False Courtship of the Wrong Duke

Chapter 1

The dice rolled across the green baize with a sharp, satisfying clatter.

Lord William Sinclair watched them tumble between the scattered coins, turning once, twice, before settling beneath the glow of the lamps.

A six and a five.

Across the table, Lord Huxley stared down at them with the hollow expression of a man who had just realized confidence was not a substitute for good fortune.

William leaned back in his chair. “I believe that makes the afternoon mine.”

Huxley looked from the dice to William, then toward the small pile of banknotes that had steadily migrated across the table over the past hour.

“You have the luck of the devil.”

“I have been told the devil is considerably better dressed.”

The gentlemen around the table laughed, and even Huxley managed a reluctant smile as he surrendered the last of his stake.

William gathered the winnings without triumph. He had never found much pleasure in humiliating another man, particularly one who had been foolish enough to wager beyond his skill. Huxley would recover. His pride, perhaps, before his purse.

“You will give me a chance to reclaim it next week,” Huxley said.

William slipped the notes into the inside pocket of his coat. “Certainly. Though I feel obliged to warn you that hope is becoming an expensive habit.”

Another ripple of laughter moved around the table.

Huxley pointed at him. “That is precisely why no one likes playing with you.”

“And yet you continue inviting me.”

“That is because we like you everywhere else.”

William rose, accepting the remark with a slight inclination of his head.

Though the luncheon hour had long since passed, the club remained comfortably busy.

Several gentlemen lingered around the card tables while others gathered near the fire or stood in small groups discussing Parliament, horses, and the latest scandals.

The room carried the familiar smells of tobacco, brandy, leather, and coal smoke. Conversations drifted beneath the high ceiling, softened by thick carpets and heavy curtains.

As he gently returned his chair to its place at the table, the empty seat opposite him caught his eye. It had not been occupied all afternoon.

Nor the afternoon before.

For years, Lord Eastmere had favored that chair. Edmund Carlisle claimed the light was better there, though William had always suspected the true reason was that the position allowed him to watch every man entering the room while keeping one shoulder toward the fire.

He had been absent for ten days.

Ten days was long enough for concern to sour into rumor.

William looked away before anyone noticed his attention lingering.

“Escaping already?”

Gabriel Frost approached with a glass in one hand and his gloves tucked beneath the other arm. His dark hair had fallen untidily across his forehead, though the carelessness was almost certainly deliberate. Gabriel spent far too much time before a mirror to achieve anything by accident.

“I have lost all my money,” Gabriel continued. “I had hoped you might remain long enough to lose yours in solidarity.”

William drew on his coat. “You should have asked before I won.”

“I did not anticipate your selfishness.”

“You have known me for fifteen years.”

“And every year I discover some new depth of disappointment.” Gabriel drained the last of his drink and set the empty glass upon a passing servant’s tray. “I am leaving with you.”

William glanced toward the clock. “Are you?”

“Yes. I need someone to listen while I tell him about the exhibition.”

A groan rose from a gentleman still seated at the table.

“Take him,” Huxley said. “He has been speaking of those paintings for three weeks.”

“Four,” Gabriel corrected.

“That does not strengthen your position.”

Gabriel ignored him and fell into step beside William as they moved through the room. He had been talking about the private viewing at the British Institution since the invitations arrived.

If William had remembered correctly, Gabriel had already described the selection of landscapes twice, the portraits three times, and one particular Italian study often enough that William felt he had seen it himself.

They paused near the entrance while a servant went to call for William’s carriage.

Gabriel began before the man had even crossed the threshold. “There is to be a Constable.”

“So you have said.”

“And two Turners.”

“You have also said that.”

“One of them has not been publicly shown.”

William reached into his coat and withdrew the folded sheet his mother had pressed into his hand that morning. “Would you care to trade concerns?”

Gabriel accepted the paper, his interest in the exhibition briefly interrupted. His eyes moved down the list.

Then widened. “This is ambitious.”

“My mother does not approach anything by halves.”

“Ten names.”

“Twelve originally. Two have become engaged since Monday.”

Gabriel looked impressed. “The Season is a brutal marketplace.”

William leaned one shoulder against the paneled wall. “I am apparently a neglected property she means to dispose of before its value declines.”

“Your value appears secure.” Gabriel studied the names again. “Lady Margaret Ellison. Miss Theodora Price. Lady Anne Whitcombe.”

He paused. “Lady Sophronia Marsh.”

William said nothing.

Gabriel lifted his gaze. “At the top.”

“My mother has taken a particular interest in her.”

“Your mother has been planning that match since Lady Sophronia learned to curtsy.”

“That is an exaggeration.”

“Only a slight one.”

William reclaimed the list and folded it along the existing crease.

He did not dislike Sophronia. She was beautiful, accomplished, and entirely aware of both facts. She knew every rule society had devised and possessed the remarkable talent of appearing gracious while ensuring every woman around her understood exactly where they stood in relation to her.

Unfortunately, where Sophronia stood was usually above them.

“She would make an excellent wife,” Gabriel observed.

“For someone.”

“Preferably someone who enjoys being managed.”

William slipped the list back into his pocket. “That may suit some men.”

