The Temptation of the Duke (Regency Romance) Read online

  The Temptation of the Duke

  Smashwords Edition

  Jerrica Knight Catania

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, locations and events are either a product of the

  author’s imagination, fictitious or used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to any event, locale or person,

  living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The Temptation of the Duke

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2014 by Jerrica Knight-Catania

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or part in any format.

  Cover by LFD Designs for Authors

  For Ava and Jane –

  Because I have no idea what I’d do without the two of you!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  One

  London, 1822

  The act of eavesdropping was an art, and no one knew this better than Miss Grace Clarke—she’d been at it for quite some time, after all. Not only was it an art, it was a necessity, especially for a country bumpkin. At least, that’s how she was sure Society viewed her, though she knew, deep down, she was much more than that. She’d grown up in a small cottage in the country, shared with her three brothers and two sisters. Her father was formerly a farmer, but now he worked as head groom at her brother-in-law’s country estate. Still, it didn’t gain her a great deal more status than she’d had before. Not, at least, when one considered that Grace aspired to marry a duke.

  She knew it was a lofty goal, but if one only aspired to marry as high as a solicitor, one could possibly end up in the arms of a lowly banker. At least if she aimed as high as a duke, she might settle at a baron or viscount even.

  Other than her fair looks, Grace had her familial connections to recommend her, and those connections were nothing at which to sneeze. Her sister had married into the Wetherby family, after all, which meant their social circle included all manner of titled aristocrats. But so far, those connections hadn’t landed her a single marriage proposal. Granted, she was only in her second Season, and she was still young—barely nineteen—so there was time. She wouldn’t be on the shelf for at least another year or two. Although, that gave jealousy and frustration plenty of time to sink their claws in and make Grace bitter and pessimistic toward the whole idea of love and marriage.

  She shook her head in order to free herself of those thoughts. It wasn’t yet time to give into pessimism. She would find a husband, and with any luck, she’d find him this very Season. And when she did find him, he’d be mightily impressed with her vast knowledge of things she ought not have knowledge about. That thought made her smile with just a bit of wicked pride.

  Grace peeked around the corner at the end of the hallway just as the door to the drawing room clicked shut at the bottom of the stairs. A sly grin came to her lips. This was her favorite day of the week—the day when Mrs. Finch hung up her apron as housekeeper and dug into her past as a woman of ill repute to teach proper ladies the ways of the bedroom. The lionesses, as they were known, comprised of Chloe, her sisters-in-law, the Marchioness of Eastleigh and the Duchess of Weston, as well as their friend, Viscountess Hastings. They met under the guise of having tea together. Of course, their tea was doused heavily with sherry and the topics they discussed would make most ladies blush. Perhaps the ladies in attendance did blush, but Grace couldn’t know for sure since she spent the hour outside the room, rather than in. Blasted Chloe. It wasn’t the married women who needed the education—they had their husbands to teach them the ins and outs of the marital bed. But her sister insisted the drawing room was no place for an unmarried young lady on the days Mrs. Finch was in attendance. Little did Chloe know that her clever younger sister had discovered the perfect spot for eavesdropping on their little meetings.

  On slippered feet, Grace made her way swiftly down the staircase, along the short corridor past the drawing room door, and out to the terrace. Then she descended the few steps into the garden and snuck around the corner of the house until she stood just outside the drawing room windows, which her sister always kept open on nice, sunny days. Grace had missed two and a half meetings due to rain—the half because it started to rain midway through one afternoon. Thankfully, no one had questioned why she was drenched when she returned to the house.

  Today, the sun was bright in the sky and a cool breeze caressed her cheeks. Chloe, as anticipated, had left the windows open, and the ladies’ voices wafted clearly from inside.

  “Now, my ladies, what would you like to discuss this week?” Mrs. Finch asked in her thick cockney.

  Grace held her breath. She prayed every week that Chloe wouldn’t be an active participant in the conversation. There were some things she didn’t need to know about her sister’s marital life. Thankfully, the outspoken Duchess of Hart was the first to speak.

  “Well, the duke and I tried something…new this last week,” the duchess said, a sly edge to her voice. Grace leaned in so as not to miss a word. “You see, I found this illustration tucked into one of the books in our library…”

  There was a collective gasp followed by a good amount of giggling. Grace wanted to kick the wall. How unfair she couldn’t see this scandalous picture. How would she know what they were talking about? She really hated it when they brought visual aids.

  “Good heavens, Katherine,” came the voice of Phoebe, Marchioness of Eastleigh. She may have sounded scandalized, but Grace knew there was very little that could shock the marchioness, based on the stories she’d shared of her own marital relations. “Wasn’t it…uncomfortable?”

  “A bit, at first,” replied the duchess. “But eventually, I didn’t care. It was so, so…”

  “Blissful?” Mrs. Finch offered.

