It's Hard Out Here for a Duke Read online

  But their parents had passed away, in quick succession, before representatives of the duchess had arrived searching for the new Duke of Durham.

  They had come in search of Henry; instead they found James, an American man with muck on his boots from the stables, and sweat on his brow from working in the paddock with his horses. And they had bowed to him. Marcus had watched the whole scene unfold; he had just laughed and laughed.

  Now James was here.

  “I have petitioned the king for your sisters to be addressed as Lady,” the duchess said, and Bridget straightened. “And of course, Duke, you are to be addressed as Your Grace.”

  Presently His Grace was sprawled on a spindly-legged chair that felt as if it might collapse under his weight at any second. His legs were outstretched, one boot crossed over the other. He anxiously drummed his fingertips on the arm of the chair.

  “Just James is fine,” he replied, his gaze settled on Miss Green.

  She bit her lip.

  “It is not,” the duchess said flatly. “Among yourselves you may continue to use your Christian names. But in company, you will have to be more formal. Your Grace.”

  His sisters exchanged smirking glances before bursting into laughter. He certainly didn’t chastise them because there was something about hearing that familiar, happy sound in this strange new world. If they could still laugh raucously in these opulent surroundings, perhaps there was hope that not everything would change.

  The dowager duchess was less amused.

  “Do you think this is funny?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Amelia asked. Because, obviously, they thought it hysterical that their brother be formally addressed as Your Grace, or duke or anything other than simply his name.

  It was hysterical that their little family from a farm in Maryland should find themselves in this monstrous drawing room in their new home in a foreign country halfway around the world. They had been commoners, and now they were aristocracy.

  Yes, it was where their father had grown up, but he never spoke of this or prepared them for the day when they’d find themselves here. James thought of all the hours they’d spent together, father and son, and this—all this—was never mentioned. He could have had a damned clue. But no. And he couldn’t even ask why his father had kept this from him. He would have to figure it out on his own, the same way he’d had to figure out how to raise three sisters.

  “He is Durham now. He is the seventh duke.” The dowager duchess pursed her lips and spoke with controlled formality. It had a chilling effect. Laughter died off.

  His days of being Just James were over. But he wasn’t ready to bury his past self just yet. He took one more glance at her, Miss Meredith Green.

  The other night she had been Just A Girl.

  The other night she had returned his gaze.

  The other night she had been warm and willing in his arms.

  The other night he had been Just James.

  Now that he was the duke, now that he was Durham, she was cold and distant. He swallowed hard, suspecting that this was only his first taste of all the rules and formalities that would keep everyone at arm’s length from him.

  “It is his duty to conduct himself in a manner befitting his rank and the Cavendish family. In fact, that is true for all of you.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Claire murmured.

  “Miss Green, please pour.”

  Miss Green poured the tea from a gleaming silver tea set, her movements elegant and precise.

  “How many cubes of sugar?” Miss Green inquired, her hands hovering over a small bowl of carefully cut white sugar cubes.

  “Two, please,” Bridget replied.

  “Ladies have one,” the dowager duchess said.

  “Why did you even ask?” Amelia muttered under her breath.

  Bridget paused.

  “One, please.”

  And so it began. James wanted her to have all the damned sugar if she wanted it.

  “Now that you have arrived, we haven’t much time to polish you up before introducing you to the ton. People talk of little else than your arrival and are eager to make your acquaintance.”

  “The ton of what?” Amelia asked.

  The dowager duchess looked perplexed.

  “The haute ton is a phrase used to refer to all the best families in London society,” Bridget answered. James vaguely remembered her obsessively eavesdropping on two obviously wealthy British women on their boat; she must have learned it from them.

  “You have done your research,” the dowager duchess said with a nod of approval. Bridget beamed.

  “I was hoping for some time to explore,” Amelia said.

  “It is possible to arrange for some excursions to the local sights and museums, so you can familiarize yourself with the city and have something intelligent to discuss with suitors.”

  James heard Amelia muttering under her breath about wanting to explore for herself, not giving a hang about suitors. His youngest sister was the wild pony of the bunch, the one who was always hardest to train and never fully domesticated. Josie was going to have her hands full with her. With all of them.

  “And I would like to visit with the Royal Society. I do hope to meet those who study mathematics,” Claire said.

  “I can’t imagine why,” the duchess said dryly, which was the usual response when Claire stated her interest.

  James frowned. He didn’t like this. They hadn’t been here an hour, and already this duchess was trying to mold them into Perfect English Ladies, which would likely necessitate stifling their personalities. His sisters were a constant plague upon his peace and sanity, but he didn’t want them to change or give up what they loved, be it math, or exploring, or an excess of sugar in one’s tea.

  Claire, however, was accustomed to this attitude. “Because I have a brilliant mind for mathematics, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.”

