The Duke's Got Mail

by Samara Parish

Genres: Women's Fiction; Regency Romance

Synopsis

The second book in a sweeping new Regency romance series about forbidden romance and secret identity—perfect for fans of USA Today bestsellers Vivienne Lorret and Kerrigan Byrne!

Release date: April 28, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

She was no man’s wife. It was irrational for Peter to be so pleased. He knew next to nothing about this woman other than that she’d answered his sister’s advertisement for a pen pal in The Lady. For all he knew, Booklover was an eighty-year-old spinster with many, many cats.

Still, as sweat trickled down the back of his neck, Peter kept his hand in his coat pocket, his thumb running along the edge of her latest missive. The knowledge that Booklover was not otherwise attached was a relief on a day when relief was hard to find.

It was devilishly warm in the church, as though Westminster Abbey sat directly on the gates of hell. Under any other circumstances, he would loosen the knot of his black cravat and drag in a breath, but the entire congregation had their eyes set on him, the Duke of Strafford, no doubt wondering what on earth he was doing there.

Margaret nudged him. “Smile, for heaven’s sake.”

Next to her, Winnie tut-tutted as she shuffled to the side, away from her sister. “Blasphemy in the house of our Lord, Meg. You might be struck down for that.”

Meg took a long breath in and out as she tried to ignore their youngest sister. “Just smile,” she muttered. “We promised we’d look friendly.”

Peter plastered a smile on his face and tried not to make eye contact with the curious busybodies who’d come to witness the maybe-marriage of Lady Cordelia Highwater to the Duke of Moorhouse. “I don’t understand why we have to be here.”

“Because Della asked us to be. Because you sent a letter to the editor of The Times announcing your betrothal to Lady Cordelia before you’d even asked for her hand, and now all of London thinks she threw you over like she did the Duke of Hornsmouth. The least we can do is help salvage her reputation by showing that there is no bad blood between our families.”

Peter shifted uncomfortably on the wooden pew. That whole blasted scenario had been a mess. It had seemed like the perfect solution—an unmarried duke’s daughter had come to Peter’s tiny town of Berwick just as Peter had decided it was time to wed. He could have avoided the whole rigmarole of courting a bride through traditional means.

Every week, one peer or another would stop by the desk at which Peter reviewed the packets prepared by parliamentary advisors to confirm that Peter had, in fact, received his invitation to their wife’s ball, garden party, or dinner. Lady Amos would be honored to host you. As would my daughter, of course.

Just as Peter had decided there was no other option but to join the whirl the following season, Lady Cordelia had arrived. She was there. She was convenient. Her father had proposed the match a few years prior when she was far too young for Peter to accept, but now she was of age. What objection could she possibly have?

Quite a few, apparently.

When the betrothal announcement had been published—damn the footman who’d posted that letter—Peter had offered to do the right thing. He had been willing to marry Lady Cordelia, despite the fact that just weeks prior, she had put him in a coma. Very magnanimous on his part, he’d thought. Yet she had rejected him. Vehemently.

Now, just over a year later, the gossip that had eased was flaring back to life as the wedding spectators wondered why Lady Cordelia’s former betrothed was attending her wedding to another man.

“Hornsmouth isn’t here.”

“Then you are a better person than he is,” Meg said.

Lady Cordelia had left Hornsmouth at the altar only a week before she had knocked Peter unconscious. All of London had been in attendance, apparently, just as they were today.

In attendance and staring. It made his skin crawl. Good Lord, how he hated to be the center of attention.

“Jac is going to hate missing this,” Winnie said with a satisfied smirk.

“Edwina, there is no need to sound so pleased. Besides, there will be plenty more weddings this season, no doubt,” Meg replied.

Winnie sniffed. “Dukes’ weddings? Hardly.” She gave Peter a sly, sidelong glance. “Unless you’re planning on proposing again, brother? If so, please do actually ask her before you announce it.”

Peter gritted his teeth. His sisters would never let him forget that miscalculation. Ever. They were like dogs with a bone, which was precisely why he did not plan to tell them that, yes, he would find a wife this season. If he had to attend social engagements as Winnie debuted, then he might as well address the duchess problem at the same time. Efficient.

His thoughts turned toward the letter in his pocket. Was Booklover an eligible candidate? He wouldn’t know unless he could find out who she was, but the secrecy she and Jac had agreed to made that difficult.

“It is a shame that Jac is not here,” Meg said, taking less satisfaction in the fact than her sister had. “She is quite despairing.”

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Jacqueline’s despair was of her own making. “Dr. Peabody is in high demand. This was the time he had available for her surgery. He was not going to rearrange his schedule so that she could witness gossip firsthand.”

