The Desirable Duchess
Read The Desirable Duchess Online
Authors: M.C. Beaton
M. C. Beaton
is the author of the hugely successful Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth series, as well as a quartet of Edwardian murder mysteries featuring heroine Lady Rose Summer, several Regency romance series and a stand-alone murder mystery,
The Skeleton in the Closet
– all published by Constable & Robinson. She left a full-time career in journalism to turn to writing, and now divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. Visit www.mcbeatonbooks.co.uk for more, or follow M. C. Beaton on Twitter: @mc_beaton.
Titles by M. C. Beaton
The Poor Relation
Lady Fortescue Steps Out • Miss Tonks Turns to Crime • Mrs Budley Falls from Grace
Sir Philip’s Folly • Colonel Sandhurst to the Rescue • Back in Society
A House for the Season
The Miser of Mayfair
•
Plain Jane
•
The Wicked Godmother
Rake’s Progress
•
The Adventuress
•
Rainbird’s Revenge
The Six Sisters
Minerva
•
The Taming of Annabelle
•
Deirdre and Desire
Daphne
•
Diana the Huntress
•
Frederica in Fashion
Edwardian Murder Mysteries
Snobbery with Violence
•
Hasty Death
•
Sick of Shadows
Our Lady of Pain
The Travelling Matchmaker
Emily Goes to Exeter
•
Belinda Goes to Bath
•
Penelope Goes to Portsmouth
Beatrice Goes to Brighton
•
Deborah Goes to Dover
•
Yvonne Goes to York
Edwardian Candlelight
Polly • Molly • Ginny • Tilly • Susie • Kitty • Daisy • Sally • Maggie • Poppy • Pretty Polly • Lucy • My Lords, Ladies and Marjorie
Regency Candlelight
Annabelle • Henrietta • Penelope
Regency Royal
The Westerby Inheritance • The Marquis Takes a Bride • Lady Anne’s Deception • Lady Margery’s Intrigue • The Savage Marquess • My Dear Duchess • The Highland Countess • Lady Lucy’s Lover • The Ghost and Lady Alice • Love and Lady Lovelace • Duke’s Diamonds • The Viscount’s Revenge • The Paper Princess • The Desirable Duchess • The Sins of Lady Dacey • The Dreadful Debutante • The Chocolate Debutante • The Loves of Lord Granton • Milady in Love • The Scandalous Marriage
Regency Scandal
His Lordship’s Pleasure • Her Grace’s Passion • The Scandalous Lady Wright
Regency Flame
Those Endearing Young Charms
? The Flirt • Lessons in Love • Regency Gold • Miss Fiona’s Fancy • The French Affair • To Dream of Love • A Marriage of Inconvenience • A Governess of Distinction • The Glitter of Gold
Regency Season
The Original Miss Honeyford • The Education of Miss Paterson • At the Sign of the Golden Pineapple • Sweet Masquerade ?The Constant Companion • Quadrille • The Perfect Gentleman • Dancing on the Wind • Ms. Davenport’s Christmas
The Waverly Women
The First Rebellion • Silken Bonds • The Love Match
Agatha Raisin
Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death
•
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet
Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener
•
Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage
•
Agatha Raisin and the Terrible Tourist
Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death
•
Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham
Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam
•
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came
Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate
•
Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance
•
Agatha Raisin and the Perfect Paragon
Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor
Agatha Raisin and Kissing Christmas Goodbye
Agatha Raisin and a Spoonful of Poison
•
Agatha Raisin: There Goes the Bride
Agatha Raisin and the Busy Body
•
Agatha Raisin: As the Pig Turns
Agatha Raisin: Hiss and Hers • Agatha Raisin and the Christmas Crumble
Hamish Macbeth
Death of a Gossip
•
Death of a Cad
•
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
•
Death of a Hussy
•
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
•
Death of a Glutton
•
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
•
Death of a Nag
•
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
•
Death of a Scriptwriter
•
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
•
Death of a Dustman
•
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
•
Death of a Poison Pen
•
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
•
Death of a Maid
•
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
•
Death of a Valentine
•
Death of a Sweep
Death of a Kingfisher • Death of Yesterday
The Skeleton in the Closet
Also available
The Agatha Raisin Companion
The Desirable Duchess
M. C. Beaton
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
First electronic edition published 2011
by RosettaBooks LLC, New York
This edition published in the UK by Canvas, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013
Copyright © M. C. Beaton, 1987
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-148-8 (ebook)
Cover copyright © Constable & Robinson
Chapter One
Alice Lacey was the envy of her peers. She was the only child of rich and apparently doting parents, and she was, by the age of eighteen, already an acclaimed beauty—having glossy auburn hair, hazel eyes, and a perfect figure combined with a wide-eyed vulnerable look, a peculiarly untouched look, that somehow made all men long to possess her.
