When the Duke Was Wicked

Chapter 1


London

1874

The Duke of Lovingdon relished nothing more than being nestled between a woman’s sweet thighs.

Unless it was gliding his hands over her warm and supple body while she caressed his shoulders, his chest, his back. Or hearing the hitch of her breath, a murmured sigh, a—

Rap.

He paused, she stilled.

“What was that?” she whispered.

He shook his head, gazing into her brown eyes and fingering back from her blushing cheek the stray strands of her ebony hair. “The residence settling, no doubt. Pay it no mind.”

He lowered his mouth to her silky throat, relishing her heated skin—

Rap. Rap.

Dammit all!

He winked. “Excuse me but a moment.”

Rolling out of the massive bed that had been specially built to accommodate his large frame, he marched across the thick Aubusson carpet, his temper barely leashed. His butler—all his servants—knew better than to disturb him when he was enjoying the offerings of a woman.

He closed his hand around the handle, released the latch—

“There damned well better be blood or fire involved—”

He swung open the door. “—in whatever—”

He stared into wide, rounded sapphire eyes that dipped down before quickly jerking up and clashing with his of amber.

“Sweet Christ, Grace, what the devil?”

Before she could respond, he slammed the door shut, snatched up his trousers from the floor, hastily drew them on, and proceeded to button them.

“Another one of your paramours?” the luscious vixen in his bed asked.

He grabbed his linen shirt from where it was draped over a chair. “Good God, no. She’s but a child.” Or at least she’d been the last time he’d seen her. What the deuce was she doing out and about this time of night? Had she no sense whatsoever?

After pulling on his shirt, he dropped into the chair and tugged on his boots. He didn’t know why he was concerned with Grace’s sensibilities. It was truly a bit late to worry about them, considering the view he’d given her when he opened the door. Trust her to take the sight with unfettered aplomb. She’d always been a bold little she-devil, but she’d taken things too far tonight.

He shoved himself to his feet and crossed over to the bed. Leaning down, he kissed the lovely’s forehead. “I won’t be but a moment in dispatching her.” After giving her a reassuring wink, he strode across the room, opened the door with a bit more calm, and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Grace stood where he’d left her, blushing deeply from her neck to the roots of her coppery hair. Had her freckles not faded, they would have been obliterated. “I’m sorry to have awakened you.”

Is that all she thought she was doing? But then she was an innocent miss at nineteen, and while the lads she’d grown up with were more scoundrel than gent, they had all done what they could to preserve her innocence. For her, their wicked ways were little more than rumor.

“It’s after midnight. You’re in a bachelor’s residence. What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m in trouble, Lovingdon, a situation most dire. I need your help.”

He was on the cusp of telling her to seek assistance elsewhere, but she gazed at him with large blue innocent eyes that left him with little choice except to suggest they adjourn to his library. She’d always had that irritating effect on him, ever since she was a young girl and looked at him as though he were some errant knight capable of slaying dragons.

Perhaps in his youth when the dragon was little more than her foul-tempered cat in need of rescue from its perch on the tree limb—

But he had learned through harsh experience that he was not a dragon slayer.

After they reached the musty scented room, he crossed over to a table that housed an assortment of decanters. In silence, he poured a scotch and a brandy. He hoped beyond hope that when he was done pouring, she would be gone. But when he turned, she was still there, studying him as though she were searching for something, and he found himself wishing that he’d taken a bit more time in dressing. Her attire was far more formal: a white ball gown trimmed in pink velvet.

He’d known Grace all his life. She was not generally one to need help. Certainly she was not one to ask for it. She’d once spent an entire afternoon stranded in a tree because she was too stubborn to alert anyone to her predicament. Wanted to get down on her own. Eventually, as darkness fell, he’d climbed the tree and helped her to the ground, even though he’d been twenty to her eleven, and much too old to be scampering up trees. Then he’d had to reclimb the blasted elm to rescue her mean-spirited cat. He bore the scars from the encounter on his left wrist.

For her to come to him now, she had to be in very bad trouble indeed.

As he held the snifter toward her, he could not mistake the gratitude in her expression as she wrapped slender white-gloved hands around his offering. While it was entirely inappropriate for a lady to be alone in a bachelor’s residence, theirs was no ordinary relationship. Their families were close, and she had practically grown up within his shadow, as he had spent much of his youth watching out for her. If she were indeed in trouble, her parents—the Duke and Duchess of Greystone—were more likely to kill him in a most unpleasant manner if he didn’t help her than to harm him in any fashion for allowing her to remain in his residence at this ungodly and scandalous hour.

He indicated the seating area near the fireplace where glowing embers were all that remained of an earlier fire.

Her skirts rustling, her fragrance of roses and lavender drifting toward him, she wandered to a burgundy chair and perched herself on the edge of its cushion. She’d always been a complex creature, never content with the ordinary, not easily defined. One scent was not enough for her. And neither was one gentleman, based upon the conversations he barely gave any notice to at the gaming hells.


