The Duke’s Christmas Redemption

Prologue

He stared at the paper in his hand, no longer seeing it with any clarity. He had already read the words three times, at first unbelieving, then with dawning horror, anger, and finally a sense of betrayal so deep that it had shattered his heart within him.

How could she do this to him, after all that had been said between them?

After all that he had been willing to risk for her?

It was scandalous enough that a Duke intended to marry the daughter of a Baronet, but this…

this took scandal to a whole new level. It was another betrayal in a long line of betrayals, and it left him bitter and deeply hurt.

He dropped the offending missive onto his desk, and poured himself one measured glass of brandy before sinking slowly into his chair.

First, there had been the betrayals of his mother and father leaving him, dying, when he was not ready to exist without either of them, then there had been the betrayal his father had perpetrated, by running the estates almost into ruin, spending profligately and not rebuilding the wealth, and now, there was this – an abandonment which destroyed him emotionally, and, of a certain, socially.

To have one’s betrothed do this….

He smoothed out the somewhat crumpled letter and read it again.

I am sorry, but I cannot marry you, when I most truly love another. We have eloped, and by the time that you receive this, will be in Scotland, and married. I hope that you find happiness with another.

Elizabeth

‘Happiness with another’ – as if having his heart broken was so easily healed, as if being jilted like this, when he had already announced their betrothal to the ton, was so easily brushed aside.

It was immediately obvious to him then that the mistake he had made here was simple, yet fundamental – he had believed that love was real, and that good things could come of it.

It was a mistake that he intended never to make again.

He would, instead, leave the matter of marriage for later – he needed an heir, that was true, but it could wait a few years, and then he would arrange a sensible, emotion free match to achieve that aim.

For now, he would focus all of his attention on continuing the repair of the damage that his father had done to the family fortunes, to the family estates, and to the family reputation – although that was an issue which he himself had just compounded.

He would rebuild all of it, and more, and he would do it by the time that he was twenty-five or likely kill himself trying. He would be the man that his mother would have hoped him to be, and ignore everything but the efficient, practical, and necessary in the pursuit of that aim.

He downed the brandy in one long gulp, then set the glass aside – he would not be losing himself in drink any more than in silly affairs of the heart. He had far too much to do to permit himself any leeway.