How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Read online

  But what was he doing here? She glanced past him to the black leather trunks stacked on the platform, to the suitcases and portmanteaus around his feet, and the implications of all that luggage hit her with sudden force. When she looked at him again and saw his mouth tighten, that tiny movement confirmed the awful suspicion forming in her mind more effectively than any words.

  Home is the hunter, she thought wildly, and her dismay deepened into dread as she realized that her perfect, husbandless life might be crumbling into dust.

  Chapter 2

  ONLY THE MOST self-­deluded fool would have thought she’d be glad to see him, and Stuart had never been a fool. Nonetheless, even he wasn’t quite prepared for the look of horror on Edie’s face.

  He should have written first, giving her at least a hint of what was in the wind. He’d tried, but somehow, informing her of the situation in a letter had proved to be an impossible task. Each draft he’d attempted was more stilted and awkward than the one before, until he’d given up and just booked his passage home, with the rationale that something this important, this life-­altering, ought to be communicated in person. Yet now, seeing her face, he wished he’d found a way to put it all in writing, for this moment was proving more awkward than any letter would have been.

  It didn’t help matters that of all the versions of their reunion he’d envisioned during the long journey from Mombasa, encountering her here on Clyffeton’s train platform only a few minutes after stepping off the train had never been one of them.

  His leg hurt like hell after the cramped train ride, reminding him—­as if he needed reminding—­that he wasn’t quite the dashing young fellow he’d been five years ago. Standing before her now, he felt off-­balance, askew, terribly vulnerable.

  She hadn’t recognized him, he knew, and if he hadn’t spoken, she’d have walked right by. Had he changed so much? he wondered, or did her lack of recognition just prove how little they really knew each other?

  She’d changed, too, but despite that, he would have recognized her anywhere. Her face had the same arresting quality that had first captivated his attention in a ballroom five years ago and had so insistently invaded his fevered dreams that fateful night in Kenya when he’d almost died. It was a softer face now than the one he remembered, not so sharp and fierce as it used to be, the face of a strong woman rather than a desperate girl.

  He forced himself to speak. “It’s been a long time.”

  She didn’t reply. She simply stared at him, speechless, her light green eyes still wide with shock.

  “I’ve—­” He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. “I’ve come home.”

  Her head moved, an almost imperceptible movement of denial. Then, without any warning, she bolted like a startled gazelle, lowering her head and racing past him without a word.

  He turned, watching as she vanished through the door into the station building. He didn’t try to follow her. Even if he wanted to, there was no way he could catch her if she chose to keep running. Stuart’s hand moved to his thigh, and even through the layers of his clothing, he could trace the dent along the side of his leg where muscle and tissue had been ripped apart by a very angry lioness. How he’d survived he still didn’t know, but his days of running anywhere were over. Even walking hurt, even after six months.

  “So you’re Margrave.”

  Stuart turned and found Edie’s sister standing on the platform a few feet away, enveloped in a cloud of steam as the train behind her rumbled out of the station with what he could only assume was a very irate governess still on board.

  He lifted a brow. “Aren’t you supposed to be on that train?”

  She glanced at it, then back at him, and on her lips was a triumphant little smile. “Oops.”

  Stuart did not smile back. He admired boldness and audacity, but he didn’t think he ought to be encouraging those traits in Edie’s little sister. Especially since he sensed she was already quite a handful without any encouragement. “And poor Mrs. Simmons?”

  Her smile widened into an unrepentant grin. “Bound for Kent without me, it seems.”

  “And your luggage with her.”

  She made a face. “A trunk full of hideous school uniforms. I shan’t mourn the loss. Besides,” she added cheerfully, “if I’m here, I can help you.”

  “Help me?” He frowned, puzzled by the offer, for he couldn’t imagine what assistance a fifteen-­year-­old schoolgirl thought she could provide him. “Help me to do what?”

  “Win Edie back.” She laughed in the face of his surprise. “Well, that is why you came home, isn’t it?”

