It's Hard Out Here for a Duke Read online

  But much as she admired the sisters, Meredith was less interested in their evening than a certain someone else’s.

  “And the duke . . .”

  “What about the duke?”

  Curses. Her breath had hitched at the mention of him. The duchess leveled another look at her in the mirror, and Meredith truly feared that Her Grace could tell that Meredith had spent the hours of this evening in a pointless pastime: mooning over the duke. Feeling covetous, jealous, and a half dozen other petty feelings.

  “You’d think he was being led to the gallows, not waltzing with the finest young women in England.”

  “And how was the dancing?”

  The duchess took another sip of her sherry. One might have been tempted to describe it as a swig, but everyone knew that duchesses did not swig.

  “They were adequate. They were not ready for society, but if we delayed their debut, everyone would think the worst. Of course now they already know the worst.”

  The good opinion of the ton mattered, especially with regard to the Cavendish sisters making suitable matches. It was essential when it came to finding a new duchess, who would ensure the dukedom carried on for another generation.

  Meredith had an inkling of what was really troubling the duchess. She had long ago resigned herself to having failed at her one purpose in life—continuing the Durham family and legacy. Meredith had been too young to understand, at first, why she seemed to see the duchess in tears every month or so, and it was only later that she understood the duchess’s despair at not being able to provide an heir. While Meredith could be the daughter she never had, she still didn’t satisfy that need for an heir.

  When the duke died, all hope was lost—until the Cavendishes arrived. Now the duchess had another chance. Her one and only.

  “They still must be better than Mr. Collins,” Meredith pointed out.

  “The less said about Mr. Collins, the better.”

  “There is always tomorrow for more lessons with the girls. And there is always you to teach them.”

  “Thank you, Meredith. If anyone can mold them into perfect lords and ladies, it is I.” This was the truth; no one was more perfectly and impeccably behaved than the duchess. Meredith had witnessed this firsthand and had heard stories of Her Grace as a young girl. She never made a misstep. “Though I fear for the future of the dukedom if even I cannot manage it. I have had one task in life and it was to secure the Durham dukedom for another generation. Failure is simply not an option I shall consider.”

  And that was precisely why nothing, absolutely nothing, could happen between Meredith and James. Because after all the duchess had given her, Meredith could not take this chance from her.

  Meanwhile, in a bedchamber down the hall

  James knocked on the door to Claire’s bedchamber and pushed it open. His sisters had a habit of gathering together at night to talk, tease, and gossip—to be, well, sisters. After a night of being fawned over and dissembled to, James wanted the company of those who would not be impressed with him at all.

  Sisters.

  “Are you all decent?”

  “Yes, do come in, Your Grace,” Claire called out.

  “Oooh, it’s the duke,” Amelia teased. “We’d better bow and curtsy.”

  Giggling, she and Bridget slid off the bed to stand and greet him with overdramatic bows and curtsies. Bridget, never the most coordinated or graceful person, accidentally smacked Amelia in the nose.

  “Ow!”

  “Good evening, Your Grace,” Bridget said.

  “We are so honored to have you grace us with your presence, Your Grace.” Amelia tried to curtsy and hold her nose at the same time, which resulted in her tumbling to the floor.

  “Do shut up, all of you,” James muttered. He’d hoped to avoid this kind of fawning behavior; at least he was comforted by the fact that they were deliberately teasing him and didn’t actually mean it.

  He pulled up a chair next to the bed and took a seat, stretching his long legs out before him. He wore plain breeches, boots, and only a shirt—all those fancy ducal clothes had been discarded as soon as he returned home.

  “We were just discussing what a disaster this evening has been,” Claire told him.

  “Living through it wasn’t enough? You have to discuss it, too?”

  “Was it so bad dancing with all those women?”

  “Aye.” James grimaced.

  “What is it with gentlemen who do not like dancing?” Bridget wondered.

  “It’s not so much the dancing as it is having everyone watch you do it,” James said with a shrug. He didn’t dare mention it, but one’s partner did make all the difference. Tonight, he’d gone through the motions, but it hadn’t been like that for his practice waltz with Meredith . . .

  “I cannot believe Father never mentioned any of this,” Amelia said. As the youngest, she was just ten when their parents died, one after the other. First, their mother passed away after contracting a wasting disease. Their father followed a few days later. Everyone said his cause of death was a broken heart.

  “Sometimes he spoke of life in England before he came to America,” Claire said. She was the oldest and remembered more than the rest of them. “He spoke of foxhunting, cruel schoolmasters, and his time in the cavalry.”

  “He spoke about Messenger,” James added with a tender smile.

  James had fond memories of the family’s prized horse, may he rest in peace. Legend had it that their father had absconded to America with the prize stallion—owned by his brother, the duke, Josephine’s late husband. He’d fallen in love with an American woman his family forbade him to wed, so he left England and never looked back. When their father needed to find a way to support his new family, he bred Messenger and raised and trained a series of champion racehorses on their farm.

