The Duke Identity: Game of Dukes, Book 1 Read online

  Book One

  About the Book

  The Duke Identity

  (Game of Dukes, Book 1)

  © Grace Callaway, 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-939537-08-9

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  * * *

  A Quest for Redemption

  Shattered by betrayal, former scholar Harry Kent has made a new life for himself as a policeman. Sent on a dangerous covert mission, he must protect a clever and wicked beauty who specializes in disguises and mischief. She stands for everything he scorns—and seduces him with every look of her innocent eyes…

  * * *

  A Desire for Acceptance

  A princess of London’s criminal underworld, Tessa Todd wants to defend her family against cutthroat enemies. Her powerful grandfather, however, insists upon keeping her under lock and key. When she is assigned a stoic and damnably handsome new bodyguard, she resists his dominant ways—and a passionate war of wills begins…

  * * *

  A Love Unexpected

  Thrown together by crisis, Harry and Tessa will test the bounds of desire, loyalty, and trust. On the run from their foes and from their own hearts, they must find salvation in each other—before time runs out.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading the first book in my Game of Dukes series! If you’d like to stay apprised of my news and releases, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at gracecallaway.com/newsletter.

  * * *

  Let the adventures begin…

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Also by Grace Callaway

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  West Midlands, England, 1838

  * * *

  “Bennett, we ’ave to talk,” feminine tones said from the bed.

  Harry Kent—or Sam Bennett as he was known in the railway camp—stilled in the act of dressing. In the three months since Roxanne Taggart had first approached him, she’d never made this request. In fact, conversation had not featured highly in their interactions…unless one counted her rather profuse utterances in bed. He, himself, preferred quiet during the act.

  He finished pulling on his shirt, shoved his spectacles on his nose, and went over to the bed. They were in his rented room at the boarding house not far from where he worked as a navvy or laborer of the railway. Roxy reclined against the pillows, her dark blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, her large breasts on full display.

  “What about?” he asked politely.

  “You and me, lover.”

  Her serious manner was new and unexpected. With an unpleasant jolt, he wondered if she was the merry widow he’d believed her to be. History had taught him that his judgement when it came to females wasn’t exactly sterling.

  His gut knotted as he thought of Miss Celeste De Witt, the woman he’d once loved. The woman whose betrayal had destroyed his good name and career, his lifelong ambition to be a scientist. Because of her, he’d been ejected from The Royal Society, leaving Cambridge under a cloud of scandal and disgrace. For the last two years, he’d built a new life for himself as Sam Bennett, rock blaster with the Grand Midlands Railway.

  At least he’d been able to put his experience in the laboratory to good use. Blasting rock had been a practical application of his academic study of explosives, not to mention damned cathartic. It wasn’t intellectually stimulating work, but the grinding physical labor had brought him, if not a measure of peace, then at least a degree of numbness.

  He’d always been a private man, not the sort who enjoyed strong sentiment. It had taken months to calm the turbulence caused by his foolish entanglement with Celeste, and he’d vowed to never again let his emotions override his rationality. His brain was far more trustworthy than his heart, and now it was warning him to beware of the glint in Roxy’s eyes.

  “I wasn’t aware there was a problem between us,” he said.

  “It ain’t a problem, lover.” Naked, she crawled over to the edge of the bed where he stood. Kneeling on the mattress, she placed a hand on the exposed part of his chest, her fingers trailing coyly over the tensed slabs of muscle. “We’ve been ’aving our fun for some time, and I got to thinking that we should make the arrangement more…permanent.”

  He froze. Devil take it, did she mean…marriage? The idea had never occurred to him.

  “I believe we discussed this at the outset,” he said carefully. “I made it clear what I was looking for, and you agreed that you wanted the same thing. We had an understanding.”

  “Maybe we did,” she said with a pout. “But things change, don’t they? Our understanding then ain’t the same as our understanding now.”

  This was precisely the sort of feminine reasoning that he found confusing. He liked women, had sisters whom he adored, but that didn’t mean he understood them.

  Still, he didn’t want to hurt Roxanne.

  “My understanding hasn’t changed,” he said quietly. “Nor will it.”

  Something in his tone must have told her it was futile to continue the discussion. She dropped her hand from his chest and got out of bed. Marching over to her pile of discarded clothing, she began yanking on garments.

  “If you don’t want me, Tom Wilkins does,” she snapped. “’E asked me to marry ’im last week.”

  Harry hadn’t known she was seeing anyone else. Another surprise…not that it mattered. He didn’t know how she expected him to respond, so he remained silent as she finished dressing and stormed up to him.

  “Don’t you got nothing to say?” she demanded. “I just told you I’m marrying another man!”

  I don’t like being manipulated. He didn’t think that was what she wanted to hear.

