The Duke Diaries Read online

  In fact, the only part of Rory that did not feel like it had been turned inside out and burned in a cauldron was his hand.

  What was that lovely, soft, warm sensation coursing through his fingers? He smiled. Well, at least part of last evening had gone as planned. The lovely Countess of Velram had hinted she would find his bedchambers in the Prince Regent’s pile, Carleton House, and quite obviously the young widow had succeeded. It was only too bad Rory couldn’t remember a single moment of the interlude. He gently gripped the lady’s hand, and received a sensuous squeeze in reply.

  It was odd, actually. He never touched people’s ungloved hands. It hurt his brain box too much to remember why.

  And then the pounding recommenced with the force of a log battering a well-garrisoned and fortified Portuguese fortress. The door to the regal bedchambers gave way to the man who would surely regret it.

  Rory pried open his eyelids to find three things:

  1. His former friend and current archenemy, the premier duke, Candover, breathing fire and brimstone in his direction.

  2. Three royal servants peering around the broken doorjamb.

  3, And lastly? Not the Countess of Velram in flagrante delicto beside him in the bed. Of course not. It was one of bloody Candover’s sisters.

  And he was holding her hand.

  He released her fingers as if they were hotter than the hinges of hell, and wrenched his body upright, his head screaming in revolt. His nemesis barked something to the servants behind him and closed the door, a considerable feat given the ruined state of the frame.

  “Get up,” Candover said, ice threading the syllables. “And get the hell away from my sister, you sodding bastard.”

  Rory lurched to his feet on the side opposite his former friend, only to notice his clothes were wet, including the water-logged boots hugging his clammy legs. In the next instant Candover’s sibling sighed in her sleep, smiled, and turned to burrow deeper into a pillow.

  Rory blinked, trying desperately to make out which one of the five sisters had entered his chambers last night. They all looked so damned alike with that voluminous dark hair and aristocratic mien that matched their brother’s. Pretty was an adjective rarely used in their direction—although, to be fair, Rory had always found them tolerable, far more intelligent than most, and no giggles to plague the ears.

  But right now the lady in question looked more like a mummy trussed in lace from head to toe. Honestly, there were nuns in France who showed more flesh. This he knew firsthand.

  He squinted at her during the three seconds Candover’s visage turned from sea green to purple. Lord, he hoped she was not the algorithmist whose only conversation concerned totient functions that would have boggled Euclid. He exhaled. Ah, it was the middle one, Verity Fitzroy. The one who had always dogged Candover, the Duke of Sussex, and his own heels whenever she could manage it as a girl. Well. He vaguely remembered she had wit, but obviously not a great sense of direction in terms of bedchambers. Well, if it had to be one of Candover’s sisters, he was at least glad it was not one of the mathematically inclined ones.

  “I should have put you out of your misery years ago,” Candover seethed, his words seared with contempt. “You refuse to suffer as you should. I shall ensure it now. Dawn tomorrow. You know where.”

  “Yes, I’m certain your bride would prefer an uninterrupted wedding night,” Rory retorted calmly. “Primrose Hill it is.”

  “I’ll not grant you your choice of weapon, for you don’t deserve a show of tradition. It will be daggers so I can gut you like the eel that you are.”

  Rory cleared his throat and stared at his nemesis. “All right,” he replied. “Although, I should like to know why your sister is in my apartments and sleeping like the dead.”

  Candover’s eyes narrowed, flashing mercury. “My sister’s sleeping habits are not your affair and these are her rooms, you lunatic.”

  Rory coolly glanced toward the corner, only to find that the burled walnut armoire that should have been there was now in the center of the opposite wall and it was made of rosewood and considerably larger. There was also one more telltale clue as to the bona fide resident of the chamber. The apartments were decorated in very fine pink and yellow toile de joie. Every last inch. Very unlike the burgundy and gold wall pattern of his apartments.