  James followed in his father’s footsteps when it came to raising and training horses. Now that they were in England, he wondered if he might follow in his father’s footsteps when it came to ditching the dukedom and running hell for leather for freedom in America.

  “But he never mentioned any of this, did he?” Bridget asked softly. She waved her hand at the bedroom, and the house, and all the other houses scattered about the countryside that the duchess had mentioned.

  “He occasionally referenced his brother the duke but he did not say much,” James said, thinking back to all the hours of companionable silence he’d spent with his father around the farm. If they talked, it was about which horse needed new shoes, or a new training method. “He certainly never mentioned that he or I were in line to inherit. Probably wasn’t the best topic of conversation back home, if you think about it, with all the anti-royalty and anti-British sentiments.”

  “Vastly preferable to all the anti-American sentiments we encountered this evening,” Bridget said.

  “I wonder if there is a portrait of Father somewhere in this great big house,” Amelia mused. “I’d love to see what he looked like as a young man.”

  “We can ask Josephine tomorrow,” Claire said, affectionately patting Amelia’s hand.

  “Oh, good. Perhaps it can distract her from more deportment and etiquette and torture lessons,” Amelia said.

  “No, we need those,” Bridget said. All eyes turned to look at her. “If we are going to stay . . . we need to fit in.”

  “Bridget, that is all part of her nefarious plot to marry us off. We’ll be separated,” Amelia said, anguished.

  “I’m not going to let her marry the lot of you off,” James said. Then, just to tease, he added, “Much as you plague me and I sometimes consider it.”

  “I hate to point this out, but Bridget does have a point,” Claire said thoughtfully. “If we are going to stay, we ought to make an effort to fit in.”

  “This is not a temporary situation then, is it?” Amelia asked.

  An uneasy quiet settled over the group. Of course they should stay. James was a duke, for Lord’s sake, and he was apparently needed here. His sister
s could return home and find husbands there, but . . . they would have a better chance of finding decent husbands in England. And while they might end up in different households, they should at least be on the same continent.

  They were a pack, he and his sisters. A herd of Cavendishes. They stuck together—no matter what.

  “I don’t want us to be apart,” Claire said softly.

  “So we stick together,” James said, leaning forward to look earnestly at his three worried sisters. Leaving the dukedom behind wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for him. After all, he was his father’s son. But leaving his pack of sisters was unthinkable. “We either all stay in England. Or we all return to America. Together.”

  Just because a dimly lit and empty corridor is conducive to a romantic interlude doesn’t mean one should take advantage of the situation to engage in a romantic interlude.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  Even later that night

  After seeing to the duchess, Meredith left for her room. The door clicked shut softly behind her as she stepped into the dimly lit corridor.

  And of course, there he was. Strolling her way with those long, muscular legs. His untied cravat tangled around his neck, the vee of his shirt open to expose a patch of skin. But otherwise he was still dressed for the ball. He was part elegance personified, part rake, part pure man. A tempting combination indeed.

  Meredith paused, her hand still on the knob behind her. She considered returning to the duchess’s room on the pretense of having forgotten something. But really, she’d be fleeing from temptation.

  Then he saw her and there was no turning back.

  Instead she walked toward him, putting some distance between them and the duchess’s door.

  “Miss Green . . .” His voice was low, so as not to attract attention. But she heard it. Felt it, the vibrations of his throat carrying all the way to the center of her chest.

  “Were you going to run away from me, Miss Green?”

  “I was thinking about it,” she admitted.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  I’m afraid of me around you.

  “No. I’m not afraid of you.”

  And she wasn’t. She had given herself to him. Given him a secret that could wreck her, and he’d been a perfect gentleman about all of it.

  Which meant she could trust him.

  Which made her want him more.

  But, oh, the way he looked at her was hardly gentlemanly at all.

  Something in his gaze sparkled when his eyes fixed on hers, and it had to be a dead giveaway that there was something between them. Thankfully there was no one around to see it—this time anyway.

  “You really must stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like how?”

  Like that! His eyes sparkled again, this time mischievously, like he knew exactly how. She dropped her voice to a low whisper to answer.

  “Like we have been naked in each other’s arms.”

  “But we have.”

  “Shhhh . . .”

  She looked around, fearful that someone was near enough to eavesdrop—a sister cracking open her bedroom door, for example. But there was no one, the hour was late, they were alone. Just her with Just James. After the lonely and anxiety-riddled hours of this evening, she couldn’t bring herself to do the right thing and quit his company immediately.

  She wanted to bask in his nearness, like a cat in a patch of sunlight.

  “Can you blame me if I can’t stop thinking about that night?”

  Meredith gazed up at him. He wasn’t flirting so much as speaking earnestly now, hinting at late nights and stolen moments when his thoughts wandered to that one magical night. Just like her. And didn’t that make her heart start to pound hard in her breast.

  She wasn’t alone in this wanting.

  Heart. Pounding. Stuff. That.

