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Synopsis
Miss Isabelle Catherine Hutting would rather be lounging in the library than circling the ballroom in search of a husband any day. So when Cat hears that the town's infamous Spinster House is open for a new resident, she jumps at the chance to put all this marriage business behind her. But first she must make arrangements with her prospective landlord, Marcus, the Duke of Hart-the most handsome man she's ever seen, and the only man who's ever impressed her in the least.
With her wit, independent spirit, and great beauty, Marcus can't help but be stirred by Cat. It's terribly unfortunate that he's not looking to marry, given the centuries-old curse that left his family with the Spinster House to begin with. No duke shall live to see his heir's birth. But is there a chance the curse could be broken-in true fairy-tale fashion-by an act of true love?
Release date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Zebra Books
Print pages: 352
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What to Do With a Duke
Sally MacKenzie
Loves Bridge, 1617
London, May 1817
“You have compromised my daughter, Hart. I demand you offer for her.” Barnabas Rathbone sniffed and raised his receding chin. “At once.”
The drone of conversation in White’s crowded reading room stopped abruptly. Marcus would swear all the men inhaled at the same time and held their collective breath, the better to hear every word of this delightful drama. A few went so far as to peer around their newspapers.
He ignored them. “No.”
Rathbone’s prominent eyes widened, his fleshy jowls trembling. “W—what do you mean, no?”
The fellow was an even better actor than his disreputable daughter.
“No, I will not marry Miss Rathbone.”
Rathbone’s mouth dangled open briefly. Then his brows snapped down into a scowl, but not before Marcus saw the panic in his eyes. The man had likely been staving off his creditors by telling them he’d soon be a duchess’s father. Fool! Did he think he was the first to try such a trick on the Duke of Hart—or the Heartless Duke, as the wags liked to call him?
When they weren’t calling him the Cursed Duke.
“How can you be so cruel? The poor girl is beside herself.”
Marcus just stared at Rathbone. Sadly, he had plenty of experience dealing with conniving members of the ton. He was far too big a prize for them to resist. Thanks to the curse, if the woman he married had any luck at all, she’d conceive his heir on their wedding night and be a wealthy widow nine months later.
He was bloody well not going to die for Rathbone’s benefit.
“You cannot mean to ruin my dear daughter’s reputation!” A note of desperation had slipped into Rathbone’s bluster.
The other men in White’s deeply carpeted reading room leaned forward in their rich leather chairs, newspapers and books abandoned along with any pretense of ignoring the conversation. Their gaze swiveled between Marcus and Rathbone.
It focused on Marcus now.
“Since your daughter has no reputation, there is nothing to ruin, Rathbone.”
A gasp burst from their audience and more than a few sniggers—some muffled, most not.
Rathbone wisely chose not to dispute that. “Her heart will be broken.”
Now he was grasping at straws. The girl had no heart, either, which some would say made her the perfect match for the Heartless Duke.
Perhaps. But if he had to marry—and he did have to marry someday if he wished to ensure the succession—he’d rather choose a heartless girl with better deportment and perhaps even a little intelligence and wit to make his last days more bearable.
Rathbone opened his mouth again, but Marcus held up his hand to stop him.
“You and your daughter laid a trap, sir, which I refuse to be caught in. That is the end of the matter.”
He thought he heard Rathbone’s teeth grind.
“I see there is no reasoning with you, Your Grace. You are indeed as heartless as everyone says.”
Marcus inclined his head. “One does wonder why you thought otherwise.”
The men in the room didn’t even try to muffle their sniggers this time.
“Hart has a point, Rathbone,” one of them called out.
Marcus didn’t look to see which fellow spoke. It could have been any of them. They were like a pack of wolves, attacking at the first scent of blood. Not that he had any sympathy for Rathbone, of course.
Rathbone glared at the man who’d spoken and then glared at Marcus. “I shall take my leave then, Your Grace, but do not think your infamy will be forgotten.”
“I do not think it. But neither should you think I will change my mind. You and your daughter need to look for a more achievable way to address your pressing debts.”
Rathbone stiffened and lifted his chin again, but his eyes told the tale. He might try to make Marcus’s existence unpleasant for the next few weeks, but he realized he’d wagered and lost.
“Your Grace.” He jerked his head in the slightest of bows and strode from the room.
Marcus looked at the other men—they all dived back into their reading material. As he expected, none said a word to him about what they’d just witnessed, but he knew the moment the door closed behind him, they’d burst into excited whispers and then go spread the tale throughout the ton. Dolts! He was heartily sick of them.
The club manager came rushing up as soon as Marcus emerged from the reading room. “Your Grace, I apologize for Mr. Rathbone’s behavior. If I’d known—”
“It’s nothing, Montgomery. Rathbone is a member. He has as much right as the next man to be an idiot here.”
Montgomery frowned. “More’s the pity. Can I bring you a bottle of our best brandy, Your Grace, to take some of the sting from the encounter?”
If he dosed himself with spirits every time he had to deal with Rathbone’s sort, he’d be a complete sot. “My thanks, but no. I believe I’ll—”
“Marcus!”
Marcus grinned, shedding some of his ill temper. He knew that voice. He turned to see his cousin, Nate, the Marquess of Haywood, coming toward him with their friend Alex, the Earl of Evans.
“You look as if you’d like to hit something,” Nate said quietly, concern coloring his words as he grasped Marcus’s hand.
“Or someone.” Alex grinned. “And we can guess who that someone is. We just passed Rathbone.”
“He tried to pressure you to wed his daughter, did he?” Nate smiled, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m glad you sent him about his business.”
“By Gad, yes. Can’t imagine a worse fate than being riveted to that girl.” Alex cleared his throat. “Though it is quite the story. What actually happened in Palmerson’s garden?”
