What I Did For a Duke

What I Did for a Duke

Julie Anne Long

Dedication

For Steve Axelrod, brilliant agent and friend—it’s been an honor, pleasure, and adventure so far, and I have a hunch it will continue to be.

Contents

Chapter 1

F
rom a deucedly awkward crouch between a birdbath and a shrubbery in the back garden of a Sussex manor house, Ian Eversea watched the silhouette of a woman pass tantalizingly once . . . twice . . .
Hallelujah!
Three times!—before the upper story window.

The window went black. The lamp had been doused.

A signal and a confirmation.

He launched to a stand. His knees cracked like gunshots. He froze. Yet he was alone but for a sky full of stars; naught a soul would witness his furtive journey to the tree.

The road to this tree—and to the last three nights of coyly escalating sensual games in her bedroom—began during a conversation at a ball in honor of Abigail’s engagement to the Duke of Falconbridge one week earlier. At this very house.

Introductions were made; attraction was instant; conversation was brief, every word of it a veritable pearl of innuendo in a lengthening strand of indiscretion. From the beginning, for Ian, all of it was excellent,
excellent
: her lush burnished beauty, the veneer of innocence over a delightful if startling moral recklessness, all of
that
wrapped in one particularly titillating danger: she was engaged to Alexander Moncrieffe, the Duke of Falconbridge, who’d allegedly poisoned his first wife a decade earlier (naught had ever been
proven
, of course, nor had any formal accusation ever been made, but the
ton
knew better than to let such delicious gossip die). He’d fought more than one duel. So they said. He was a cold, elegant, staggeringly wealthy man. He gambled, both at cards and with investments, and he never, ever lost. One trifled with him at one’s peril.

Or so gossip had it.

Before drifting away, Lady Abigail had tapped Ian lightly on the arm with her fan and laconically added there was an oak tree
right
outside her bedchamber window.

He knew the tree. He’d seen it as they’d arrived for the ball through the opportunistic eyes of the typical Eversea male: it leaned conspiratorially against the red brick of the house; its trunk was solid and there were low sturdy branches a grown man could easily scale without damaging essential parts of his anatomy. But its most compelling feature was the branch that stretched yearningly—one might (
he
might) even say insistently—toward a particular window.

And he’d wondered who’d slept in that room.

It was no cause for wonderment for either Ian or Lady Abigail that they were in such accord.

Perhaps I’ll see you after midnight tomorrow.

There had never been a “perhaps” about it.

For three nights he’d made this journey, from the crouch by the fountain to her bed. For three nights he’d progressed from a kiss to getting her nearly undressed. Tonight she’d promised to be entirely unwrapped when he slid into the bed, and urged him to be, too.

So his heart was thumping hard when he jumped up to get a grip on a lower branch, shinned up the trunk to the one that led to her window and swung up. She’d left the window open an inch or two. He curled his fingers beneath and slid it up gingerly, as too eagerly grabbing at the weathering frame the night before was how he’d come by his splinter. He hooked both legs over the sill, then ducked to slide his long body through. The drop into her bedroom was short; a thick Savonnerie carpet swirled in lights and darks muffled his landing.

He tore off his clothes with the urgency of a man fighting off fire ants.

He propped a hand on a table near the window, yanked off his boots, and lined them up side by side on the carpet. His fingers flew over buttons as he rid himself of his coat and shirt and trousers; he wadded all of them together and stacked them next to the bed.

Oh, God. And it was all
very
good, from the crouch to the splinter to the tree. Every sound, every sensation, amplified his desire and was now familiar and erotic and all of a piece, all part of the act itself: The rustle of the sheets as he lifted them to slide into the bed next to her, the first sweet shock of their smooth coolness on his skin, the ghost of lavender scent they released, the first skim of his fingers over the warm skin of the woman waiting in bed, herself little more than a shadow made of fragrant and silky flesh in which he would soon bury himself as she’d promised, her sigh of welcome, the unmistakable gut-chilling metallic
click
of a pistol being cocked—

Holy Mother of—!

Perhaps not that.

That was new.

