A Dance with the Wayward Duke (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #43)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

Marguerite scanned the ballroom for Rear Admiral Lord Pulteney. The sticky officer was, unfortunately, her only acquaintance in the navy and therefore, the only one who could introduce her to the new Ambassador to Naples.

The room did not make the task simple.

Every candle in Brighton had been gathered for the occasion, then multiplied by mirrors, crystal, and the dangerous vanity of people who wished to be admired from several angles at once.

Light trembled over gilt columns, over garlands of hothouse flowers, over masks shaped like birds, beasts, devils, saints, and classical figures whose knowledge of antiquity had clearly begun and ended with the exposure of one shoulder.

A monk flirted with a mermaid. Three shepherds, none of whom had ever been remotely near a sheep, clustered near the punch bowl. At the far end, a gentleman dressed as Hamlet had cornered a lady in rose silk and appeared to be explaining himself at tragic length. Poor woman.

Just when Marguerite was starting to despair, she sighted Lord Pulteney near the supper room, costumed as Caesar Triumphant.

Purple drapery strained across his chest. A pasteboard breastplate clung to his middle.

A laurel wreath sat atop his adored toupée, which glowed beneath it with the imperial confidence of an upholstered sunset.

Forcing her semblance into serenity, Marguerite approached him. She had to be cool. Cool as Selene, the moon goddess she had chosen as a costume. Cool as a woman who was not about to bargain with a naval Caesar whose orange toupée had conquered more territory than his fleet.

The rear admiral saw her and brightened. Marguerite sighed and pasted a little smile on her lips.

"Ah." He swept into a bow and caught her hand. “M’dear Miss D’Ailes. What are you dressed as this fine evening? Cleopatra, surely. Come to make a conquest of Caesar?"

He lifted his bushy brows a few times, then pressed his lips to her glove. Marguerite did not flinch. Flinching was for amateurs, virgins, and women who had never negotiated with vanity.

She withdrew her hand. "Not quite, my lord. But how swiftly you find Egypt when Rome is involved. Has the new ambassador to Naples arrived? I was hoping for an—"

"Naples." He made the word sound like an unfortunate smell. "Dreadful place. Who would want to live there?"

She would. In fact, she very much did. And not only because she could no longer afford Brighton.

Naples was warmth, the kind that came from the sun rather than the fireplace, that reached bone rather than merely surface, that did not require negotiation with a coal merchant or the endurance of an English February.

Naples had a glittering court, a king who was the son of an innkeeper, and a queen who was born into the minor gentry.

Joachim Murat and Caroline Bonaparte's kingdom was a place where merit might yet slip past birth if it wore the right gown and entered by the right door.

Her dearest friend, a fellow ballerina from Covent Garden, had gone there three years ago and was now a marchesa, beloved by an Italian husband, holding court in a marble palace, eating pistachios and drinking prosecco, without worrying a single pretty hair about her next meal, how she would heat her palazzo, or how to negotiate affection.

She wrote letters that smelled of orange blossom and contained phrases 'like I cannot explain it, Maggie — I simply let go', which Marguerite found baffling but optimistic.

"The Italians are quite fond of it, I'm told," Marguerite said. "But the ambassador, my lord. I believe his name is Tristan Blackmere, Duke of Stormhaven?"

"Ha! The Sea Wolf." Lord Pulteney's nostrils flared. "More of a sea pest. He believes himself to be the best of the English Navy. Always requesting things. For his crew. For ships. For repairs. For provisions. Admiral Hill cannot abide him."

As long as he could offer her passage in his ship and perhaps a few letters of introduction, she didn't care if he was the sea wolf or any other maritime dweller.

"How fascinating." Marguerite leaned closer by the exact fraction required to reward further complaint. "Gossip says he is part of the Wayward Duke's Alliance…"

A man who refused to marry had to be exceedingly rich or believe he was above the sacred institution.

It was an abuse of power, really. It made all the women seem desperate.

Nonetheless, it suited her very well. She had no intention of marrying a cold Englishman, even if she could.

No, she had enough experience with cold-blooded gentlemen to last her several revolutions.

"Most unnatural, is it not?" he said, exhaling.

"Indeed. And is the new ambassador here tonight?"

"Certainly. Admiral had to invite him, since he'd be leaving for his new appointment from Brighton this week. But enough about the Sea Wolf." His gaze swept over her silver gown. "Diana. Have I guessed right?"

