Duke of Dalliance (Revenge of the Wallflowers #53)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

T he London Season 1818

Arlington Fox, the Duke of Dallimain, leaned impatiently against a tree, waiting for the impudent woman to catch up with him. He’d purposely outpaced her long enough to find a clandestine spot for a confrontation that might turn loud enough to create a scandal. Something he had a reputation for. A knack. A talent—which made him smile like the rogue he was.

It was a reputation for stealing other men’s mistresses, though, in truth, he’d only stolen one: his father’s. A woman who was also his governess at an age when he no longer needed one. Apparently, his father had found another position for her in the household. And at the ripe age of eighteen, when Arlington returned home for the holidays, he found her one afternoon in just such a position, lying across his bed. She wasn’t his first, but she was the one who brought infamy to his illustrious name, giving rise to the well-known moniker, the Duke of Dalliance, even before he inherited the title. He answered to Dalliance more often than his own name or his proper title.

At eighteen, even twenty, he found the rumor humorous, funny reminders of his youthful inability to make a good decision. Now they were a pain in his arse. And so was the woman whose dainty ankles were on display while she held her skirts high as she fled into the Pleasure Gardens after him. He dangled a pocket watch from a fob and made a mockery of checking it as she caught his eye. The ruffle of her petticoats disappeared like the tail feathers of a peacock when the dance was over.

“I’ll have grass stains for sure. Why lead me on a merry chase, Dalliance?” Miss Genevieve Rutledge took him to task as she stopped to tuck a strand of yellow hair back into place.

He swept her with a bored, arrogant nonchalance. “I didn’t lead you anywhere you weren’t already following, and if this is your plan to secure a proposal, you’ve failed.”

She stopped a yard away. A carnal smile fit with the overconfidence of a beautiful woman arced over him, resting for a spell on his groin. “Not even an indecent proposal?”

“Especially not an indecent proposal.” He slipped the watch into the little hidden pocket of his jade jacket. “Darling, your father doesn’t have the kind of influence it would take to force me to marry you. I’m not half bad at pistols and even better with sabers, so unless you’d like to see the man skewered, I’d think again before stalking me along the winding paths of the Pleasure Gardens. This place is more than a scandal in the making. It could ruin you. Is that what you want? Because if it is, I know plenty of young bucks who’d enjoy a tumble with you.” His words were frosty, rude, full of conceit, and grossly improper—not because he enjoyed it but because this particular dying star needed dissuading on several levels.

Miss Rutledge was pretty enough. Beautiful, some would say, blond hair to envy, tall enough to make bed sport interesting, and a mouth that made men of morality think immoral thoughts. But her acerbic tongue was the kind of poison he didn’t wish to wrap a kiss around.

“You don’t fool me for one second. You’re interested. I know it.”

Without moving his head an inch, his gaze drifted over the length of her body to her toes and back up. He folded his arms. “You’re interesting to look at, sweet, but that is all.”

“If you are as crude as your name?—”

“Or my thoughts?” he suggested.

She smirked. “Certainly. Who could know your thoughts, Dalliance, except every woman who’s ever caught your eye?”

“And you think you’re one?”

She inched closer, and he stood his ground. He knew her thoughts well enough. A second year, bent on nabbing a husband. A duke? Even better. It is a bit of a curse to lose one’s parents so young when the weight of their responsibilities becomes your own. Arlington’s father had nearly run their ancestral estate into the ground. Admittedly, Arlington helped by playing the rakehell everyone thought he was until his father fell ill last year. Their relationship had not been the best, but Lucian Nathaniel Fox had been his father, and the idea of family was something he mourned. Two months later, he lost his mother to the same malady.

With ill-concealed boredom, he watched Miss Rutledge reach out her hand to touch him. Keeping his arms crossed, he responded by plucking her fingers from his forearm and dropping them an inch away. He added a grimace for show.

“You’ll have to marry someday, Dalliance, but if your name is truly your pursuit, then perhaps you should consider chasing the bastard daughter of a duke’s mistress. She would be right up your alley. And when you’re finished with her, call on me. If I’m still available.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to request that she enlighten him on the name of this bastard daughter, but he didn’t wish to encourage her any further. This one made a life of defaming women she felt threatened by, which only heightened his curiosity if he were being honest. This illegitimate daughter must be something to look at if Genevieve Rutledge was willing to bring her name up in the worst way.