Winnie hmphed, seemingly pleased that his comment might be construed as siding with her. That would come back to bite him in some form at some point. “So true, brother. But you really should smile, or people will think that you’re put out with me, and I am innocent.”

People. Blast. Just as he turned to observe the rubberneckers staring at him, there was a murmur and their attention shifted. Thank heavens. His shoulders loosened as the Duke of Moorhouse strode down the aisle. Lady Cordelia had already entered the church and was waiting in the doorway. Even from this distance, he could see the grip her father had on his daughter’s arm.

“She’s beautiful,” Winnie whispered.

“Stunning,” Meg replied.

“That dress must have cost a fortune.”

“Such a shame that Rhett destroyed her first one. You’d want to wear a dress like that more than once.”

“Even if its first use was so ill-fated?”

Peter turned to his sisters and narrowed his eyes. If he could have drawn a finger across his throat without it ending up in the papers, he would have.

Regardless, his intent must have been clear, because the girls closed their mouths and turned their attention back to the bride, who was as white as the dress she wore. She walked like an automaton that had cogs and levers and clockwork motors driving her forward. Her eyes were set on the archbishop, and she gave no indication that she heard the murmurs of the crowd or felt their intense gaze.

Peter winced as she passed him, and he got a good look at the terror on her face. He wasn’t particularly fond of the chit. He thought her spoiled and self-involved and not at all deserving of the friendship his family bestowed on her. But that didn’t negate the fact that she was young and petrified and clearly not happy with the marriage she was about to enter into.

Plenty of people marry when they don’t want to. It is a fact of life. Still, he would never let his sisters feel such dread.

Once Lady Cordelia reached her destination, she handed her bouquet to the tallest of the girls that had preceded her. Only then did her father release her, and Moorhouse grasped her hands in his.

Peter tugged at his cravat. This whole situation made his stomach turn. The sooner it was over, the better. Had they planned a full ceremony with all the pomp and grandeur? Or would they speed up the program, rushing to the I dos to minimize the chance of another escape?

He would never know. The moment her father had taken his seat, Cordelia yanked her hands from her betrothed’s, picked up her skirts, and fled back the way she had come.

“Oh my Lord.”

Peter wasn’t concerned with Winnie’s blasphemy, because it was drowned out by the crying and cursing and general shock of the rest of the congregation.

As Cordelia ran up the aisle, Peter caught sight of the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her father was on her heels. He’d have ahold of her before she escaped.

Winnie reached across Meg to grab Peter’s coat, clenching the wool in her fist. “Cordy,” she whispered.

Lady Cordelia passed them.

Grimacing at the likely consequences, Peter stuck a foot into the aisle, and her father fell with a sharp grunt.

“My good man,” Peter said, leaping from his seat and crouching beside his peer. “Are you all right?” Both of them were large, and the aisle was blocked. Neither Moorhouse nor any member of Cordelia’s family could navigate around them.

Peter looked over his shoulder as he stood to offer the duke his hand. Cordelia had paused for the briefest second to glance behind her. Catching Peter’s eye, she gave a small, thankful smile, and then disappeared.

Dear Booklover,

Being content with your cat for company is far preferable to an unwanted and unhappy marriage. I am relieved that you have that option when not everyone does.

—Captain of the Nautilus

“All I’m saying is that next time they should station someone at the door to the church.”

“Do you really think there is going to be a next time?” Eleanor Wright asked as she closed the brass latches of her typecase, running a hand over the walnut lid. Around them, the printing press whirred and hummed in rhythmic motion as tomorrow’s paper finally went to print. The presses had stopped the moment news broke of that afternoon’s scandal, and Eleanor had been called to the Times offices urgently so that she could typeset the latest column about the aristocracy behaving badly.

“She is the only daughter of the Duke of Thirwhestle. Of course there will be a next time,” Mabel said, as she and Lillian retrieved their purses and tucked their stools beneath Eleanor’s typesetting bench. “Besides, I refuse to believe a woman as beautiful as Lady Cordelia Highwater could possibly end up a spinster.”

Lillian shrugged. “If the next lord possesses an ounce of intelligence, he will forgo the usual celebrations and whisk her away to Gretna Green.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Eleanor replied. “There are far too many ways for Lady Cordelia to escape on a three-day trip to Scotland. She’d end up bolting through a cow field, never to be seen again.”

“At least the entire ton wouldn’t be in attendance to watch.” Mabel inched closer to the others as they made their way through the printing house toward the street. She was still rattled by the scowls of the men who worked there and the insults they said just loud enough that Eleanor and her friends could hear but the foreman could not.

