Taming the Charming Duke (The Season’s Five Debutantes #3)

Chapter 1

“Isaid I do not want any more of them sold.”

Anne Carlisle stood in the doorway of the morning room at Rosemere House, her dark chestnut hair falling down her back in waves. Her tall and slender frame usually leaned against the frame, but that morning she was entirely upright, her gray-blue eyes focused entirely on her mother.

Lady Eleanor Carlisle, a woman in her early fifties with fair hair pinned beneath a simple black mourning cap, did not immediately look up from the letters spread across her desk.

“Any more of what?” she asked quietly.

“Anything else belonging to Papa.”

“That is not your decision to make, Anne.”

“It is my home, too,” Anne replied evenly. “And my family.”

Lady Carlisle finally lifted her gaze. “And it remains your home because I have made it so.”

“At what cost?”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not speak to me as though I am your adversary.”

“I am asking a question,” Anne said. “A simple one.”

“You are being deliberately difficult.”

“And you are informing me far too late about decisions that affect me,” Anne argued.

A brief silence followed.

“What has been sold?” she asked.

Lady Carlise hesitated just long enough for Anne to know that she would not like the response.

“Three horses,” she said.

“Which ones?”

“Bracken, Hollowmere, and the Ashfall mare,” Lady Carlise replied. “It is not just your horses, though. The eastern pasture lease has been transferred, and the south gallery paintings have been sold.”

Anne’s hands remained still at her sides.

“And what remains?” she asked.

“Enough.”

Anne turned slightly toward the window. Beyond the glass, the grounds stretched out in muted greens and grays under a cold Yorkshire sky. The estate had always been beautiful, but now it looked as if it were held together rather than well-maintained.

Lady Carlisle watched her carefully. “Every decision I make is to preserve what is left.”

“But this is not—have you not thought of what Papa would have wanted? It is not that you have sold things. You have specifically sold what he loved most.”

“Yes, well, he may tell me himself if he takes issue with it.”

Silence ensued, which mercifully was interrupted by a knock at the door. A servant entered, a young man in a dark livery coat, holding a sealed letter on a silver tray.

“For Miss Anne,” he announced.

Anne accepted it without looking away from her mother. The wax seal was unfamiliar, pressed deep with a black insignia she did not recognize.

She broke the seal and scanned the contents of the letter once, then again, more slowly. Her expression did not change at first, and then she looked back at her mother. It was a letter thanking her. For what, she did not know.

“Where did this come from?”

“Ashford Hall.”

Anne folded the letter carefully. “So you already knew that I would receive it. Who is it from?”

“Dorian Blackwood,” Lady Carlisle said. “The Duke of Ashford.”

“What did you do?”

Lady Carlisle hesitated. “I sold him one of the horses, as I already told you”

“Which horse?” Anne asked.

Lady Carlisle shifted, and Anne’s stomach lurched. She had so easily said the three names before, so why was this any different?

“Tempest.”

All at once, Anne felt as though the ground was pulled from beneath her.

“No.”

“Anne, listen to me—”

“No,” Anne repeated, more sharply. “You did not sell him. Tell me that you did not.”

“It was necessary. He was part of an asset group we could no longer maintain. Your father’s debts—”

“Do not use him as an excuse. You have always hated Tempest.”

The room went still again.

It was not a lie. Lady Carlisle had been pleading with Anne to forget about her passion for horses and concentrate on finding a husband.

Anne could not help but wonder if her mother had simply used their position as a way to push her into doing as she was told. She stared at her for a long moment, then looked down at the letter again.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“Ashford Hall.”

Anne placed the letter on the table beside her mother’s correspondence. “I am going there.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“I am not asking permission.”

“You are a lady of standing,” her mother protested. “You cannot ride alone to a duke’s estate.

“I am going to my horse,” Anne said simply.

“Anne, this is not a stable across the village. This is Ashford Hall. Dorian Blackwood is not—”

“I do not care who he is,” Anne scoffed.

Her mother lowered her voice. “You should.”

But Anne was already moving.

