Chapter 1
March 22, 1814
The Duke of Thornhill’s Townhouse, London
“I am not leaving until you find a wife,” Lady Lucinda Kingston declared, stomping her cane on the breakfast room’s marble floor.
Setting his morning paper down on the table, James sighed. Deeply. It was the sound of a man who wished to read his morning paper in peace. The sound of a man who thought that this was, all things considered, a simple request.
At one and thirty, he had been the head of his family for eleven long years, and as such he felt that he deserved a peaceful morning before facing his duties. At present, those duties included an alarmingly large pile of reports from his various stewards, and the draft of a speech about a possible treaty with France.
False modesty aside, James was a powerful peer of the realm, respected by his friends, and even his enemies—respected by everyone, except for his great aunt, Lady Lucinda Kingston.
Aunt Lucy, the family’s long-suffering matriarch, clearly felt welcome anytime she wished to drop in for a visit, including breakfast. This morning, she’d pushed past his new butler. Despite the butler’s glowing references, the man had allowed an eighty-five-year-old woman who walked with a cane at the pace of a turtle to overcome him.
“I shall need to find another butler,” James mumbled under his breath. But first, he must set about removing Aunt Lucy and her ridiculous demands from his house.
“Good morning, Aunt Lucy.” Ever the gentleman, James begrudgingly rose from his comfortable chair.
“I am not leaving until you find a decent young lady and fulfill your duties to your family, and to your title! You must produce an heir,” Aunt Lucy proclaimed, echoing her earlier sentiment in case he’d somehow misunderstood her meaning the first time around. Did the old woman think that upon hearing her demands he would marry the first willing trollop he could find?
James sighed again, and reclaimed his seat. If Aunt Lucy left her manners at the door he saw no reason to remain on his feet—especially if she intended to command his breakfast room until he married. She might become a permanent fixture, rather like his late mother’s furniture.
Of course another chair would be a silent addition to the space.
“Please help yourself to the sideboard. You may be here for some time.” With that James picked up his paper, opened it was a flourish, and proceeded to ignore the furious old crone standing in the middle of the room. Aunt Lucy could stay for as long as she wished. After all, how much trouble could an old woman be?
But if Aunt Lucy was in London, it begged the question: who was playing guardian to his four younger sisters? As his only living female relative in her majority, Aunt Lucy acted as a chaperone, and at times a mother, to his sisters. Among those four, the eldest, Catherine would turn eighteen in May, and she would make her bow at court this year. He’d fully intended to find a new chaperone for her once she arrived in London though he’d hoped Aunt Lucy would help pave the way for her debut…
And then he heard it. The telltale sounds of a female invasion.
A symphony of high-pitch squeals echoed in the ornate hallway just beyond the breakfast room. If the butler raised his voice in protest, James could not hear him over the racket.
Moving very slowly, as if he could somehow make his escape unnoticed before utter pandemonium overtook his peaceful home, James placed his paper on the table, and rose to his feet. He cast his most severe ducal stare at Aunt Lucy who currently stood between him and the doorway with a smug look on her wrinkled face.
There was no escape. At any moment the noisy herd would break into the room.
“Your sisters will be staying here as well,” Aunt Lucy announced, stepping aside to make way for the onslaught.
“James! James!” The four young women cried in a near deafening chorus. Led by the eldest, his sisters—Catherine, Victoria, Elise, and Olivia—nearly tackled him to the ground. He felt like a sailor drowning in a sea of midnight black ringlets and hair braids.
“I thought you were planning to stay at Thornhill Castle until May,” James managed after greeting each sister with a quick hug and a kiss.
“Aunt Lucy said we needed to be here for your wedding!” Catherine exclaimed clapping her hands together and jumping up and down as she spoke. It was a miracle he heard her words over the noise made by her limbs. He’d always known Catherine was easily excited, but at the moment he wondered if she was perhaps the loudest young woman in all of England. And if so, how would he marry her off?
But then, her words sank in. The small pack of Kingston ladies had traveled from Thornhill Castle—a three-day journey when the roads were in peak condition and one did not have an elderly curmudgeon in the traveling party—to attend his wedding.
His wedding. What wedding?
“I beg your pardon?”
“Who are you marrying?” Olivia, the youngest at eleven years of age inquired politely.
“No one.”
“But Aunt Lucy said… ” Catherine began. “Oh!”
