The Return of the Duke Read online

  “Looking to impress one guest in particular?”

  She bit her lip, too embarrassed to admit the truth.

  Da gave her another long look. “That toff ain’t for you, petal. ’Aven’t I always told you ’is kind and ours don’t mix?”

  He had. Time and again, he’d drilled it into her that those who travelled and those who didn’t belonged to different worlds. One could do business with settled folk, be friendly with them, but in the end the two worlds were like oil and water.

  “Yes, Da,” she said. “I just thought since Bea…”

  “Miss Bea is a fine friend to you and us Sheridans. But that don’t mean she understands our world…or that we understand ’ers. Take this arson business.” Da shook his head grimly. “It’s all on account o’ ’er land. As if anybody ’ad the right to possess the earth and sky the good Lord made for all o’ us.”

  Since Fancy had heard this refrain all her life, she knew he wasn’t expecting a reply.

  “Now I’ve seen the way you be looking at this Knight fellow,” Da said. “’E’s grand to be sure, but ’e ain’t for you. Gents like ’im care only for their money and estates, and they marry their own kind, who can bring ’em more o’ the same.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “Don’t fret, Da. I’ve got my ’ead on my shoulders. I know no gentleman would look twice at me.”

  “That ain’t the point, and it also ain’t true.” Da took her hand in a callused grip, giving her a brief squeeze. “You be a fine woman, Fancy, with a worthy set o’ skills and a tender ’eart. Any man be lucky to make you ’is wife. And you’ve ’ad no lack o’ suitors. Three fine fellows asked me permission to court you…and you turned ’em down.”

  Because all those men wanted was a wife to travel with them and do the chores, she thought glumly. To ’elp with the tinkering.

  “Those men weren’t right for me,” she said.

  Da raised his brows. “Not even young Sam Taylor?”

  The Taylors were another tinkering clan and close friends of the Sheridans. Sam, the eldest son, was a couple years older than Fancy. Although handsome and nice, he wasn’t what she longed for: a prince. By prince, she didn’t mean a man of wealth or rank, but one with a noble heart. One who would love her the way heroes loved their heroines in faerie tales, with an all-consuming passion. She yearned for the devotion she’d seen between her parents, who’d loved each other through thick and thin, health and sickness…and even beyond.

  Since Ma’s passing, Fancy had overheard her father talk to his wife as if she were still there.

  Annie, me girl, he’d say. You wouldn’t believe what I brung back from the market today.

  Her parents’ love outlived death, and that was the kind of love she wanted.

  “Sam ain’t right for me,” she said quietly.

  “’Ow will you know when the right man comes along?” Da asked. “You ain’t getting any younger, petal. Your ma, God rest ’er soul, was seventeen when I married ’er. Amongst our kind, you’re getting long in the tooth.”

  What if I don’t want to marry amongst our kind? Guilt followed on the heels of the thought, one that she’d been having more and more often. To her secret shame, she’d grown tired of moving around. Of packing and unpacking. Of bartering her skills to strangers to earn her keep.

  That was why, in her dreams, her prince carried her off to a castle, which didn’t have to be an actual castle. What would she do with all those rooms…and could you imagine the cleaning? She shuddered. A cozy cottage would suit her better. She would settle there, in a place that she could call her own, and use her skills to take care of the people she loved.

  Yet she couldn’t share this dream with her da for fear of hurting him. He was set in his travelling ways and wouldn’t understand. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful for the wonderful life he’d given her. Even worse, she thought with an anxious pang, he might think that she didn’t fully belong…that the foundling he and ma had raised wasn’t a true Sheridan after all.

  “Maybe I won’t marry, Da.” She managed a light tone. “I’ll stay with you forever.”

  “The winds o’ change are blowing, me Fancy,” he said gently. “I feel it in me bones that you’ll be leaving us soon. I just pray that the lucky chap who wins your ’eart is deserving o’ you.”

  At her father’s solemn words, a shiver ghosted over Fancy’s nape.

  The moment was broken by the slamming of the front door, the squeal of cupboards being opened and closed. Her brother Godfrey’s voice boomed from the kitchen.

