Chapter One
Marsden, the Dukeof Harbury’s valet, entered Harbury’s bedchamber. “Ahem.”He made a show of clearing his throat. “Her Grace is prepared to receive His Grace at His Grace’s convenience.”
Harbury laid aside the anonymous letter delivered while he’d been taking his wedding vows—a letter warning of anger building among his tenantry, frustration centered on Harbury Hall’s longtime steward, Anderson.
He would turn his mind to the matter tomorrow.
Tonight, he had other ducal duties to attend. Duties more terrifying to him than vague threats from an unidentifiable source. In moments, he would be expected to bed his wife. A wife he barely knew.
“You may retire,” Harbury replied, hoping Marsden’s smugly knowing expression would be the final wedding night ribbing he’d have to endure.
He rewrapped his heavy, brocaded banyan over his lawn nightshirt then strode across the chamber to the connecting door.
Should he knock first? Or should he just enter?
Enter the duchess’s…
Er,hiswife’s…
No, Cassandra’s—Cassie’s?—bed chamber.
Blast.
Only fools vacillated.Dukes—he heard this chargein his father’s voice—wereneverindecisive.
Harbury had been decisive about Cassandra, alright. Decisive at exactly the wrong time.
A few months earlier, he had swept Cassandra into a waltz at Almack’s even though he’d known the patronesses had strict rules against young ladies waltzing without their permission. He’d been distracted.Distressed. He’d just seen the lady he’d loved for over a decade, Vivianne, dancing in the arms of her new husband, Lord Pennington.
But instead of creating a soothing diversion, his dance with Cassandra had catapulted both of them into scandal.
Countess Lieven had ordered the music to cease and then skewered Cassandra with one of her infamous dead-eyed glares. Next, the countess had publicly revoked Cassandra and her twin sister Eliza’s vouchers, setting off a series of events leading to Eliza’s marriage to Harbury’s friend, the Marquess of Redver—a genuine love match—and his own, more Faustian bargain with Cassandra…a marriage of polite convenience, but for the necessity of begetting an heir.
Reparation toward Cassandra was Harbury’s duty, and her sweet nature suggested she’d be a comfortable, biddable wife. But, having loved his older sister’s one-time governess from the dawn of his manhood, he did not believe he could ever fully eradicate Viv, now Lady Pennington, from his heart. So, he’d promised Cassandra all he thought himself capable of giving—his name and his home.
Now, however, standing in front of his wife’s door, his thickening blood forced him to acknowledge an alarming physical attraction to his wife, one he’d only become aware of today, when he’d taken her hand, and she’d placed herself forever in his keeping. Since then, his very inconvenient attraction had only increased. Desire weighted his legs, shrunk his lungs, and tore at the already gaping hole in his chest.
Want left him terrified. Terrified and yearning. He knew this feeling, this needy, possessive yearning. Hehatedthis feeling.
Early this morning—so early the sun had yet to impose a patina of pink over night’s dark vault—Marsden had awoken him from a brandy-drenched slumber. Humbly, Harbury had submitted to all manner of preparation and pampering. He’d been shaved, buffed, scented, and then pressed into his starched finest, good as new—according to Marsden.
“New?” His friend Adrian had countered. “He looks like a peacock.”
“Never you mind him.” Marsden had side-eyed the marquess—an impertinence tolerated since Marsden had known them both their whole lives. “Theforemostduty of a man about to wed is to be pleasing to his lady.”
His. Lady.
“Excellent advice!” Adrian had exclaimed. “Remember, Harbury—be pleasing. Even you should be able to manage congeniality foroneday.”
And so, making a sincere attempt, Harbury had skated through a dizzying whirl beginning with solemn exhortations from a stern-faced bishop, and stringing through the well-wishes of a disconcerting number of ladies with painted faces and an equally bewildering number of men giving hearty, male backslaps, before ending in one, sumptuous breakfast lasting well into the afternoon.
But, in his efforts to render himself acceptable to his lady, he’d become aware of her in a new way. She was kind, lovely, and desirable. She deserved his heart—a heart he had given someone else long ago.
Now, the guests had all departed, the brandy had worn off, and other kinds of spirits whispered in the shadows. Ghosts, perhaps, of the formidable dukes who had preceded him. They urged him to plant his seed, complete the deed.
Several hundred years ago, he wouldn’t have had a choice. Wedding guests would have been waiting below, or eveninsidethebedchamber, for proof of consummation. As a lad, he’d even sniggered over a woodcut of a priest leering over a couple in bed inThe Romance of Melusine.Then, of course, he’d been young and randy and made thoroughly stupid byanythingassociated with rutting.
Rutting.He frowned.