Ian and Abigail scrambled away from each other and sat bolt upright in the bed. Heart thudding against his breastbone, Ian fumbled futilely for his pistol—he was
nude
and his pistol was in his boot. He surreptitiously slid one bare foot out of the bed and laid it flat on the floor, preparing to launch as appropriate—out the window or at the wielder of the pistol. His eyes frantically raked the dark.

“Oh, you won’t want to move another hair.”

The voice was low, dark, and almost offhandedly, lightheartedly menacing.

Mother of God. It was like the night itself had spoken.

Ian was not a coward. But all the little hairs on the back of his neck and arms went erect when one of the shadows detached itself from the corner chair in which it had been slumping and grew taller and taller . . . and began to drift toward them.

Not a spectre. A man, of course. Dressed strategically in dark clothing. The better to hide, to corner, to trap.

Abigail’s breathing was audible, tattered by terror.

The man moved toward the bed with the languid loose-limbed purpose of a stalking leopard. Errant moonlight allowed in through the window glanced off the barrel of his pistol. And off something else, something metal, in his other hand. . . . A lamp.

He settled it gently, precisely down on the small table next to the window, and then took what seemed like an insufferable amount of time to light it, but then fear did rather play havoc with one’s sense of time. The flame shuddered fitfully and at last took hold. And at last a man’s face flickered in and out of light and shadow. It was a bit like watching Lucifer sitting at a campfire.

“Moncrieffe.”

Ian’s voice was hoarse with shock. Unfortunately, Abigail gasped the word at the same time, lending the flavor of a bad pantomime to the whole thing.

It all would have been quite funny had this been someone else’s grave, grave dilemma.

The Duke of Falconbridge pondered them. He was already unusually tall, and the lamplight threw an even taller shadow of him against the wall. Two spectral dukes hovering over the bed, and both of them had pistols.

Ian couldn’t decide whether to fix his eyes upon Moncrieffe’s face or the weapon. One was aimed precisely at the center of Ian’s chest, which was covered now in a cold film of sweat. Both were identically gleaming, impassive, and deadly.

He had no doubts about whether Moncrieffe was capable of shooting. His reputation rather preceded him.

“Eversea.” The duke nodded in an ironic parody of a social greeting.

It contained nothing of surprise. As though he had expected him.

Had in fact, stalked him, watched him, and lain in wait— . . . God . . . for how many nights?

“How did y-you . . . ?” Ian stammered.

Perhaps this wasn’t the time to ask questions, but he truly was curious.

His hands were perspiring now, too.

“As I never sleep before midnight, Eversea, and I’m a guest here, I saw your horse tethered in the road for three nights now. Honestly, knowing you as I do, it wasn’t difficult to draw conclusions. I set the horse free, by the way.”

Christ! He loved that horse.

Well, they were in Sussex, and the horse would find its way back to Eversea House, of that he was certain. Or into the hands of the Gypsies who camped in Sussex, who would know better than attempt to sell a horse that belonged to an Eversea.

But as for whether
Ian
would ever make it back to the house . . .

Abigail’s hand found his and gripped. As if he could offer comfort! He might need that hand to do battle with the duke.

Perhaps if he attempted to placate. “I never . . .” he began. “We never
quite
. . .”

The duke’s eyebrows flicked upward, daring Ian to finish that thought.

Which he regretted doing the moment he did.

“. . . It’s not what it seems.”

The ensuing silence was palpably incredulous. Even Abigail turned to look at him in gap-mouthed astonishment that anyone would actually say that outside of a bad pantomime.

But bloody hell—and more’s the pity—it was true. More accurately, it wasn’t
yet
what it seemed.

“I might be more moved by that assertion if it didn’t sound so
regretful
, Eversea.”

The duke almost sounded amused. But then irony, when delivered cold and shaved very, very fine, could sound like amusement.

There was nothing at all amusing about the unwavering aim of that pistol.

Abigail and Ian flinched when the duke broke from the circle of lamplight and strode slowly over to Abigail’s side of the bed. All this
slinking
was very unnerving, because Ian knew the man usually moved as though he resented gravity. With long, impatient strides and focus and purpose. He wasn’t a
stroller.

He stood over her.

Abigail audibly swallowed.