Marcus glanced around. Montgomery had stepped away when Nate and Alex came up, but he was still hovering nearby, clearly waiting to produce that brandy. And he thought he heard Uppleton’s annoying voice approaching. There was little hope of having a private conversation here.
“Come along to Hart House with me and I’ll tell you over a glass of brandy.”
“We just came from Hart House, you know,” Alex said as they started for the door. “Your butler was quite insistent that, if we found you, we should tell you that a letter arrived from Loves Bridge.”
Loves Bridge? Oh, God. His stomach tightened as it always did when he heard the name of that damned village.
Nate gripped his shoulder briefly in support. “It’s probably just something from your steward.”
Marcus nodded. Of course Nate was right. It was just Emmett writing about some needed repair. He’d write back as he always did, telling the man to do as he saw fit.
He’d been to Loves Bridge—and his estate, Loves Castle—only once in his life, twenty years ago, when the terms of Isabelle Dorring’s curse forced him to select the next Spinster House spinster. The woman who’d applied—a Miss Franklin—had been very young, the victim of some scandal that made her unmarriageable—or so Uncle Philip had said. Nate’s father had conducted the interview since Marcus had been only a boy.
He took a deep breath, and the anxiety gripping his chest loosened. Yes, clearly, the letter could not be about the Spinster House. Miss Franklin should live several more decades.
Something he’d not do.
“I will say Finch seemed to be in a bit of a fidget.” Nate shot him a worried look as they left White’s. “Said he hadn’t seen you for hours.”
Alex snorted. “A bit of a fidget? The man was almost in tears.”
Oh, hell.
“I don’t know why he would be. He could have asked Kimball where I was.”
Nate’s frown deepened. “Kimball seemed quite concerned as well.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Finch he might understand, but Kimball? His valet knew the only cure Marcus had found for his foul moods was walking. And he’d done a lot of walking recently. Miss Rathbone was the third girl to try to trap him into marriage, and the Season was barely underway. “I told Kimball I was going for a stroll. I find it clears my head.”
Alex laughed. “The only thing London’s smoke and stench clears is your stomach . . . into the nearest gutter.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that.” Truth was, he could have walked through a midden and not noticed.
“Perhaps Finch didn’t think you meant you’d be strolling for four hours,” Nate said.
Zeus! Have I really been gone that long?
Alex clapped him on the back. “If you like walking, why don’t you shake London’s dirt off your boots and go to the Lake District?” For once Alex looked serious. “Finch and Kimball aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed you haven’t been yourself recently.”
“Confound it! I’m perfectly fine.”
Silence. No one—Marcus included—believed that.
“Rolling around in the bushes with a marriageable female isn’t your normal behavior,” Nate said. He sounded just like Uncle Philip had when he’d scolded them for some infraction when they were boys.
Nate meant well, but his constant fretting was driving Marcus mad. He didn’t need Nate watching and hovering and—
But Nate had always done that to some degree. They were cousins, but they’d grown up as brothers, Nate being the elder by three weeks.
“Did you have the girl half out of her dress as Lady Dunlee has been saying?” Alex asked.
“Bloody gossips.” They’d finally reached Hart House. Marcus sighed. “Come in and I’ll tell you the whole sorry tale.”
As they climbed the steps, the curtains on one of the windows twitched, and then the front door flew open to reveal Finch, gray hair standing on end as if he’d been combing it with his fingers.
“Oh, thank God you’ve found him.”
For a moment Marcus was afraid the butler was going to fall on his neck and hug him to his elderly bosom, but fortunately the man caught himself in time.
“I only went for a walk, Finch,” he said as he stepped over the threshold.
Kimball appeared at Finch’s elbow. “But you were gone so long, Your Grace.” His fingers shook slightly as he raised them to tug on his waistcoat. “We were concerned. You were not in the best of spirits when you departed.”
What had these two thought he’d do—throw himself into the Thames?
Their expressions said that was precisely what they’d feared.
This just got worse and worse. “Well, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.” He forced himself to laugh. “I’m a grown man. You don’t have to worry I’ll get lost.”
Finch looked at Kimball. Oh, Lord.
Kimball cleared his throat. “It’s just that your father took to disappearing when he was your age, Your Grace.”
Finch nodded. “’Twas the pressure, don’t you know.”
He should pension these two off. He hadn’t considered it before, but Kimball was well into his sixties and Finch had passed seventy.
Kimball swallowed. “It starts the day the Duke of Hart turns thirty and gets worse as time passes. It was that way with your father, and my father said it was that way with your grandfather.”
“The curse,” Finch said, doom in his voice.
“The succession.” Kimball looked as if he might cry. “Marriage and then. . . .”
The last bit of color drained from both men’s faces.
Egad, was he doomed to have these two as well as Nate hover over him for the rest of his days? It made death look almost appealing.
“Well, since I have no plans to marry for many, many years, you needn’t look so Friday-faced.”
The two old men straightened.
“So you aren’t going to wed Miss Rathbone, Your Grace?” Finch asked.
“Of course not. Do you think me a complete cabbage head?”
Finch let out a long breath. “Definitely not, Your Grace.” He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.
“This is splendid news, Your Grace.” Kimball grinned so widely his cheeks must ache.
“Yes, well, perhaps now you can get back to your duties. Oh, and Finch, have a cold collation brought up to my study, will you?”
“At once, Your Grace.”
“Those two are worse than a pair of nervous nursery maids,” Marcus said once he and Nate and Alex were safely ensconced in his study. “Care for some brandy?” He certainly could use a generous measure.
“It’s not surprising, Marcus,” Nate said, taking a glass. “They’ve lived with the curse for years. They’ve seen it unfold.”
