How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Read online

  “You wouldn’t be the first woman in the history of mankind to make that claim,” he said wryly, “but you just might be the first one to mean it.”

  “I do mean it.” She felt impelled to be as honest as possible about her point of view. “If you agree to my proposition, I don’t want you doing so under the mistaken assumption that I desire you. I don’t.”

  “I see. Dare I ask why not?” He took a sip of champagne. “Are you a lesbian?”

  When she only stared at him in bafflement, he chuckled. “I’m asking,” he said gently, “if you are attracted to women rather than men.”

  “God, no!” she burst out, shocked. Once again, she could feel heat flooding her face, and not for the first time, she cursed the fair complexion that enabled anyone to know when she was embarrassed. “Why would you ask me such a thing?”

  “My masculine pride demands it. Somehow, it’s a more palatable explanation than, ‘Sorry, old chap, I just don’t find you attractive.’ Sadly, now that I know you’re not that sort, I am all the more stung. And . . .” He paused, swirling champagne, watching her. “All the more intrigued.”

  She scowled. “Don’t be. I’m not the least bit intriguing.”­

  “I beg to differ.” He downed his last swallow of wine and reached for the bottle to refill his glass. “You are, I can safely say, the most fascinating girl I’ve ever met. You have this cool, touch-­me-­not air about you that rather makes a chap want to try.”

  A cold wave of fear swept over her, but with an effort, she hid it beneath an air of amused disdain. “And what do you hope will be the result? That I’ll fall into your arms?”

  “I take it you won’t? That’s a shame, then.” He paused in refilling his glass, and again his gaze flicked downward, then back up. “For I suspect there’s quite a fire under that cool, detached, practical exterior of yours.”

  “No, there isn’t!” She flung her head back, meeting his quizzical gaze with a hard one of her own. “If you ever feel tempted during our marriage to prove otherwise, I’ll cut off your income faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”

  “Prickly, aren’t you?” he murmured as he set aside the bottle. “What happened to make you so? Some fellow break your heart and leave you vowing never to love again?”

  “Something like that,” she muttered, and looked away, but she could feel his inquiring gaze on her, and she sighed, knowing it was best to tell him her version of the gossip about her before he learned it elsewhere. “His name is Frederick Van Hausen. I’ve known him all my life, but his family and mine do not move in the same circle. I was so stupid . . .” She paused and swallowed painfully, trying to work up a palatable version of the events. “I was foolish enough to think . . .” She paused again, even in a heavily edited version, this was almost unbearable to explain. “We were . . . together, and word of it got out,” she managed at last. “And now my reputation in New York is ruined.”

  “I see. And he didn’t marry you? What a cad.”

  “Yes,” she agreed with feeling. “The story is starting to spread here, too. I am damaged goods. It’s only fair you know that.”

  “So you looked me over, made a few inquiries, then followed me out here to suggest I step in, do what he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to do, and save your reputation? If I refuse, am I to expect an outraged mama to appear and demand I do the honorable thing?”

  “No. My mother died two years ago, and my offer stands on its own. If you refuse, you refuse, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Becoming a duchess would be quite a sweet way to score off this Van Hausen chap for letting you down, I imagine. Still, it’s deuced hard work being a duchess. It isn’t the glamorous job you Americans think it is.”

  “I’m not doing this for the glamor, or even to save my reputation. I want to control and manage my own life. I want independence and autonomy. I want to be accountable to no one.”

  “But as my wife, you would be accountable to me.”

  “No, I won’t, because I shall retain control of the money. You’ll have to sign a prenuptial agreement to that effect.”

  “You do have brains. So what makes independence and autonomy so important to you?”

  “That is none of your business, and if you ask me any more questions, the deal’s off.”

  “Very well. If I’m to save my family from sponging off friends for the rest of their pathetic lives, I suppose I shall have to set aside my curiosity.”

  “So you accept my offer?”

  “I’d be insane not to. And despite your heroic willingness to lie with me once for the sake of legalities, it won’t be necessary. I prefer the women I bed to be willing.”

  Her heartfelt sigh of relief did not escape his notice, and he gave her a wry look in response. “Your ability to wound my vanity is boundless, it seems. Despite that, honor demands I tell you that nonconsummation isn’t sufficient grounds for annulment under British law.”

  “You said it was!”

  “Not precisely.” He shrugged. “But I was curious to see how far you’d go to get what you want. Now I know.”

  Despite her relief, she couldn’t help a flash of resentment. “I don’t like being lied to.”

  “Best get used to it if you want to marry into the aristocracy. We lie to each other all the time. For the sake of honor, or to be polite, or even—­sometimes—­to deliberately deceive. But mostly, we lie to ourselves. I doubt,” he added with bitterness in his voice, “we know how to be any other way.”

  She’d been in England long enough to know there was a grain of truth in what he said, but she did wonder at the bitter edge to his voice. Still, it wasn’t her business. “I hope what you say is true,” she said instead. “Because we will have to put on a convincing display of fondness during our engagement. If my father suspects otherwise, he’ll never sign over the dowry.”