The stableyard at Rosemere House was familiar, at least, and she crossed it without slowing.

A groom looked up as she entered. “Is everything alright, My Lady?”

“Prepare a horse,” Anne ordered.

“Yes, My Lady. Which—”

“The fastest one.”

The groom hesitated, then nodded quickly.

Another stablehand nearby paused his work. “Perhaps I should accompany you?”

“No,” Anne replied. “Thank you.”

The groom led out a dark bay mare, already saddled. Anne took the reins, and behind her, footsteps sounded again.

“Anne!”

Lady Carlisle stood at the edge of the yard, her cloak drawn tightly around her shoulders. Up close, her exhaustion was clear.

Anne wanted to pity her, but she could not now that she knew what her mother had done. She mounted her horse and turned away.

“I know exactly where I am going,” she said.

“You are going to a man you have never met, what if you are not allowed to leave with your horse?”

Anne tightened her grip on the reins. “Then I will leave knowing that I tried.” She looked at the groom. “Open the gate.”

The groom obeyed, and she took off.

The gates of Ashford Hall were already open. Ironwork framed the entrance like a warning more than a welcome, and beyond it stretched an estate with stables running down the edges. The sound of hooves cut through the sharp morning air.

Anne dismounted without waiting for help, but already a man had seen her and hurried her way.

“My Lady, you cannot enter without announcing yourself to the house,” he said, matching her pace as she began walking.

“I am not here for the house,” she replied.

“Then I must inform His Grace.”

“Do that if you wish,” she said, not slowing down.

The man hesitated but followed at a distance as she crossed into the stableyard.

The noise inside was immediate. Trainers called instructions across open pens, horses shifted against reins and rails, and somewhere deeper in the yard, a young black colt struck out violently, forcing two handlers back as it reared again, its hooves hitting the ground hard enough to shake loose straw from the beams above.

“Hold him steady,” one of the men called sharply.

“He’s going to break his shoulder if he keeps throwing like that,” another said.

The colt snorted, its muscles tight and uneven beneath its coat. It resisted every hand that approached it.

Anne stopped, and one of the grooms near her sighed. “No one’s been able to calm him since he arrived. He’s thrown three men already.”

She did not respond. She crossed into the handling pen before anyone could block her path.

A trainer turned sharply as she entered. “You cannot—”

He stopped mid-sentence when she did not look at him at all. Her attention had already fixed on the horse.

Tempest reared again as she approached, its hooves striking down hard. Anne stopped just out of reach and spoke once, her voice steady.

“Enough.”

Tempest paused at once. He was not fully obedient, not yet calm, but his panic eased slightly.

Anne stepped forward slowly, no hesitation in her gait, and the horse did not strike again. When she reached him, she raised her hand and rested it against his neck.

The change was immediate. Tempest’s head lowered slightly, his breath still heavy but no longer breaking into frantic bursts, and his hooves settled more evenly.

The yard around them went quiet, as though the commotion had simply been forgotten. From the edge of the stableyard, Anne noticed that a large man was watching.

The Duke of Ashford.

Dorian Blackwood was, from what she recalled, thirty-two, tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair falling loosely as if he had long since stopped trying to control it.

His blue-green eyes were fixed on the scene before him with interest more than surprise.

He stood with one hand wrapped loosely around the reins of another horse, relaxed, though nothing about him seemed careless.

One of the stablehands leaned slightly toward him. “Your Grace, we did try to stop her,” he said quietly.

The Duke did not answer immediately. His attention remained on Anne and the horse beneath her hand.

“That is impossible,” he muttered.

Anne turned her head slightly toward him. “Stop crowding him,” she said.

The trainer frowned. “My Lady, this horse has already injured—”

“Because you are forcing him,” she interrupted. “How would you act if you were him?”

The Duke moved closer, and Anne could tell that he was studying her.

“You are not one of my trainers,” he said. “That much is clear.”

A groom stepped forward quickly. “Your Grace, she entered without permission—”

The Duke lifted one hand slightly, and the man stopped speaking immediately. His attention stayed on Anne.