“But it’s just a story, isn’t it?” Alex took his brandy and sat down in one of the wing chairs, stretching his legs toward the fire. “For God’s sake, no one really believes in curses these days. The notion is laughable.” He looked at Nate and Marcus and frowned. “Except neither of you is laughing.”
“No.” Nate took one of the other chairs. “We’re not.”
Marcus tossed off the rest of his brandy and poured himself some more.
“You can’t mean all that drivel the ton whispers about Marcus dying before his heir is born is true?”
Nate scowled at Alex. “That’s precisely what we mean.”
Alex gawped at them. “That’s ridiculous. How can you believe that? You’re both intelligent men. It—”
“It started two hundred years ago.” Marcus leaned against his desk. Oh, God, it was ridiculous, but history proved it true. “Exactly two hundred years ago in 1617 when my great-great-great-grandfather insulted Miss Isabelle Dorring, a merchant’s daughter.”
“He did rather more than insult her,” Nate said.
Yes, he had.
“He impregnated her.” Marcus took a steadying sip of brandy. “Apparently Miss Dorring thought my ancestor was going to marry her.”
Alex snorted. “A duke marry a merchant’s daughter? Not likely.”
“It seems Miss Dorring didn’t realize that.” Every time he allowed himself to consider the story of the curse, he wanted to wrap his hands round the third duke’s neck and strangle the blackguard. Unfortunately the fellow was already very, very dead. “The bloody man should never have bedded her without making completely certain she understood marriage was not part of their bargain.”
Alex arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps she trapped him just as Miss Rathbone tried to trap you.”
“Then he should not have allowed himself to be trapped.”
There was no excuse for the man’s behavior. None. What sort of scoundrel took advantage of a young woman that way? No, if the damned duke had had a shred of honor, he would have kept his breeches buttoned.
Just as he would keep his buttoned, no matter how many marriageable maidens tried to persuade him otherwise. Even if it killed him.
Which it might. It was getting harder and harder to resist temptation.
“Surely he offered to support the child,” Alex said, “if it was indeed his. Women have been known to lie about such things.”
“Miss Dorring didn’t lie,” Nate said. “The fact that no Duke of Hart since has lived to see his son born proves that.”
Marcus drank some more brandy, trying to wash away the bad taste this tale always left in his mouth.
The entire decanter couldn’t do that.
“And there’s no evidence my disreputable ancestor offered his support,” Marcus said. “By the time Isabelle Dorring realized her, er, problem, the duke had left on a bridal journey with his new wife.”
Alex grimaced. “That wasn’t well done of him.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So what happened to Miss Dorring?”
“She drowned herself—and her unborn baby—in Loves Water.”
“You don’t know that,” Nate said, as he always did. “Her body was never found.”
“What else could have happened?” Nate knew the story as well as he did—Nate’s parents had been the first to tell them it. He hated the thought, but he had to face facts. “You know Loves Water is very deep. It’s not surprising her body wasn’t discovered.”
Alex was shaking his head. “It’s a very sad story. Tragic, really. But that’s no reason to believe in a curse.”
“As Nate said, my family history proves the truth of the matter. My great-great-great-grandfather broke his neck going over a jump two weeks before his son was born. My great-great-grandfather died of the ague eight months after his wedding; his wife was delivered of a son two months later. Generation after generation, the same result.”
“Your father?”
“Tripped on a loose pavement stone and cracked his head open on the marble steps of this house. I was born six weeks later.”
Alex scowled at him. “That’s bloody unbelievable.”
“Belief isn’t required. Finch told me my father scoffed at it all, and he’s just as dead as the other dukes.”
“So is there no way to break this, ah, curse?” Alex was looking at them as if they’d just escaped from Bedlam.
Nate tossed off the rest of his brandy. “The Duke of Hart must marry for love.”
Marcus snorted. “And what is the chance of that happening? Zero.” Nate’s parents were the only people Marcus knew who’d made a love match. His own mother certainly hadn’t.
She hadn’t even loved me.
His heart clenched. Stupid.
I’m thirty years old. It doesn’t matter any longer.
His mother had dropped him at his aunt and uncle’s estate on her way to the Continent when he was a newborn. Last he’d heard, she’d married some Italian count and was living on a Mediterranean island. Someone must be supporting her. She hadn’t touched any of her widow’s benefits in the years he’d been holding the purse strings.
He wouldn’t recognize her if she stepped into the library this moment.
It’s a good thing she abandoned me. It gave me a family. It gave me Nate.
Laurence, one of his footmen, came in then with a tray of ham, cheese, and bread. “Mr. Finch wanted me to be sure ye got the letter from Loves Bridge, Yer Grace. It’s on yer desk.”
“Ah, yes, thank you, Laurence. I see it.” News of a leaky roof or crumbling fence could wait.
“What did happen with Miss Rathbone?” Alex asked once Laurence left. “I thought you were far too wily to fall prey to her.”
“I thought so, too, Marcus.” Nate’s voice held worry, frustration, and perhaps a touch of anger. “You know you have to be careful, especially now.”
He was tempted to tell Nate he’d gone outside to get free of his bloody constant surveillance, but Nate hadn’t been the only one he’d wanted to escape.
“You know how stifling a crowded ballroom can be. I just needed some fresh air.”
The noise and the stink of too many people in too small a space had indeed been gagging, but he’d also wanted to get away from the Widow Chesney. He’d crossed paths with her at a few events, and she’d seemed willing to explore a more intimate acquaintance. He might be the Cursed Duke—the Heartless Duke—but he was also a man, with a man’s needs.
And I’m lonely.
There, he’d admitted it. He could not hope for a long, happy marriage, but he craved a woman’s touch, one that he wasn’t paying for.
He took another large swallow of brandy. But it had turned out the Widow Chesney did have a price—a wedding ring.