  IT COULDN’T BE him. It simply couldn’t.

  Her heart pounding like the piston of a steam engine, Edie ran through the station and out the front doors, her only thought to get as far away from Stuart as possible. She paused on the steps to locate her carriage, and when she saw the open vehicle, she muttered a frustrated oath to see it standing empty by the corner. Roberts had, of course, followed them inside with the luggage, and she’d have to wait for him unless she wanted to drive the vehicle herself.

  That would certainly cause the tongues of Clyffeton to start wagging, especially in light of the duke’s return and the way she’d bolted from the station like a rabbit. Still, better that than to wait and have Stuart accompanying them back to Highclyffe. She needed time to pull her wits together, time to assimilate the impossible. Her husband was home.

  “Your Grace?”

  Roberts’s voice behind her was like the answer to a prayer. She turned. “Take me home at once, please.”

  A frown of bewilderment crossed the driver’s face. He hesitated, glanced back over his shoulder, and returned his gaze to hers. “Oughtn’t we to wait for—­”

  “No.” Waiting for Margrave was the last thing she wanted. Edie started toward the landau without another word, and after a moment, Roberts followed her. When they reached the vehicle, he rolled out the steps, she got in, and moments later, they were off. As he turned the landau around to take her back to Highclyffe, she glanced at the station, and when she saw no sign of her husband attempting to follow, she sank back against the seat with a sigh of relief.

  Idiotic to dash out the way she had, but . . . bloody hell. She hadn’t known what else to do. Stuart was home. That wasn’t supposed to happen—­ever. They’d agreed on that in the bargain they’d made five years ago, so what was he doing here?

  The image of him on the train platform flashed through her mind, of him surrounded by trunks and crates, and she felt another jolt of the same panic that had sent her running out of the train station.

  Edie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to think, reminding herself that she didn’t know for certain what had brought him home. He might have just returned for a holiday, to see old friends and family.

  No, not family, she amended at once. His immediate family was all out of the country, and besides, family ties meant little to Stuart. Friends, yes . . . he might have come home to see friends. The vast amount of luggage might be gifts—­ivory or skins or whatever it was he hunted on the African savannahs. She knew about his expeditions, of course, but beyond that, she wasn’t quite clear how he occupied his time in Kenya, for they didn’t correspond and never had. That had been part of the bargain, too.

  Edie turned her head, staring out over sprawling green fields and hedgerows, but in her mind’s eye, a different scene opened up before her—­a dazzling London ballroom half a decade ago, and girls moving across the dance floor like color-­washed rose petals floating on a breeze.

  The years fell away.

  Nineteen and nearing the end of her first season in London, Edie watched the girls on the ballroom floor with admiration and a hint of envy. She’d loved waltzing as a young girl, but even then, she’d never been much good at it. Impossible to be a floating rose petal when you were taller than your partner, and having s
hot up to a height of six feet by the age of fourteen, Edie always seemed to be taller than her partner. She also had the tendency to lead rather than be led, which generally resulted in smashed toes, embarrassing collisions, and frustrated partners. And even if she had managed to master the waltz, it would have done her little good, for ever since Saratoga, she could hardly bear to be touched. Not that any of that mattered much anyway, for no man ever asked her to dance. By now, every male from London to New York knew she was a giraffe, and at every ball, she spent most of her time lined up along one side of the room with all the other wallflowers.

  Daddy had brought her to London in the hope things would be different for her here. Rich American girls not accepted by the New York Knickerbocker set could often find—­or buy—­a place in London society. He had even hired Lady Featherstone, England’s most successful matchmaker, to assist in the effort to gain social acceptance for Edie. But much to Arthur Jewell’s dismay, even an enormous dowry and the matchmaking Lady Featherstone hadn’t been enough to sway any peer, however impecunious or desperate he might be, to marry his ruined eldest daughter. Of course, Edie knew her mop of curly, carrot-­and-­ginger hair, the splatter of freckles across her face, her towering height, and unprepossessing bosom hadn’t done much to help her chances either. And though the outspokenness and independent spirit of American girls were characteristics that Englishmen seemed to find charming, in Edie’s case, both traits had fallen rather flat. All in all, she was almost as great a social failure in London as she’d been in New York, even before whispers of her sullied reputation had started seeping over from the other side of the Atlantic.

