Page 16 of To Dare a Duke

Prue watched, fascinated as Minerva fluttered and smiled and toyed with her hair. She really was a beautiful girl; it was hard to believe any man could resist her. Yet as Prue turned her attention back to the duke, it was plain to her that he was unmoved by her lovely cousin. In fact, beneath the polite smile he wore, she was almost certain he was bored. Bored and irritated. How peculiar.

She smiled a little, realising she had upgraded him from unusual to peculiar, just as she had suggested he do with her.

“Oh, another waltz,” Minerva exclaimed, one slender hand settling over her heart. “I do so love to waltz.” As she said the words, she turned her bright blue eyes upon the duke. “Don’t you, your grace?” This was pronounced in a breathless tone, almost a whisper, quiet and intimate.

If asked in that moment, Prue would have laid money on the next word out of the duke’s mouth being a resounding no. She hadn’t counted on her Aunt Phyllis.

“Oh, do indulge a young lady, your grace,” her aunt said, giggling like a schoolgirl.

Prue stared at her in horror. She had practically asked the duke to dance with Minerva, and in such a way it would be impossible for a gentleman to refuse. She wanted to curl up and die from the impropriety of her aunt’s manoeuvring. What must the man think of them? No doubt she’d now been upgraded to that significantly worse title—climber.

She held her breath, wondering what he would do. With chagrin she found herself torn between praying he would dance with Minerva, because she’d be crushed if he didn’t, and hoping he’d say no, as he’d been about to. Prue didn’t like to consider why it was she hoped he’d refuse, but… it was likely only to protect Minerva, who did not understand what she’d be getting herself into.

He didn’t do either. Silently, he held out his hand to Minerva, who flushed with pleasure and triumph and allowed him to lead her onto the floor.

***

15th April. Upper Wimpole Street. London.

“And he said I was a superb dancer,” Minerva said, sighing over her teacup.

Prue repressed a remark which would have done nothing but ruffle Minerva’s feathers and cause an almighty row. It was harder to do that than she liked to admit. Three days later, however, and Minerva and Aunt Phyllis were still discussing every minute detail of the dance with her duke.

Prue wouldn’t put it past her to have already begun a guest list for the engagement party. In her mind—and, to be fair, Aunt Phyllis did not seem to contradict her—the duke was as good as won.

In her less charitable moments, now being one of them, Prue might have pointed out she had watched their dance with interest, and the duke hadn’t once opened his mouth to speak with Minerva. Yet, in Minerva’s version of events, the man had talked nineteen to the dozen.

To escape the incessant chatter, Prue retreated behind a newspaper, a treat bestowed on her by Baron Fitzwilliam. Once he’d read the paper himself, he had it sent around to her. It was an indulgence she thoroughly enjoyed. For a moment she considered starting a conversation about the abdication of Napoleon. Surely a moment of such historical import could stop the flow of conversation about the blasted Duke of Bedwin. For several minutes she tried to find a break in the conversation.

“Did you see The Sorrows of Boney?” She reached for the paper and turned it to show them the cartoon by John Wallis, showing the emperor Napoleon perched on a rock in the middle of the ocean with crows and bats flying around his head whilst he wept copious tears. “The alternate title is Meditations on the Island of Elba,” Prue added with a grin. “Doesn’t he look pathetic?”

She tilted the cartoon to admire it but, by the time she looked back at Aunt Phyllis, the conversation had returned to the duke.

Prue sighed and returned her attention to The Lady’s Weekly Review. She had already checked the next instalment of her story had been published correctly and with no errors. This one should please the girls, she thought with a smile.

As she turned the page, an article among the on-dits—which were nothing less than salacious gossip—took her attention.

We noted the return of a certain notorious figure at the lavish ball given by the Earl and Countess of March. Two waltzes danced, though his dance partners had little in common they do share a family connection. A little bird tells us that this enigmatic figure hunts a wife…. Surely not from this quarter?

Prue scowled at the print. The allusion to their own less than ideal circumstances didn’t bother her—it was nothing she didn’t know—though Minerva would be furious if she saw it. Using the phrase hunts a wife, however, was deliberate and cruel. She had learned only a few days ago from Alice that the duke’s wife had actually died in a hunting accident. There had been so many versions of her demise that it had been impossible to tell fact from fiction. This more than anything had told Prue it was all a fabrication.

Alice’s father however, had gotten the truth from the Earl of St Clair’s younger brother. The Earl had been there. There had been other witnesses that day. Witnesses who had sworn Bedwin was not to blame, but the two men—the Earl of St Clair and Viscount Cavendish—had been his closest friends. It appeared that even this was not enough to absolve him.

Of course they’d say that, whispered the ton.

For the first time since she had begun her story about the Duke of Bedsin, Prue experienced a pang of guilt. She could hardly complain about the author of this piece when her own work had destroyed his character so much more comprehensively. What she had written was far more devastating than that spiteful comment, though she hadn’t known of the exact circumstances of his wife’s death when she’d done it.

For a moment she closed her eyes, reliving those words he’d breathed in her ear, his voice low and sinful.

It is not about brute force of a larger body over a weaker one, but seduction.

Despite herself, she shivered. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The duke, she decided, was a far more complicated man than the one she had presented so far. She should have realised he would be. A successful rake would have to have more about him than a pretty face and a glib tongue. The duke certainly possessed both, but he could laugh and be amused, and amusing too. Clever and interesting. Intriguing, in fact. He could also be surprised. A little smile curved over her mouth as she realised she knew a deal more about the man than she had, and her character deserved fleshing out accordingly.

A warning bell sounded in her mind as she appreciated that the man had piqued her interest. He’s dangerous, she reminded herself. A man like that could make a woman sigh and believe he loved her alone, and then gamble her fortune away, spending it on light-skirts and opera singers, and giving his beloved a slap if she dared to challenge him for it.

Prue knew that. She knew men like that. Her father had been just such a man. The duke had a dark side that was well documented, and she’d do well to remember it.

Still, their conversation turned in her mind, beguiling her into wanting to know more about him.