He slammed his fist into the desk. The pain felt good. “Rathbone must have been watching me. I played right into his hands.”
“He likely just saw an opportunity and jumped on it,” Alex said. “Rathbone’s not the brightest of fellows.”
Which made his error all the more galling. Maybe he did need a keeper.
Now Rathbone would spread his version of last night’s affair throughout the ton, and yet another layer of dishonor would attach to Marcus’s title.
“I can’t believe I swallowed his story that his daughter had gone missing.”
“At least you found her,” Alex said, trying with little success to muffle a snigger.
Yes, he’d found her. She’d had her hair down her back and her bodice loosened so her breasts were almost spilling out.
His mouth went dry at the memory, blast it all.
“She was hiding behind a bush and jumped out at me. I stepped back, stumbled. . . .” He stared at his brandy glass. The situation would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so blasted embarrassing. “We ended up tangled on the ground, which is when Lady Dunlee came upon us.”
Alex choked back laughter.
“It is not amusing.”
“Not when you’re the one writhing in Miss Rathbone’s claws,” Alex said. “But when you’re not . . .” He sniggered again.
“You were very lucky Miss Rathbone didn’t say you raped her,” Nate said.
“It would be hard for her to make that claim. When Lady Dunlee came upon us, the girl had me pinned to the ground and was kissing me.”
Nate’s eyebrow rose. “And you couldn’t stop her?”
Fortunately the study was too dark for his flush to show—he hoped. “It was a good thing I didn’t try. If I’d had my hands on her, it would have looked like I was forcing her.”
The terrible thing—the deeply mortifying thing—was that he hadn’t been that anxious to remove Miss Rathbone. He’d enjoyed the feeling of the girl’s body on his.
This must be what had finally driven his ancestors into marriage, this overwhelming need for a woman’s touch. It was a hunger that went beyond the physical. He’d tried to satisfy it with an assortment of creative, talented light-skirts, and while that had worked for a while, now even a thorough, passionate session with one of London’s most skilled courtesans left him feeling unsatisfied.
Nate was frowning, of course. “The London Misses are shameless. You should leave Town for a while.”
“Let’s go to the Lake District,” Alex said. “You’re far more likely to encounter a sheep than a marriage-hungry female there.”
“Isn’t the Lake District rather cold and damp?” Though the thought of getting away from Town—and temptation—was enticing.
His gaze settled on the letter from Loves Bridge.
Hmm. That doesn’t look at all like Emmett’s hand.
“It’s not so bad this time of year,” Alex said. “What? Are you afraid of a little wetting?”
“Of course not.” He picked up the letter and turned it over. He didn’t recognize the seal, either.
“What does Emmett want?” Nate asked.
“This isn’t from Emmett.” He opened the single sheet. The handwriting was very cramped—illegible, really. At least his correspondent hadn’t felt the need to cross his lines, but even so, it was going to be a trick to decipher the message.
He held it closer to the lamp. Ah, fortunately the man had printed his name under his signature.
Randolph Wilkinson, solicitor.
That sounded familiar....
Oh, blast. Yes, it was familiar. Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Wilkinson was the firm that oversaw the Spinster House. Getting a letter from Wilkinson could only mean one thing.
There was a Spinster House vacancy.
“It appears I have a destination.” He let out a long breath and dropped the letter back to his desk. “I’ll be leaving in the morning for Loves Bridge.”
Miss Isabelle Catherine Hutting—Cat to everyone in the little village of Loves Bridge—wedged herself into one of the children’s desks in the vicarage’s schoolroom. Prudence, her ten-year-old sister, was curled up in the only comfortable chair, reading. Sybil, age six, sat by the window with her watercolors, and the four-year-old twins sprawled on the floor, building a fort for their tin soldiers.
A rare moment of peace.
She looked down at the blank sheet of paper before her. She’d been trying to begin this book for months. The characters whispered to her when she was helping Sybil with her numbers or looking at ribbon in the village shop or falling asleep in the bed she shared with her eighteen-year-old sister, Mary, but the instant she had a quiet moment and some paper, they went silent.
Well, she would force them to speak. She dipped her pen into the inkwell.
Vicar Walker’s oldest daughter, Rebecca, smiled at the Duke of Worthing.
No, that wasn’t quite right. She scratched out the words and started over.
Miss Rebecca Walker, the vicar’s oldest daughter and the village beauty, smiled at the Duke of Worthing.
Oh, fiddle, that sounded stupid. Who would wish to read a novel that began with a beautiful ninny grinning at an arrogant, persnickety duke? She should—
No, she should not. How many times had Miss Franklin told her she needed to write the story before she started to pick it apart? She—
Sybil screeched, and Cat’s hand jerked, spattering ink all over her paper and her bodice. Drat!
“What is it, Sybil?”
Not that she needed to ask. She could see what it was—or rather, who it was. Thomas and Michael had lost interest in their fort and come over to torture their sister. They’d managed to spill water all over Sybil’s painting.
“Look what they’ve done,” Sybil wailed, picking up her soaking masterpiece and flourishing it for Cat’s inspection just as Cat reached her.
The wet paint joined the ink on her bodice. It was a good thing this wasn’t one of her favorite dresses.
She peeled the picture off her front and inspected it. It was impossible to discern its original subject. Something blue and green and white and black judging from the paint smears.
“We just wanted to see the sheep,” Thomas said, his eyes wide with innocence—until you looked more closely and noted the mischievous gleam. He was only four, but he was going to grow up to be a complete terror, worse even than fifteen-year-old Henry or thirteen-year-old Walter.
How Papa, a vicar, had managed to beget so many wild boys was one of God’s many mysteries.
“Sheep?” Sybil screamed. “Those were clouds, you noddy.”