  Despite Candover’s green about the gills demeanor, the premier duke appeared ready to dispatch him on the spot. Instead, the head of the royal entourage took five very long strides to his sister’s side and shook her. “Verity . . . Verity, awake.” When she did not stir, he tried again and failed. He finally grasped a glass of water on the nearby rosewood table and dashed the contents on her innocent face.

  She gasped, sat straight up in bed, a sole long dark brown braid snaked around her neck and shoulders like the marital noose she would soon feel. The heels of her palms rubbed her eyes as she yawned so widely her jaw cracked inelegantly. Eyes never opening, she paused and dropped back onto the pillow. Her brother gritted his teeth, grabbed her reticule nearby and extracted a small container of smelling salts.

  He wove it around her nose and finally, blessedly, she pushed away his hand and balefully opened one eye.

  “James,” she said with a sleepy voice. “Whatever are you doing here? Where is Amelia?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea where your abigail is but I shall sack her when I see her—of that you can be sure.”

  Verity, beginning to fully awaken, gave her brother a long-suffering look. “How ridiculous. You adore Amelia.” She rubbed her forehead. “We shall chalk this up to wedding day nerves. Oh, my head is splitting, James.” She suddenly appeared agitated. “I must find Amelia. What time is it?”

  “Half past ten. But that is the least of your problems,” he replied, stiffly. “You are in far deeper—”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “But the wedding was to start ages ago. Oh, James, why did no one wake us?”

  “An excellent question,” Rory drawled from the far side of the bed. The suspense was almost killing him and so he had to put it out of its misery.

  She jerked her head to face him, and scrambled from the frame, taking almost all of the bed coverings with her. “What are you doing here?” she breathed, her brown eyes huge in her face.

  “Missing the Wedding of the Century and the after breakfast, along with you, too, apparently,” he replied casually. “And providing your brother the chance to finally live out his fondest desire. All in all, a fairly mundane beginning to the week, no, my sweet?”

  “Don’t you dare address my sister so cavalierly, Rutledge—”

  “Abshire,” Rory corrected.

  “I keep forgetting you blackmailed Prinny for a duchy.”

  Rory tilted his head and said not a word. There were times silence was the best answer of all.

  “Enough,” Verity said while wrapping the heavy bed covering about her. “You haven’t answered my question. And why are you both wetter than ducks?”

  Rory scratched the back of his aching head and peered at Candover, who while maintaining an air of superiority, appeared just as much at a loss for words as he. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

  “You haven’t a notion why you’re wet or what you’re doing in my chambers?”

  “Both,” Rory replied, “although I’m certain it had something to do with Kress’s French drink of the devil.”

  She turned to her brother. “Where is everyone else? We haven’t really missed your wedding, have we?”

  Candover’s face was as pale as the underbelly of a royal swan. Just the thought jarred loose in Rory the wisp of a memory last night of a web-footed, white monster aquatic bird chasing the premier duke on the banks of the Serpentine. He half smiled in remembrance until the motion made his face hurt. He swayed. God, he would have swooned if his manhood would not have been called into question.

  A cold sweat broke out on Candover’s prominent forehead. “Lady Margaret, her family, and half of London apparently waited at
St. George’s for ninety minutes before the Spencers whisked her away. There’s no hope for making amends.”

  “James,” his sister whispered, “oh, I’m so very sorry—”

  Candover cut her off with a look.

  “But why weren’t we woken?”

  Rory cleared his throat. “One could guess from past history that Prinny commanded that none of us be disturbed. The last servant who disobeyed him . . . well, the poor fellow regretted it.”

  Candover narrowed his eyes. “The Prince Regent is waiting for us to join him in his chambers. The Morning Post just printed a second edition for the first time in its history, which is full of damning evidence of larking about last night.”

  Larking about, indeed. Sudden flashes of hideous scenes flooded Rory’s mind. Lord, he might have even broken down a door in the wee hours to enter White’s Club, where all of London’s aristocracy won and lost their fortunes many times over. “Prinny will be bent on exacting a pound of flesh from all of us even if he was likely with us each step of the way.”

