How to Deceive a Duke

How to Deceive a Duke

Lecia Cornwall

Dedication

To Kevan and Tessa. Thank you!

Contents

Chapter 1

M
arguerite Lynton winced as her elder sister’s teacup fell to the floor and shattered.

There was nothing she could do about it in front of their esteemed guest. If the carpet that usually graced the floor of Wycliffe’s salon had been in place, then Rose’s cup would still be whole, but the rug had been rolled up and sold that morning, just hours before the Duchess of Temberlay’s unexpected arrival. She had come to ask Rose a very important question, which was happy news indeed, since the tea service was next on the list to be sold, and a diminished set would fetch considerably less.

The silence stretched as the duchess—and everyone else in the room—waited for Rose’s answer.

“Well, young lady, will you marry my grandson or not?” The duchess regarded Rose’s stunned expression and ignored the shards of china at her feet. Still her sister said nothing, and Marguerite glanced at the mantel where the clock had once stood, wanting to know the exact moment their fortunes had suddenly changed for the good, but the clock, like the rug, was gone.

She bit her lip. The duchess’s offer couldn’t have come at a better time, or been more generous, and Rose was sitting there in gape-jawed silence.

It was a pity the groom himself had not come to make the offer of marriage, but had sent his grandmother instead. She would have liked to see the infamous Nicholas Hartley, Duke of Temberlay, in the flesh. They’d only seen caricatures, and every one portrayed him as devastatingly handsome. Marguerite’s toes curled. Temberlay was said to be the wickedest rake in London, and now her sister was about to become his duchess. Rose had dreamed of a wealthy prince on a white horse, and now the nearest equivalent had appeared, all she could do was sit there, when all she had to do was say—

“No!” Rose’s anguished moan echoed off the bare walls.

Another teacup hit the floor. Marguerite’s mother shot to her feet from her seat beside Rose, her face a mask of horrified shock. Marguerite glanced at the cups the duchess and Uncle Hector still held, waiting for their reaction, hoping the china didn’t bear the brunt of their surprise too.

“No?” Flora Lynton, the Countess of Wycliffe, stared at her eldest daughter. “No? Rose, you can’t say no!”

“Young lady, are you truly saying you will not marry my grandson?” the duchess demanded, her tone gravel against Flora’s dismayed warble.

“Of course she isn’t saying no, Your Grace!” Flora cried, twining her fingers in Rose’s collar. “Are you?”

“No,” Rose said mulishly. “I mean yes, I’m saying no.”

Marguerite cast a pleading glance at her uncle, her father’s stepbrother, seated near the fireplace. He was usually the voice of reason, but he looked as stunned as Flora.

“Uncle Hector?” she whispered, trying not to attract the duchess’s attention, but the sharp black eyes swung toward her, swept over her russet hair and her shabby gown, and clung for a long moment of inspection. She felt her skin heat from toe to hairline under the bold appraisal.

Hector recovered himself and rose. “In this case, Flora, I would suggest—” He was cut off by a loud sob.

Before their eyes, Rose transformed from the family beauty to a wailing child. Her pert nose turned beet pink and began to swell. Her cupid’s-bow lips stretched wide and thin as she screeched like a scalded cat. She was shaking so hard that blond curls were working their way loose from her coiffure.

“Why me? Why do
I
have to marry him? Why not Marguerite or Lily?”

Flora stamped her foot, and shards of china crackled. She tightened her grip on Rose’s collar. “Be quiet this instant! Her Grace will think you are ungrateful!”

But she kept right on wailing, and Marguerite watched her mother’s complexion turn as red as Rose’s. In a moment she’d be crying too.

“Mama, perhaps you should take Rose upstairs to compose herself in private while I order more tea for Her Grace,” Marguerite said, taking control of the situation.

She led her sister to the door, and her mother followed, trying to curtsy and walk and apologize at the same time. “Please excuse us for just a moment, Your Grace, we’ll be back within—” Flora glanced at the absent clock and her eyes filled with tears.

“Papa’s watch is still upstairs, Mama,” Marguerite reminded her, and Flora nodded and left the room.

Marguerite shut the door and took her mother’s place on the settee, ignoring the naked speculation in the duchess’s eyes. “More tea, Your Grace?” she asked calmly as something crashed in the hallway. Hopefully it wasn’t anything valuable.