  “Can’t a man get a decent bite after a day’s work?” he bellowed. “Where’re Fancy’s tarts?”

  “You and your tarts,” Oliver’s voice retorted. This was a sly reference to the fact that Godfrey, who was a year older than Fancy, was the skirt-chaser of the family.

  “Liam ate all the tarts!” Tommy shouted.

  “Bleedin’ tattler,” Liam returned.

  More thudding and swearing ensued.

  Da patted her on the cheek. “All right, me girl. I’d best go settle the lads and let you get dressed.” He unpinned the gardenia from his lapel, pressing it into her palm. “To go with your pink frock.”

  “You think I should wear the dress?” Fancy said in surprise.

  “Ain’t no reason to waste something so pretty. But wear it for yourself, me Fancy. Wear it knowing that you made that dress with your own two ’ands, that you’re as grand as anyone at that supper table tonight, which is to say…wear it with pride.”

  Bemused, Fancy watched her father leave. She raised the gardenia to her nose, its sweet perfume stirring the romantic notions of her heart.

  Notions, she told herself firmly, that she would be wise to keep under wraps.

  3

  Things were not going as planned, Severin brooded that evening.

  He was the first to arrive and sipping on an aperitif in Lady Beatrice Wodehouse’s well-appointed drawing room. As he waited for his hostess to make an entrance, he contemplated abandoning his plan. Not because he didn’t find his duchess candidate pleasing: Lady Beatrice was all that her brother had claimed her to be. During his brief meeting with the lady as she’d managed the aftermath of the fire, Severin had found her competent and sensible. She was lovely too, her scar adding to the uniqueness of her pale blonde hair and violet eyes.

  In fact, Lady Beatrice was fashioned from a similar mold as Imogen, being tall, willowy, and fair. Women like that never lacked for male attention, so Severin ought not to have been surprised to find another suitor sniffing after Lady Beatrice. The fact that his competition was Wickham Murray, however, was irksome.

  Severin knew Murray, both being self-made industrialists who had deep roots in the London underworld. Murray’s moniker was The Iron Duke since he was a partner in Great London National Railway, along with Adam Garrity and Harry Kent, two other powerful underclass men with whom Severin was acquainted.

  In general, Severin respected Murray and his partners. At least, he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating any of them when it came to negotiating a deal. He’d heard through the grapevine that Great London National Railway was in trouble, shareholders starting to revolt because of some delay in laying down track…as it happened, in Staffordshire.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence that Murray was here now. If Severin had to guess, the Scot was after Lady Beatrice’s land. He took a sip of the bitter liqueur, wondering if she and Murray were lovers.

  Murray was a rake whose prowess with females was the stuff of legend. Severin wouldn’t put it past the too-charming Scot to use seduction to get what he wanted. After all, he’d seen the bastard in action before. He’d once faced Murray over a table at an exclusive gaming hell and lightened the other’s pockets by a thousand pounds. Murray had retaliated by luring Sally, Severin’s then-mistress, into his own bed.

  Severin had enjoyed a mutually beneficial arrangement with Sally, an obliging female who never confused sexual pleasure with intimacy. All
she had wanted was a generous stipend and the lease on a cottage, which he’d been glad to provide in exchange for her professional services. It had been damned inconvenient to find her replacement. More to the point, Murray’s past actions showed that he had no compunction about using a female as a pawn in his games. Severin wondered how much Lady Beatrice knew of Murray’s past dealings…and his present motives.

  Regardless, Murray was an unforeseen obstacle, and Severin wasn’t looking for complications. That was why he’d come to Staffordshire: to find an aristocratic spinster who would jump at his offer of a marriage of convenience. Now that he’d met Lady Beatrice, he didn’t think she had any interest in jumping for him or anyone.

  Did he want to go through with his plan to offer for her? After their brief exchange, he wasn’t sure of his odds, and he wasn’t keen on taking on a losing proposition. On the other hand, he had an ace up his sleeve: he had not revealed his title. Murray had greeted him as Severin Knight—the news of his inheritance was only now spreading through London—and Severin hadn’t corrected him…yet.