  “Perfectly.” The duchess sighed and Grace was almost certain she’d melted into her chair.

  Blast it all! What were they talking about?

  After their giggling died down, the Viscountess Hastings asked with great perplexity in her tone, “So…how does it work?”

  Grace leaned closer to the window. This was what she needed to know.

  “Well,” Mrs. Finch began, “of course you have to be standing up, as the picture indicates…”

  “Standing!” Apparently, Chloe was scandalized by this idea.

  “Isn’t that what the picture depicts?” Mrs. Finch asked, rhetorically, of course. “And you’d have to bend over, just so…”

  More giggling from inside; more frustration from out. Grace needed them to describe the details in words, not in gestures. Perhaps she could dare to peek through the window. She had no way of knowing if any of the ladies were facing her, and she’d never, ever, in all her time sitting outside this window, dreamed of peeking in. But she was getting desperate.

  She elevated herself on tiptoe and strained to see through the bottom corner of the window. Mrs. Finch was bent in an awkward position, her round bottom in the air, as the other women looked on with mixed expressions of both horror and delight. Grace stifled her own giggle as she watched the woman contort hers
elf in demonstration. Goodness, would Grace be able to achieve such a feat? She took a mental note of Mrs. Finch’s position—leg raised, other foot on tiptoe, slightly bent over—lowered herself to her flat feet, and attempted to mimic the move. It wasn’t terribly comfortable. As a matter of fact, Grace was certain she looked downright silly. This couldn’t be right. However could someone perform this act in the nude? And how would anyone derive pleasure from it if they were so concerned about performing such a move?

  She contorted herself further, trying to make it more comfortable, but she really only felt as if she were in a giant knot. It was in that moment that Tabitha, her sister’s fluffy orange cat, decided to wind herself around Grace’s ankles.

  “Shoo, Tabby,” she hissed, but Tabby wouldn’t be shoo’d. Instead, she mewled and butted her head against Grace’s shin.

  “Are you quite all right, miss?”

  Grace shot up so quickly she sent Tabitha running, then bumped her head on the window ledge and stumbled backwards until her back slammed against the wall of the house. “Ow.” She winced, as she rubbed her throbbing head. Where the devil had he come from?

  “Dear God,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  Grace finally looked up and promptly forgot about her aching head. Goodness, he was handsome. No, handsome didn’t quite fit him. Striking, perhaps. Dangerous, for certain. He had long, dark hair pulled together loosely at his nape, and he wore a beard and mustache that were rather unkempt, as if he’d simply forgotten to shave for the last several days. He stood just on the other side of the wall that divided Chloe’s property from the neighbor’s. He must have been on a ladder to be able to see her. Either that or he was a distant cousin of Goliath. He wasn’t at all the type of man Grace would normally pay attention to, but then why did she find herself so tongue-tied and nervous?

  Heavens, what must he think of her? He was waiting for her to say something, and here she was, staring at him with her mouth agape.

  “Well, you did,” she finally hissed back, her cheeks aflame with embarrassment.

  “I swear to you, that was not my intention.” His voice was rather booming, so Grace waved her hands wildly to get him to quiet down. If Chloe discovered she was out here, she’d be livid. “I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his voice. “Is there a reason we need to be quiet?”

  “Um…well—” She cast a glance toward the window and then back at the stranger. A chorus of giggles rang through the air, and the stranger’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Ah,” he whispered with an amused grin. “Eavesdropping?”

  Grace was, of course, eavesdropping, but the way he said the word made it sound so…sinful. She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. “That, sir, is none of your business.”

  “…and then his prick will go in this way!” Mrs. Finch’s shrill voice cut through the quiet of the afternoon, sending a flush of heat from Grace’s toes all the way to her cheeks.

  She was certain her stranger was staring at her aghast, but she’d never know for sure. She was far too embarrassed to look at him again, and instead mumbled an excuse and ran as fast as she could away from that blasted window.

  ~*~

  Evan Gilford, Duke of Somerset, stared dumbfounded after the curious young woman. She was rather quick on her feet—for a girl, at least—and her silken blonde locks shimmered in the sunlight as she bounded through Wetherby’s garden. Who was that eavesdropping little chit with the most perfect Cupid’s bow lips in all of England?

  He shook his head. It didn’t really matter, did it? For one, she looked as though she was fresh from the schoolroom. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen—far too young for his advanced years. No, at three-and-thirty, he ought to be looking for someone a bit more mature. Certainly not one who hides in gardens and listens at windows?

  No. He shook his head again. He ought not to be looking for anyone at all. Damn. Why was it so hard to remember he was already engaged? Perhaps because he’d been betrothed since he was a young boy—too young to understand what marriage and betrothals and all that nonsense meant. Once he was old enough to understand, he begged his father to send him to the Continent for a year or two on his Grand Tour. He got as far as Paris, fell in love with the city and his freedom, and those two years turned into fifteen, despite pressure from all sides to come home and marry his betrothed.