  “Ladies do not—”

  “Yes, I know,” Claire said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She was always impatient with such a limited view of womanhood. “But I do it anyway.”

  “You would all do well to focus on finding suitable husbands rather than fretting over math problems, excursions, or glancing longingly at the pot of sugar. I am given to understand that you are all, as we say, on the shelf.”

  They may have traveled halfway around the world, but they still hadn’t escaped the Disapproving Marriage-Minded Matron. Their neighbors back home had always despaired of “the poor lot of motherless children without any marital prospects,” but any matchmaking attempts had fallen flat. Instead, they had each other and were free to pursue their interests.

  Claire wasn’t interested in matrimony—or a man who could curtail her intellectual pursuits. Amelia was more wild than civilized. And Bridget was often infatuated with this bloke or that, but wasn’t interested in settling for anything less than true love.

  None of them were interested in anything less than that.

  Their father had thrown a dukedom away for love. Their mother had married “the enemy,” according to her American family. Love was the example their children had grown up with. None of them would settle for less.

  James hadn’t been remotely interested in marriage, not even to get his sisters off his hands. He did mostly enjoy their company. And so the years had passed by without proposals or weddings, and now they were older than the usual age at which people wed and at the mercy of a woman who was clearly determined to see them leg shackled sooner rather than later.

  The three sisters turned their heads toward James. The duke.

  “I think we would all like some time to settle in before we start marrying my sisters off,” he said. “God knows, there is a plague of them, and they’ll drive you mad before breakfast. And yet, I find myself fond of them. Most of the time. And would prefer to have them around while we become accustomed to things here. And until we decide if we shall stay.”

  The possibility that they might say to h
ell with all this was tantalizing. He held it close.

  The dowager duchess opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it, because this was the new duke speaking, after all. “Very well,” she said. She pursed her lips. “Perhaps you would like to be shown to your rooms and take some time to rest before dressing for dinner.”

  But it was understood that this was not over yet.

  Oh, bloody hell and damnation . . .

  The new duke had kept looking at her. Looking at her like he knew her, had seen her undressed, and in a state of rapture, knew her. He looked at her like that all afternoon, all through dinner, and all through tea after.

  Meredith was terrified that someone (ahem, the duchess) would notice.

  She always noticed everything.

  She must not notice this.

  To be fair, it took every bit of self-control for Meredith to not look at him. Her handsome stranger who had made her smile when she was in low spirits, who had brought her to heights of ecstasy, and whom she’d fled in the night, was here.

  Not only that, he was the duke. THE DUKE.

  As such, he was the one man who would be forever off-limits to the likes of her.

  Which was fine. Fine. From the moment she’d finally surrendered to her curiosity and smiled at him, she had intended one night only. One night at the Queen’s Head Tavern, specifically. One night of passion in an otherwise chaste and respectable life. One night for herself in a lifetime dedicated to others—the duchess, her mother. Her little indiscretion wasn’t supposed to be here. In London. Living under the same roof. The duke!

  Because who would have thought that the handsome stranger with an American accent, plainly dressed and alone in a tavern in Southampton, was the new duke?

  No one would have thought that.

  Dukes were English, not American. They dressed in fine attire—if plain, at least well made. They traveled with servants and took private parlors rather than mix with the riffraff in the common room. Everyone knew this, except the new duke.

  She hadn’t been expecting him.

  Meredith had spent the past six months cut off from the great world in Hampshire, tending to her ailing mother. It had not been an opportune time to leave the duchess, given that she’d lost her husband and the future of the estate was uncertain. Meredith only returned upon receiving word from the duchess that she was urgently needed. The details of the new duke—that he was American, and would be accompanied by three sisters—were only related to her over tea once she returned to London.

  Still, she never dreamed that the American man she’d spent the night with was the new Duke of Durham.

  But now she’d best gather her wits and get a hold of herself. What had happened between her and the duke could not happen again, and no one must know that they had happened, once upon a time.

  She would just have to avoid him as much as possible—and she had half a chance, given the vast size of Durham House. All those rooms. All those corridors. There would be plenty of places to hide.

  When they were together, she would simply avoid his gaze—even if it took Herculean effort to turn her face from those sparkling blue eyes that looked at her like she was something and someone spectacular.

  Her efforts to avoid him were thwarted later that night, on the servants’ stairs, of all places. The dimly lit and secluded servants’ stairs.

  She was venturing up, ready to retire for the evening, and he was descending. The stairway was so narrow there was no avoiding each other.

  “Hello. Miss Green. I was just on my way out for some fresh air before retiring. I did not wish to disturb anyone.”

  He smiled down at her as she slowly climbed the stairs toward him.

  “Your Grace.”

  She nodded her head and made like she intended to keep going. Like she was going to walk right past him. Which was her plan. It was a good plan. A sensible one.

  “Wait. Please.”

