What to Do with a Duke

 

Novellas
In the Spinster's Bed
The Duchess of Love
The Naked Prince
The Naked Laird

 

W
HAT
T
O
D
O
W
ITH
A D
UKE

S
ALLY
M
AC
K
ENZIE

ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
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Table of Contents

 

 

April 1—I saw the Duke of Hart at Cupid's Inn. Faith! He's so handsome. My friend Rosaline says he won't have anything to do with me—his mother won't let him—but
I
know better. I'm going to be the next duchess.

—from Isabelle Dorring's diary

 

 

 

“You have compromised my daughter, Hart. I demand you offer for her.” Barnabas Rathbone sniffed and raised his receding chin. “At once.”

The drone of conversation in White's crowded reading room stopped abruptly. Marcus would swear all the men inhaled at the same time and held their collective breath, the better to hear every word of this delightful drama. A few went so far as to peer around their newspapers.

He ignored them. “No.”

Rathbone's prominent eyes widened, his fleshy jowls trembling. “W—what do you mean, no?”

The fellow was an even better actor than his disreputable daughter.

“No, I will not marry Miss Rathbone.”

Rathbone's mouth dangled open briefly. Then his brows snapped down into a scowl, but not before Marcus saw the panic in his eyes. The man had likely been staving off his creditors by telling them he'd soon be a duchess's father. Fool! Did he think he was the first to try such a trick on the Duke of Hart—or the Heartless Duke, as the wags liked to call him?

When they weren't calling him the Cursed Duke.

“How can you be so cruel? The poor girl is beside herself.”

Marcus just stared at Rathbone. Sadly, he had plenty of experience dealing with conniving members of the
ton
. He was far too big a prize for them to resist. Thanks to the curse, if the woman he married had any luck at all, she'd conceive his heir on their wedding night and be a wealthy widow nine months later.

He was bloody well not going to die for Rathbone's benefit.

“You cannot mean to ruin my dear daughter's reputation!” A note of desperation had slipped into Rathbone's bluster.

The other men in White's deeply carpeted reading room leaned forward in their rich leather chairs, newspapers and books abandoned along with any pretense of ignoring the conversation. Their gaze swiveled between Marcus and Rathbone.

It focused on Marcus now.

“Since your daughter has no reputation, there is nothing to ruin, Rathbone.”

A gasp burst from their audience and more than a few sniggers—some muffled, most not.

Rathbone wisely chose not to dispute that. “Her heart will be broken.”

Now he was grasping at straws. The girl had no heart, either, which some would say made her the perfect match for the Heartless Duke.

Perhaps. But if he had to marry—and he did have to marry someday if he wished to ensure the succession—he'd rather choose a heartless girl with better deportment and perhaps even a little intelligence and wit to make his last days more bearable.

Rathbone opened his mouth again, but Marcus held up his hand to stop him.

“You and your daughter laid a trap, sir, which I refuse to be caught in. That is the end of the matter.”

He thought he heard Rathbone's teeth grind.

“I see there is no reasoning with you, Your Grace. You are indeed as heartless as everyone says.”

Marcus inclined his head. “One does wonder why you thought otherwise.”

The men in the room didn't even try to muffle their sniggers this time.

“Hart has a point, Rathbone,” one of them called out.

Marcus didn't look to see which fellow spoke. It could have been any of them. They were like a pack of wolves, attacking at the first scent of blood. Not that he had any sympathy for Rathbone, of course.

Rathbone glared at the man who'd spoken and then glared at Marcus. “I shall take my leave then, Your Grace, but do not think your infamy will be forgotten.”

“I do not think it. But neither should you think I will change my mind. You and your daughter need to look for a more achievable way to address your pressing debts.”

Rathbone stiffened and lifted his chin again, but his eyes told the tale. He might try to make Marcus's existence unpleasant for the next few weeks, but he realized he'd wagered and lost.

“Your Grace.” He jerked his head in the slightest of bows and strode from the room.

Marcus looked at the other men—they all dived back into their reading material. As he expected, none said a word to him about what they'd just witnessed, but he knew the moment the door closed behind him, they'd burst into excited whispers and then go spread the tale throughout the
ton
. Dolts! He was heartily sick of them.

