1. Chapter 1
one
Berkeley Square, London One week later
“ T ell me, David, that there is no truth to the rumors of your betrothal.”
Alfred’s voice filled the threshold before David could get the door to the family drawing room closed. The fact that his older brother would dare to speak before it was firmly shut, thus risking a servant overhearing, was a sure sign of his deep displeasure. And not the only one, unfortunately.
Though the duke’s voice was firm and measured as was usual for him, his jaw was tight and his eyes were cold shards of ice ready to pierce through the ragged flesh of the anticipated denial.
“Good morning, Alfred.” David kept his own voice light to counter the duke’s frigid demeanor.
The Duke of Strathmore sat across the elegantly appointed room in the wingback chair he favored. He was dressed impeccably in a charcoal gray morning suit, chin level with the floor, fist clenched on the chair’s arm.
Notably alone. Wonderful .
“Where is Kit?” David added. His brother’s long-time companion tempered his sometimes boorish nature. His absence didn’t bode well.
Alfred ignored him. “Why have I had to learn about this betrothal in the morning paper?”
With a sigh that acknowledged the inevitableness of this confrontation while at the same time lamenting it, David crossed to the chair opposite his brother and sat, legs sprawled, and cast a disdainful eye on the newsprint lying on the table between them.
“You of all people know better than to believe everything you read.”
He felt as if he had been called to the carpet, a relatively frequent occurrence in boyhood but one that had declined over time.
It had been at least a year since the last incident.
Er…perhaps half a year. Alfred had been exasperated when David had gone away with that diplomat’s wife last spring.
He’d gone so far as to refer to the little affair as an international incident .
Alfred’s regal brow arched, a glimmer of hope melting the ice. “Is it not true?”
“Betrothal implies a legally binding agreement. I daresay the contract I signed with Hathaway wouldn’t hold up if tested in the courts. As a society, we haven’t forced a couple to wed in centuries…decades, at least.” He almost felt cruel as the hope in his brother’s eyes withered.
“Don’t play with your words, David. It’s beneath you.”
A bad habit he’d fallen into years ago to best a brother who was fifteen years his senior. He went silent rather than refute that not very much was beneath him.
“One of the Dove girls, I presume?” Alfred prompted.
Least of all the Dove girl. Not yet anyway. He shifted in the chair as the anticipation of that eventuality sizzled through him.
“Jenny,” David supplied .
A memory of her lush mouth danced across his mind. Asking for his help in the dark of a carriage. Begging prettily for his hand to aid in securing her inheritance. Promising a night in her bed for the privilege.
“Then the paper’s account is accurate?” His brother’s voice scattered the imagery.
“I haven’t read it.” After a whirlwind few days of helping Simon and Eliza, he’d returned to London very late last night, only managing to get a few hours of sleep before being summoned for this meeting.
Alfred snatched up the newspaper in an efficient, disdainful motion.
It was already turned to the appropriate page, so he read aloud the finer points.
“Lord David Felding has lately embarked upon an adventure... absconded to Liverpool with the infamous Dove family…involved in a shoot-out that left notorious Whitechapel crime lord, James Brody, dead in the street…rumored to have betrothed himself to one of the Dove sisters.” Here, he paused and looked up, silently demanding the truth of the passages.
The account was more thorough than David expected. “Between the shoot-out and the betrothal, you are more alarmed with the latter?”
His brother gave him a taciturn once-over. “Are you not whole and well?”
Actually, David’s fist still smarted from the punch he’d thrown at one of the goons, but he wasn’t about to admit that.
He clenched it reflexively. “Fair point. Besides, you can hardly trust the newspaper to get it right. I wasn’t involved in a shoot-out.
That happened outside the hotel. I was inside, occupied with apprehending the second criminal who was planning to assault Miss Dove’s sister, Eliza. ”
His brother dropped the paper to his lap with one hand and rubbed his temple with the other. “Start from the beginning and tell me everything. ”
Rebellion rose in David’s throat, clogging it with ash and venom.
The very moment David explained, his brother’s clever mind would begin looking for ways to extricate him from the betrothal, as if this were another scrape he’d got himself into.
But this wasn’t like those other indiscretions.
Jenny had needed him, and he had no intention of letting her out of the snare she’d fallen into.
Still, he must tell his brother something. It was perfectly reasonable that he’d wonder why his heir would align himself with a commoner.
“Miss Dove came to me and requested my assistance. Her younger sister Eliza had fallen in love with a brawler named Simon Cavell.”
“Cavell? The one who manages Montague Club?”
“Yes, that one. As you may remember, Hathaway, the Doves’ godfather, has been in London to help the sisters secure titled husbands in order to collect their respective inheritances.”