“Perhaps I should take my leave if the young lady isn’t interested,” the duchess said.

Marguerite forced a placid smile, as if tantrums and tea with duchesses happened every day at Wycliffe Park. “They will only be a moment. Do try the tarts,” she said, offering the plate. Their housekeeper, Amy, had baked them that morning from the last of the winter apples.

The duchess ignored them. “And which one are you, assuming you are one of the girls Lady Rose mentioned?”

Hector snapped to attention. “May I present Lady Marguerite Lynton, Your Grace?”

“The second sister then,” the duchess said flatly, as if she was of no further interest. Marguerite felt hot blood creeping up her face. It was true that she looked nothing like Rose or her lovely mother and pretty younger sisters. They were four perfect blond beauties, while Marguerite resembled her late father, russet-haired and plain, the only weed in Wycliffe’s garden of flowers. At least she had been given brains to make up for her lack of looks. She kept her chin high.

“And what of the third sister?” the duchess asked Hector, obviously dismissing Marguerite as anyone’s bride.

“Lily is only ten, Your Grace, and still in the nursery,” he replied.

“Then perhaps I have indeed wasted my time coming today.” She rose to her feet.

Panic propelled Marguerite up as well. “Wait! Rose simply needs a moment to compose herself. She is so delighted by your—er, your grandson’s—proposal, she is overcome.”

The oak panels of the door did little to muffle Rose’s distant screams of protest. “Is your sister always this demonstrative?” the duchess asked, taking her seat and examining Marguerite again.

“Quite the opposite, Your Grace. Rose is known for her sweet and gentle nature.”

The duchess snorted a laugh. “God help her then. My grandson will eat her alive!”

“An offer of marriage from the Duke of Temberlay would surprise any girl,” Marguerite bristled. “It was even more unexpected here, being as we are only recently out of mourning for my father.”

“Not to mention penniless,” the duchess added. She raised her hand for silence as Marguerite opened her mouth to protest. “I do not expect a dowry. I chose Lady Rose because of your father’s reputation. Nicholas must marry a woman of sterling character—chaste, demure, and titled. I understand the earl strictly educated his daughters to be clever, yet not too clever, and impeccably moral. He believed young ladies should be carefully bred to be perfect wives for peers of the realm, and to improve the moral and intellectual fiber of future generations, did he not?”

“That
was
Papa’s philosophy,” Marguerite murmured.

The clever-but-not-too-clever part certainly described her sisters. As Papa’s Plan for Raising Perfect Ladies dictated, they sang and played the pianoforte—before it was sold—they painted tolerably in watercolors, and they could make graceful curtsies. But they were not sensible girls, and not one of them was likely to improve the intellectual fiber of anything.

If Rose rejected the duke’s proposal, things would get worse. Wycliffe Park would have to be sold. Marguerite would have to find work as a governess or companion to support her mother and sisters. But if Rose accepted the proposal, the Temberlay fortune would provide for them all, and even ensure that Lily and Minnie had rich dowries when the time came. She blessed the fact that a man as wealthy and eccentric as the Duke of Temberlay could afford to select a bride like Rose, solely for her beauty, without a fortune to bring to the match.

“Has Lady Rose had other offers for her hand?” the duchess asked. “She’s a pretty girl, and appears healthy enough, even if she lacks sense.”

Marguerite raised her chin at the old lady’s bluntness. “Rose has a great many admirers, Your Grace, but she has not made her formal debut.” The duchess was staring again, and Marguerite felt as if the old lady could see inside her head and read her thoughts. She lowered her gaze to her hands, tried to look demure.

“And you, young lady, do you also have ‘admirers’?”

Marguerite looked up again, her temper flaring. It was true enough that no one noticed plain Marguerite when lovely Rose was in the room, but she did not appreciate the duchess’s reminder of it. Papa had despaired of ever finding a man of title to marry her, and the sting of that fear went even deeper coming from a complete stranger.

“Admirers? Of course I have. Dozens.”

“And have you come out yet?” the duchess asked, and Marguerite felt hot blood rise from her toes to her hairline.

“Perhaps once Rose is married, eh, Meg?” Hector said. “Perhaps Rose—or even Her Grace—will sponsor your debut next Season.”

“Yes, I daresay when my money fills your family’s empty coffers you’ll be a prime catch,” the duchess added.