  He should have listened. Better yet, he never should have left England. He could have found a way to break off the engagement all those years ago, before she was even of age to marry. But now she’d been waiting for him—the poor, pathetic woman—for nearly eight years. If he abandoned her now, at the ripe old age of six-and-twenty, he’d be the worst sort of cad, wouldn’t he? He would condemn her to a life of spinsterhood. And he would break the bond their families had shared for three generations. Or perhaps his family would only break their bond with him. He couldn’t imagine his mother ever forgiving him for such a thing. And his father would surely spin in his grave.

  Evan ignored the tugging and twisting in his heart at the thought of his father. Was it his fault the old man had decided to die suddenly of a heart condition while Evan was abroad? By the time his sister’s letter found him, Father had been weeks in his grave already. There was nothing to be done. He could only hope his father died knowing how much his son had revered and respected him, despite him embracing a culture his father had long despised.

  “Evan, are you out here?” His sister’s voice rang from the veranda of their townhome, and the raucous laughter inside the neighbor’s home died down a moment later. Surely those women knew they could be heard from out here, didn’t they? “Evan?”

  “Coming,” he called back, and then chuckled at the gasp he heard from inside Wetherby’s house. That was, he chuckled until he realized they might think he was the one eavesdropping on them. Damn it all.

  He hopped down from his bench and walked quickly down the garden path, toward the house. His sister stood at the top of the garden stairs. He might have been biased, but he’d always thought she was the very picture of loveliness. Her mahogany hair was swept into a loose chignon at the base of her neck, and as always, she wore a pleasant smile upon her rosy lips. She was a most agreeable creature, with a lovely disposition and a heart of pure gold, which was why Evan hated that she’d married the greatest prig in all of England.

  Yet another mark upon his already guilty conscience. He never would have let Mother force Hannah’s hand to Beeston. He could have prevented the marriage had he been here, but there was nothing for it now. Only to mentally flog himself for his extended absence.

  “I didn’t want you to miss tea,” Hannah said as he climbed the staircase toward her. “Mother is waiting for us in the drawing room.”

  “Many thanks, Bunny.” He winked, knowing that she both loved and hated her childhood moniker. As a child, he’d thought of her as gentle and fragile as a baby rabbit, and so the nickname had stuck.

  “I’m not as sweet and innocent as I once was, you know?” She turned on her heel as Evan reached the top step and they walked toward the house together.

  “Don’t I know it,” he replied, not bothering to hide the bitterness that laced his tone. “Will Beeston be joining us?” He knew the answer, but he never missed an opportunity to speak the blackguard’s name with disgust.

  Hannah huffed as she preceded him over the threshold. “You’ll be happy to know Beeston is busy this afternoon.” She stopped suddenly and turned to Evan. “I know how you feel about him. You don’t have to needle me at every turn.”

  “But, I—”

  “I am the one who has to live with him, not you. I know what he’s about—I’m not naïve. But what would you have me do?”

  Murder him in his sleep?

  Hannah narrowed her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s not amusing in the least.”

  Damn. “All that time at the card tables perfecting the perfect look of impassivity, and my sister can rea
d me like a bloody open book.”

  His sister raised her eyebrows. “Perfect look of impassivity?” She gave a tittering laugh. “You might want to keep practicing, dear brother.”

  She turned and began walking again toward the drawing room. Evan followed, slightly dejected by his usually sweeter-than-sugar sister. What had happened to her? Of course, he had been gone for fifteen years. Long enough for her to grow and mature into a woman. She was thirty now—no longer a child—and Evan couldn’t help but regret that he’d left when he did. Especially knowing she’d been left to her husband’s mercies, God help him.

  Regret, regret, regret. That seemed to be his whole life now. Just a string of regrets, and every time he thought of one it made the guilty pit in his stomach that much bigger. But he had to shove it down—ruthlessly ignore that feeling. One could never show weakness to the Duchess of Somerset. Or, as he called her, Mother.

  Evan followed his sister through the open doors of the drawing room. Their mother sat at the small round table, which was draped in a hideous floral tablecloth, her back ramrod straight and her eyes filled with disdain.

  “I’m glad you could finally join us,” she said pointedly to Evan. “I’ve something I wish to discuss with you.”

  Oh, Lord. It was never good when the duchess had “something to discuss” with them. It meant she had orders to dictate, which she expected the other person to carry out in as efficient a manner as she would fulfill the orders herself. Protesting was pointless.

  “Good afternoon, Mother.” Evan attempted to needle her for her lack of manners. Of course it never really worked. Mother didn’t tend to care what her children thought of her—only what Society thought. And what they thought was the Duchess of Somerset was one of the most fearsome creatures on the planet. Evan had to agree. Even at his advanced age, the woman still incited a good deal of terror in his heart.