He heard a heavy sigh, reminding him that he had yet to answer. “I’m clearly not interested in you, and that is all you should be concerned with.”

“You lie. You kissed me at the Tanner’s house party.” Her hands were on her hips, and anyone with sense could see the shrewish wife she would become if given the chance, one he was not about to offer.

“That was a year ago. Do I look as if I’ve been pining away since? Because I promise I have not.”

Like every other woman he’d ever known, she started to pout, to sway her skirts back and forth, to give him a coy sideways glance. Like most men, it made him ill. With so much ammunition available, why did women choose this one? “Why not just faint and get it over with?”

“I would if there were a lounge nearby. Would you be my smelling salts?”

“Save it, Miss Rutledge, for someone truly worthy. Not me.”

“So you do know her?” She primed the question with a haughty lift of her head. He could almost see up her nostrils.

“Whom do you speak? The bastard woman?”

“Don’t play with me, Dalliance. I’m more lethal than you know.”

“I never doubted it.”

“Will you attend me at the Barstow ball later tonight?”

“Attend you? Or catch you in the library with your skirts over your head?”

“If you’re under them.”

With a fist, he tapped his folded thumb against his nose, wishing away the headache he was sure to have by evening. “I leave you to your afternoon, Miss Rutledge. Go back the way you came.”

To his chagrin, she appeared more determined than ever. “I saw you, Dalliance.” The statement was almost accusatory.

“Congratulations. Now run along.” He shooed her with his hands.

“In a mirror.”

He rolled his eyes closed, wondering what the devil she was talking about.

“It’s fate. You cannot deny it. It was in my boudoir.”

“No, no, and no. I’ve never been in your boudoir.” This little infatuation of hers was out of hand, and a story like that in the gossip rags would turn the season into a sport he didn’t want to play.

“Not in the flesh.”

“In your head, you mean? This does not improve your chances, Miss Rutledge.”

“No, but fate does. You were there. You. Not a skeleton,” she emphasized the last part as if it were of great import.

“Lord, I hope not.” He was more confused now than he’d been when he started out this morning. Women were good at that part. Their talent for manipulating confusion developed long before birth.

* * *

“Miss Truly, this isn’t necessary. I have the cleanup in hand,” Mrs. Spencer, Truly Hancock’s housekeeper, said as Truly herself put another dish filled with untouched pastries on the moving cart.

Truly felt more like taking the plate of pastries to her room and eating the lot of them since no one showed up at her charity affair. The affair she’d given at the behest of a good friend. She questioned just how good a friend when the woman would not even deign to send a note around saying she was sick or some such malady. Any excuse, really, would have been better for Truly’s imagination because her own self-deprecating tendencies conjured up the worst excuses ever—like: Miss Rutledge preferred her other friends to the point of rudely ignoring her obligations to Truly . And that’s how she saw it. Didn’t requests become obligations to those who made them? At least they were to Truly. A bastard daughter of a duke, she may be, but her mother taught her manners and that everyone deserved kindness. Even Miss Rutledge.

“Well, I suppose St. Bishop of Ives will have to do without my infamous philanthropy skills,” Truly said tongue in cheek as she continued helping Mrs. Spencer with the leftover food and beverages despite the small reprimand.

“Ya don’t wish to hear my opinion, good lady.”

Generally speaking, Mrs. Spencer was right. “I admit that I usually don’t care for it, but I find you are correct more often than you’re not, and I am often too stubborn or silly to take heed. So, if you will apprise me, I would be most appreciative.” She did try to sound humble, but Truly’s temper preceded her pain.

“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that church that needs fixin’, and the lady—if one could call her that—never intended to show up here. And now yuv gone and spent time and good money on entertainin’ a woman who don’t deserve yer friendship. Not to mention yuv made a bad showin’ with Lady Buckthorn’s family.”

Constance Whitmore, the daughter of Countess Buckthorn, had come to share her lovely, harmonious talent with Truly’s guests. Lady Constance was on the verge of making her come out. Already quite beautiful and quite popular. Truly found her to be kind and perhaps a good ally in the future. Friends in high places were paramount for making the right financial connections, which included securing a beneficial marriage.