"Almost," Marguerite said.

His face lit with masculine triumph. "I knew it. My virgin huntress. Come to the Opera with me—"

"Your instinct is formidable. And naturally, a gentleman with such instinct would know where Lord Blackmere is standing."

He chuckled and bent nearer. "Diana would not ask after another man while Caesar stood before her."

Marguerite closed her fan and could not avoid a deep sigh. "Diana was fortunate to hunt alone…"

His smile wavered.

Marguerite softened hers at once. "But I am not Diana, my lord. Not quite. And you are not merely Caesar. You are Caesar with Admiralty intelligence."

The toupée swelled with pride, but he seemed as ready to introduce her to the new ambassador as Rome was to surrender.

Marguerite considered her options. Reason had taken her as far as it could. Diplomacy had softened the ground. Flattery had opened the gates. Now there remained only a last piece of artillery.

Her smile. She lowered her fan by degrees, as though unveiling a state secret. Her lashes swept down, then lifted. She let warmth enter her eyes, a promise curve her mouth, and moonlight do what moonlight had been doing to men since the first shepherd looked up and forgot his flock.

Lord Pulteney had just taken a swallow of champagne, and his eyes widened.

Ha! She had him now.

His face reddened. His throat convulsed. And Lord Pulteney made a noise like a cannon misfiring in a pantry.

"My lord?" Marguerite said.

He coughed. The cough became a siege. One hand flew to his breastplate, which gave an ominous pasteboard crack.

Before Marguerite could decide whether diplomacy required assistance, alarm, or distance, an exceedingly tall man stepped from the shadow of a column and struck Lord Pulteney between the shoulder blades with the compassion of a man beating a carpet.

The contest, had it been one, would have been indecently unequal.

Lord Pulteney was short, stocky, and upholstered in imperial purple, a body built less for conquest than for digestion.

The stranger was athletic, dressed as a pirate with none of the theatrical foolishness such costumes usually required.

His black hair was tied at his nape. His sun-darkened skin made his white shirt look whiter, his mouth more dangerous.

Through the black mask, his green eyes found hers with such direct amusement that the air seemed to change temperature. Then he flashed a very white grin, which caused all the hairs along Marguerite's arms to rise.

An absurd side effect, really. She had endured ministers, patrons, soldiers, creditors, and a Russian prince who had once compared his stamina to a siege engine. She did not get goose bumps because a pirate smiled.

Then, without looking away from her, he delivered Lord Pulteney one mighty blow between the shoulders.

Lord Pulteney jerked. The orange toupée rose from his head, wreath and all, with the sudden majesty of an empire abandoning its emperor. It made a brief arc through the candlelight, turned once as if searching for a worthier throne, and struck Marguerite with hideous intimacy.

Lord Pulteney dragged in a breath, pounded his chest, and straightened with the heroic dignity of a man unaware that his wig had defected.

"Much obliged," he rasped.

The stranger released his victim.

"Ah!" Lord Pulteney brightened suddenly. "Admiral Hill! There you are. A word, my lord. A very urgent word."

And before Marguerite could return Rome to its emperor, Lord Pulteney marched away, bald as a monk's tonsure after a thunderstorm, his bare scalp shining beneath the chandeliers.

Marguerite had been given many things by men. Jewels. Promises. Lies. But never before a prized wig.

Marguerite lowered her chin slightly. Orange curls. Gilt leaves. Lord Pulteney had cultivated this toupée as other men cultivated reputations. And she was holding it against her bodice like the spoils of war.

There had to be a way to return it. Diplomatically. One did not simply run across a ballroom crying, My lord, your hair has deserted you. Not unless one wished to murder a man socially. She could send a footman. No, a footman would laugh.

Perhaps she might intercept him near a column, lower her voice, and say—

"Madam." The pirate's voice was low, close, and amused. "Thanks are usually offered after a rescue."

Marguerite lifted her gaze. The pirate stood before her, his green eyes laughing beneath his mask as if the ballroom, the toupée, and her immediate ruin had all been arranged for his personal entertainment.

"Have you any idea of the disaster you have caused?"

His brows lifted behind the mask. He had an earring! A man who came to the Admiralty ball dressed like that certainly had no grasp of even the most rudimentary diplomatic rules.

"There is a wig in my bosom."

His gaze dropped. "Indeed."

"A prized wig," she hissed. "A wig that represents vanity, influence, naval connection, and the last remaining thread of my—"