  Now, time was running out. In three days, it would be August 12, a date that marked the official end of the season and Edie’s return to New York. Though Lady Featherstone had suggested they remain a bit longer, Daddy’s business matters back home required his return, and given Edie’s lack of social success so far, he couldn’t see the point of prolonging their stay.

  For Edie, going home meant disaster. It meant going back to the stifling atmosphere of Madison Avenue and the awful shunning at Newport, a return to the smothering shame and the horrid whispers behind her back. But far worse, going home meant seeing again the man who had caused it all.

  Frederick Van Hausen was part of the Knickerbocker set, unquestioningly accepted by MacAllister’s Patriarchs and happily invited by Mrs. Astor to her annual ball. Edie’s family had never been part of the social circle in which the Van Hausens moved, but she would still see him. He lived only a few blocks from her home on Madison Avenue. His family’s house in Newport was less than a mile from hers. Both fathers were members of the New York Yacht Club, and both owned racehorses that ran at Saratoga. Just the thought of seeing him ever again was enough to make her physically ill. To face him, even from a passing carriage or across a bookshop, to ever see again the contemptuous satisfaction in his eyes and the triumphant little smirk on his face would be unbearable. To look into his eyes and know that he was remembering what he’d done to her, that he was reliving the pleasure he’d gained by giving her pain, would be the pit of hell.

  Marriage to an Englishman, she knew, was the only way to avoid what awaited her in New York. In addition, marriage would gain her a measure of control over her own life, and after Saratoga, control was something she desperately wanted. And yet, the idea of marriage was as unbearable as that of going back home, for marriage gave her husband the legal right to her body whenever he wanted it.

  Edie’s white-­gloved hands curled into fists. The lilting music of a Strauss waltz and the hum of ballroom conversation faded as she once again strove to find a way out. But she feared there was no way out of hell.

  “Ooh, look!” Beside her, Leonie Atherton’s voice was an excited squeak that penetrated Edie’s brooding thoughts. “The Duke of Margrave’s just arrived.”

  Glad of the distraction, Edie drew a deep breath and followed her friend’s gaze to the ballroom entrance nearby. When she spied the man standing there, she felt a flicker of surprise to discover there was at least one man in society taller than she was—­a good two or three inches taller, by the look of him.

  With thoughts of Frederick still at the forefront of her mind, she studied the man by the door, struck by the fact that he was as different from Frederick as chalk was from cheese. This man was no fair-­haired Apollo with the face of a choirboy, the clothes of a dandy, and the air of the privileged. No, this man had a lean, tanned face and a devil-­may-­care demeanor, and he wore his impeccably cut clothes with a careless sort of elegance. His white tie was undone, his dark hair was unruly, and though he might be a duke, Edie wondered if he even gave a damn. Having been surrounded by ambitious social climbers all her life, Edie was rather amused by the notion of a man who didn’t care how well-­born he was.

  “He’s supposed to be one of the most charming men in London,” Leonie said beside her. “And handsome, too. Even you, Edie, as fastidious as you are, must admit he’s handsome.”

  She might be chary of men, thanks to Frederick, but that fact hadn’t affected her eyesight. “I suppose he is,” she conceded, “if you like that dark, reckless sort of good looks.”

  “And who doesn’t?” Leonie laughed. “But you’ve got him pegged, that’s for sure. He lived in Africa for two years,” she went on with the knowing air of one who read the scandal rags every day. “He hunted things—­elephants, lions, leopards, all that. Saved the life of some chieftain, I believe. Or maybe it was a British diplomat? Anyway, he’s trekked through the jungles, navigated rivers, had all sorts of adventures. He’s quite wild, so they say.”

  “He looks it.”

