When the Duke Found Love

Advance Reader’s Copy — Not for Sale

WHEN THE DUKE FOUND LOVE

Isabella Bradford

Ballantine Books

This is an uncorrected eBook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.

Tentative On-Sale Date: November 27, 2012

Tentative On-Sale Month: December 2012

Tentative Print Price: $7.99

Tentative eBook Price: $7.99

Please note that books will not be available in stores until that above on-sale date. All reviews should be scheduled to run after that date.

Publicity Contact:

Ballantine Publicity

(212) 782-8678

www.ballantinebooks.com

Ballantine Books

An imprint of the Random House Publishing Group

1745 Broadway • New York, NY • 10019

She stood alone in the farthest corner of the gallery, beside the stone balustrade and beneath the shading branch of a nearby tree. The white of her gown was like a wisp of moonlight captured in the shadows, and he went to her at once, unable to resist. He’d no idea what he’d say or do, no idea at all except that he wanted to be with her, which should, he decided, be inspiration enough when the time came for doing and saying.

As he drew closer, she heard his footsteps and swiftly turned to face him. He thought she might have been crying; now he could see her hands had been knotted on the balustrade in frustration instead, not unhappiness. In an instant her expression changed from startled wariness to bewilderment to out-and-out wonder.

“It’s you,” she whispered, her eyes wide as he stood before her. “It’s
you.
”

“It is,” he said. “And you’re you, too.”

“What absolute foolishness,” she said. She smiled crookedly, displaying a single charming dimple, and then, to his eternal surprise, slipped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him.

B
Y
I
SABELLA
B
RADFORD

When You Wish Upon a Duke

When the Duchess Said Yes

When the Duke Found Love

This is an uncorrected ebook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.

When the Duke Found Love
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original

Copyright © 2012 by Isabella Bradford

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eBook ISBN 978-0-345-52734-9

www.ballantinebooks.com

For my two favorite

18th century duchesses,

Sarah Woodyard &

Abby Cox,

with thanks, regards, and affection

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
TK

C
ONTENTS

Cover

eBook Information

Teaser

Also by Isabella Bradford

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

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

C
HAPTER
O
NE

London

April 1764

Diana Wylder, the third and final daughter of the late Earl of Hervey, had never particularly believed in fate.

That is, she hadn’t until the afternoon Mama explained to her about Lord Crump.

The afternoon began well enough, with a drive planned, to be perhaps followed by a stroll through St. James’s Park with her mother and her older sister Charlotte. They were already waiting in the front hall as Diana hurried down the stairs, for as usual Diana was not precisely on time. To be sure, it was her hat’s fault, not hers: a splendid new hat with a wide, curling brim and a crown covered with white ostrich plumes, coral satin bows, and small sprays of pink silk flowers. This hat required a great deal of strategic pinning so that the brim would tip at the exact fashionable angle over her face, yet still permit Diana (barely) to see. Her maid had taken a quarter hour to get it right, and though Diana considered this time well spent, she couldn’t help but feel guilty as she saw Mama and Charlotte waiting for her.

“Forgive me,” she said breathlessly, pulling on her gloves as she joined them. “I didn’t intend to take so long.”

“So long as you’re ready now,” Mama said. “But don’t you think you should push your hat back a bit?”Ever helpful, Mama reached out to adjust the hat herself, but Diana scuttled backward.

“No, Mama, please,” she said, holding the curving brim defensively. “Mrs. Hartley assured me that this is the way all hats are being worn this spring in Paris.”

“You should care more for how hats are being worn in London, Diana, considering that is where you live,” Mama said, but sighed wistfully to show she’d already resigned herself to defeat. “I only wish you wouldn’t hide your pretty face away behind feathers and ribbons.”

“She looks lovely the way she is, Mama,” Charlotte said firmly, looping her arm fondly through Diana’s. “Now come. It’s far too fine a day to waste standing inside discussing hats.”

That should have been a warning of sorts, for Mama generally wished Diana to show less of her person, not more, just as Charlotte, her older, married sister and the famously beautiful Duchess of Marchbourne could seldom resist suggesting improvements to be made in Diana’s dress. But Diana was in too good a humor to be wary, and instead she simply grinned and followed her sister and mother from the house and down the steps.

The sun was shining as it rarely did for April in London, and the air was so warm with the first true breath of spring that the side windows were down in the carriage. Charlotte’s footmen, gorgeous in their pale blue Marchbourne livery, hopped to attention as soon as the ladies appeared. One of the footmen held the carriage door open and the folding steps steady as they climbed inside. As the youngest, Diana faced backward and slid across the feather-stuffed seat to the farthest side, claiming the window, where she could see and—more important—be seen. She’d no wish to have that splendid new hat be wasted where no one could admire it.

