One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)

“No, no. You are very good, but I am decided.” She truly believed the sentiment she’d expressed to the duke the other night, during their waltz. Contentment was largely a matter of individual choice. “I am decided, and I will be happy.”


Spencer was displeased. Greatly displeased. Twelve minutes now. He could have been married already, perhaps even ordering the carriage for their departure. Instead he was standing here awkwardly in the center of the room, watching his intended bride confer with her brother in heated whispers.

Damn it, he hated weddings. He didn’t remember ever attending any others, but he was certainly making this one his last.

To think, not an hour ago, he’d been congratulating himself on his brilliance. He needed a wife, and here was his chance to obtain one without the nuisance of a courtship. When a man of his wealth and station proposed marriage to a lady of hers … They both knew she couldn’t possibly have refused.

But she had no problem keeping him waiting. Spencer didn’t like being made to wait. The waiting was making him uneasy, and he didn’t like feeling uneasy.

This was why he’d insisted on a small, private ceremony in her home. If there was no crowd, no music, no fanfare, he reasoned, he would remain perfectly calm and in control. Except that now a ten-minute delay had him fretting like a schoolboy. And that fact had him resenting her further, because he was intelligent enough to realize that this churning tempest inside him must mean something. Something about him, something about her … something about them, perhaps? He didn’t know. He just wanted to marry the woman, take her home, and puzzle it out in bed.

“Your Grace?”

His head whipped up. Lady Amelia stood before him. And whatever exorbitant sum he’d paid that dressmaker, it hadn’t been nearly enough.

Standing with her hands clasped behind her back, she played her figure to its best advantage. Her waist was trim and defined, her hips cuppable, her bosom delectable. Silk covered those lushly proportioned curves, clinging in all the right places. Its silvery, iridescent shade reminded him of dew on heather, or the belly of a trout; and it contrasted pleasantly with the warm, milky texture of her skin. She was all softness and sleekness, and his gaze slipped over her easily even as his thoughts snagged. He wrestled to make sense of her, define her, understand what it was she signified to him and why. He couldn’t say she looked elegant or stunning or beautiful.

Refreshing. Her appearance was refreshing, like cool, clear water on a sun-baked summer’s day. And he gratefully drank her in.

She gave him a deferential nod. “I apologize for my tardiness, Your Grace. I am ready. Has your groomsman arrived?”

He stared at her.

“You … you do have a groomsman to stand up with you? Someone to sign the register as a witness?”

He shook his head. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Won’t Beauvale do?”

“Laurent?” Her brow wrinkled. “I suppose he could, but I hate to ask. I’m rather doing this against his wishes. And unfortunately, he’s the only one of my brothers here. Michael’s at sea of course, and Jack—well, Jack is necessarily avoiding you.” She swept a glance around the room, finally settling it on the butler. “I suppose we could have Wycke. But surely you don’t want a servant?”

If it meant they could be married within the next quarter hour, Spencer would gladly have opened the door and dragged in the first ruffian off the street. “He’ll do.” He made a curt motion to the butler. “Bring the curate. We may as well do it in here.”

At the clergyman’s entrance, Spencer summoned the man to his side with nothing but a pointed look and the arch of one brow.

The curate inclined his balding head. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“There’s a very generous donation in the parish’s future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most.”

Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. “There’s an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don’t know that I can rush—”

“Ten minutes. One thousand guineas.”

The liturgy snapped closed. “Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?” He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. “Make haste, child. You’re about to be married.”

Spencer scarcely heard the fevered rush of words that constituted his wedding. In principle, he agreed with the curate. Marriage should be a solemn, sacred enterprise, and the length of time Spencer took to make a decision had no correlation with how seriously he considered it. This wasn’t something he approached lightly, else he would have married years ago. Somewhere in between mumbled “I will’s” and parroted vows, he managed a brief, silent petition for a few male children and whatever other blessings God saw fit to grant them. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.