  He said, “I wish you the best.”

  * * *

  “Find yeself on the losing end o’ an argument, did ye, guv?” Emerging from the tunnel with several others, Johnson, a fellow navvy, set down his pick-axe, his dirt-streaked face split into a grin.

  “Something like that,” Harry muttered as he packed up his satchel.

  His jaw still throbbed from Roxanne’s right hook.

  “Should’ve asked me for pointers. I could’ve made a living as a prizefighter, if I wanted,” Johnson boasted. “Ne’er been in a brawl I
didn’t win.”

  In the past, boxing had been Harry’s favorite form of exercise. He’d practiced at Gentleman Jackson’s and knew damned well how to fight. But he would never hit a woman.

  Which was more than he’d say for some of the present company. To be fair, the womenfolk were no more peaceable than their men, Roxy being a prime example. As the men downed ale in the sweltering afternoon sun, belching and telling bawdy tales, a dark mood set upon Harry like a London fog.

  He couldn’t shake off the recognition: he wasn’t where he wanted to be.

  He got on with his fellow workers well enough. At first, some had been suspicious of his “gentlemanly ways,” but since he did the job that made theirs easier, one that no one else was keen to take on, they’d come around. The vein of his discontent ran deeper, his awareness of it triggered by the scene with Roxanne.

  The last navvy emerged from the tunnel, calling, “She’s all yours, Bennett.”

  Hefting the sack of blasting devices he’d made, Harry took a lamp and entered the dark mouth of the tunnel. The dank air was suffocating. As the path split, he took the smaller tunnel he and the others had cut away, broodingly aware of the cause of his restlessness.

  He was bored. With the mindless grind of his days, the casual depravity of his nights. He wasn’t steering his life in the proper direction—in any direction. He’d once had a vision of happiness that included being a scientist, a respected member of the Royal Society…and a husband and father.

  At two-and-thirty, however, he was none of those things.

  He was…adrift.

  He arrived at the section of rock he was to clear away. Relieved to have a distraction from his rumination, he embedded the shells of gunpowder into the craggy wall and attached the fuse.

  Lighting it, he sprinted out. Sunlight struck him at the same time a panicked voice did.

  “Larkin ne’er came out. ’E’s still in the tunnel!”

  Devil take it. Heart hammering, Harry turned around, running back into the darkness. Not enough time to get back to the fuse, to disable it. He had to find the missing navvy.

  “Larkin,” he shouted as he charged deeper into the main section of the tunnel. “Get out!”

  Larkin staggered into sight, obviously drunk.

  Harry grabbed the man’s arm. “Run, goddamn you—the rock is going to blow!”

  He shoved Larkin toward the exit, and the other finally stumbled into motion, Harry right behind him. As the light neared, Harry heard the terrifying whoosh of air being consumed, felt the ground rumbling beneath his feet, rocks pelting from all directions.

  An instant later, the earth roared, and darkness buried him.

  1

  Three months later, St. Giles, London

  * * *

  Despite the smoky dimness of the Hare and Hounds, Miss Tessa Black-Todd spotted Dewey O’Toole straightaway. The ginger-haired bastard occupied the best table at the center of the rowdy public house. He was swilling ale with two comrades, a tankard in one hand, a joint of mutton in the other. As Tessa watched, he dropped the meat to grab at a passing barmaid, marking her skirts with his greasy paw-print.

  Tessa curled her hands at her sides, fighting the impulse to go over.

  Better to let the blighter come to me.

  And O’Toole would come to her, she knew, because she’d transformed herself into irresistible bait. At present, her long, dark tresses were tucked beneath a short brown wig and cap. A moustache and side whiskers further obscured her feminine features. She’d bound her chest—for once, she was grateful that there wasn’t much to hide there—and donned the bulky garb of a country lad. A roughly knotted neckerchief completed her outfit.

  She hadn’t much time to snag her prey; the latest bodyguard her grandfather had hired to watch over her was bound to discover her missing sooner or later. She headed over to the bar that lined one side of the room, hoisting herself onto a stool.

  “O’er ’ere, my good barkeep!” she said in the deepest tones she could muster. “Name’s Tom Brown, and I’m new to Town.”

  The pub’s proprietor was a heavyset man known throughout St. Giles as Stunning Joe Banks on account of his flamboyant cravats. The puce and magenta checkered cloth surrounding his thick neck did indeed assault the eyeballs. He didn’t spare her a look.

  She tried again. “I ’ave a mighty thirst. What do you recommend, my good sir?”

  Stunning Joe continued filling tankards from a cask. “Ale.”

  “What kind o’ ale?”

  “The kind I put in front o’ ye.”

  “Some o’ your finest ale, then—”

  A tankard was slammed in front of her, foam splattering onto the bar’s scarred surface.