Eleanor had become accustomed to the bitterness. She was a woman working in a man’s space. Composing type was usually gendered work, and though the London Society of Compositors had relaxed its rules around women taking up the craft, most printing houses continued to employ men exclusively.

Unless they were in a bind. Unless there was a breaking story that stopped the press and speed was of the essence. That’s when they would send for Eleanor.

She held her head high as she strolled past the paper’s regular compositors, ignoring the way they glowered. She could set type five times faster than her nearest competitor, and they resented her for it. They also resented the rather obscene amount of money that she was paid to rescue an edition at the last minute.

Every aspect of the printing process had been stripped of human touch over the past hundred years, except for the setting of type. That was a task that couldn’t be replaced by a machine. Type was an art form. Some men might slap any font into a book or across a page, but for Eleanor, the decision came from a finely honed sense of tone, emotion, audience, content, readability, and budget. Always, she asked herself, “What experience must the reader have?” If she didn’t have a font that was perfect for the project, she would locate one, then her fingers would dance across her type boxes to the innate rhythm of the text, flying faster than she could consciously think.

She was an artist. While newspaper columns required less artistry than books, she rather liked the ridiculous amount of cash she earned from them. Even after hiring Mabel and Lillian as assistants, she still had more than enough money to meet her needs. It gave her time to focus on the projects she was passionate about that paid slightly less well, like the Dictionary of Political Economy or The Autobiography of a Flea.

The foreman nodded as the three of them crossed the threshold of the printing house into the small, neat foyer that smelled of ink and paper despite being pristine, without a single smudge on the white marble floor.

Eleanor gave a satisfied little humph, as she always did when presented with something beautiful. The way the light from the streetlamps refracted through the small, diagonal panes of glass that made up the mullion windows created a pattern of light across the floor that was reflected in the pattern of tiles across the roof. That was what Eleanor loved about the architecture of this building—only when the sun had set and the building had closed to outsiders did that element of design reveal itself. It was beauty reserved for those who worked the press, who put in long hours of toil and sweat. Only for them did the building show itself to its fullest.

Otto, the Times’ porter, held open the door. “Good night, Miss Wright, Miss Thompson, Miss Cole. A cab awaits your convenience.”

“Good night, Otto,” the three trilled in unison.

The trip across town to the boardinghouse Lillian and Mabel lived in flew by as they engaged in the great debate of the day—was Lady Cordelia Highwater a fool, a villain, or a victim? The author of the piece they’d typeset had clearly cast her in the role of man-hating shrew, intent on humiliating men for the crime of having the right to vote.

Lillian was leaning more toward “Cordelia the fool” because who in her right mind would turn down marriage to a duke when it meant a lifetime of security? Assuming said duke didn’t have a history of killing his wives, that was. In that case, a lifetime might be secure but short.

Eleanor and Mabel had more generous thoughts on the situation. Mabel had constructed her own fantasy that Lady Cordelia had fled in order to be with her true love. Eleanor was fairly certain Lady Cordelia was not running toward anything and was instead refusing to be her father’s pawn. Good on her.

What will the Captain think of this when he reads of it tomorrow? Would he share her disdain for the aristocracy’s behavior? Would he take the side of the man abandoned at the altar or the woman who fled? She was impatient to know. She was impatient to check with her building’s concierge, to hear those three words that never failed to set her heart fluttering lately: “You’ve got mail.”

Words were her entire life. By her calculation, she had read almost eighty million of them, yet never had a phrase sparked such effervescence. Never had she reread a piece of paper so often that the edges were worn and the ink smudged. Nor had she ever been motivated to run up the four flights of stairs to her flat so that she could ensconce herself in the corner of her armchair, slip a finger beneath the wax seal, and breathlessly read whatever the Captain had to say to her that day.

Oblivious to the turn of Eleanor’s thoughts, Lillian raised a metaphorical glass as the cab bounced down the rutted road. “Here’s to Lady Cordelia Highwater. We hope that wherever you’re laying your head tonight, you’re free.”

Captain of the Nautilus. I should have guessed it. It was right there in your annotations. Should I be concerned? Nemo was morally questionable at best. Must you be kept away from the aristocracy?

—Booklover

Yes, I should be kept from all lords and ladies, but not for the reasons you might imagine. There are many aspects of Nemo that resonate with me. I find myself preoccupied with the very frictions he embodies: progress vs. morality, freedom vs. isolation. If you can look past the vengeance and murder, he’s a tragic figure.