He took the wingback chair opposite hers, slowly sipped his scotch and studied her for a moment. Although he knew her age to be nineteen, he couldn’t help but wonder when the bloody hell she had grown up. He knew her as a spindly legged and freckled-armed girl who preferred climbing trees to visiting ballrooms, who preferred galloping her horse over the gently rolling hills to attending dance lessons.

She was nine years his junior. He’d known, of course, that she was growing up, but his realization had been more of a vague sort of thing, on the periphery of his life, like knowing the seasons were changing but not being fully aware of each falling leaf or budding blossom. She had certainly blossomed. She was slender with only the barest hint of curves. Her gown, while revealing her neck and upper chest, stopped just short of displaying any swells of her breasts. He would not have expected her to be so modest, yet with her modesty she became more mysterious.

It seemed she was also fearless. He’d heard that she had no qualms traveling about at night to the foundling homes that her parents had opened. While she generally had a chaperone in tow, she was rumored to be skilled at escaping her notice.

Tonight’s little visit a prime example.

He tapped his glass, striving to get his thoughts back on track, to her problem, her reason for being here. “So what’s this trouble you’re in?”

“You weren’t at the Ainsley ball,” she responded, no censure in her voice, but still it was laced with something that very much resembled disappointment. He tried to remember when she’d had her coming out, if he’d even been aware of it. Respectable activities no longer held any allure, and he managed to successfully avoid them.

“Did some gent take advantage? Do I need to fetch my pistols?”

She smiled, a warm, amused tilt to her plump, soft-looking lips. “No, but it warms the cockles of my heart to know you would champion me.”

Yes, he’d champion her. When she was a child. He didn’t have the desire to champion anyone these days. What he did desire was waiting for him upstairs in his bed.

“You’ve never been one to stall,” he pointed out impatiently. “Explain what brings you here and be quick about it.”

She held up her hand. Dangling from her wrist was a card, her dance card. “I danced every dance tonight. If previous balls are any indication, in the morning dozens of bouquets of flowers will be delivered to the residence.”

“You are most popular.”

“No,” she stated succinctly. “As you are no doubt well aware, I come with an immense dowry that includes land and coin. It is my dowry that is popular.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You offer a good deal to a man. You’re lovely and charming and poised. I’d wager all my estates that you’ll be betrothed before the Season is out.”

She rose from the chair with the grace to which he’d alluded and stepped over to the fireplace. She was tall. He was well over six feet, and her head could bump against his chin without her rising up on her toes. The long slope of her throat would draw a gentleman’s eye. Small understated pearls circled her neck, adorned her ears. She had no reason to be flashy. Her hair sufficed. It was presently piled on her head, a few tendrils deliberately left to toy with the delicate nape of her neck. He suspected the haphazard ones circling her oval face were not planned but had escaped their bounds during the ball, no doubt when she had waltzed.

“But will I be loved, Lovingdon? You know love, you’ve experienced it. However can I identify it?”

He gulped down scotch that was meant to be savored. He would not travel that path, not with her, not with anyone. “You’ll know it because it’ll be someone without whom you cannot live.”

Turning slightly, she met his gaze. “I do not doubt that I will know if I love him. But how will I know if he loves me? My dear friend, Lady Bertram, was madly in love with her husband. He has since taken a mistress. It’s broken her heart. He was infatuated with her dowry, not her. And Lady Sybil Fitzsimmons? Her husband has taken to scolding and berating her. How can he love her if he berates her, in public no less? With so many men vying for my affections, how can I know if their hearts are true? I shall marry only once, and fortune hunters abound. I want to ensure that I choose well.”

“Trust your heart.”

“Do you not see? It is obvious to me that in the matter of love, a woman cannot trust her heart. It can be most easily influenced with poetry, and chocolates, and flowers. A lady requires an objective person, one who is familiar enough with love to assist her in identifying and weeding out the insincere, separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Someone like you.”

“I am no longer an expert in love, and I have no desire to become embroiled in it again, not even from the outskirts.”

“Is that why you’ve turned to this life of debauchery?”

He eyed her over the rim of his glass. “What do you know of debauchery?”

“I’ve heard rumors.” She stroked her fingers along the edge of the mantel as though searching for dust. “And I know you weren’t alone this evening when I disturbed you. Is she your mistress?”

“A mistress implies a certain amount of permanence. I have no interest in permanence.”

She peered over at him. “A courtesan, then.”

“Is that sharpness on your tongue disapproval?”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Aren’t you?”

She shook her head, a sadness in her eyes that irritated him. “No. You have every right to be angry with fate for what it stole—”

“I won’t discuss it, Grace. Not fate, not Juliette, not love. I don’t need you or anyone else to justify my actions. I live as I wish to live. I find satisfaction in it, and make no excuses for it. If you want someone who is an expert on love, I suggest you talk with your parents. They seem to have weathered enough storms.”