Pride prodded Marguerite’s temper. “Or the connection may worsen our chances. We have heard of your grandson, even here in Somerset. Who in England has not? They call him Devil, do they not? We’ve read about the women and the scandals he causes with just a wink of—”

“Meg!” Hector said, stopping her, but the duchess laughed.

“Odd. Your father was a reformer, a crusader for the purity and morals of English womanhood. You don’t mean to say that he let you read the London scandal sheets?”

Of course he didn’t. They purloined them from their maid, read them in secret. Papa would be horrified. Meg felt herself flush. “My father has been dead for over a year.”

The duchess did not offer condolences.

“As for my grandson, they do indeed call him Devil. The name suits him. If his brother had not died, I would be content to leave Nicholas to his women and his drink, but he is now the Duke of Temberlay, and he must reform. His bride and his heirs will be impeccably respectable even if he is not.”

Marguerite laughed before she could stop herself. Hector cleared his throat and she dropped her gaze. Rose was hardly the type to turn a rake into a paragon.

The door opened before the duchess could take her to task for her rudeness, and Rose entered with Flora at her back. She stopped in the doorway and stared at the floor. Her mother prodded her forward.

“I accept,” she murmured, but her shoulders began shaking again.

The duchess’s eyes filled with heartless triumph. She didn’t offer a single word of comfort or congratulations. Marguerite rose to take her sister’s hand before she said something unforgivably rude to their guest.

“Come, Rose, we’ll go upstairs and get a cold cloth for your eyes.”

“She’ll need to come to London for fittings immediately, and I expect her to—” the duchess began instructing Flora, and Marguerite closed the door on the rest of her commands and led her sister away.

So Rose was to marry the Devil Duke of Temberlay. She glanced at her sister’s tearstained face, the picture of misery.

Lucky, lucky Rose.

“T
hank heaven she’s gone,” Meg said half an hour later, watching from the bedroom window as the Temberlay coach rumbled down the driveway.

She turned to her sister, still curled on the bed sniffling. Sodden handkerchiefs littered the floor like blossoms around a coffin. Rose couldn’t have looked less like a bride, or the beauty their father had petted and adored.

“When is the wedding to be?” Meg asked, offering a fresh handkerchief.

“Mama said the duchess wants it done at once. She’s given us just enough time to get a wedding gown made up, and within a fortnight—” Her face crumpled and fresh misery soaked the linen. “Oh, Meg, what will I do? It will look very improper to wed in such haste, and to a man like
him
! Everyone will think that I am—” Tears made further speech impossible. “Papa would never force me to marry such a man. I daresay he’d forbid it!”

Meg shut her eyes. Their father was dead, and while his expectations for his daughters were all well and good while he was alive, he’d left them penniless, alone, and without provision for dowries or husbands. They were on their own, and must do what was necessary to survive. It was time to be strong and practical rather than romantic, but Papa hadn’t taught them that, hadn’t thought it would be necessary. Rose was no more than a lovely possession. First, as Papa’s pampered daughter, then in marriage, she would be like a fine horse or a breathtaking marble sculpture of a goddess, an object of admiration, but not expected to think or to manage anything more complicated than a dinner menu. Wycliffe’s philosophy called for the perfect wife to smile and bear heirs without demur, and in return she would be adored and pampered and kept safe from the harsh aspects of the real world. Rose was quite right. Nicholas Hartley was exactly the kind of man their father’s theories railed against, but there was no choice. They
needed
this match.

Meg squeezed her sister’s icy fingers. “They say he’s handsome, and rich, and very skilled at—”

“Marguerite Lynton!” Rose gasped. “It was amusing to read about him in the scandal sheets, to laugh at his antics, but
marry
him? The mere thought of him touching me makes me ill. God knows where his hands have been. Last I read they were around Lord Grimsby’s wife! And we don’t even know for certain that he’s handsome. We have only drawings in Amy’s scandal sheets to go by.” She smoothed a hand over her cheek, as if marrying an unattractive duke would be an insult to a penniless beauty like herself.

Meg resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “But if every woman in London wants him, surely that suggests he
must
be handsome,” she replied. And charming, and very, very good at—

“Oh, Meg, what a fool you are! Did you read of his latest scandal?” Rose leaped off the bed and retrieved the page from the bottom drawer of the dresser, where it was hidden under a pile of thrice-darned stockings.