  “Then we shall have to convince your father of the depths of our mutual affection.”

  She ignored the hint of mockery in his voice. “It’s not only Daddy we’ll have to convince.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “Lady Featherstone.”

  He nodded in understanding. “The matchmaking countess.”

  “She is a matchmaker, yes, but she doesn’t arrange marriages of convenience. She expects her clients to have affection for each other. If she realizes that we’re making a material marriage, she’ll tell Daddy not to agree, and he’ll take her counsel. And don’t think deceiving her will be easy. She’s a tougher proposition than even my father, and he’s nobody’s fool. Also, she knows everyone in society, and if there’s any talk that our affection is not authentic, the fat will be in the fire.”

  “I can be very affectionate,” he said, but when he moved a step closer, she flattened a hand against his chest.

  “I believe you,” she assured. “No need to demonstrate it when we’re alone.”

  “Sorry,” he apologized, but he didn’t step back until she pushed. “Just practicing my part, you know.”

  “Well, don’t overdo it. If we seem too madly in love, Lady Featherstone is sure to see through it. Or, she’ll think we’re being rash and insist on a long engagement. You’ll have to play the part of devoted fiancé, responsible future husband, and affectionate friend. Can you do that?”

  “Why not?” He looked away, staring at the house in the distance. “Playing a part is nothing new to me. I’ve been playing one for most of my life.”

  She inhaled sharply, the impact of his words like a punch in the stomach. “I know just what you mean,” she whispered.

  He looked at her again. “We’ll have a long enough engagement to convince everyone we sincerely want to marry. Six weeks ought to be sufficient. After the wedding, we’ll spend a ­couple of months at Highclyffe, my ducal seat in Norfolk, so I can show you how to run things and help secure your position.”


  “And then you’ll leave for Africa and never return?”

  He didn’t answer at once. Instead, he gave her a thoughtful look. “Deserting you forever paints me rather a villain.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  “Funnily enough, it does,” he said dryly. “Still, it isn’t as if I have many options. Saving my estates from collapse and returning to the place I love shall have to be my consolations.”

  “So we have a deal?” She lifted her glass.

  He lifted his. “We do.”

  With the exchange of glances, the clink of glasses, and a final swallow of champagne, the agreement was made. As Edie lowered her glass, relief came over her in a flood, making her weak in the knees. She would never have to see Frederick’s insufferable, smirking face again. She couldn’t wipe out that awful day as if it had never happened, but perhaps she could at least put it behind her and build a new life.

  Margrave gave a soft cough, interrupting her thoughts. “Now that we are to be married,” he said, “there’s something I need to ask you.”

  She felt a pang of alarm. “Don’t think this arrangement will allow you to invade my privacy, asking intimate questions.”

  He gave her a look as if in apology. “This question is rather important. We simply can’t proceed unless you answer it.”

  “Oh, very well. What do you want to know?”

  He leaned closer, a faint smile tilting his mouth. “What the devil is your name?”

  Chapter 4

  THE CARRIAGE JERKED to a halt, and Edie came out of the past with equal abruptness, realizing she had arrived at Highclyffe. Margrave, she suspected, wouldn’t be far behind.

  I’ve come home.

  “Not for long,” she muttered.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?” Roberts, standing by the carriage, gave her a puzzled look as he opened the door.

  She waved a hand, shaking her head. “Never mind,” she said, and stepped down from the vehicle.

  The driver closed the door behind her and climbed back up on the box. Edie started for the house, but when she heard the carriage turning around in the drive instead of heading toward the stables, she turned as well, waving her arms to gain Roberts’s attention.

  He pulled the vehicle to a stop beside her. “Your Grace?”

  “Roberts, where on earth are you going?”

  “To fetch His Grace from the station.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” The words came out sharper than she’d intended, and Roberts looked at her in abashed bewilderment. “I’m sorry,” she said at once. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. But . . .” She paused, inventing quickly. “But His Grace has no doubt hired a carriage to bring him from the station, so it would be a waste of your time to go back. Best to take the landau on down to the stables.”

  The driver eyed her dubiously for a moment. “If you’re sure, Your Grace?” When she nodded, he shrugged in acquiescence and once again turned the carriage around.

  “Be good to have a master at Highclyffe, won’t it, Your Grace?” he called as he drove the carriage past her.

  “This house has no master,” she murmured as she watched the vehicle roll down the drive toward the stables. “Only a mistress.”

  Margrave might be home again, but Edie vowed he wouldn’t be staying long. They’d made a deal, and she was living up to her part. She intended to make sure he lived up to his.

  WELL THAT IS why you came home, isn’t it?

  The question of Edie’s pert little sister hung in the air, still unanswered, even after a porter had secured him a hired carriage, and he and Joanna were on their way to Highclyffe. Not that his sister-­in-­law let the subject drop. No, they’d barely gotten under way before she broached it again.

  “How are you going to set about this?” she asked, as the carriage started toward the road toward home. “Winning Edie back, I mean?”