She scoffed. “Do you truly believe I’m going to discuss my interest in gentlemen with my mother or father? They are each likely to inflict bodily harm on any gentleman I am unsure of, simply by virtue of my being unsure of him. Besides, they will tell me to marry whomever will make me happy.”

“Sound advice.”

“Have you not been listening? Just because he makes me happy before the vows are exchanged does not mean he will make me happy afterward. If you will not bring your knowledge of love to my quest, you can at least bring your recent experiences to bear. Who better to identify a blackguard than another blackguard? I need you, Lovingdon.”

I need you. Juliette had needed him and he’d failed her.

“Please, Lovingdon.”

He almost believed there was more to her plea than met the ears. Where was the harm? He held out his hand. She stared at it as though she didn’t recognize what it was.

He snapped his fingers. “I’ll take a quick look at your list, assist you in eliminating the cads, so you can be on your way.”

“How can you discern a man’s feelings for me simply by reading his name?”

“I can identify those with whom you do not wish to invest your heart, those of bad habits and vices.”

“If that’s what I wanted, I’d go to Drake. He knows men’s vices better than anyone.”

Drake Darling—a former street urchin and thief who’d grown up within the bosom of Grace’s family—managed Dodger’s Drawing Room, a gaming hell for respectable gentlemen. Yes, he was certainly familiar with various gentlemen’s vices, but he was also very good at holding secrets.


“I need more,” she said. “I need you to observe them, to then offer your opinion on them.” She knelt before him, and while the glowing embers provided little light, it was enough for him to see the desperation in her blue eyes. “Attend Claybourne’s ball. It’s the next one of any importance. Be a wallflower, stand behind fronds. Then provide a report on what you’ve noticed, who you believe truly cares for me.”

The thought of being at a place filled with such joviality caused him to grow clammy. It would only serve to remind him of happier times, and how quickly and painfully they’d been snatched from him. “Trust your heart, girl. It won’t lead you astray. You’ll be able to tell if a man cares for you.”

Defeat swept over her features. “I can’t trust my heart, Lovingdon. It’s betrayed me before.”

He felt as though he’d taken a hard punch to the gut. He despised the thought of her hurting. Had some man taken advantage? Why else would she not trust her instincts?

Standing, she returned to the fireplace, presenting him with her back. “When I was younger, I once fell deeply, passionately in love—or as passionately as one can at such a tender age. I thought he returned my affections. But eventually he married another.”

“Who? No.” He held up a hand. “That is not my concern.”

With a sad smile, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t reveal his name. You would think me an utter fool if you knew who he was.”

“Just because he took another to wife doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. Men marry for all sorts of reasons.”

“As I’m well aware. Which is the reason that I’m here. Do you not see that you are making my arguments for me? How do I determine that they are marrying me for the right reason, for love, and that their affections are not held elsewhere? I fear that if I were to give my heart to another, and discover that he truly had little regard for it—the devastation could very well be my undoing.”

“Little Rose, perhaps it’s better not to love.”

She glided back to the chair and sat. “Do you truly believe that? Is it not better to hold someone for a short span of time rather than not to have held them at all?”

For the briefest of moments he heard laughter—Juliette’s laughter. He saw her smile, felt the warmth of her touch, tasted her lips, felt the heat of her body welcoming his. It had been so long, so very long since he had given himself leave to think of her at all. The agony of it nearly doubled him over.

“I want what you had,” Grace said softly. “It was perfection, was it not?”

“I shall never love another as I loved her. That is the honest truth.”

She studied him for a long thoughtful moment before asking, “What is it like to have such a grand love?”

It was all-encompassing, permeated everything. How could he put into words an emotion that defied them? “You laugh, you smile. You have secrets to which no one else is privy. You can communicate without words. You know what each other is thinking. There is a sense of euphoria. But it all comes with a price, Grace. Losing it can destroy you, turn you into little more than a hollow shell.”

“You cannot dissuade me from wanting it, even if it is only for the blink of an eye. To love someone and to know beyond doubt that he loved me would be the most wondrous experience I can imagine. And therein rests my dilemma—it is not enough to love. I must be loved in return, or what is the point? Will you assist me in my quest for true love? I can think of no better way to honor your Juliette than to help someone acquire what the two of you once held.”

Once held and lost. He would not wish his sorrow on his worst enemy.

“I can’t help you, Grace. It would serve neither of us well for me to even try. You should be off now, before your father discovers where you are and forces me to marry you. That would be the quickest way to ensure that you do not acquire that which you seek.”

“My father trusts you. He knows you would not take advantage.”

“Be that as it may, if anyone were to see you leave here, you would be ruined.”

“I will not marry a man who does not love me, even in the face of ruination.” Her words came with such conviction, but he knew from experience that conviction did not always render the words true.

“Be that as it may, I fear you would have no choice.”

“We all have choices.” Slowly she rose. “The Claybourne ball.”

He did not watch her leave, but instead turned his gaze back to the fireplace, where the embers no longer glowed. She asked the impossible of him—just as Juliette had.

Don’t let us die.

I won’t.

But he had.