Thomas put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes in an especially annoying way—a trick he’d learned from Pru. “Paint clouds? That’s m-mutton-headed.” He grinned, clearly pleased with the new word he’d learned, likely from his brothers.
She should be happy he hadn’t learned any worse words . . . or at least hadn’t used them yet.
Sybbie’s brows snapped down, and her jaw jutted out. Oh, lud. She was g. . .
London, May 1817
“You have compromised my daughter, Hart. I demand you offer for her.” Barnabas Rathbone sniffed and raised his receding chin. “At once.”
The drone of conversation in White’s crowded reading room stopped abruptly. Marcus would swear all the men inhaled at the same time and held their collective breath, the better to hear every word of this delightful drama. A few went so far as to peer around their newspapers.
He ignored them. “No.”
Rathbone’s prominent eyes widened, his fleshy jowls trembling. “W—what do you mean, no?”
The fellow was an even better actor than his disreputable daughter.
“No, I will not marry Miss Rathbone.”
Rathbone’s mouth dangled open briefly. Then his brows snapped down into a scowl, but not before Marcus saw the panic in his eyes. The man had likely been staving off his creditors by telling them he’d soon be a duchess’s father. Fool! Did he think he was the first to try such a trick on the Duke of Hart—or the Heartless Duke, as the wags liked to call him?
When they weren’t calling him the Cursed Duke.
“How can you be so cruel? The poor girl is beside herself.”
Marcus just stared at Rathbone. Sadly, he had plenty of experience dealing with conniving members of the ton. He was far too big a prize for them to resist. Thanks to the curse, if the woman he married had any luck at all, she’d conceive his heir on their wedding night and be a wealthy widow nine months later.
He was bloody well not going to die for Rathbone’s benefit.
“You cannot mean to ruin my dear daughter’s reputation!” A note of desperation had slipped into Rathbone’s bluster.
The other men in White’s deeply carpeted reading room leaned forward in their rich leather chairs, newspapers and books abandoned along with any pretense of ignoring the conversation. Their gaze swiveled between Marcus and Rathbone.
It focused on Marcus now.
“Since your daughter has no reputation, there is nothing to ruin, Rathbone.”
A gasp burst from their audience and more than a few sniggers—some muffled, most not.
Rathbone wisely chose not to dispute that. “Her heart will be broken.”
Now he was grasping at straws. The girl had no heart, either, which some would say made her the perfect match for the Heartless Duke.
Perhaps. But if he had to marry—and he did have to marry someday if he wished to ensure the succession—he’d rather choose a heartless girl with better deportment and perhaps even a little intelligence and wit to make his last days more bearable.
Rathbone opened his mouth again, but Marcus held up his hand to stop him.
“You and your daughter laid a trap, sir, which I refuse to be caught in. That is the end of the matter.”
He thought he heard Rathbone’s teeth grind.
“I see there is no reasoning with you, Your Grace. You are indeed as heartless as everyone says.”
Marcus inclined his head. “One does wonder why you thought otherwise.”
The men in the room didn’t even try to muffle their sniggers this time.
“Hart has a point, Rathbone,” one of them called out.
Marcus didn’t look to see which fellow spoke. It could have been any of them. They were like a pack of wolves, attacking at the first scent of blood. Not that he had any sympathy for Rathbone, of course.
Rathbone glared at the man who’d spoken and then glared at Marcus. “I shall take my leave then, Your Grace, but do not think your infamy will be forgotten.”
“I do not think it. But neither should you think I will change my mind. You and your daughter need to look for a more achievable way to address your pressing debts.”
Rathbone stiffened and lifted his chin again, but his eyes told the tale. He might try to make Marcus’s existence unpleasant for the next few weeks, but he realized he’d wagered and lost.
“Your Grace.” He jerked his head in the slightest of bows and strode from the room.
Marcus looked at the other men—they all dived back into their reading material. As he expected, none said a word to him about what they’d just witnessed, but he knew the moment the door closed behind him, they’d burst into excited whispers and then go spread the tale throughout the ton. Dolts! He was heartily sick of them.
The club manager came rushing up as soon as Marcus emerged from the reading room. “Your Grace, I apologize for Mr. Rathbone’s behavior. If I’d known—”
“It’s nothing, Montgomery. Rathbone is a member. He has as much right as the next man to be an idiot here.”
Montgomery frowned. “More’s the pity. Can I bring you a bottle of our best brandy, Your Grace, to take some of the sting from the encounter?”
If he dosed himself with spirits every time he had to deal with Rathbone’s sort, he’d be a complete sot. “My thanks, but no. I believe I’ll—”
“Marcus!”
Marcus grinned, shedding some of his ill temper. He knew that voice. He turned to see his cousin, Nate, the Marquess of Haywood, coming toward him with their friend Alex, the Earl of Evans.
“You look as if you’d like to hit something,” Nate said quietly, concern coloring his words as he grasped Marcus’s hand.
“Or someone.” Alex grinned. “And we can guess who that someone is. We just passed Rathbone.”
“He tried to pressure you to wed his daughter, did he?” Nate smiled, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m glad you sent him about his business.”
“By Gad, yes. Can’t imagine a worse fate than being riveted to that girl.” Alex cleared his throat. “Though it is quite the story. What actually happened in Palmerson’s garden?”
Marcus glanced around. Montgomery had stepped away when Nate and Alex came up, but he was still hovering nearby, clearly waiting to produce that brandy. And he thought he heard Uppleton’s annoying voice approaching. There was little hope of having a private conversation here.
“Come along to Hart House with me and I’ll tell you over a glass of brandy.”
“We just came from Hart House, you know,” Alex said as they started for the door. “Your butler was quite insistent that, if we found you, we should tell you that a letter arrived from Loves Bridge.”
