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CHAPTERONE
It was a night like any other until the Duke of Hertfordshire’s world turned upside down.
At nine o’clock in the evening, Graham Barnet set off from his home in Mayfair to enjoy his usual residency at his gentleman’s club in the West End. The carriage ride was uneventful, if a tad foggy for midsummer. Graham watched the city streets with keen eyes as he took in his surroundings: huddled masses at the edges of London’s boulevards and alleyways, occupants of the liminal space between his home and the club.
Graham hated seeing people like this, the wretched masses of London, begging for a single coin to survive while he rode in luxury. He couldn’t resist the urge to stop and provide a pound or two to the city’s unfortunates, wishing he could do more to assist them in their hour of need.
He was in a sour mood when he arrived at the club, unable to cease the stream of never-ending thoughts of sickly people at the fringes of High Society. Indeed, he had a difficult time seeing them without picturing his mother among them; she had been in ill health as of late, and he never seemed to tire of worrying about her. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to return to the country and visit his home, preferring to stay in London, where he could carefully guard his independence.
Visiting his mother meant more questions about taking a wife, and those werenotquestions Graham was willing to answer.
So, he did what he had to in order to keep his mind occupied during the Season. He went to the club and avoided every social event he had an invitation to. At the club, the stubborn bachelors of thetonconversed and gambled, attempting to escape the inevitability of marriage to some Society girl. In the gambling hells of the West End, Graham and men like him could pretend they would forever be free to do as they pleased—free of responsibility, of family and, most of all, free of love.
By the stroke of midnight, Graham had played several hands of cardsand was feeling warm and tired, with a belly full of brandy. His head spun with just a hint of intoxication, the laughter of his friends and patrons brightening his otherwise gloomy mood.
“Barnet, are you listening?”
At the sound of the unusually informal address—for only his closest friends dared to break convention and refer to him by his first or last name—his eyes darted to his old friend, Jack Fairfield, sitting at the table across from him with a deck of cards. Graham nodded, though he hadn’t heard a word the man had said.
“Of course,” he said. “My apologies—I seem to be somewhat absent-minded tonight.”
“Must be something in the air,” Fairfield chuckled. “I was just discussing potentially taking a trip to the country with Everett here. Would you fancy joining us?”
“For what?”
“To hunt, of course,” Fairfield laughed. “Fox season is nearly at an end, my friend, or have you forgotten, trapped in London as you are?”
“I believe he’s merely trying toavoidhis dear mother and sister,” Everett laughed. “Unless I’m mistaken, Barnet?”
Graham barked out an answering laugh, raising his hands. “Guilty as charged. Every time I leave the city, I fear my mother will soon catch me unawares with a marriage proposal from some rural lady.”
“Can you even imagine?” Everett said, looking between the two of them. “His Grace, the Duke of Hertfordshire, trapped with a little country mouse so far from London. Whatever would he do without his gambling hell and little Mayfair estate?”
“Isn’t Hertfordshire just a day’s ride away…?”
Graham cut off Fairfield with a scowl. “Come off it, the both of you,” he said. “The irony of hearing that from two second sons who can remain bachelors as long as they’d like isbaffling. You know nothing of what it’s like to be the first son, with all your family’s expectations laid upon your shoulders.”
“Would taking a wife really be all that bad?” Fairfield said. “Wasn’t there someone in Hertfordshire all those years ago? I thought I remembered you talking about her when we were at Eton.”
Graham knew exactly who Fairfield was talking about, the beautiful, wild girl with whom he’d spent a summer flirting in what felt like a lifetime ago. Hertfordshire was close geographically, yet far from his heart now, too painful to return to after his father’s death. He wondered if that wild girl still carried a torch for him after he’d left her behind so long ago—and never written.
“Your poor mother,” Everett teased. “To have her son be forever a bachelor and no heir to carry on the dukedom.”
“I never said I would not have an heir, but if I do not, my late father’s brother will be more than willing to take on the burden of the title and the lands,” he said defensively. It was not as though he was leaving his family members in the poorhouse if he didn’t have an heir. “Besides, Mary will wed a lord and will be settled into whatever home he owns. Thus, I shall do as I please,” Graham muttered. “And besides—the issue isn’t marriage so much as it is my reticence to trust any young lady who courts me. Every Season it’s the same song and dance, anxious mothers sending their daughters in hopes of snatching a duke.”
“More excuses from a man who does not evenknowhow good he has it,” Fairfield chuckled. “Poor Graham Barnet, with every beautiful heiress seeking his fortune. Well, if you won’t join us for a hunt, then how about breakfast tomorrow? Maybe we can convince you to return to the country after all.”
Graham smiled. “Perhaps. For now, though, gentlemen, you must excuse me—my carriage is waiting.”
Graham rose and made his way down the stairs, through clouds of aromatic tobacco smoke and the drifting scent of fine liquor. His friends were still making quite the ruckus upstairs, serious betting and cards only now getting underway. Yet, Graham was tired in a manner that he hadn’t been in some time, as if the exhaustion was seeping into his very bones.
Perhaps there was, as Fairfield had suggested, something in the air.
By the time he finally made his way out of the club, there was no carriage to be found. While it struck him as odd, Graham never minded walking the streets at night; he was a tall and muscular man, and not even the most dangerous vagrants posed any real threat to him. So, rather than wait for his valet, he chose to stroll from the West End back to his home in Mayfair.
The fog had dissipated while he was inside the club, leaving the cool night air crisp and chill. The moon was now shining through the clouds, casting strange shadows across the streets. Graham was unafraid of saidshadows. Instead, he peered into them, considering why exactly it was that he did not wish to return home. It had been far too long since he’d visited his mother and sister, and his mother had only recently written to him that his sister, Mary, was being courted by a local lord. As the man of the family, it was Graham’s solemn duty to maintain her honor by vetting any possible suitors. Yet he couldn’t seem to force himself to return, haunted by memories of his father’s death. Besides, Mary was probably still wild as she’d ever been, riding her horse across the rolling green hills.
He hoped that at least Mary loved the man courting her, as silly as all that was. Contrary to his late father’s wishes, Graham had always been somewhat of a romantic—and it was for that very reason that he refused to play theton’smarriage games each year. A youth spent reading Lord Byron and John Keats meant Graham had an inclination toward a love match, and those were hard to come by for a duke.