James could not fathom what had stopped Catherine mid-sentence, or what could possibly be the meaning behind her hideously high-pitched “oh!” At that precise moment, he was plotting ways to harm his elderly aunt.
“She jilted you,” Catherine announced to the room, clarifying her earlier exclamation.
“What?” James boomed as Elise, the second youngest at fourteen, threw her arms around him, and cried, “Oh, poor James!”
“No, she did not jilt me.” James extricated himself from Elise’s embrace, determined to set the record straight. “I am not planning to marry, at least not soon. Aunt Lucy was mistaken.”
Their faces fell. All four young ladies looked first to Aunt Lucy, then back to their brother, and then to each other. They looked as if he’d just killed their favorite puppy.
“I’m sorry to disappoint,” James added, staring daggers at Aunt Lucy. If that woman had not been a member of the family, he would have cast her out of his home immediately. He would have banished her to Ireland.
“Simply because he has not selected a bride yet, does not mean he won’t marry soon,” Aunt Lucy proclaimed. “Now that we are here, we might as well stay. Come along ladies, let us settle in, and perhaps we shall see His Grace this evening.”
The rather confused group allowed Aunt Lucy to herd them from his once peaceful dining room like a group of lost sheep. Victoria, the second oldest of the bunch, looked over her shoulder, and softly asked, “Will we see you at dinner?”
“Yes,” James managed. He couldn’t very well say no to them, although he had not quite wrapped his mind around the fact that they intended to stay here.
In London. With him.
It was not that James did not care for his sisters. In fact, quite the opposite held true, he loved and adored them. He’d built his life and reputation for them. He’d sculpted his image as the staid, powerful duke to pave the wave for their entry into society. Of course, he’d done all of this without setting foot in the ton’s ballrooms, but surely a man could build his reputation without flitting about from one entertainment to the next.
And precisely how he chose to conduct his life in London did not lessen his love for his sisters. He simply preferred to love and adore them from a distance. After all, what did he know of the day-to-day life of teenage girls?
“Yes,” James repeated, his tone hollow as the reality of his situation set in. “I shall see you this evening.”
“Excellent!” his aunt called, moving towards the hallway at the pace of a maimed snail. “We can discuss what the girls require for their first Season in London. Catherine desperately needs new gowns, and the younger ones will require new clothes as well.”
James fell back into his chair, blinking rapidly. They not only intended to live with him, they would bankrupt him as well.
Of course, this was far from possible. He could buy a small country with his fortune, never mind a few gowns. Yet, his vision of the future terrified him: long trips to Bond Street with his sisters squealing about ribbons and ruffles, his new phaeton, the envy of all his peers, overflowing with packages and boxes.
James groaned.
Not to mention his sisters would be here, in his home, watching his every move. If he spent the night away from home, they would know. Their arrival meant an end to his late nights with London’s leading courtesans, or to the home of a mistress. Not that he had a mistress at present, but he certainly would not have one in the near future with his sisters in residence.
Help—he needed help.
“My horse! Have my horse saddled at once,” he called to no one in particular. But seeing as his was a ducal household, a nearby servant quickly noted the command, and raced from the room.
##
“I need to borrow your wife.”
The words crossed James’s lips as he burst into the Earl of Abingdon’s dining room. He felt no need to stand on ceremony and wait to be announced at a time like this, not after Nathaniel, the earl, had repeatedly disrupted his breakfast last year when courting his wife. The wife whose assistance James desperately required.
“I’m not in the practice of lending her out,” Nathaniel replied, apparently nonplused by James’s presence. He did not even bother to look up from his paper. “Please help yourself to the sideboard. Excellent sausage this morning.”
“This is an emergency. I need your wife!” James demanded, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. Dukes did not panic, especially not when the crisis involved four young ladies.
Or perhaps, he had that wrong. Perhaps duke should not panic when facing another man over pistols or swords. Perhaps the only time a duke should panic was when faced with a hoard of female relatives intent on attending his wedding.
“What sort of emergency requires that you borrow Charlotte?” Nathaniel inquired in such a way that one would think he was discussing the weather. “No, on second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t wish to know.”
“My aunt arrived this morning with my sisters.”
“All of them?” Nathaniel asked, glancing over the top of his paper for the first time.
“Yes. They are in town for my wedding.”
“I beg your pardon?” This time the paper fell to the floor. At least, he now had his friend’s undivided attention. “What wedding?”
