Page 1 of Her Passionate Duke

Chapter One

Edith Quinton, Lady Chelmstone, and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Lady Linnet Quinton, residents of Grosvenor Square, were getting ready for a private dinner at Grantsham Hall when a scream rent the afternoon’s stillness. A second later Lady Chelmstone came hobbling into Linnet’s bedroom wearing a lavender grey silk dress and only one stocking, her maid trailing after her with the other stocking in her hands.

“What’s going on? What is that terrible noise about?” she demanded. “What’s the matter?”

Linnet, with her waist-length auburn hair still loose and her hazel eyes wide, motioned to the top drawer of her dresser, which stood half open, revealing a dishevelled bundle of chemises and night rails.

“There was a— a creature!” she exclaimed, her normally pale face flushed crimson. “A mouse, I think.”

Linnet’s maid, Emily, stood to one side, wringing her hands, and casting her eyes about the room as if expecting the mouse to reappear at any instant.

It had definitely been a mouse; but Linnet didn’t like to admit this. Somehow leaving the identity of the creature ambiguous allowed her to put some distance between herself and it. Besides, she didn’t like admitting, unequivocally, to her mother that there had been a mouse in her bedroom. Linnet knew that Lady Chelmstone would find a way to blame her for it; and as much as she feared mice, she feared her mother’s response even more.

Glowering, Lady Chelmstone came over and stared into the drawer as if hoping to kill the creature with a look alone. But it had already gone, vanished into one of the dresser’s innumerable crannies, or hidden away in some hole in the wainscoting.

“We’ll have to call Lord Theodore to get rid of it,” she muttered.

Linnet blanched, but said nothing. Lord Theodore Pottinger was the third son of an Earl, with a fascination for collecting obscure ‘practical knowledge’, and an interest in studying the workings of the law, among other things, who had decided that he was going to marry Linnet. Her mother took advantage of his obsession, and treated him almost as a general handyman, calling him in to assist with any small thing that needed doing, and had recently begun hinting that Linnet ought to consider marrying him, if only to ensure some financial security for herself and the family. Linnet hated the idea of Lord Theodore in her bedroom, pawing through her night rails and chemises as if he owned them.

One of the peculiarities of Linnet’s mother was that she could always tell what Linnet was thinking even if Linnet hadn’t given any indication of it – and she once again proved that to be true when she spoke again.

“Think what you want about him, but that man has been the soul of kindness to us ever since your father’s passing.”

“I won’t deny it,” said Linnet. “You will never hear me deny it!”

“You had better not,” returned Lady Chelmstone with a warning look. “Imagine what I have suffered, as a woman on her own, trying to raise a young lady to the standard required by society. That first year was probably the hardest year of my life, and every night I would cry myself to sleep after you went to bed.” She shut the door with a loud snap. “But Lord Theodore understood the legal system better than any solicitor and helped us to acquire the inheritance which we were due.”

“I’m not saying that he hasn’t been good to us…” said Linnet, but Lady Chelmstone didn’t seem to hear her.

“And God only knows what might have happened without him, when you were burned by that oil lamp. I hope to never hear you say a cross word about him, not as long as I have breath in my body.”

“I never will,” said Linnet. Whenever she was tempted to speak ill of Lord Theodore, she fled to the comfort of her diary or her best friend Lady Caroline Woolard. Lord Theodore, who was notoriously bad at reading other people, and especially women, had convinced himself that Linnet was in love with him. Linnet was too polite to correct him – so far – but that politeness was becoming ever harder to maintain.

By now the sun was setting over Mayfair, illuminating the bedroom with its own reddish tinge. “We had best hurry,” said Lady Chelmstone, “or we’re going to be late. I want you to be ready within the next quarter-hour. Emily – make certain that she is perfectly presented! And — I don’t want you whispering a word about the mouse tonight. I don’t want anyone thinking that we have a rodent infestation. Within a day or two it will be gone, don’t you worry.”

Lady Chelmstone turned and left the room, her maid trailing after her, stocking still in hand, but not before extracting a promise from Linnet that she would keep quiet on the subject. The moment she was gone, Linnet sank back against the dresser with a loud sigh, as Emily went to get her gown. Sometimes it was a relief just to be alone for a few minutes.

If Ladies were allowed to consider such a thing, she would have chosen to live alone, with just a few servants – but such a thing was unthinkable for a young unmarried lady of the ton. She was doomed to live here with her mother until she got married or died.

***

Jeremy Starret, the Duke of Grantsham, leant back in his seat, and took another swallow of his wine. The room around him, redolent with aromatic cigar smoke and the underlying scent of spilt whisky, was also filled with an odd ambience, made up of a combination of elation and desperation.

Gentlemen gathered around the card tables or sat at the bar, or in the armchairs close by, either gaming, or watching, as vast sums changed hands on the turn of a card. Jeremy would, if he could, see such sums turned to a worthy cause. But he could not.

He would rather be anywhere else – anywhere – but he needed to be here, to be seen as the rakehell everyone thought him. To be seen as a little foolish, prone to excess, and unaware of the more subtle interactions which went on in such places, under the cover of hedonistic indulgence.

There was no other way to observe those interactions – and he needed to observe them. His mother’s dinner would have to start without him.

Chapter Two

Grantsham Hall stood at the back of a large garden, which was filled with elegantly trimmed lawns, marble fountains and topiary hedges shaped like various mythical creatures. A footman in red livery let down the steps of their carriage and led them into the house, into a parlour stocked with antique rosewood furniture, where sat Katherine Starret, the Duchess of Grantsham, and a dozen of her friends and relations.

The Duchess welcomed Linnet and her mother, and they settled onto seats. Linnet dropped onto a couch next to Lady Caroline, and watched curiously as the Duchess removed a large gold watch on a chain from her reticule and stared gloomily at it for a moment, before tucking it away again.

“Everyone knows that we are waiting for the Duke to get here, although they are too polite to comment.” whispered Lady Caroline. “He was supposed to have been here half an hour ago, I suspect. But now that the initial wave of polite conversation has run its course, I don’t think that his mother will wait much longer – I think that she’s embarrassed, and will wish to begin dinner as if she had never considered waiting for him.”

“Perhaps he was in an accident,” said Linnet. Jeremy Starret was the oldest of the Duchess of Grantsham’s three remaining sons and had, some ten years prior, become Duke, upon his father’s passing. His next brother, Albert, had become a clergyman, she believed, rather than choosing the army, and she was not entirely sure what the next son, George, did with himself. The fourth son was deceased, although Linnet had heard nothing of how that had come to be. Linnet had never met the Duke, who had a reputation for spending money frivolously and behaving scandalously with women — including a recent incident where he had thrown a drunken Baroness into the Thames, if the newspapers were to be believed. “In any case, I hope that he gets here soon, or that the Duchess declares that we should go in to dinner, because I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”