At her very first Season, she had fallen head over heels in love with Sir Gerald Warby, a handsome and charming man. Because her parents considered her too young, and because Sir Gerald did not command much of a fortune, there was as yet no formal engagement.
But Alice was content. Her parents would come about. Sir Gerald lived in the same county and was a constant visitor to Wold Park, her parents’ stately home.
She would often stand on the belvedere outside the drawing room and look down the long drive for his arrival. She liked above all things to see him arriving on horseback like a knight of old. He was a fine figure of a man, with glossy black hair and black eyes. Her mother had pointed out that he was a trifle long in the body and short in the leg, but Alice could see no fault in him.
She lived inside a glass bubble of happiness, young, confident, and very much in love. The death of the old Duke of Ferrant, whose estates marched with her parents’, went by her sunny mind, casting only a slight shadow. The news of the arrival of the heir did not interest her.
Almost a year passed, and just before her nineteenth birthday—just before her parents were about to allow her permission to declare her engagement to Sir Gerald—the duke gave a ball at Clarendon, huge palace of the Dukes of Ferrant.
Alice gladly submitted to being dressed in her very best ball gown, for Sir Gerald was to be there… or so she thought. But before she was about to set out with her parents, his footman arrived with a message to say that Sir Gerald had fallen victim to the childhood illness of mumps.
Her happiness was dimmed, but she recovered her spirits by the time the Lacey carriage drove up to the magnificent entrance. A visit to Clarendon
was
an event. Her own home, gracious though it was, could not compete with the splendor of this great pile, this harmonious mixture of architecture old and new. The late duke had been something of a recluse and had never entertained, so this was the Laceys’ first visit to the ducal home.
Her mother, Mrs. Lacey, had risen from the merchant class by marrying John Lacey, a member of the untitled aristocracy. She was an assured and well-dressed matron most of the time, but the magnificence of Clarendon, the sheer number and rich dress of so many liveried footmen, made her unusually flustered and self-conscious, and she gazed about her, her little rouged mouth slightly open in awe.
Alice had not yet met the duke. She had heard him described as handsome but had discounted this. In society, all dukes were handsome.
When she mounted the wide double staircase, he was waiting at the top to welcome his guests. He was an imposing figure of a man, quite old, probably thirty, which
was
old to Alice. He was very tall, with fair hair curled in the Windswept. His face was high-nosed and austere. His gray-blue eyes were long and looked surprisingly Oriental in such an English face. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist and slim hips, but he looked like a cold, hard, domineering man, and, as his eyes searched her face, Alice blushed slightly and instinctively moved closer to her father for protection.
Most of the people in the ballroom were familiar to Alice as they all came from the county. She was surrounded immediately by her female friends, all chattering about this and that in a breathless way as their eyes slid past Alice to the doorway, where the duke was receiving the last of his guests.
“Will he dance with me, do you think?” asked Lucy Farringdon, a bouncy brunette with sausage curls. “Mama says one of us must catch him quick before turning him over to the competitions of the London Season. But you don’t need to worry, Alice, you have your Sir Gerald.”
“He looks quite a frightening gentleman,” said Alice. “Ah, he has decided to join the guests in the ballroom.”
The duke stood in the doorway, tall and remote in black coat and black evening breeches. Diamonds glittered in his cravat and on the buckles on his shoes. How very grand all the guests looked, thought Alice. Everyone had put on their very best clothes. Newly cleaned jewels, family heirlooms, winked and sparkled, sending prisms of light dancing across the polished floor. Where had old Lady Dunster found that enormous collar of diamonds and sapphires? And Mrs. Stables was wearing a heavy medieval necklace of huge stones, so badly cut that trapped light slumbered darkly in the depths of their unfaceted surfaces. All the ladies’ waistlines followed the current fashion of being somewhere up under the armpits—even the genteelly poor Harris sisters—although one could easily see how, in their case, unfashionable dresses had been inexpertly altered for the occasion.
Alice, as befitted a debutante, was dressed in white muslin trimmed with priceless lace. She wore a simple necklace of coral and gold and a Juliet cap, all the rage, embroidered with bugle beads and rhinestones.