  He honestly didn’t know. How did one win back what one never had in the first place? Five years ago, winning Edie hadn’t been part of the plan. Oh, he’d had fleeting thoughts of what might have been, nights where he’d gazed up at the star-­filled Kenyan sky and relived that moment in the ballroom at Hanford House when the sight of her had stopped him dead in his tracks. But then her words from that night would come back to him, and he’d force himself to put aside such pointless tortures. A man in the bush could go mad thinking that way about a woman.

  Everything was different now, of course, but only for him. For Edie, it was clear nothing had changed. One look at his wife’s face in the train station had told him that. In fact, as things stood now, he probably had a better chance of making the quarterfinals at Wimbledon than he did winning Edie’s heart. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure she had a heart to win.

  Still, one couldn’t tell that to Edie’s young sister, who appeared to have a rather romantic view of things. “You seem quite certain that’s why I’m here,” he said instead.

  “Isn’t it?” A hint of disappointment came into her face. “But what other reason could there be?”

  He looked away, staring out over acres of land that had been in Margrave hands for nearly two centuries. By marrying Edie, he’d kept everything intact for the next generation, but at the time he hadn’t thought much about the fact that the next generation wouldn’t be his. And that was important now in a way it hadn’t been before. Children meant part of a man lived on, even after his own death.

  There was nothing like being on the verge of death, he thought, to make a man yearn for immortality.

  He returned his attention to the girl. “Oh, I intend to win her over, trust me. I only meant that it’s more complicated than you might think.”

  She nodded as if she understood. “Well, you have been gone a long time. You’ll have your work cut out for you, that’s certain. So . . .” She paused to settle back in her seat. “What’s your strategy?”

  He couldn’t help a laugh at the blunt question. “You know,” he said, regarding her thoughtfully, “you remind me a great deal of your sister.”

  “Edie?” Joanna seemed dubious about that. “Most ­people don’t think we’re in the least alike.”

  “Perhaps not in looks, no,” he murmured, noting without emotion the perfection of the oval face beneath the schoolgirl straw boater. Joanna Jewell might only be fifteen, but she was already a beauty, and he suspected that when the time came for her debut, there would be quite a few brokenhearted young chaps in London as a result. Still, though Edie might not possess her sister’s flawless features and freckle-­free complexion, she had an attraction all her own, one he suspected she herself had never been able to see. “I wasn’t referring to appearances, but cheek.”

  “You mean sass?” Joanna heaved a sigh. “You’re right, and it’s just not fair. I say sassy things, and I get into trouble, but Edie says whatever she likes, and because she’s a duchess, no one ever thinks she’s sassy.”

  “I did, when I first met her. Of course, she wasn’t my duchess then. But I thought her very cheeky.”

  “You did?” Joanna leaned forward, eager to hear. “Why? What did she say to you?”

  He thought back to that night in the maze at Hanford House for a moment before he answered, not sure what within that extraordinary conversation might be appropriate for the ears of a young girl. “She didn’t find me the least bit attractive.” He laughed a little at the memory. “And she made no bones about telling me so.”

  “But she married you. How did you change her mind? Whatever you did then, maybe you could do it again.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then what is your plan?” She sounded quite nettled with him for not having it all planned out.

  “Assuming I have a plan, as you put it, what makes you think I’ll share it with you?”

  She shook her head, staring at him as if he had cotton wool for brains
. “Because I can tell you whether or not it will work, of course! She’s not going to just fall into your arms, you know.”

  That, he acknowledged with a grimace, was brutally true. Edie had never fallen into his arms. Not even once.

  The image of her moonlit face, as luminous and smooth as alabaster, flashed across his mind, as vivid now as it had been that fateful night at Hanford House—­so vivid, in fact, that despite his many efforts over the years not to think of her, he’d failed more often than he’d succeeded. It had been her image that had so persistently invaded his dreams during his delirium-­filled fever, not the dangerous events that had almost killed him. Even now, he could hear her voice clearly, so resolute and uncompromising.

  That you never, ever come back.

  Well, as he’d told her then, never was a long time. Circumstances changed, and plans went awry. His certainly had.

  He turned on the carriage seat, grimacing as he shifted his weight onto one hip and stretched out his leg. The sea voyage from Mombasa to Constantinople hadn’t been too bad, even without Jones. He felt another grimace of pain that had nothing to do with his leg, and he put his valet out of his mind. Jones was gone, and there was nothing he could do about that. He focused on the pain in his leg instead. That was easier to bear.

  On the ship, he’d been able to move about freely, but trains and carriages were a different matter. The muscles of his thigh had knotted up before he’d even reached Rome, and by now they were so constricted that he felt his right leg must surely be at least an inch shorter than his left.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  Stuart glanced at the girl seated opposite him. “Do you always ask impertinent questions?”

  That made her grin. “All the time. It drives Mrs. Simmons mad.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But to answer your question, I was mauled by a lioness.”

  Her brown eyes went wide. “Really? How exciting.”

  Stuart settled back in the corner of his seat, giving her a wry look. He unknotted his tie and removed his collar stud, something he’d been longing to do ever since he’d put them on. Nothing like a stiff, tight collar to remind a man of all that was wrong with civilization.