“It seems Aunt Lucy decided I should marry,” James answered with a deep exhale. The panic seemingly faded a bit now that he’d enlisted his friend’s aid. Taking another deep breath, James walked to the sideboard and decided he might as well help himself to some food. Perhaps, he could simply avoid them for the next few weeks?
“Aunt Lucy thought it best to force my hand by filling my house with four loud young women. She all but announced I would take them shopping and what not.”
“I see,” Nathaniel replied, turning his full attention to the matter. Although James thought he looked about ready to laugh at any moment. How could Nathaniel find this amusing?
Shaking his head in disgust, James took a bite of sausage. It was quite good. He would not mind dining here for the next few months. The girls could have the Park Lane house.
“What led you to the conclusion that you needed to borrow my wife?” Nathaniel asked, laughter still apparent in his eyes.
“I need a suitable woman to take the girls shopping and to do whatever else it is women do.” He had thought this rather obvious. “I need something to get them out of my house for at least a few hours a day, or I may be forced to move in here.”
“I don’t think you want to do that,” Nathaniel muttered under his breath. James looked up from his sausage and noted that Nathaniel was carefully watching something behind his head.
“James!” He heard Nathaniel’s wife call from behind him. “What a pleasant surprise.”
He immediately stood, and turned to greet Charlotte, the Countess of Abingdon. But the instant he came to face her, Charlotte fled the room.
“What… ” James began, looking to Nathaniel for an explanation.
“As you can see, Charlotte is currently indisposed, and won’t be of much help,” Nathaniel explained. The man appeared absurdly pleased to share this information. “For the past few weeks, she has spent most of her days in bed. The doctor said it should only be the mornings, but in Charlotte’s case, it lasts all day.”
James simply stared at him dumbfounded. Nathaniel was pleased that his wife suffered from this illness?
“She’s increasing you fool,” Nathaniel said with a wide smile. “I’m going to be a father.”
On second thought, he should stay far from Nathaniel’s household. First, the man behaved like a fool when he fell in love, and now this.
“Congratulations,” James said, reclaiming his seat at the table. He no longer had an appetite for sausage now that his plan lay in shreds on the dining room floor.
“Perhaps you should ask Amelia,” Nathaniel offered.
“No.”
“I know you two had your differences in the past, but she is well-versed in women’s fashion. More so than you, I would imagine. And London’s leading ladies adore her. If Amelia introduces Catherine this Season, she will surely be a smashing success,” Nathaniel said amiably. If he were not like a brother to him, James felt he would have taken a strong dislike this new cheerful, domestic version of Nathaniel.
“I don’t think she would be a proper influence for Catherine.” It was a valid argument. After all, Amelia made a habit of bribing her chaperone to turn a blind eye whenever it suited her. Hell, he’d first met Amelia in what was essentially a brothel—the home of Violet Lefevre. Apart from being his former mistress, Violet was London’s most notorious courtesan.
“I don’t want Catherine in the same room as Lady Amelia Spencer,” James continued firmly.
“Well then, I wish you luck on your expedition to Bond Street tomorrow with your four sisters. I hope you know something about fashion.”
James mulled over his options in stony silence. He refused to spend a full day, or even a full afternoon, shopping. If Aunt Lucy accompanied them it would take days, perhaps even weeks, at her snail’s pace.
“I don’t believe Amelia owes me any favors,” James muttered. “And there’s the matter of her father.”
“What does the Duke of Blenheim have to do with a shopping trip?” Nathaniel inquired, clearly surprised.
“At the Blenheim ball last Season, Amelia’s father insinuated that I was intent on courting his daughter. He suggested that I might have a noted interest in her given the time we spent together arranging your marriage,” James explained. This was in part, his friend’s fault. If Nathaniel had not tried to seduce Charlotte—who at the time was posing as a courtesan—and then, once he’d discovered Charlotte’s identity, insist on marrying her, James would never have met Lady Amelia Spencer.
“Are you?” Nathaniel asked innocently.
“Am I what?”
“Interested in courting Amelia?” his friend clarified.
“You think I would marry that woman? Lady Amelia Spencer is the most headstrong, opinionated woman in all of England. Granted, she is stunningly beautiful when she’s quiet, but she is never quiet!” James exclaimed. “That woman is a… ”
“Oh! Perhaps I should have waited for the butler to announce me.” The unmistakable sound of Lady Amelia Spencer’s voice interrupted before James could finish his sentence.
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