Loves Bridge? Oh, God. His stomach tightened as it always did when he heard the name of that damned village.
Nate gripped his shoulder briefly in support. “It’s probably just something from your steward.”
Marcus nodded. Of course Nate was right. It was just Emmett writing about some needed repair. He’d write back as he always did, telling the man to do as he saw fit.
He’d been to Loves Bridge—and his estate, Loves Castle—only once in his life, twenty years ago, when the terms of Isabelle Dorring’s curse forced him to select the next Spinster House spinster. The woman who’d applied—a Miss Franklin—had been very young, the victim of some scandal that made her unmarriageable—or so Uncle Philip had said. Nate’s father had conducted the interview since Marcus had been only a boy.
He took a deep breath, and the anxiety gripping his chest loosened. Yes, clearly, the letter could not be about the Spinster House. Miss Franklin should live several more decades.
Something he’d not do.
“I will say Finch seemed to be in a bit of a fidget.” Nate shot him a worried look as they left White’s. “Said he hadn’t seen you for hours.”
Alex snorted. “A bit of a fidget? The man was almost in tears.”
Oh, hell.
“I don’t know why he would be. He could have asked Kimball where I was.”
Nate’s frown deepened. “Kimball seemed quite concerned as well.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Finch he might understand, but Kimball? His valet knew the only cure Marcus had found for his foul moods was walking. And he’d done a lot of walking recently. Miss Rathbone was the third girl to try to trap him into marriage, and the Season was barely underway. “I told Kimball I was going for a stroll. I find it clears my head.”
Alex laughed. “The only thing London’s smoke and stench clears is your stomach . . . into the nearest gutter.”
“Oh, it’s not as bad as that.” Truth was, he could have walked through a midden and not noticed.
“Perhaps Finch didn’t think you meant you’d be strolling for four hours,” Nate said.
Zeus! Have I really been gone that long?
Alex clapped him on the back. “If you like walking, why don’t you shake London’s dirt off your boots and go to the Lake District?” For once Alex looked serious. “Finch and Kimball aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed you haven’t been yourself recently.”
“Confound it! I’m perfectly fine.”
Silence. No one—Marcus included—believed that.
“Rolling around in the bushes with a marriageable female isn’t your normal behavior,” Nate said. He sounded just like Uncle Philip had when he’d scolded them for some infraction when they were boys.
Nate meant well, but his constant fretting was driving Marcus mad. He didn’t need Nate watching and hovering and—
But Nate had always done that to some degree. They were cousins, but they’d grown up as brothers, Nate being the elder by three weeks.
“Did you have the girl half out of her dress as Lady Dunlee has been saying?” Alex asked.
“Bloody gossips.” They’d finally reached Hart House. Marcus sighed. “Come in and I’ll tell you the whole sorry tale.”
As they climbed the steps, the curtains on one of the windows twitched, and then the front door flew open to reveal Finch, gray hair standing on end as if he’d been combing it with his fingers.
“Oh, thank God you’ve found him.”
For a moment Marcus was afraid the butler was going to fall on his neck and hug him to his elderly bosom, but fortunately the man caught himself in time.
“I only went for a walk, Finch,” he said as he stepped over the threshold.
Kimball appeared at Finch’s elbow. “But you were gone so long, Your Grace.” His fingers shook slightly as he raised them to tug on his waistcoat. “We were concerned. You were not in the best of spirits when you departed.”
What had these two thought he’d do—throw himself into the Thames?
Their expressions said that was precisely what they’d feared.
This just got worse and worse. “Well, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.” He forced himself to laugh. “I’m a grown man. You don’t have to worry I’ll get lost.”
Finch looked at Kimball. Oh, Lord.
Kimball cleared his throat. “It’s just that your father took to disappearing when he was your age, Your Grace.”
Finch nodded. “’Twas the pressure, don’t you know.”
He should pension these two off. He hadn’t considered it before, but Kimball was well into his sixties and Finch had passed seventy.
Kimball swallowed. “It starts the day the Duke of Hart turns thirty and gets worse as time passes. It was that way with your father, and my father said it was that way with your grandfather.”
“The curse,” Finch said, doom in his voice.
“The succession.” Kimball looked as if he might cry. “Marriage and then. . . .”
The last bit of color drained from both men’s faces.
Egad, was he doomed to have these two as well as Nate hover over him for the rest of his days? It made death look almost appealing.
“Well, since I have no plans to marry for many, many years, you needn’t look so Friday-faced.”
The two old men straightened.
“So you aren’t going to wed Miss Rathbone, Your Grace?” Finch asked.
“Of course not. Do you think me a complete cabbage head?”
Finch let out a long breath. “Definitely not, Your Grace.” He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.
“This is splendid news, Your Grace.” Kimball grinned so widely his cheeks must ache.
“Yes, well, perhaps now you can get back to your duties. Oh, and Finch, have a cold collation brought up to my study, will you?”
“At once, Your Grace.”
“Those two are worse than a pair of nervous nursery maids,” Marcus said once he and Nate and Alex were safely ensconced in his study. “Care for some brandy?” He certainly could use a generous measure.
“It’s not surprising, Marcus,” Nate said, taking a glass. “They’ve lived with the curse for years. They’ve seen it unfold.”
“But it’s just a story, isn’t it?” Alex took his brandy and sat down in one of the wing chairs, stretching his legs toward the fire. “For God’s sake, no one really believes in curses these days. The notion is laughable.” He looked at Nate and Marcus and frowned. “Except neither of you is laughing.”
“No.” Nate took one of the other chairs. “We’re not.”
Marcus tossed off the rest of his brandy and poured himself some more.
“You can’t mean all that drivel the ton whispers about Marcus dying before his heir is born is true?”