Lord knew Truly needed all the help she could get.

“I know you’re right, Mrs. Spencer. Mama used to say that women had few choices and that using everything within their power was a fair strategy for getting ahead. I’m simply trying to get ahead.”

This was her first year in society. It was also her first year without her mother and her nineteenth year without a father. Until six months ago, she didn’t know if the man was alive or dead. But her mother had seen fit to leave her a few breadcrumbs as to who the man was. A duke, of all things, gone now for many years. His only legitimate son now held the title of the Duke of Justamere. That information alone had put her in fashion with Miss Genevieve Rutledge and her group of followers.

At nineteen years old, Truly didn’t know how to be anything else but a hopeful echo and follower of the ton. Her mother had been a mistress to the illustrious Duke of Justamere, bearing him one daughter, Truly, whom he’d never known and probably never met. Not that she could recall unless he was there at her birth. One thing she could say for the man was that he had taken care of her mother and her in turn. Now, however, she was left to make her own path. The house was hers, but the income would stop soon enough. Her small inheritance would keep her well for another year or two, at which time she would need a husband if she were to avoid other less palatable positions. Courtesan was not on her wish list or agenda, ever.

It had crossed her mind to request an audience with her infamous half-brother, the Duke of Justamere, Caden Landon-Scott, but there was every possibility he didn’t know she existed. Unless, of course, he managed his own books. Most of the titled men she’d encountered were allergic to work. As for Truly, she was allergic to only one thing. Tobacco smoke. It kept her from the game rooms and thus out of trouble. It also kept her from getting close enough to flirt with the right men.

“If yer attendin’ the Barstow ball tonight, ya best get movin’.” The housekeeper straightened, holding a tray of perfectly clean dishes.

Truly didn’t feel much like attending. Crowds were lonely places to be invisible. Even her five-foot-nine-inch height was not proof against those who chose to look through her. That might change when more people discovered her true identity. The information would either hurt her or help her. She couldn’t be sure.

The dressmaker assured her she would be at the height of fashion for a first year, and if the height meant that she blended into the scenery of every shade of buttercream imaginable, then she was an iconic fashion plate. Her dress was demurely pretty, with a six-inch ruffle at the bottom of her long satin skirt. It shone in the right light and hugged her bosom perfectly without being too daring. It also looked completely uninspired.

She had been caught between a rock and a stone forever, battling a need to be noticed with the need to be properly behaved and witlessly flat. She hoped that her sinfully dark hair would be the right contrast with the fatigue of cream silk. That’s where her friends came in. They were kind enough to address her dilemma with honesty and with a willingness to help. She was relying on it. With no chaperone or companion, she needed the buffer and the legitimacy, for lack of a better description.

At the Barstow’s ball, Miss Rutledge spotted Truly when the butler announced her name at the top of the stairs. The packed room rang with the rolling noise of two hundred people conversing, which made the booming names almost impossible to hear unless one was listening for them. Genevieve Rutledge had been keeping an ear open for her. That gave Truly some hope. Under the sparkling chandeliers, reflected in the polished marble floor cut in the design of a sunburst, the first waltz of the evening gathered. She hadn’t been there early enough to get her dance card filled because the day’s events had drained every good mood from her and then some.

If Genevieve had been kept from her party by circumstance, at least she was waving her over at the ball. Her life was becoming a series of failed attempts and disappointments. She suspected this little band of friends was using her for her link to a dukedom because the connection alone meant Truly received more invitations to highly sought-after events than her friends could hope for. As a result, Truly secured invitations for them to some of the loftier affairs which she attended for their sake. In truth, they rather needed each other: Truly for her name and Genevieve for the connections to the year’s most sought-after gaggle of ninnyhammers.

Today, after her humiliation with Lady Constance Whitmore and her mother, Truly begrudged showing up at the ball where she knew her friends would attend. Why had they not supported her when she gladly lent them whatever help she could manage? Her mother might have been a mistress—and a well taken care of one—but Truly had been taught more about kindness and humanity from her mother than these ladies had obtained from the best schools for etiquette.

It was a paradox that she should need them to help her gain an audience when it was she who garnered the most invitations. The social elite were a mystery and as unpredictable as a rake.