  As a businessman, Severin knew how to bide his time, play to his advantage. Surely his title would make Lady Beatrice look favorably upon his suit. He didn’t have time for an extended courtship. By now, his siblings had probably torn apart his new Mayfair mansion brick by brick, sending Aunt Esther running for the hills.

  As he contemplated his conundrum, awareness stirred his nape. He turned and saw Fancy Sheridan entering on her papa’s arm. Her eyes met his across the room; she smiled shyly.

  His blood heated with startling swiftness, probably because it had been simmering since their meeting earlier today. He didn’t know what it was about the chit that made him itch with lust. Although pretty, she was not his usual preference. In truth, Lady Beatrice was more his feminine ideal, yet he felt no physical pull, no crazed desire to get to know his potential duchess between the sheets.

  Fancy Sheridan, however? He burned to know her in the biblical sense.

  Get your mind out of the gutter, he told himself in disgust. You need a duchess, not some toothsome tinker’s daughter.

  He steeled himself as the Sheridans approached. Fancy—Miss Sheridan, he corrected himself—looked the part of a genteel young lady this eve. Instead of plaits, her glossy brown tresses were bound in a topknot, baring the slender curve of her neck. She wore a simple pink gown that flattered her petite and curvy form. The off-the-shoulder cut displayed her smooth, sun-kissed skin and the rounded tops of her bosom. She had a gardenia pinned to her bodice, right between her breasts, and he had an urge to bury his nose in that fragrant, shadowed crevice—

  Bloody hell, man. Rein it in.

  “Good evening, Mr. Knight,” Milton Sheridan said.

  “Sir.” Severin inclined his head. “Miss Sheridan, may I say how lovely you look?”

  The nicety rolled off his tongue. It was the sort of thing a gentleman would say to any female, even if she resembled a mythical Gorgon. The women he knew would think nothing of it; indeed, Imogen had been the first to train him in the art of courtesy.

  Even though he had been her family’s servant, one who still reeked of the stews, she’d snuck out to the stables to give him lessons, teaching him his letters and how to speak and act like a gentleman.

  It is considered ill-bred for a gentleman to show excessive emotion, she had explained. Feelings should be expressed only in private…and even then, only the pleasant ones. That is how men and animals are different: men have the self-discipline to curb their baser instincts.

  He had absorbed Imogen’s lessons, hoarding the time he spent with the angelic daughter of the house like precious coal to get himself through wintry reality. By that time, his maman had been in Bedlam, doing worse with each visit, and there’d been naught he could do about it. Thanks to Imogen, his only friend, he’d learned to curb his helplessness and rage, to channel them into something more useful than brawling in the streets like an animal.

  “You think so?” Miss Sheridan’s soft words brought him back.

  From any other female, the question would be coy. A prelude to flirtation. Seeing the insecurity in her richly fringed eyes, Severin knew that wasn’t her intention.

  “The gown suits you well, Miss Sheridan,” he said.

  “Thank you. I made it myself,” she said earnestly.

  Her artlessness disarmed him. He couldn’t think of another female in his acquaintance who would admit to such a thing. It was clear that Miss Sheridan not only lacked social polish, she didn’t even know what it was. Yet something about the way she looked at him, with wonder and vulnerability, tugged at his gut.

  It was the sort of look that Imogen had given him. After he saved her from the runaway carriage, she had considered him her champion. My Knight, she’d called him. She’d told him fantastical stories of chivalrous knights who’d battled dragons to save their fair princesses. That Imogen had found him, a brutish rookery lad, worthy of being her gallant had filled him with pride.

  “How talented you are, Miss Sheridan,” he said politely.

  “Me Fancy be full o’ talents, Your Grace,” Sheridan said with unmistakable pride. “She washes dishes quicker than anybody I know, bakes pastry so light it could float on air, and being me daughter, there’s nothing she can’t fix.”

  Miss Sheridan blushed, either embarrassed at her father’s bragging or at the fact that the skills he listed qualified her to be a remarkable servant. Either way, Severin took pity on her.

  “Actually,” he said, “I know there is one thing Miss Sheridan can’t do.”