Nate scowled at Alex. “That’s precisely what we mean.”
Alex gawped at them. “That’s ridiculous. How can you believe that? You’re both intelligent men. It—”
“It started two hundred years ago.” Marcus leaned against his desk. Oh, God, it was ridiculous, but history proved it true. “Exactly two hundred years ago in 1617 when my great-great-great-grandfather insulted Miss Isabelle Dorring, a merchant’s daughter.”
“He did rather more than insult her,” Nate said.
Yes, he had.
“He impregnated her.” Marcus took a steadying sip of brandy. “Apparently Miss Dorring thought my ancestor was going to marry her.”
Alex snorted. “A duke marry a merchant’s daughter? Not likely.”
“It seems Miss Dorring didn’t realize that.” Every time he allowed himself to consider the story of the curse, he wanted to wrap his hands round the third duke’s neck and strangle the blackguard. Unfortunately the fellow was already very, very dead. “The bloody man should never have bedded her without making completely certain she understood marriage was not part of their bargain.”
Alex arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps she trapped him just as Miss Rathbone tried to trap you.”
“Then he should not have allowed himself to be trapped.”
There was no excuse for the man’s behavior. None. What sort of scoundrel took advantage of a young woman that way? No, if the damned duke had had a shred of honor, he would have kept his breeches buttoned.
Just as he would keep his buttoned, no matter how many marriageable maidens tried to persuade him otherwise. Even if it killed him.
Which it might. It was getting harder and harder to resist temptation.
“Surely he offered to support the child,” Alex said, “if it was indeed his. Women have been known to lie about such things.”
“Miss Dorring didn’t lie,” Nate said. “The fact that no Duke of Hart since has lived to see his son born proves that.”
Marcus drank some more brandy, trying to wash away the bad taste this tale always left in his mouth.
The entire decanter couldn’t do that.
“And there’s no evidence my disreputable ancestor offered his support,” Marcus said. “By the time Isabelle Dorring realized her, er, problem, the duke had left on a bridal journey with his new wife.”
Alex grimaced. “That wasn’t well done of him.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So what happened to Miss Dorring?”
“She drowned herself—and her unborn baby—in Loves Water.”
“You don’t know that,” Nate said, as he always did. “Her body was never found.”
“What else could have happened?” Nate knew the story as well as he did—Nate’s parents had been the first to tell them it. He hated the thought, but he had to face facts. “You know Loves Water is very deep. It’s not surprising her body wasn’t discovered.”
Alex was shaking his head. “It’s a very sad story. Tragic, really. But that’s no reason to believe in a curse.”
“As Nate said, my family history proves the truth of the matter. My great-great-great-grandfather broke his neck going over a jump two weeks before his son was born. My great-great-grandfather died of the ague eight months after his wedding; his wife was delivered of a son two months later. Generation after generation, the same result.”
“Your father?”
“Tripped on a loose pavement stone and cracked his head open on the marble steps of this house. I was born six weeks later.”
Alex scowled at him. “That’s bloody unbelievable.”
“Belief isn’t required. Finch told me my father scoffed at it all, and he’s just as dead as the other dukes.”
“So is there no way to break this, ah, curse?” Alex was looking at them as if they’d just escaped from Bedlam.
Nate tossed off the rest of his brandy. “The Duke of Hart must marry for love.”
Marcus snorted. “And what is the chance of that happening? Zero.” Nate’s parents were the only people Marcus knew who’d made a love match. His own mother certainly hadn’t.
She hadn’t even loved me.
His heart clenched. Stupid.
I’m thirty years old. It doesn’t matter any longer.
His mother had dropped him at his aunt and uncle’s estate on her way to the Continent when he was a newborn. Last he’d heard, she’d married some Italian count and was living on a Mediterranean island. Someone must be supporting her. She hadn’t touched any of her widow’s benefits in the years he’d been holding the purse strings.
He wouldn’t recognize her if she stepped into the library this moment.
It’s a good thing she abandoned me. It gave me a family. It gave me Nate.
Laurence, one of his footmen, came in then with a tray of ham, cheese, and bread. “Mr. Finch wanted me to be sure ye got the letter from Loves Bridge, Yer Grace. It’s on yer desk.”
“Ah, yes, thank you, Laurence. I see it.” News of a leaky roof or crumbling fence could wait.
“What did happen with Miss Rathbone?” Alex asked once Laurence left. “I thought you were far too wily to fall prey to her.”
“I thought so, too, Marcus.” Nate’s voice held worry, frustration, and perhaps a touch of anger. “You know you have to be careful, especially now.”
He was tempted to tell Nate he’d gone outside to get free of his bloody constant surveillance, but Nate hadn’t been the only one he’d wanted to escape.
“You know how stifling a crowded ballroom can be. I just needed some fresh air.”
The noise and the stink of too many people in too small a space had indeed been gagging, but he’d also wanted to get away from the Widow Chesney. He’d crossed paths with her at a few events, and she’d seemed willing to explore a more intimate acquaintance. He might be the Cursed Duke—the Heartless Duke—but he was also a man, with a man’s needs.
And I’m lonely.
There, he’d admitted it. He could not hope for a long, happy marriage, but he craved a woman’s touch, one that he wasn’t paying for.
He took another large swallow of brandy. But it had turned out the Widow Chesney did have a price—a wedding ring.
He slammed his fist into the desk. The pain felt good. “Rathbone must have been watching me. I played right into his hands.”
“He likely just saw an opportunity and jumped on it,” Alex said. “Rathbone’s not the brightest of fellows.”
Which made his error all the more galling. Maybe he did need a keeper.
Now Rathbone would spread his version of last night’s affair throughout the ton, and yet another layer of dishonor would attach to Marcus’s title.
“I can’t believe I swallowed his story that his daughter had gone missing.”
