An Offer by the Wicked Duke (Hidden with the Duke #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“This way,” Reverend Leighton said, his voice low and his jaw set as he steered her through a narrow corridor and into a larger space beyond.

Augusta Booth, daughter of the Viscount Whitfield—or the former Viscount, she supposed, as her father would likely be stripped of his title given his new accommodation at Newgate Prison—stepped over the threshold.

And entered into a world she had never imagined existed.

The main room sprawled before her, vast and dim. Oil lamps were mounted along the walls, their flames guttering in the draft, catching the brass fittings on the bar that stretched along one side of the room.

“This is a gaming hell,” Augusta said, not a question but a statement as the obvious became clear.

She had read about such places in the scandal sheets, places where men of means squandered fortunes on dice and cards. But why had Reverend Leighton brought her here?

Why had the man who had taken her into his home since she was three years old brought her here?

He did not look at her. “Be quiet and follow me,” he said, his eyes already scanning the room ahead.

Augusta felt a curl of unease in her stomach. This was not the Reverend Leighton who delivered impassioned sermons every Sunday, nor even the self-righteous man who had scolded her for reading novels by candlelight.

This was a stranger in a vicar’s clothes.

“Why have you brought me here?” she whispered.

He guided her forward, his hand firm on her elbow. “This is not the time for questions, Augusta.”

He guided her through the doors and down a long, empty hallway. For a second, she felt relief. Until they entered the next room.

They were moving toward a raised wooden platform at the far end of the room, with a bare, elevated stage and a single lamp positioned above it, like some grotesque parody of a theatre. The men’s conversation had quieted as they moved through the crowd.

She planted her feet, yanking her arm from Leighton’s grasp. “I demand you explain yourself,” she said, her voice louder than she intended. “I am not moving another step until you tell me what is happening.”

The buzz of conversation around them faltered. Heads turned. Leighton took her elbow again, his grip tight enough that she could feel his fingers through the fabric of her sleeve.

“Compose yourself, child,” he hissed. “You are making a scene.”

Augusta looked around the room again. The men were not playing cards. They were not throwing dice. They were not even drinking with the raucous enthusiasm she’d expected in a place like this.

They were watching. They were watching her.

“No,” she said, the word a puff of air. “No.”

“You have no choice,” Leighton said, his voice soft and reasonable, as though he were explaining why she could not have an extra slice of cake.

“Your father’s crimes have left you without prospects, without a dowry, without a name that any respectable man would wish to take as his own.

My reputation and my standing have suffered by association.

I cannot afford to keep you, and there is nowhere else for you to go. ”

“I would rather work as a scullery maid,” Augusta said, her voice shaking with fury. “I would rather scrub floors until my hands bleed.”

“No one would hire you,” Leighton said. “Not with your name. Not with your father’s name in all the papers.” He leaned closer. “But these men don’t care about your name. They care about your breeding.” His eyes flicked over her face. “Your… fertility.”

Her cheeks flushed, and her heart rate sped up.

This?

She swallowed dryly. This couldn’t happen.

“I will not,” she said.

“You will,” Leighton insisted. “And you will thank me for arranging such an advantageous situation.” He gestured toward the platform. “Now, shall we?”

Augusta stood rooted to the spot, her mind racing. There had to be a way out. A door, a window, a sympathetic face in the crowd. But the men around her were strangers, and the few whose eyes she could meet in the dim light looked at her with nothing but curiosity or calculation.

“What… what is happening?” She was not certain how she managed to say the words.

Leighton looked at her coolly. “We are here to find you a husband.”

The way he said it, with a casual glance in the direction of the platform, shot fear right through her.

“This is madness,” she protested. “You cannot simply sell me.”

“Not sell,” Leighton corrected. “Auction. There’s a difference.” He smiled, a thin curve of his lips. “And I am not selling you. I am merely facilitating an introduction between you and a man who will appreciate your… assets.”