  She picked up the sticky vessel and sipped, her nose wrinkling at the watered-down libation. Surreptitiously, she surveyed the clientele using the cracked looking glass behind the bar. At the center of the room, Dewey O’Toole and his cronies were still drinking, laughing without a care in the world.

  Fury smoldered beneath Tessa’s breastbone at she thought of her friend Belinda’s battered face. The tears that had trickled over bruises, mingling with blood as Belinda had wept over her stolen savings.

  You’re not getting away with it, O’Toole, Tessa fumed. Not while I’m breathing.

  She felt a wriggle of agreement from the inner pocket of her jacket.

  “Patience, Swift Nick,” she said under her breath, and the wriggling obediently ceased. “The rotter will pay the piper soon enough.”

  Louder, she said, “Barkeep.”

  “Wot now?” Stunning Joe grunted.

  “Seeing as I’m celebrating, I’d like to buy a round for all the fine patrons ’ere.”

  Fine patrons, her arse…or derrière, as her French tutor would say. (Apparently, the lessons at Mrs. Southbridge’s Finishing School For Young Ladies, or The Old Dragon’s Dungeon of Doom, as Tessa dubbed it, had not gone entirely wasted.) The Hare and Hounds catered to cutthroats, thieves, and fences; while Tessa held no prejudice against those occupations, for she knew how her bread was buttered, she did judge a man by his moral character.

  A man’s only as good as ’is word, her grandpapa oft said. ’Ow ’e treats ’is kin and those under ’is command—that’s the true measure o’ a man, Tessie.

  By any of those standards, Dewey O’Toole was a blackguard through and through.

  Stunning Joe swiped a rag against the counter. “Ale don’t come for free.”

  Deliberately, Tessa dropped a coin purse onto the bar. The heavy, unmistakable clink of gold drew gazes the way the bells of St. Mary-Le-Bow did worshippers. Stillness as reverent as a prayer spread through the room as she withdrew a guinea, letting the gold catch the light.

  “Will this suffice?” she said innocently.

  “Nan! Alice!” Stunning Joe barked at the serving wenches. “Drinks for the ’ouse courtesy o’ our young friend ’ere.”

  The ensuing cheer shook the rafters. Within seconds, Tessa was surrounded by new “friends,” most of whom would sell their own grandmothers for a sovereign. Which still made them less dangerous than the milk-fed twits who’d been her classmates. Society ladies, she thought grimly, were the most cutthroat of all. They would stab you between the shoulder blades whilst smiling and sipping tea with their pinkies lifted.

  Pushing back the painful memories, she answered a sly-faced coster’s question about the source of her windfall.

  “The fortune was left to me by my Uncle Jim, God rest ’is soul,” she said, emulating a clodhopper’s earnestness. “Ma always said ’er brother was a good-for-naught—”

  “If this uncle o’ yours was such a lazy prat,” a grime-streaked sweep cut in, “’ow’d ’e get ’is ’ands on a fortune?”

  “Uncle Jim ’ad a lucky ’and at dice and won a ’undred quid. Gor, that’s fortune enough, ain’t it, but then ’e used ’is winnings to buy some pieces o’ paper…” She scratched her ear as her audience watched her with rapt expressions. “
Certificates o’ share, that’s what the solicitor called ’em. Something to do with iron ’orses. Now, me, I don’t trust any ’orse that don’t eat and shit, pardon my language, but my uncle ’ad a gambler’s ’eart, ’e did. Paid off, too: those papers are now worth five times what ’e paid for ’em.”

  She could almost hear rusty gears turning as the cretins worked out the arithmetic of her supposed inheritance. Just then, a movement at the end of the bar caught her eye.

  Her heart stuttered. A curious tingle danced over her skin.

  The stranger was standing a few feet away. He hadn’t been there moments ago, and she didn’t know how she could have missed his arrival. He was tall and broad-shouldered, lean of hip, built like a medieval knight from the tales she’d heard at her grandpapa’s knee.

  He had one arm braced on the counter, a large hand wrapped around a tankard. His clean but worn clothes fit his sinewy physique like well-used armor. His boots clung lovingly to his muscular calves. The tavern’s dim light glinted off the thick, dark waves of his hair, flickering across his profile and glinting off...spectacles?

  She felt an odd flutter in her belly.

  His head turned, and her breath hitched at her first full glimpse of his face. He did indeed resemble a knight: one who had returned from some perilous quest and bore the travails of his journey. The clean structure of his broad cheekbones and square jaw was offset by the scar slanting through his left eyebrow. The scholarly spectacles were an intriguing contrast to that scar, as was his brooding intensity. There, on his face, she saw his true armor: his expression was as impenetrable as tempered steel.