“At least you found her,” Alex said, trying with little success to muffle a snigger.
Yes, he’d found her. She’d had her hair down her back and her bodice loosened so her breasts were almost spilling out.
His mouth went dry at the memory, blast it all.
“She was hiding behind a bush and jumped out at me. I stepped back, stumbled. . . .” He stared at his brandy glass. The situation would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so blasted embarrassing. “We ended up tangled on the ground, which is when Lady Dunlee came upon us.”
Alex choked back laughter.
“It is not amusing.”
“Not when you’re the one writhing in Miss Rathbone’s claws,” Alex said. “But when you’re not . . .” He sniggered again.
“You were very lucky Miss Rathbone didn’t say you raped her,” Nate said.
“It would be hard for her to make that claim. When Lady Dunlee came upon us, the girl had me pinned to the ground and was kissing me.”
Nate’s eyebrow rose. “And you couldn’t stop her?”
Fortunately the study was too dark for his flush to show—he hoped. “It was a good thing I didn’t try. If I’d had my hands on her, it would have looked like I was forcing her.”
The terrible thing—the deeply mortifying thing—was that he hadn’t been that anxious to remove Miss Rathbone. He’d enjoyed the feeling of the girl’s body on his.
This must be what had finally driven his ancestors into marriage, this overwhelming need for a woman’s touch. It was a hunger that went beyond the physical. He’d tried to satisfy it with an assortment of creative, talented light-skirts, and while that had worked for a while, now even a thorough, passionate session with one of London’s most skilled courtesans left him feeling unsatisfied.
Nate was frowning, of course. “The London Misses are shameless. You should leave Town for a while.”
“Let’s go to the Lake District,” Alex said. “You’re far more likely to encounter a sheep than a marriage-hungry female there.”
“Isn’t the Lake District rather cold and damp?” Though the thought of getting away from Town—and temptation—was enticing.
His gaze settled on the letter from Loves Bridge.
Hmm. That doesn’t look at all like Emmett’s hand.
“It’s not so bad this time of year,” Alex said. “What? Are you afraid of a little wetting?”
“Of course not.” He picked up the letter and turned it over. He didn’t recognize the seal, either.
“What does Emmett want?” Nate asked.
“This isn’t from Emmett.” He opened the single sheet. The handwriting was very cramped—illegible, really. At least his correspondent hadn’t felt the need to cross his lines, but even so, it was going to be a trick to decipher the message.
He held it closer to the lamp. Ah, fortunately the man had printed his name under his signature.
Randolph Wilkinson, solicitor.
That sounded familiar....
Oh, blast. Yes, it was familiar. Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Wilkinson was the firm that oversaw the Spinster House. Getting a letter from Wilkinson could only mean one thing.
There was a Spinster House vacancy.
“It appears I have a destination.” He let out a long breath and dropped the letter back to his desk. “I’ll be leaving in the morning for Loves Bridge.”
Miss Isabelle Catherine Hutting—Cat to everyone in the little village of Loves Bridge—wedged herself into one of the children’s desks in the vicarage’s schoolroom. Prudence, her ten-year-old sister, was curled up in the only comfortable chair, reading. Sybil, age six, sat by the window with her watercolors, and the four-year-old twins sprawled on the floor, building a fort for their tin soldiers.
A rare moment of peace.
She looked down at the blank sheet of paper before her. She’d been trying to begin this book for months. The characters whispered to her when she was helping Sybil with her numbers or looking at ribbon in the village shop or falling asleep in the bed she shared with her eighteen-year-old sister, Mary, but the instant she had a quiet moment and some paper, they went silent.
Well, she would force them to speak. She dipped her pen into the inkwell.
Vicar Walker’s oldest daughter, Rebecca, smiled at the Duke of Worthing.
No, that wasn’t quite right. She scratched out the words and started over.
Miss Rebecca Walker, the vicar’s oldest daughter and the village beauty, smiled at the Duke of Worthing.
Oh, fiddle, that sounded stupid. Who would wish to read a novel that began with a beautiful ninny grinning at an arrogant, persnickety duke? She should—
No, she should not. How many times had Miss Franklin told her she needed to write the story before she started to pick it apart? She—
Sybil screeched, and Cat’s hand jerked, spattering ink all over her paper and her bodice. Drat!
“What is it, Sybil?”
Not that she needed to ask. She could see what it was—or rather, who it was. Thomas and Michael had lost interest in their fort and come over to torture their sister. They’d managed to spill water all over Sybil’s painting.
“Look what they’ve done,” Sybil wailed, picking up her soaking masterpiece and flourishing it for Cat’s inspection just as Cat reached her.
The wet paint joined the ink on her bodice. It was a good thing this wasn’t one of her favorite dresses.
She peeled the picture off her front and inspected it. It was impossible to discern its original subject. Something blue and green and white and black judging from the paint smears.
“We just wanted to see the sheep,” Thomas said, his eyes wide with innocence—until you looked more closely and noted the mischievous gleam. He was only four, but he was going to grow up to be a complete terror, worse even than fifteen-year-old Henry or thirteen-year-old Walter.
How Papa, a vicar, had managed to beget so many wild boys was one of God’s many mysteries.
“Sheep?” Sybil screamed. “Those were clouds, you noddy.”
Thomas put his hands on his hips and rolled his eyes in an especially annoying way—a trick he’d learned from Pru. “Paint clouds? That’s m-mutton-headed.” He grinned, clearly pleased with the new word he’d learned, likely from his brothers.
She should be happy he hadn’t learned any worse words . . . or at least hadn’t used them yet.
Sybbie’s brows snapped down, and her jaw jutted out. Oh, lud. She was g. . .
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What to Do With a Duke
Sally MacKenzie
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