d carved them with one of the cook’s sharp kitchen knives when he was seven years old. He’d wanted to carve his entire name, but it was too long, so he’d settled for his initials to save his backside from the thrashing he certainly would have gotten if Mrs. Archibald had caught him abusing her precious knives. The letters weren’t as distinct as they’d once been, the edges of each dulled with wear and time, but they were still here, the wood smooth and clean under his fingertips—

Clean? His head jerked up, the hair on the back of his neck rising as he glanced around the space. The table had been recently scrubbed clean. The polished copper pots gleamed in their place over the stove, and there wasn’t a speck of ash in the massive stone fireplace that dominated the room. The iron kettle sat atop the stove, with coals stacked neatly in the firebox underneath it, and the flagstone floors were swept clean.

Nearly every stick of furniture on the main floor was shrouded with sheeting and coated with dust, but here in the kitchen, there wasn’t a single streak of dirt or a cobweb to be seen. It was as spotless as it had been when Mrs. Archibald had presided over it, almost as if . . .

Someone had been in here.

He turned about in a circle, peering into the shadowy corners.

That was when he heard it.

It was so faint it would have been inaudible to anyone whose ears weren’t straining against the silence. The soft scuff of a footfall over the floorboards, a creak, and then louder, from behind him, the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked.

Then a voice, soft and steady. “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing here, but I demand you leave at once.”

He whirled around, but by then it was already too late. A figure was advancing toward him from the deepest shadows hovering around the archway that led into the stillroom—a figure clad in a filmy white gown with a cloak thrown over the top of it.

She—for it was a she, and rather a small, slight she at that—was not at all an intimidating figure, aside from the pistol balanced in her hand. It was no pretty little muff pistol, either, but a double-barreled flintlock dueling pistol that was more than capable of blowing a sizable hole in his chest.

“Turn around, and go back out the way you came in.” Her voice was calm, even polite, but there wasn’t so much as a quiver in the hand that held the pistol, and her finger was steady on the trigger. “Now, if you please.”

As assassins went, she was a remarkably courteous one. Surely, such a gracious, soft-spoken lady wouldn’t actually fire on him? “If I don’t, madam? What then?”

She raised the muzzle of the gun—higher, then higher still, until it was no longer aimed at his chest, but right between his eyes. “Then I’m afraid I’ll have to shoot you.”

“Must you, indeed? How tiresome of you.” Not as tiresome as a pistol ball lodged in his skull would be, but Max would have wagered his dukedom that when he did choose to leave, he’d do so with his head intact.

He’d faced enough violence in his lifetime to know an empty threat when he heard one.

He’d fought dozens of brawls before the end of his first year at Eton and endured countless thrashings from vengeful headmasters. He’d had his eyes blackened, his bones broken, and boot heels lodged in his ribs.

Oddly enough, however, not once in his thirty-one years had he ever found himself on the wrong end of a loaded pistol. He’d had a near miss or two, certainly—there’d been that footpad in Covent Garden who’d held a blade to his throat, and on one memorable occasion a former mistress had tried to smother him with a pillow—but those were isolated incidents, and they’d taken place years ago.

These days, there weren’t many people in England who’d dare raise a fist or point a weapon at the Duke of Grantham.

“Did you not hear me, sir? I ordered you to leave my home this instant.”

He squinted into the gloom, but aside from a sweep of floating white hems, he couldn’t make out much of her. Her face was cast in shadows, but there was no mistaking the quiet menace in that soft voice.

Wasn’t his past meant to flash before his eyes in such circumstances? Shouldn’t he be overwhelmed with regrets over his misspent life? Shouldn’t he fall to his knees and grovel for forgiveness for his sins, and beg for mercy from the depths of his blacke. . .