The Duke Diaries (2 page)

The Duke Diaries

or

How the Far More Interesting Half Lives . . .

Little did she know how her life would change after that monumental moment.

1. Verity Fitzroy would refine the art of eavesdropping, especially after her brother’s circle of friends became known as the royal entourage. Yes, all of James’s acquaintances, now dukes, bore their ducal strawberry-leaved emblems with pride and celebrated their unrivaled superiority in the ton by extraordinarily entertaining, ofttimes wildly excessive actions.

2. Her brother would not marry Catharine. (However, his next choice for a bride fourteen years later would be no better. This current fiancée suggested all of his sisters should be packed off to a nunnery. It made Verity reconsider the merits of cheetahs and pray for divine intervention. Her wishes and those of her sisters, Faith, Hope, Chastity, and Charity, would soon be answered.)

And 3. Verity’s own secrets, in the end, would rival the combined actions of all the dukes of the royal entourage.

Yes, the very public fall from grace of more than a handful of Graces, and her part in it would prove to Verity that her stories of small green verifiable legumes, hoof picks, and governesses with irrational dislikes, would have been far superior diary topics after all.

Then again, the best of heroines are usually known for dabbling in disaster.

Chapter 1

T
here was a reason Rory Lennox, the former Earl of Rutledge, and now first Duke of Abshire, didn’t drink. It wasn’t because it left his palate tasting like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. It wasn’t because his cottony tongue felt three times larger and his brain sloshed in his now thirty-five-year-old nob. No. It was because disaster never, ever,
ever
failed to lurk on spirit’s coattails.

And last night?

The royal entourage’s celebration during the final hours of the Duke of Candover’s bachelorhood prior to committing marital doom had obviously been a cock-up of the first water. Rory knew it within seconds of waking to the sound of a fist pounding on his door as if Napoleon’s own army was paying a call. Yes, he thought, as he tried to pry open an eyelid and then thought the better of it, he really didn’t give a damn who was making such a nuisance of themselves.

He was now a goddamned duke, for Christsakes, and if he couldn’t at least get a good night’s sleep in return for prior service to the Crown, well then, what was the point of risking one’s life? Not that he had ever risked a hair on his head for the reward of a good night’s sleep. He’d had his own bloody reasons.

Thank God the pounding stopped. His eyes closed, yet fully awake, he knew better than to move. For the life of him he couldn’t remember any of the events leading to this splendidly awful state of postinebriation, but he knew the only recourse was to remain like a petrified oak until his former military batman, now valet, made an appearance, carrying a crystal snifter filled with the hair of the mongrel that had bitten his arse to the bone last eve. He almost retched as he remembered the absinthe the Duke of Kress had provided in amounts capable of pickling half of Wellington’s regiments.

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.