“Do you have a habit of walking into places you are not invited?”

“I came for my horse,” Anne replied.

A brief pause followed. His gaze shifted briefly toward Tempest before returning to her. “He is yours?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then I assume you also know what you are doing with him.”

“I do.”

Those words hung in the air between them for a moment longer than expected.

Anne hoped that he would simply shrug, say that Tempest was more trouble than he was worth, and return it to her. Instead, his lips curved slightly, clearly amused by it all.

“Every man in this yard seems to have failed where you have not.”

“They are not listening to him,” Anne pointed out. “But then, I would not expect less from thieves.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“I am not interested in your assessment of me,” Anne scoffed.

“That is unfortunate,” he said, “considering how firmly you have already formed one of me.”

“You took him,” she accused.

“I purchased him,” he corrected calmly.

“From a family that could not refuse you.”

He studied her more carefully, as though trying to understand rather than dismissing her words.

“I was not told that,” he said.

“It does not change where he belongs,” Anne argued.

“But it does,” he countered. “Money changed hands, and he is now mine.”

Mine. That single word lingered.

“But he…” she trailed off.

In truth, there was not much that she could do. The purchase was legal, whether she liked it or not, and it seemed that the man before her was unwilling to part with Tempest even if he was difficult to manage.

“He is all that I have left of him,” she whispered.

“What did you say?”

She tensed, straightening and looking the Duke in the eye. She would not get what she wanted from him, but that did not mean that she would look broken as it happened.

“I will return one day,” she said steadily. “I will come back, and I will take him with me, no matter what it takes.”

She turned and rode away without waiting for him to say anything more, for if she had hesitated, he would have seen that she was crying.

Anne did not sleep that night, and by morning, the house felt even emptier than it had the day before. When she entered the drawing room, she found her mother already waiting by the window.

“Sit down,” her mother said without turning.

Anne stopped just inside the room. “I would rather stand.”

“Then stand.” After a moment, her mother turned away from the window. “You already seem willing to do exactly as you please without a care for what happens to this family.”

“You are one to speak of such things.”

Anne expected her mother to argue the point, but for once she did not.

“There is very little left of Rosemere that can be considered secure,” she said. “The debts have become worse than you were led to believe. Since you wish to make such decisions for yourself, I may as well no longer shield you.”

“We have been selling anything of value for months. Did you think that I was unaware something was amiss?”

“Well, it has not been enough to fix what was already built into the estate’s finances long before your father died. All that remains to be sold are parts of the property itself. If matters do not improve, Rosemere House will have to be sold entirely.”

“And are you telling me this now because there is still time to change it, or because there is not?”

“I am telling you because you deserve to understand the situation fully,” Lady Carlisle replied. “Fortunately, we have been offered a solution, and you will be happy to know that you may remain an old maid this way.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. She did not think that she was old at all, but then she did have to accept that at four-and-twenty, she should have perhaps married earlier. Then again, it was not as though she had not tried.

“Mr. Holloway has made his intentions clear,” Lady Carlisle continued. “He expects an answer to his marriage proposal within days. He has offered financial assistance, enough to stabilize what remains of the estate, but only under one condition.”

“Which is?”

“He requires that once the marriage is settled, you will no longer remain at Rosemere House. You are unmarried, you have no independent income, no inheritance, and no guarantee of protection once I am gone. I am trying to ensure you are not left without stability in a world that will not provide it freely.”

“So I should be grateful for this. Is that what you are trying to say?”

“It would do you no harm to thank me. I am making sure you’ll survive, and not all mothers do that for their daughters.”

“Yes, thank you for telling me to pack my things and go rather than giving me several years before your loss. I truly am so pleased that I shall have… Well, how long do I have before I am no longer part of this house?”

Her mother could no longer meet her eyes.

Anne wished that she felt powerful because of it, but it only made everything worse. Her mother had always been so shameless in her actions, so if she had feelings of guilt, it had to be because she had finally done something utterly reproachable.

“Not long. A month, perhaps.”