  She paused. It was a reluctant pause. Because pausing was not part of her plan. It could lead to intimacy, to trouble, to Things She Should Not Do. But he was the duke now, and she was little more than a servant. It wasn’t that she had to obey, it was that it was inadvisable to flout him. She could not encourage any intimacy with him, yet she also needed to maintain his favor, lest he insist she depart. Meredith didn’t think the duchess would ever stand for that, but it wasn’t a risk she wished to take.

  So she paused.

  “Your Grace.”

  She bobbed into a curtsy and then waited, a step or two below him.

  He ignored her formality. Instead, he leaned against the wall, and smiled like he was just a man flirting with a pretty girl and said, “You didn’t stay to say goodbye.”

  “Pardon me if I am not certain of the etiquette of such a situation that we should never speak of. In fact, we should pretend it never happened.”

  “I gathered as much. But I don’t want to pretend it never happened,” he said. “In fact, all I want is for it to happen again and again and again.”

  She looked away, and her lips curved into the slightest, saddest smile as she remembered his kiss, his touch, the sweet things he’d whispered. Memories, that’s all.

  “You have a lot to learn, Your Grace.”

  “What happened to Just James?”

  “It never happened. I never knew him. And you certainly do not know me. We never happened.”

  “All right, I understand. But why?”

  “Dukes do not marry mere companions, and mere companions cannot risk compromising their reputations. One does not court scandal,” Meredith said, explaining the fundamentals of the haute ton. “The duchess does not condone scandalous behavior, and as her faithful companion, I don’t dare disobey her wishes.”

  “I don’t care about scandal.”

  “You will, Your Grace.”

  “Forget this talk of marriage—what of pleasure?”

  “I am merely a servant, but I’m not the kind that exists for the whims of the master of the house.”

  “I would never think that. Or act thusly,” he said, eyes flashing. He was not that kind of man and was offended she’d even considered it.

  The truth of their situation was dawning on them both. Whatever had transpired that night in Southampton could not happen again. There were intangible, but real, barriers between them. His position was high and permanent; hers low and forever uncertain. This wasn’t exactly news to her, but she’d never felt it so palpably before.

  Meredith took one, two, three, four steps up so that she could look him in the eye.

  “I owe everything to the duchess. Everything,” Meredith said in a low, strong voice, thinking of the situation from which she’d been rescued long ago and the unbelievable chances she’d been given. “I will not forget that. Not for you, not for anyone. I am determined to keep my position as her companion secure. I have saved enough of my allowance that I could leave with some independence, but know this, Duke, I will never leave the duchess.”

  “I just wish to know you better. To know you more. I like you. I like what we shared. I would like to share it again.” His fingers anxiously tugged the buttons on the ridiculously fancy coat someone insisted he wear. It didn’t suit him; he seemed uncomfortable in all that finery. “If it should please you.”

  “The night we met, I didn’t know who you were,” she said. “I didn’t know until you stepped out of the carriage. Otherwise, I would have never smiled at you across that crowded room.”

  “I see,” he said grimly. Her heart did ache for him—what a day he must have had and how his whole world must have turned on its head. She had an inkling of what he was going through: giving up freedom for wealth and duty, restraining one’s true self in order to follow protocol, stifling passion for the “wrong” person because of the rules.

  “As long as I have my reputation, I have a chance at security,” she said. “If you care for me at all, you won’t take that from me. You, Your Grace, will never have such worries. But I had
one night, Duke. One. Just one, Just James. That’s all it will ever be.”

  Chapter 2

  A duke is often the most high-ranking, the most powerful, the most handsome, and the most wealthy man in the room. He ought to keep this in mind and conduct himself accordingly.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  The next day

  In a drawing room

  “The first rule of being a duke is to remember, at all times, that you are the master of high society,” the duchess declared. “Only a few people outrank you—the king and queen, of course, plus the royal dukes. As such, you are likely to be the most powerful high-ranking person in any given room.”

  And so it began. Duke lessons.

  They were in a drawing room—not the drawing room where he and his sisters had been yesterday, but a different one, because there were multiple ones. It seemed excessive.

  His sisters were still abed, still exhausted from their travels. He was the only one up, and so James was trapped in this chamber alone with the duchess.

  And Miss Green.

  She was demure and pretty in that blue frock as she sat beside, and a little behind, the duchess. She hardly seemed like the kind of woman who had a passionate encounter with a man she’d only just met. He couldn’t reconcile the girl he’d met in Southampton with the lady who sat primly before him.

  This only had the effect of intriguing him more.

  Of course he stole a glance or two with the hopes that she’d changed her mind about maintaining a distance between them. But no, she was deliberately avoiding his gaze. Those doe eyes of hers would not connect with his.

  He understood that they were to pretend not to know each other.

  He understood that she was very aware of the differences in their stations, even if he hadn’t accepted that yet, because he hadn’t accepted that he was a duke.