Down, down, down. The duke lowered the pistol. They watched it with the avidity with which they would an indecisive cobra. Perhaps . . . perhaps he meant to lock it? To tuck it away? To—

He stopped lowering it when the muzzle was aimed precisely at Abigail’s throat.

She squeezed her eyes closed and hoarse prayers rushed between her lips.

Ian’s rib cage stopped moving. His breathing had arrested. Abigail’s hand was like ice in his, and for an ungentlemanly moment he wanted to fling it back to her, to reject their mutual idiocy, to ask her how on earth she thought
he
could comfort her or resolve the circumstance. The two of them were only involved for the pleasure of it. He assessed his chances of flying at the duke and knocking him to the floor before he could shoot. After all, he was naked and coated in terror sweat and would therefore theoretically be difficult to grip. The duke was tall but wiry and
might
topple should he be struck by a hurtling Eversea.

But Ian didn’t like his chances. He’d seen the man shoot at Manton’s.

He’d no choice. He’d talked his way into this; he’d talk his way out of it.

“For God’s sake, Moncrieffe.” His voice was still frayed but he was proud that it didn’t tremble. “Do you have to torment
her
? Call me out or shoot
me
and have done with it. The fault is entirely mine.”

This wasn’t at all true, as Abigail had in fact set the whole thing in motion, but it was perhaps the most gallant thing Ian had yet said in his life. Then again, centuries of splendid breeding and battle-tempering were difficult to combat. They rose inconveniently to the surface in moments of greatest peril, it would seem.

“Just . . . for the love of God, do whatever it is you intend to do.”

Silence as the duke considered—or pretended to consider—this entreaty.

“Very well,” the duke said with equanimity. “As you make an excellent point, Eversea, I’ll do what I intended to do all along. And what I
intend
to do . . .”

Ian was so focused on the pistol he hadn’t noticed the man was unbuttoning his trousers as he spoke.

“. . . is share her with you. Slide over, Eversea.”

T
heir gasps nearly sucked the air out of the room.

Satisfied he’d shocked a few years from their lives, Alexander Moncrieffe, the sixth Duke of Falconbridge, paused his hand on his trouser buttons and contemplated all the whiteness: bulging white eyes, the naked white shoulders, the white sheet his fiancée had yanked modestly up beneath her chin to disguise from him all that pale nudity she was willingly sharing with Eversea.

He knew him, of course, and his brothers and father, from White’s, from entirely noncommittal encounters over cigars and brandies in libraries after balls. They were a close-knit, legendarily charming, legendarily wealthy lot.

He mulled the notion of toying with them a little more and rejected it as pointless. And perhaps more to the point, boring.

Perhaps it was because he was, as was whispered, getting old.

He was nearly
forty
.

Instead he moved—so quickly Abigail stifled another shriek and Ian flung his arms up over their heads in defensive alarm—across the room and yanked the window up high, then bent and seized Eversea’s boots—it had been all he could do not to shoot the scoundrel as he’d watched him
neatly line them up
—and hurled them like spears—
One! Two!
—out the window. Next he hurled out the wadded bundle of clothes. For one thrilling moment Ian’s coat caught a passing breeze and flapped like a bat sideways through the night before disappearing.

But the shirt didn’t get far. It caught in the branches of the tree and dangled by the cuffs and swung gaily, as though inhabited by an invisible trapeze artist.

They were all mesmerized by it for half a second.

Then Moncrieffe spun on his heel and aimed the pistol precisely at Ian’s sweating white forehead.

“Leave the way you came, Eversea. Now.” The words were etched in menace.

He could sense that Ian’s muscles were bunched in preparation to fend off an attack or perhaps launch one. He was younger, but Moncrieffe was certain the fight would be fair even if he didn’t have a pistol. He’d had years of experience in which to perfect all manner and methods of fighting, dirty included. Perhaps especially.

“Do you need me to define ‘now’ for you as well as ‘honor,’ Eversea? Test me.” He took an infinitesimal step forward.

This propelled the boy. Ian slid swiftly from the bed, attempting to drag the sheet with him. He was yanked backward abruptly. He shot a glance over his shoulder. Abigail had a stubborn grip on it.