  Sheridan’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “And what would that be?”

  “She cannot convince a donkey to move,” Severin said gravely.

  Miss Sheridan’s lips tipped up and, by Jove, she had a beguiling smile.

  “That is because I’m not a cheat,” she said primly.

  “Bribery isn’t cheating,” he countered. “It is a legitimate strategy to achieve one’s end.”

  “To achieve one’s end…or to move a donkey’s end?”

  Her quip surprised a smile from him. Although she needed polish, she didn’t lack for wit. Or for charm: the sparkle in her brown eyes was rather delightful.

  “Both,” he admitted.

  Their banter was interrupted by the arrival of Lady Beatrice, who was every inch a duchess in a sweeping gown of blue taffeta. By her side was Murray, whose eyes narrowed upon Severin. At the unmistakable look of challenge, Severin’s hackles rose.

  Backing down had never won him anything. He’d come all this way to get a wife…and he couldn’t let himself be distracted. He would honor his maman and her suffering by excelling in his role as the Duke of Knighton. He would do right by his estate, make his siblings respectable, and sire future generations of Knightons. To accomplish these goals, he needed the right woman by his side.

  He bowed to Miss Sheridan. “Please excuse me.”

  She lowered her gaze. “O’ course…”

  Her voice trailed behind him as he headed toward Lady Beatrice to play his winning card.

  4

  Two days later, Fancy perched on the bank of the stream, a fishing pole in hand. It was late afternoon, and she’d already caught a pair of fat brown trout, their spotted scales gleaming in the basket on the grass beside her. She hoped to catch a few more fish to feed her brothers’ voracious appetites.

  She’d taken off her half-boots and dangled her feet above the water. Now and again, a few cool droplets danced off the river stones, tickling her bare toes. She breathed in the perfume of the outdoors: sunbaked moss, balsam of trees, the mineral richness of the muddy shores. Around her, colorful leaves rustled in their last dance before fall.

  Slowly, she relaxed. Her burdens gave way to the singing crickets, rush of the water, and softness of the grass beneath her. In the arms of Mother Earth, she could breathe easier and see the crux of her troubles.

  She was developing a dangerous infatuation with Severin Knight. S
everin Knight who, as a wealthy, elegant gentleman, was already too far above her. As the Duke of Knighton, he existed on a different plane altogether.

  He had revealed his noble title at supper two nights ago and the reason for his visit: he was seeking an aristocratic lady to be his duchess. Knighton’s announcement had hit the supper table like a Roman candle. Mr. Murray had exploded with rage, calling Knighton out to the garden. Bea had gone out with them and filled Fancy in on what happened afterward.

  Mr. Murray had told Knighton to leave, and being an independent woman, Bea hadn’t liked that. She had instead invited Knighton to stay at Camden Manor since he was a friend of her brother. Yesterday, he’d made explicit to Bea what he was offering her: a marriage of convenience. Apparently his newly inherited duchy had come with four illegitimate half-siblings, and he needed a duchess to guide them…and to provide him with heirs.

  He offered me a ‘partnership,’ Bea had wryly told Fancy in private. One in which he and I would respect each other and work toward shared goals without sentiment being involved. I turned him down.

  Fancy knew that, not long ago, Bea might have accepted such a proposition, but Mr. Murray had changed Bea’s views on what a relationship could be. Bea was falling in love with the handsome Scot, who clearly returned her feelings.

  This meant that Knighton’s suit was bound for failure. Not that it mattered where Fancy was concerned. After all, a duke wasn’t going to fall for a tinker’s daughter.

  Sighing, Fancy gave her pole a testing tug: it was slack and lifeless, much like her hopes.

  Obsessing o’er Severin Knight is stupid, she scolded herself. Worse than stupid, it’s selfish. You ought to be thinking o’ Bea’s welfare and not some unattainable cove.

  Since the arson, Bea, with Mr. Murray’s assistance, had started investigating suspects. The task wasn’t simple since all of Bea’s potential enemies were powerful men. Fancy had helped where she could, listening to her friend, asking her brothers to keep their eyes and ears open for any threats.