“I do like riding in your carriage, Charlotte,” she said happily as they began. “Much better than Aunt Sophronia’s.”

“It’s very kind of your sister to invite us to share it,” Mama said, settling her skirts around her legs. Mama was young to be the mother of two duchesses—she wasn’t even forty—and, with her golden blond hair and wide blue eyes, still sufficiently beautiful that people often mistook her for one more of the Wylder sisters instead of their mother. “It’s also generous of March to have given Charlotte such a comfortable carriage for driving about.”

“I like how everyone sees March’s crest on the door and makes such a fuss over us because of it,” Diana said, watching how even now people on the pavement were bowing and curtseying as they passed by. “It’s as good as being a duchess, but without any of the responsibilities.”

“You could do with a few responsibilities, Diana,” Charlotte suggested gently. “You’re eighteen now, no longer a child. It wouldn’t hurt you to concern yourself with more important things than new hats.”

Diana looked dolefully at her sister. Ever since Charlotte had married four years ago, she’d become more serious, more proper, more … well, dull, and it was all because of
responsibility
. To Diana, Charlotte’s entire life now seemed so dutiful and ordered, without even a morsel of excitement. Charlotte and March’s marriage had been arranged long ago by their fathers, and it was already well sealed with the birth of an heir, plus three other babies besides. As March’s wife and duchess, Charlotte oversaw his four households, his servants, his female tenants and their children, his journeys, his charities and subscriptions, his dinners for his friends, and likely many other things that Diana didn’t know about. From what Diana observed, Charlotte worked harder at being a duchess than her maidservants did in the scullery, and Diana didn’t envy any of it—except perhaps this carriage.

“Don’t make a face like that, Diana,” Mama said. “Charlotte is only speaking the truth. Unless you wish to return to Ransom Manor—”

“I’m not going back to Ransom,” Diana said quickly. Ransom Manor was the only true home that Diana had known, a rambling, ancient house on the southern coast where Mama had retreated from London to raise her three fatherless daughters—or, more accurately, where they’d raised themselves. It had been a splendid childhood, filled with pony riding and boat rowing and tree climbing and numerous pets, and very little of the education expected for the daughters of peers. But there were no suitable young gentlemen near Ransom, especially when compared to the absolute bounty of them to be found in London. “You can’t expect me to go back there unless you wish me to marry a—a
fisherman
.”

“Really, Di,” Charlotte said mildly, opening her fan. “As if anyone would expect that of you! Though an honest fisherman might be considered an improvement over some of the rogues you’ve let attend you.”

“They weren’t rogues,” Diana said, folding her arms over the front of her bodice with bristling defense. It was true that she’d been guilty of a few minor,
minor
indiscretions, but nothing worse than most young ladies indulged in to amuse themselves. “They were all gentlemen, every one of them.”

“It’s of no consequence now,” Mama said quickly. “Those, ah, gentlemen are all better forgotten.”

“Exactly,” Diana said, pleased that for once Mama had taken her side. “
Much
better to think of all the other ones who will be riding through the park today, ready to admire my hat.”

She smiled, tipping her head to one side as if already displaying the hat’s magnificence. On the seat across from her, Mama and Charlotte exchanged glances, which only made Diana smile more. They knew there would be young gentlemen striving to capture her attention in the park, just as she would be smiling winningly at them in return from beneath the curving brim of her hat. Such attention followed her everywhere she went in London—in parks, in shops, in theaters and playhouses, at the palace, and even in church—and it had been like that since she’d first come to London to stay two years before. No wonder Diana found her life so amusing, and no wonder, too, that she smiled now at the prospect of the afternoon before her.

But Mama wasn’t smiling in return, and neither was Charlotte.

“Diana, my darling girl,” Mama said, a disconcerting tremor in her voice, “I know it’s been my fault for letting you be so free, but now I hope to make it up to you in the best possible way.”

“Nothing’s been your fault, Mama,” Diana said. “You don’t need to make anything up to me, not now or ever.”

“But I do,” Mama said, pulling a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket. “If your poor father had lived, he would have seen to this long ago, as he did for Charlotte and Lizzie. You’re my baby, you see, my youngest and my last, and I haven’t wished to let you go, even though I should.”

“But you’ve always let me go wherever I pleased,” Diana said, not understanding. “You are not making sense, Mama, not at all.”

“Yes, she is,” Charlotte said. “Mama has accepted an offer for your hand from the Marquis of Crump. He is going to join us in the park so that you may meet him.”