  Candover’s ashen face turned dark as he glared at Rory. “That’s nothing to this . . . this . . . You’ll marry her today, and then you and I shall have a meeting of the minds, you sodding blackguard—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, James,” Verity interrupted. “We’ll do nothing of the sort. This is just a stupid misunderstanding. Nothing—”

  Her brother continued, one index finger stabbing the air at the start of the never-ending series of righteous demands. “Verity, you shall immediately have your affairs packed, mouth vows you will not have to keep, and then you will depart for Derbyshire this very afternoon.”

  “I most certainly will not.”

  He had to admire her spirit.

  “Don’t worry,” Candover continued darkly. “You won’t have to live with him.”

  “Really?” Rory inserted. “That’s not how I’ve heard this marriage business limps along.”

  “Enough,” Verity insisted. “James, did you not say Prinny is waiting? This can be sorted out later. Besides, no one will ever know.”

  Candover shook his head. “I had not thought a sister of mine could be so naïve. There are a bevy of servants just outside your damn door.”

  “And they will not breathe a word,” she said as she rearranged the bed covering, then grabbed her discarded gown and slippers from the scrolled footstool at the end of the bed. “This place is riddled with secret passageways. I’ll just use the one I discovered over there”—she nodded toward the east wall—“to go to Isabelle’s chambers, where we’ll all agree I passed the evening.” She rubbed her forehead yet again.

  Rory examined her shrewdly. He would bet his last farthing that she had sampled Kress’s bloody absinthe.

  Candover appeared at the end of his rope. The small tic near his right eye was the sign. “It won’t do. You will marry him today.”

  “I will not.” Verity turned away from her brother and eyed him. “What say you? Are you willing to be trapped so easily? Where is the rakehell we all know and revere when we need him?”

  “Standing before you.” Rory bowed with a flourish and nearly lost his footing. “You know very well once a rake, always a rake.”

  Candover rounded the edge of the bed, and Rory did nothing to stop him. It didn’t hurt. For three seconds the blinding pain meted out to his eye was held in suspension. He nearly cast up his accounts when his brain caught wind of the blow.

  “Pardon me,” Verity said so quietly that both men turned to her. She picked up a nasty-looking pistol from her nightstand and pointed it at them. “Can you not both wait until tomorrow? You did say Prinny is waiting, James.”

  “Why on earth do you have . . .” James said, stunned.

  She paused for just the slightest second. So briefly, another man would have missed the precursor of a lie in the making.

  “Perhaps Prinny keeps these in ladies’ chambers to ward off intruders,” she said in an overly lofty tone. “Exquisite, but lethal, no?”

  The hue of Candover’s face became paler, the effects of the evening evident. “For the love of God, put that down.”

  “No.”

  Candover sighed, crossed the room and came to a stop near the door, which was as far away as the other man could get from Rory. “Verity, like it or not, you will marry the bastard. You will obey me.”

  She lowered the pistol and jutted her chin forward. “Why ever would I start a bad habit like that? And you are a fine one to talk. Did you not just stand up your bride in front of half of London? You have far more important things to worry about than a spinster sister who has never had any intention of marrying—as you well know.”

  A glimmer of sadness invaded Candover’s face, before he wiped it clean of any emotion. “Promise me you will depart for Boxwood today,” he replied quietly. “Promise me, Verity. And you will not leave Derbyshire until this is sorted out to my satisfaction.”

  “I will go, brother,” she capitulated. “If only to avoid the storm and not add to your epic disaster.”

  Candover eyed the two of them. “Verity, take the passage. Dress as fast as you possibly can and I shall arrange for a carriage. Amelia will stay to pack your affairs.” Then Candover looked at Rory as if he was nothing more than the eel he had suggested. “I suggest you follow me after I divert the servants. Over there”—he nodded to the newspaper he had tossed on the table when he’d entered in a rage—“you’ll find recommended reading before you join Prinny and the rest of us.”