  “Doesn’t he, though? It’s said that half the girls in London were in love with him, and he left a trail of broken hearts behind him when he went away. He had to come back when his father died, but he desperately wants to return to Africa. He wants to live there forever. Can you imagine? But I doubt he’ll be able to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s the duke now, and I don’t think a duke could live in Africa, do you? They have to manage their estates, and . . . and things.” She paused, her knowledge of a duke’s actual duties having apparently run out. “Not that being the duke does him much good, for he’s in a difficult position. He’s got heaps of debt. Everything’s mortgaged to the hilt and the papers announced last week that his creditors have called his loans. They’ll probably take everything that’s not entailed.”

  “I see. Not only handsome, but a wrong ’un.”

  “Not him! It was his grandfather who gambled away most of the money, and whatever his grandfather didn’t lose at the card table, his father sank into some very bad investments. Oh, if only he’d ask me to dance! He’s said to dance divinely. But, of course, he can’t do that, for we’ve never even been introduced. But it would be heavenly if he’d look in my direction and be so captivated that he’d march over to Lady Featherstone and request an introduction! She could tell him how rich I am,” she added, laughing, “and he might marry me, and I could solve all his problems!”

  Edie froze at her friend’s laughing words, staring at the tall man with the carelessly handsome face who stood a dozen feet away. Leonie might be joking, but for herself, did it have to be a joke? Mightn’t it be just what she’d been hoping for?

  For the first time since Saratoga, she felt a stirring of hope. Could this man be her salvation? she wondered. Could this Duke of Margrave be her way out of hell?

  As if he sensed her scrutiny, he glanced her way, and when their eyes met, she sucked in a sharp breath. He had beautiful eyes—­piercing, pale gray eyes that seemed to look straight into her soul. She wondered if perhaps she was also looking into his.

  She was staring, she knew, and yet, she couldn’t look away. My escape from hell, she thought, and the air between them seemed to stir, rippling over her skin like a cool breeze. She shivered and turned her head, forcing her gaze t
o the dance floor, but after a moment, she couldn’t resist another glance at him. To her astonishment, he was still watching her.

  He was smiling a little, head to one side, a quizzical little frown between his dark brows. She wondered what he could be thinking.

  A way out of hell.

  She was mad, she must be, she thought. Mad with desperation and panic. She looked away again and tried to set aside the idea that was running through her mind. Handsome the Duke of Margrave might be, but the angled planes of his cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw, and the hawklike shrewdness of those beautiful eyes spoke plainly of a man who would not be easy to manage. Still, if he was leaving for Africa, that might not matter.

  When he walked by where she stood, he didn’t look her way, but she studied him from beneath her lashes as he passed, noting the easy, athletic grace with which he moved, grace that didn’t come from navigating English ballrooms. When he melded into the crowd, she murmured something to her friend about needing a glass of water and followed him.

  Making her way toward the refreshment table, she watched him as he paused to converse with a group of acquaintances, and she almost groaned in dismay as he led the beautiful and rich Susan Buckingham of Philadelphia out onto the dance floor. Though Edie had five times Susan’s money, she couldn’t hold a candle to her fellow American heiress in looks, and she feared the wild, crazy idea in her head might be doomed to failure before she could even try to implement it.

  But she needn’t have worried about Susan. Though they waltzed beautifully together, though she said things that made him smile and laugh, when the dance was over, the duke did not linger with her. Instead, he returned her to her place, bowed, and moved on, and Edie’s hope flared up once more.

  She knew she needed to get him alone, but she didn’t see how she could manage it. And then, Providence, which had not been favoring Edie much of late, came to her aid. The duke paused at the other end of the refreshment table, lingering over the unopened bottles of champagne that were chilling on ice in an enormous silver bucket. She moved closer, watching as he pulled out, rejected, and returned several bottles. He finally selected one, but he didn’t call for a footman to open it. Instead, bottle in one hand, he took up a glass from the table with the other and turned away, stepping out through the nearby opened French doors that led to the terrace.