Before she could respond, Leighton’s hand was at her back, propelling her forward toward the platform. The steps were narrow and steep. Augusta’s legs felt leaden as Leighton guided her up them, his hand firm on the small of her back.

“Stand straight,” he hissed as they reached the top. “Shoulders back. Chin up. These men are paying for quality.”

Augusta wanted to spit in his face. Wanted to claw off his grip and run. But the reverend was already shoving her toward the stage.

Leighton stepped forward, his posture shifting subtly. His shoulders squared, his chin lifted, and when he spoke, his voice carried the practiced projection of a man accustomed to pulpits.

“Gentlemen,” he began, his tone smooth and confident. “Tonight, I present to you a rare opportunity. A chance to acquire not merely a companion or a mistress, but a wife of unimpeachable breeding.”

The word wife sent a jolt through Augusta’s body.

“May I present Miss Augusta Booth,” Leighton continued, gesturing toward her with a flourish that would not have been out of place in a drawing room introduction. “Daughter of the Viscount Whitfield.”

The murmuring began immediately. Voices rippled through the crowd, phrases floating up to the platform like poisonous flowers.

“Whitfield’s daughter…”

“The murderer’s girl…”

“Ruined stock…”

Leighton raised his voice over the noise. “Despite recent… unfortunate events… in her family, Miss Booth remains a lady in every sense of the word. Pure, of excellent breeding, and…” He paused, letting the word land with deliberate weight. “Still quite fertile.”

Augusta’s chin jerked toward him. Her hands curled at her sides, nails digging into her palms through her gloves. Still, the vicar’s words moved through her like cold water, leaving her numb and clear-headed in its wake.

She was being sold as breeding stock. A vessel for a man’s seed, valued only for her ability to produce an heir with noble blood. The same purpose her father had valued her mother for, the same purpose that had gotten her mother killed.

The crowd had grown louder, more animated. Men called out questions about her age, her health, her “purity.” Leighton answered each one with the smooth confidence of a man selling a horse.

“Perfect health, never a day’s illness…”

“Completely untouched, as befits a lady of her station…”

Augusta turned toward the steps at the edge of the platform and walked toward them with deliberate speed. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her face remained composed.

If she could reach the door, if she could make it to the street—

“One thousand pounds!”

The voice came from near the front of the crowd.

A man with a florid face and a waistcoat stretched tight across his substantial middle. The bid hung in the air for a moment before two broad-shouldered employees of the Nightingale stepped into Augusta’s path before she reached the bottom step.

She forced herself to look out at the room, to assess her situation with clear eyes.

There were four exits that she could see: the side door through which she had entered, a larger door at the front, and two smaller ones behind the bar.

An employee stood near each one, all of them watching the platform with the alert readiness of men who were paid to prevent exactly what she was contemplating.

Rough arms pulled her back onto the platform, and the bidding continued as though the interruption had never happened.

As the humiliation continued, her thoughts cut to Olivia.

Her half-sister, sent north by their father after her mother’s death, was living somewhere near the Scottish border with a relative Augusta had never met. Olivia was twenty, four years younger than Augusta.

If Augusta were here, on a platform in a gaming hell, being sold like furniture, then what had become of Olivia? Had she been disposed of in a similar fashion? Sold to the highest bidder, valued only for the blood in her veins and the potential of her womb?

The thought tightened Augusta’s throat and made her eyes burn with unshed tears.

“Three thousand pounds!”

The bid cut through her thoughts.

The room quieted. Augusta’s eyes snapped to the source: a tall man standing near the back wall, half-hidden in shadow.

Leighton’s face split into a grin. “Three thousand from the gentleman at the rear. Do I hear four?”

No one spoke. The silence stretched, taut as a wire.

“Three thousand, then,” Leighton said after a moment. “Going once… going twice…”

Augusta winced.

“Sold!” Leighton called out.

Augusta felt her stomach drop.

It was over.