“Yes, I know. Devonworth married the eldest sister Cora some months back.” He wound his hand, urging David to get on with the retelling. “The youngest’s betrothal was also announced. A viscount, isn’t he?”
“Was, yes, but Eliza decided not to marry the viscount, in favor of Cavell. Obviously, this meant she would not inherit the money. But Cavell was in debt to the unfortunate chap from Whitechapel mentioned in the paper and needed the inheritance. Miss Dove, Jenny, came to me for help. She reasoned that her godfather would prefer a future duke in the family so she offered to marry me if her younger sister was allowed to marry Cavell and still receive her inheritance. She was correct and Hathaway accepted.”
“How does that end with you in Liverpool in a shoot-out?”
“The family fled to Liverpool to meet up with Cavell, who was on the run. I accompanied Miss Dove to protect her. Long story short, Brody found them and Cavell shot him dead outside the hotel. No one else was injured.” He examined the scrape on his knuckle.
Alfred was silent, mulling this over, but then asked the very question David had hoped to avoid. “And what, precisely, did you receive for this arrangement with Miss Dove?”
A night in her bed…in her body. “Her inheritance monies.”
“You betrothed yourself to her for money?” His brother’s voice rose for the first time.
David couldn’t help but glance at the Rembrandt hung in pride of place on the wall behind Alfred, mocking him.
There were more, here in Mayfair and scattered across their properties.
Paintings, statuary, and antiquities from nearly every major movement in history.
Their father and grandfather had possessed the foresight to invest in railroads and industry from the very beginning, thus preserving and even growing their fortune, unlike many of their peers, who needed to marry the American heiresses swarming London every social season.
He shrugged. “I won’t inherit the dukedom for some time. The income will be a nice boon for my accounts.”
“You already have a robust income. You’ve managed your investments well and you are compensated for your time with the firm.”
And therein lay the problem with telling his brother about the betrothal.
It didn’t hold up to scrutiny when it was picked apart and examined piece by piece.
By any accounting, David was one of the wealthiest and most sought-after bachelors in Britain.
His brother had already declared he never intended to marry, which left David his heir.
Every mother and eligible daughter in the realm tripped over themselves to entangle him in their wedding plans, and no bad behavior on his part had managed to close the floodgates of their unwelcome attention .
David had churned over his answer to this inevitable question since the night he’d agreed to Jenny’s proposal in the carriage.
Marrying her didn’t make rational sense.
There was no reason he should agree to her.
He’d been described as a rake, a hedonist, someone who prized decadence over substance, and he’d been hard-pressed to disagree…
until Jenny had looked at him with her doe eyes and asked for his help.
A disturbing sensation, like he’d swallowed a hive of bees, filled his chest. He cleared his throat and forced the image of her from his mind, as he always did when he remembered that night.
“It’s not about the money,” he said.
“Obviously not.”
“If you recall, it was only last year the Darlingtons schemed to have me locked in the conservatory with their daughter.”
Alfred paused, the first chink in his armor. David had barely escaped that one; even though he’d long ago resigned himself to only keeping company with older women, the woman who had lured him there had been working with the Darlingtons and sent the girl ahead.
“Then there was the count who presented himself here with an obviously forged contract to marry his daughter.” Neither David nor his brother had ever met the man before.
A pained look crossed Alfred’s face and he stood, walking to the window that overlooked the garden to ponder this.
The morning sunlight caught the silver at his temples and made him seem even more stately, if such a thing were possible.
Finally, he said, “I should have realized how burdensome things had become for you. Give me some time. I’ll contact Hathaway and settle things.
We’ll find a suitable young lady from the countryside for you. Someone gently reared and intelligent—”
“No.”
Alfred turned. “What do you mean, no? There is a clear need to have your future settled. If it’s not the money, then there’s no need for you to marry this Dove….” His sharp gaze probed the depths of David’s denial, grasping far more than he was meant to understand. “I see.”
David shifted his eyes to the Rembrandt painting, the Aubusson rug, the imaginary lint on his sleeve. Anything to keep his brother from seeing things David wasn’t yet willing to discuss or even contemplate.
After a charged moment of silence, he said, “I will have Jenny.”
She’d spent the Season rebuking his subtle advances and suggestions that she be his mistress. This was the only way he could have her. A temporary marriage was worth the price.
His brother was quiet for so long that David had no choice but to make eye contact.
Alfred had inherited the dukedom at the tender age of eighteen.
David had been too young to remember their father, so his brother had always been the duke, as far as he was concerned.
He’d carried the title with all the aplomb of a seasoned statesman for as long as David could remember.
For better or worse, he’d also filled the role of father.
And in that role, he had the power to break this betrothal if he wished.