“But not you.”

“No.”

Gabriel studied him for a moment but said nothing more.

William's reluctance had very little to do with Lady Sophronia herself.

It had everything to do with his brother.

Algernon had married Augusta several years before inheriting the Dukedom of Aldermere upon their father's death.

It had been a match arranged with all the care of a treaty.

Augusta had brought beauty, lineage, and a respectable fortune.

Algernon had brought the certainty that one day she would become a duchess.

William had watched them across countless dinner tables, seated close enough to touch and separated by something colder than distance.

He wanted no part of it.

Gabriel’s expression softened. “You truly mean to resist every name she gives you?”

“I mean to resist marrying a woman merely because our families approve of the arrangement.”

“That is not quite an answer.”

“It is the only one I have.”

Gabriel folded his arms. “You intend to marry for love.”

“I do.”

“You say that with the solemnity of a man taking holy orders.”

“It may require a similar degree of sacrifice.”

Gabriel laughed. “You are twenty-eight, William. You speak as though your mother means to drag you to the altar before breakfast.”

“She scheduled Lady Margaret for luncheon and Lady Sophronia for dinner. I fear the altar may follow supper.”

The servant returned and informed them that the carriage had been brought around.

As William turned toward the doors, his gaze crossed the room once more.

The empty chair remained beside the card table.

Gabriel noticed this time. “You are thinking of Eastmere.”

William drew on his gloves. “We were meant to attend the Tattersall sale in four days.”

“The chestnut?”

“The bay stallion. He has pursued the animal for months.”

Gabriel’s levity faded. “Do you think he will appear?”

“I do not know.”

The words sat uneasily in William’s mouth.

Edmund Carlisle was not a careless man. He did not vanish from appointments, abandon obligations, or allow his family to face public speculation without explanation.

Yet the speculation had spread with astonishing speed.

At first, the earl had merely been delayed. Then he had gone away unexpectedly. By the fifth day, someone claimed he had been seen near Dover. By the seventh, there was a woman involved.

By the tenth, society had decided he had abandoned his wife and daughter entirely.

The authorities had been notified, though their questions had apparently produced nothing. A titled gentleman possessed the right to travel without accounting for himself, and the absence of blood, violence, or a body had made official concern slow to sharpen.

“Perhaps he did leave,” Gabriel said carefully.

William glanced at him.

“I do not say I believe it,” Gabriel added. “Only that men have done stranger things.”

“Edmund would not.”

“You sound very certain.”

“I have known him most of my life.”

“So has his wife, I imagine.”

William pushed open the doors before a servant could reach them.

Cool afternoon air greeted him, carrying the fresh scent of recent rain. Heavy clouds still hung over Pall Mall, muting what little sunlight managed to break through. The paving stones glistened with moisture, and carriage wheels left dark tracks across the wet street.

He descended the steps with Gabriel beside him.

The carriage had not yet drawn fully forward. William stood beneath the portico while the footman hurried to open the door.

A figure approached from the opposite end of the street.

At first, William paid little attention. The stranger moved quickly, head lowered beneath the hood of a dark red cloak. A woman, judging by the smaller frame and the flash of a skirt beneath the hem.

She should not have been there.

William straightened as she drew nearer.

Another woman followed several paces behind, accompanied by a liveried footman whose expression suggested he had argued unsuccessfully against the entire expedition.

The cloaked figure mounted the first step.

Then the second.

She stopped directly before him.

For one suspended moment, neither of them spoke.

Rainwater glistened upon the deep crimson folds of her cloak. Her breathing was uneven, whether from haste or emotion he could not tell. One gloved hand remained fastened at her throat, gripping the fabric so tightly that her knuckles showed white beneath the kid leather.

Then she pushed back the hood.

Brown hair escaped the edge of her hood, darkened by the rain framed a face he had not expected to see standing outside a gentlemen's club.

Green eyes met his as recognition came with a strange sense of disbelief.

Lady Rosalind Carlisle.

He had not stood this close to her in years.

They had crossed paths often enough during recent Seasons. A dance. A brief exchange over supper. Polite conversation between two families long acquainted.

But that was not the Rosalind he saw.

The Rosalind he remembered was fourteen, perched atop the stone wall at Aldermere with a stolen peach hidden behind her back, informing him with complete confidence that younger sons were invariably more interesting because they had to develop personalities.

She had laughed then.

The woman standing before him looked as though she had forgotten how.

“Lord William.”

Her voice was steady.

William removed his hat, unable to reconcile the distressed young woman before him with either the composed debutant or the spirited girl he remembered.

“Lady Rosalind.”

“I have been searching for you for three days.”

Gabriel's easy smile disappeared as William glanced briefly toward the waiting carriage before returning his attention to her.

“You might have sent word to my house.”

“I did.”

He frowned.

“Twice.”

No message had reached him.

She took one measured step closer. “My father has been missing for ten days.”

William inclined his head. “I know.”

The words felt painfully inadequate.

Her gaze never left his.

“You were the last man to see him alive.”

William stared at her.

The accusation settled between them with the cold certainty of a verdict.

She believed he had something to do with Lord Eastmere's disappearance.