  “It was just one night.”

  “One I’d like to repeat,” he murmured, a lazy grin playing on his lips. “Repeatedly.”

  “You are mad.”

  “Mad for you, maybe,” he said easily. Then, on a different note, he said, “I met so many women tonight, Mer.”

  There was the intimacy of calling her Mer, instead of Miss Green or even Meredith. And then there was the sad fact of what he’d said: he’d met many women. Proper women. Ones with the right birth and dowries and that lot. Ones he would have to marry.

  Best to stop this thing between them now . . .

  Before he starts courting.

  Before he takes a wife.

  Before she has to watch all of it from the sidelines.

  “None of them were you,” he said. “They were all so . . .”

  “Suitable.”

  “Depends on how you define suitable. I found them wanting. You see, Meredith, none of them kissed me like you did.”

  “You shouldn’t be kissing ladies at balls.”

  “Of course I wasn’t kissing anyone. Except you. Your lips are the last ones I’ve touched.”

  “Oh.”

  “And when I looked in their eyes, I didn’t feel this pounding in my chest, like I do when I look into your eyes.” He put his hand over his heart. Aye, she knew that pounding. The heart, reminding them that they were alive and this was real and wasn’t a dream.

  “And I didn’t want to know them, Mer, the way I want to know you.”

  For a girl who lived in the background, it was one thing to even be noticed. And it was quite another to be seen and known and wanted.

  There was a lot to know about her, and she had half a mind to tell him so he’d understand why they could never be together as man and wife. She could explain how she ended up with the duchess. Why she’d been away recently, and what had brought her to that inn at Southampton that night. Why she could never betray the duchess’s faith and trust, especially when it came to the duke.

  Or little things, like how many times a day she thought about James.

  Or how she was rereading the novel where the servant girl wins the hand of the lord of the house.

  Ladies didn’t burst forth with a deluge of intimate information, though. Ladies didn’t spill all their secrets, all at once.

  But after a long, lonely night, she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish his company, especially when he was leaning against the wall, looking for all the world like he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but in this moment with her. So she asked him, “What do you want to know?”

  “What’s your favorite color? What was your childhood like? What do you do when you can’t sleep at night?”

  She smiled.

  “When I can’t sleep at night, I read novels. My childhood was good, until it wasn’t, and that’s when the duchess took me in and changed my life for the better. And blue. My favorite color is blue.”

  “Me, too. My favorite color is also blue. See, we have something in common.” He leaned in closer to her. “It’s a sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “That we belong together.”

  She laughed softly.

  “But that doesn’t mean we can be together.”

  “Shhhh.” It was his turn to shush her.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of thinking about could and should and proper matches for one evening.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for one moment, just one moment, of bliss. Of feeling your lips, full and soft, against mine.” He pressed the pad of his fingertip against her lips gently, indicating the spot where he’d want to kiss her.

  But he didn’t actually kiss her. Because she’d told him not to and he respected her wishes.

  “Breathing you in.” And here he leaned in, closing the distance between them, and inhaling deeply. She felt the warmth of his nearness, like sitting too close to the fire on a cold night.

  But he still kept a few precious, vexing inches of hot air between them. A respectful distance, she supposed.

  “Finding al
l the places I could kiss you. Here and here and here.”

  James traced his fingers along her collarbone, dipped low along the edge of her bodice, teased at going lower.

  Her breaths became quick and shallow. Her imagination did what he wouldn’t do: fill in all the blanks, take those suggestions, pretend it was happening for real and not just in her head.

  And then his fingers moved back to her lips, tracing the bottom lip, then the top. She was tempted, so tempted, to whisper, kiss me. Come with me. Just one more night.

  But she couldn’t. Just couldn’t.

  Instead, she took his fingertip between her lips, sucking for a second before biting down. Just to show him how quickly pleasure could turn to pain.

  Chapter 7

  Until His Grace has found a suitable bride, it is his duty to make the acquaintance of as many suitable young women as possible.

  —The Rules for Dukes

  A week later

  Lady Waterford’s Musicale

  When it came to social events, James had learned that balls and soirees were one thing, and musicales were quite another. At a ball, one might move about the room, step onto the terrace, play a spot of cards, or find a respite from conversation during a dance.

  But at a musicale, one had to sit idle for hours, left alone with one’s thoughts.

  James wasn’t the sort who was moved to paroxysms of emotion at the sound of a beautiful melody. He was a man of action, not a daydreamer.

  And lest he forget, he was also in urgent, desperate need of a wife. He wasn’t exactly opposed to marriage in general, as an institution. He wasn’t even opposed to marriage himself. He was opposed to the way the duchess was going about it, though. How she found a steady stream of “suitable” women without Meredith being one of them was beyond him.

  He would have thought he’d met everyone in England by now. But no, these suitable ladies kept coming out of the woodwork and damask-papered walls, one after another, with their posh accents and practiced remarks, all with the purpose of snaring a husband like him: young, rich, and titled.