Also, I saw what might be my only opportunity to captain a majestic marvel of invention, and I seized it. Truthfully, that was the primary driving force behind my choice. Thoughts on his character are justifications that, while true, were very recently devised.

—Captain (Obviously The Nonviolent sort)

I shall question your choice no further. Let ours be a dimension where we can express our hearts freely.

—Booklover

“‘Jacqueline, I fear that if you do not come to London soon, you’ll miss your opportunity to be married this season. This year’s crop of debutantes is ambitious and more than a little bit pushy. It’s impossible to get a mere minute’s conversation with a gentleman before he’s whisked away by some ingenue, and their tactics are working. With fewer men on the marriage mart this year, the competition is fierce. Speaking of which, how is your brother? Is it true he’s come to London to find a wife?’”

Peter shook his head as he set aside the letter. “Your friends aren’t subtle.”

Jac sniffed in their defense. “As far as London knows, you were betrothed last season. Given it didn’t work out, it’s not unreasonable for society to speculate about your plans.” Jac’s head was turned in his direction, but she couldn’t see him grimace through the thick bandages that were wrapped across her eyes.

“My intentions are none of anyone’s business.” His tone was curt but necessary. Maintaining firm boundaries with his sisters was like maintaining a sea wall in a constant tempest—without expert engineering, it would collapse under the constant battering. It often did.

“You are a young and handsome duke. You are every unmarried woman and her mama’s business.”

This was why he hated London. He was a puppet made of meat on display, except the women of London weren’t satisfied watching his every move. They wanted to devour him.

As a rule, he left his estates only when the House of Lords was in session, so he could execute that facet of his responsibilities. He avoided balls whenever he could and attended only small dinner parties with like-minded peers where he could be sure that no young girls would be thrust in his direction. Still, despite all his efforts, he’d been forced to endure more ingratiating conversations with want-to-be duchesses than he could tolerate.

But there was no avoiding balls this year. It was Winnie’s first season. Lord help him. Not joining the whirl would reflect badly on her, and Lord only knew what mischief she would get up to in his absence. Their older sister, Meg, was carrying her first child, and while it was too early for people to notice, she’d been tired and ill for weeks. She was in no state to play chaperone. So he would put on the dress coat his valet had ordered and endure it, just as he had to endure Jac’s correspondence.

She needed constant care following the surgery to correct her vision. Her lady’s maid had been given the month off to visit family, he wouldn’t burden Meg with the task in her condition, and Winnie could not be trusted to care for her blind sister without pulling some kind of prank. Which left him, her guardian since he was thirteen and she was just a toddler.

“You should tell your friends that you’re in London,” he said, picking up the next letter in the pile.

“Then they would want to see me.”

“Yes, and then they could read your correspondence to you.”

Jac shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. You’re the only one I trust to keep any gossip you might hear to yourself. Besides, I don’t want them to know about the surgery, because then they would know that I couldn’t see a darned thing this entire time.”

Jac was intelligent, kind, well-read, politically aware, and civic-minded. She’d grown into a woman whom Peter was proud of. Her one Achilles’ heel was that she refused to show weakness. She’d hang at the edge of a ballroom unable to see more than rough shapes and colors before she’d stoop to wearing her spectacles in public, and she’d chosen a risky surgery that had terrified Peter to his core rather than having less-than-perfect sight.

So, each afternoon once the House of Lords rose, he would come home to keep her company and feed her as one might feed a child, doing his best not to drip food down her chin, because she would not allow the staff to see her wearing a bib. Then he would read aloud her mail, which had traveled from London to Strafford Abbey in Berwick, and then back to London, because she would not admit to her friends that she was in town.

So, there he was, becoming intimately aware of the goings-on of the ton from the point of view of a gaggle of young ladies.

“You could do worse than Philippa,” Jac said of the current letter writer. “She’s a viscount’s daughter and very accomplished. She’s well-liked and would provide a foil for your rough edges.”

The trouble with his sisters’ friends, while they seemed pleasant enough, was that they were just so young. But then, most marriageable women were. Finding one who wasn’t would require sifting through dozens more. While it made sense to find a duchess this season, the thought of putting himself on the marriage mart to be pored over, speculated about, and lied to made him shudder.

Jac’s first season—the only time he’d braved a London whirl over the past five years—had been hellish. It had confirmed what he’d always known—he could not trust a single word out of anyone’s mouth. Apparently, the Duke of Strafford was such a catch that independent thought went out the window. Debutantes and their mamas had said the most asinine things. One had literally agreed with him when he’d said, in a moment of frustration, that the sky was green. He could remember it clearly. The chit put a finger to her chin and murmured, It does have that hue to it this evening.

