Second Chance Prince (Duke of Grantham #3)

Prologue

He was standing by the window, alone, while the music played and the guests danced and everyone else was having fun.

Head bent with his dark eyes fixed on something faraway and his formal clothing immaculate down to the last button.

She had to wonder—did his valet shine those buttons every morning?

As Roberta watched him, she wondered why he seemed so deep in his own thoughts.

But then, he had always seemed to set himself at a distance from the rest of the world.

Was it arrogance, as some people said, or was he just shy?

During their association at her family home of Grantham, where he had been courting Roberta’s sister Olivia, and then again when she had seen him in London, Roberta had felt she had come to understand him better than most. Or perhaps she was arrogant to think that?

And yet Prince Nikolai was still a mystery, one she would have liked the chance to solve, if things had turned out differently.

She had heard that he had recently taken on the title of Duke of Holtswig and was the ruler of that small nation.

Another step above her own position as the daughter of a duke, albeit illegitimate.

But then the dreams of her younger self, of marrying the prince, had only ever been just that.

And after his possible marriage to Olivia had come to nothing—that had been her grandmother’s dream, to join the two families together—there had been no reason to keep in contact.

“Your Highness. Your Grace. Sir?” Roberta curtsied low, aware that her social skills had improved a great deal since she was last in his presence nearly three years ago, but clearly they were not perfect. She shook her head. “I never know what to call you. I always think of you as Niki.”

Tonight, she was wearing a particularly pretty dress of lemon yellow, and the pearls Vivienne had presented to her at her coming-out last year were woven through her dark hair.

“Lady Roberta!” the prince said, his brown eyes widening. There was a faint flush in his handsome face. Then he added, “Please. My titles are not important. I am Niki to you.”

“Niki,” she said.

It gave her a thrill to see he was taken aback.

And so he should be! She was not the reckless young lady he had first met at Grantham.

“I hardly recognized you,” he began, and from the gleam in those dark eyes, she just knew he was going to say something he thought amusing.

“I was so used to seeing you with twigs in your hair.”

“I haven’t had twigs in my hair for at least a year,” she replied evenly.

He smiled that smile he seemed to save for her alone, as if she was a constant source of amusement to him. “My apologies. You look beautiful, Lady Roberta.”

There had been a time, when they had thought the prince may have proposed to Olivia, when a compliment like that would have kept Roberta smiling for hours.

She would have tried out her small arsenal of wiles on him in the hope of another—embarrassing now when she remembered how immature she’d been.

As if he would have looked twice at a tomboy like her! Thank goodness that was in her past.

“And all your family are well?” the prince asked politely. “Your brother and your many sisters?”

“Indeed they are. Gabriel and Vivienne have a little boy now, and Olivia and Ivo have a girl and a boy. No children yet for Justina and Charles—she has been helping with the gambling club, Cadieux’s, that Ivo and Charles own jointly. Just while Ivo is busy with his new family.”

His eyes widened a little more. Was he remembering that time when he was part of their house party?

Roberta doubted it as she looked into those eyes, as dark as his hair.

He must have far more important matters to fill his days than thoughts of the scandal-ridden Ashtons.

He probably believed he had had a very lucky escape.

“And your younger sisters?” he said.

“If you mean Edwina and Georgia, then they are as annoying as ever. Antonia is quite grown now and is good company. She is in London with me. Will you be staying long or are you returning home to Holtswig?”

“I am staying with my aunt. She married an Englishman, has a house in London, and has made her home here. I’m not sure for how long I will remain.”

She noticed how stiffly he held himself and the glances he was shooting over her shoulder.

It was as if he was on the alert, although for what, she couldn’t guess.

More Ashtons, perhaps? The thought made her smile.

He was not an easy man to know, but Roberta reminded herself again that he was the ruler of his country, after all, and therefore a world apart from most of her other acquaintances.

There was a pause, as if he was searching for something else to say to keep her by his side. But surely that couldn’t be right? She had always been an irritation to him.

“And your grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Grantham? She is well?”

“Yes, very well. Now that Vivienne has removed the burden of running Grantham from her shoulders, she can relax a little.”