  Verity had gathered a few articles and disappeared through the concealed door.

  Rory’s eye hurt like a thousand devils. He did not turn a hair. “Your power of control over a female is inspiring, Candover. I salute you.”

  The premier duke narrowed his eyes. “I should have almost enjoyed witnessing how you fared with my sister. But I shall enjoy finishing you off even more . . . after you say your vows.”

  The premier duke Rory had once considered a brother turned on his heel and departed with far less violence than he had arrived. His head throbbing like a thousand devils, Rory glanced at the newspaper on the table and retrieved it. He turned to “The Fashionable World,” the section read by the aristocracy who participated in social folly, but more importantly by the legion of lower classes who wished they could partake. His head swimming in devil’s brew, he fought the pain to scan the column, his chest tightening.

  In a continuation of the regular obscene excesses of the Prince Regent and his royal entourage, not one of the party made an appearance at St. George’s much earlier this morning, with the exception of our Princess Caroline, darling little Princess Charlotte, and Her Grace, the young Duchess of March. His Majesty’s absence and that of the groom and groomsmen caused all four hundred guests to assume the worst. And indeed, this columnist has it on the very best authority, partially one’s own eyewitness account, that not only the august bridegroom, His Grace, the Duke of Candover, but also seven other dukes, one archbishop, and the Prince Regent himself were seen cavorting about all of London last eve on an outrageous regal rampage. Midnight duels, swimming amok with the swans in the Serpentine, a stream of scantily clad females in tow, lawn bowling in unmentionables, horse races in utter darkness, wild, uproarious boasting, and jesting and wagering abounded. Indeed, this author took it upon himself to retrieve and return to White’s Club their infamous betting book, which one of the royal entourage had the audacity to remove without even a by your leave. In this fashion we have learned that the Duke of Kress lost the entire fortune he so recently acquired with the title, although the winner’s name was illegible.

  Even the queen’s jewels were spotted on one duke as he paraded down Rotten Row. Yes, my fellow countrymen, it appears the English monarchy has learned nothing from our French neighbor’s lessons concerning aristocratic overindulgence. As the loyal scribe of the Fashionable column for two decades, you have it on my honor that all this occurred and worse. I can no longer remain silent on these reoccurring grie
vous, licentious activities, and so shall be the first plain-speaking, brave soul to utter these treasonous words: I no longer support or condone a monarchy such as this.

  Lord above . . . Rory crumpled the paper in his hand. The same hand that had been holding Lady Verity Fitzroy’s quite possibly through the dawn hours. And all the sordid, bloody, dangerous, soul-shattering events in his past came roaring back into his head with a vengeance.

  Chapter 2

  So this was banishment.

  For the first time in her life Verity had not even one hint of family or friends in sight here in Derbyshire. And not one thing to do. The official mistress of the family by default, she had not one dinner menu to approve, not one social occasion to plan or accept, and she had completed the annual inventory for Boxwood in record time.

  It was ridiculous.

  Her brother had never been an ogre in the past. How could he blame her for sleeping her way to disaster and then send her away? Everyone in the family knew she slumbered like a hibernating bear. And had not James slept like a drunken ox through his own wedding?

  Well, she refused to feel sorry for herself. It never brought happiness nor changed the past.

  She should know.

  Verity glanced nearby toward her brother’s favorite horse, which she had ridden to this corner, who was deliriously munching on the forbidden grass of the garden. James would be furious.

  Using the tattered end of one of her ancient bonnet’s faded scarlet ribbons, she swatted at a tiny insect navigating her forearm. She sighed with frustration. Even her very best friend and cousin in Derbyshire, the widowed Esme, Countess of March, was gone. Gone to the Continent to pursue her one passion and great talent: art.

  Which meant that for the first time in her life, aside from the thirty-seven silent, or mostly silent, servants, Verity was finally granted the one thing she had always sought: peace.