The marriage mart was the stuff of nightmares. But then, he had a responsibility to carry on his line. If he had to expose himself to society for Winnie’s sake, he might as well find a wife at the same time. Which led his thoughts back to the message in his pocket.

For the past fortnight, he’d barely recognized himself. Instead of giving parliament his full and deserving attention, a corner of his mind had fixed on a woman whose name he didn’t even know. He’d turned over her words in his mind, each iteration adding depth and color to his vision of her. When he wasn’t immersing himself in her words, he was finessing his own. For the first time since his father had died, Peter could be himself without the impediments of his title and the suffocating assumptions that went with it, and he wanted to do so fully. Captain of the Nautilus might be an alias, but it was proving to be his most authentic self.

If he could find a wife with whom he could be half as honest, perhaps marriage wouldn’t be so bad.

“I promise to dance with Philippa at least once this week,” he said, dragging his mind back to cold reality. “But I make no promises other than that.”

Jac clapped her hands. “Splendid. Next letter.”

Peter sighed and reached for the next in the pile of envelopes that had arrived that day. The first thing he’d done was scan through the names, looking for the mysterious Booklover. With her, there was no need for Jac to pretend to be out of London, so letters arrived daily, sometimes twice a day. Without fail, his heart would give an odd little kick when he recognized her sharp, slanted hand. He would slide a letter knife under the wax, breaking the seal, and impatiently riffle through the pages of Booklover’s letter to his sister until a small, folded note slipped into his lap.

Dear Captain,

I cannot believe that you have not visited the zoo since you were a child. How large is this “extended family” that keeps you from exploring the city? I highly recommend that you put aside your many responsibilities for one afternoon and once again experience its joys…

Large. The “extended family” he’d spoken of comprised thousands and thousands of people, once all of his tenants, staff, and their families were included. Putting their needs aside was not as simple as Booklover was suggesting. Peter’s time was not his own. It hadn’t been for seventeen years.

Still… what if he took an hour? Just one. When was the last time he’d indulged himself for no reason other than pleasure?

“Brother, have you been struck mute again? We are a fine pair, if that is the case.”

With an air of resignation, he picked up an envelope covered with flowery script and an equally flowery scent. “Not mute, Jac, merely taking a moment for myself.”

“Well, take your moment another time. I need to know what else has been happening.”

Peter sighed. “‘My dear Jacqueline,’” he read aloud. “‘How distressed I was to read about your broken finger, though I do not feel you should delay your trip to London as a result. The season has only been in swing for a handful of weeks and already there are some highly questionable liaisons brewing.’”

Jac leaned forward, hand to heart. “Do tell.”

“Do I have a choice?”

She poked out her tongue. Thankfully, Peter was given a reprieve from the scuttlebutt by a knock at the door. It opened, and Peter’s man of business stuck his head in.

“Andrew, your timing is perfect,” Jac said. “Peter was just about to read some salacious gossip.”

Andrew furrowed his brows. “It is creepy that you knew it was me before I’d said anything.”

“I always know when it’s you,” she replied with a smile.

“I know, and it’s creepy.” Andrew sniffed at his shirt. “Do I smell? I swear, I have my shirts laundered daily.” He looked at Peter. “Can you smell me?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “No, I cannot smell you from this distance, and neither can she.”

“It’s just magic,” Jac said. “I have powers.”

Andrew frowned. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No,” Peter said, more forcefully than he intended. “Just London gossip that I do not care to know.”

Andrew broke out in a wide grin. “Good. Because it’s here.”

Peter’s heart lurched. For the past seven years, he and Andrew had read through the monthly report from the Court of Chancery that recorded all the British patents granted. Their goal had been simple—find and invest in new technology that promised high impact and strong yields. Some of their investments had failed to pan out. Others had experienced moderate returns, nothing outrageous but enough to supplement the Strafford Estates’ dwindling income. They still needed that one metaphorical gold mine, an investment so successful that his sleep would finally be settled.

In the years since Peter had become duke, the exodus of people from the country to burgeoning cities had quickened. The upkeep of buildings and modernization of farming systems cost money at a time when rent was bringing in less and less revenue. It was becoming more difficult to find money for new schools or to fund local hospitals.

Then his baby sisters grew into women, and the urgency of his situation fully grasped him. Meg married, and her husband up and left thrice in five years—the latest while she was with child. Jac had shown no interest in marriage, which meant that she might one day require funds to live comfortably on her own. And Winnie? The Lord only knew what trouble she would cause and how much it would cost to extract her from it.

His desire to harness the industrial revolution became an urgent need.

Two years ago, a new patent was granted for the Linot. . .