Her grandmother had been the chatelaine of Grantham ever since Roberta’s father died and her mother decided to lock herself away in her bedchamber. And then Gabriel, a gambling hell owner, was discovered not to be an illegitimate son after all but the legal Duke of Grantham.

“After all of the scandals that have plagued our family, lately we have become quite respectable,” Roberta went on. “If I am being honest, things have become a little dull.”

In fact, they were so dull that Roberta was now being pursued by a gentleman Antonia called “The Most Boring Man in London.” Although her sister was of the opinion that he was drawn to Roberta because she was so much more lively than him, and he wanted to tame her.

Mr. Walter wasn’t dangerous or frightening in any way; if he had been then Gabriel would have dealt with him.

He was simply irritating in his ability to pop up wherever Roberta was, gazing at her in his lovesick fashion.

Nikolai straightened his cuffs, a nervous habit she remembered from their previous encounters. “Ah, I see. Perhaps you did not know, but the Dowager Duchess and my grandfather were once great friends.”

Roberta had known that. That was why Grandmama had been able to persuade Niki to stay at Grantham and hopefully fall in love with Olivia. Her grandmother was always looking for ways to raise the Ashtons back to the dizzying heights she believed were their due.

Roberta also knew that the prince’s grandfather, the former Duke of Holtswig and ruler of the country, was not long dead.

“I was sorry to hear about your grandfather,” she said gently. “Grandmama wrote you a letter, I think?”

“Yes, she did. She expressed herself very kindly. Grandfather was old and ill, and his death was a release from much suffering, but I do miss him.”

He looked away and cleared his throat, and Roberta sought for something to say to distract him from his obvious grief.

“You did not attend my coming-out ball last summer. I was sure my grandmother sent you an invitation.”

“She did. At the time, I was at home in Holtswig. After my grandfather died, there were disturbances. They have been dealt with.”

Disturbances? Did he mean the sort of social unrest that had happened in England over the past few years? Protests and the threat of rebellion as the working classes strove for a fairer system? Before Roberta could ask him, he changed the subject.

“I presume it was a huge success? Your coming-out, I mean.”

She smiled at the memory. “Wonderful! It was a little delayed because of…well…Olivia needed my help with her daughter, Lily. She was such a finicky baby, and I went to stay with them in Kent.” What Niki didn’t need to know was that she also suspected Gabriel hadn’t been in a rush to see her come out, because he had wanted to save up his pennies with four more sisters yet to be unleashed upon the ton.

“I am ‘out’ now,” she said firmly, “and I can go into society without being quizzed about it by the matrons in that tiresome way.”

Let him think her the model of respectability. No need for him to know she rode alone most mornings in the park, disguised as a groom. Niki, such a stickler for the rules, would not approve of that.

“Social engagements can be tiresome,” he agreed, and for a moment he looked so sad that Roberta felt quite sorry for him. “I remember with fondness the days I spent at your home at Grantham. Despite…” He stopped and gave her a sideways look.

Roberta grinned. “Despite my stealing your stallion. I remember. And I apologize, yet again.”

He smiled, a flicker at the corners of his mouth. The memory must have caused him to feel some awkwardness, because he moved as if to leave her. “I had better—”

Oh no, they could not finish on that note. Desperately, Roberta cast about for something else to say. “The roof on the east wing has finally fallen down,” she blurted out, and then could have groaned with mortification. Her wretched tongue!

Once again, his dark eyes widened. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, it happened at night, and no one lives in the east wing. It had been dangerous for a long time, and Gabriel was always talking about having it fixed, but he never…” Well, best not to tell the prince how desperately short of money they continued to be.

“I’m not sure we will ever be able to repair it now. ”

He was looking at her politely, but she guessed behind that mask he knew very well that if he had married Olivia, he could have funneled some of his fortune into Grantham, and the east wing could have been saved.

If, if, if! Not that Roberta would have been happy if he had married her sister.

She would have been sick with jealousy. And that wasn’t something she wanted to remember right now.

Let the past remain the past. Maybe it would be best to draw their meeting to a close.