The club manager came rushing up as soon as Marcus emerged from the reading room. “Your Grace, I apologize for Mr. Rathbone's behavior. If I'd known—”

“It's nothing, Montgomery. Rathbone is a member. He has as much right as the next man to be an idiot here.”

Montgomery frowned. “More's the pity. Can I bring you a bottle of our best brandy, Your Grace, to take some of the sting from the encounter?”

If he dosed himself with spirits every time he had to deal with Rathbone's sort, he'd be a complete sot. “My thanks, but no. I believe I'll—”

“Marcus!”

Marcus grinned, shedding some of his ill temper. He knew that voice. He turned to see his cousin, Nate, the Marquess of Haywood, coming toward him with their friend Alex, the Earl of Evans.

“You look as if you'd like to hit something,” Nate said quietly, concern coloring his words as he grasped Marcus's hand.

“Or someone.” Alex grinned. “And we can guess who that someone is. We just passed Rathbone.”

“He tried to pressure you to wed his daughter, did he?” Nate smiled, though the expression didn't reach his eyes. “I'm glad you sent him about his business.”

“By Gad, yes. Can't imagine a worse fate than being riveted to that girl.” Alex cleared his throat. “Though it
is
quite the story. What actually happened in Palmerson's garden?”

Marcus glanced around. Montgomery had stepped away when Nate and Alex came up, but he was still hovering nearby, clearly waiting to produce that brandy. And he thought he heard Uppleton's annoying voice approaching. There was little hope of having a private conversation here.

“Come along to Hart House with me and I'll tell you over a glass of brandy.”

“We just came from Hart House, you know,” Alex said as they started for the door. “Your butler was quite insistent that, if we found you, we should tell you that a letter arrived from Loves Bridge.”

Loves Bridge? Oh, God.
His stomach tightened as it always did when he heard the name of that damned village.

Nate gripped his shoulder briefly in support. “It's probably just something from your steward.”

Marcus nodded. Of course Nate was right. It was just Emmett writing about some needed repair. He'd write back as he always did, telling the man to do as he saw fit.

He'd been to Loves Bridge—and his estate, Loves Castle—only once in his life, twenty years ago, when the terms of Isabelle Dorring's curse forced him to select the next Spinster House spinster. The woman who'd applied—a Miss Franklin—had been very young, the victim of some scandal that made her unmarriageable—or so Uncle Philip had said. Nate's father had conducted the interview since Marcus had been only a boy.

He took a deep breath, and the anxiety gripping his chest loosened. Yes, clearly, the letter could not be about the Spinster House. Miss Franklin should live several more decades.

Something he'd not do.

“I will say Finch seemed to be in a bit of a fidget.” Nate shot him a worried look as they left White's. “Said he hadn't seen you for hours.”

Alex snorted. “A bit of a fidget? The man was almost in tears.”

“I don't know why he would be. He could have asked Kimball where I was.”

Nate's frown deepened. “Kimball seemed quite concerned as well.”

“That's ridiculous.” Finch he might understand, but Kimball? His valet knew the only cure Marcus had found for his foul moods was walking. And he'd done a lot of walking recently. Miss Rathbone was the third girl to try to trap him into marriage, and the Season was barely underway. “I told Kimball I was going for a stroll. I find it clears my head.”

Alex laughed. “The only thing London's smoke and stench clears is your stomach . . . into the nearest gutter.”

“Oh, it's not as bad as that.” Truth was, he could have walked through a midden and not noticed.

“Perhaps Finch didn't think you meant you'd be
strolling
for four hours,” Nate said.

Alex clapped him on the back. “If you like walking, why don't you shake London's dirt off your boots and go to the Lake District?” For once Alex looked serious. “Finch and Kimball aren't the only ones who've noticed you haven't been yourself recently.”

“Confound it! I'm perfectly fine.”

Silence. No one—Marcus included—believed that.

“Rolling around in the bushes with a marriageable female isn't your normal behavior,” Nate said. He sounded just like Uncle Philip had when he'd scolded them for some infraction when they were boys.

Nate meant well, but his constant fretting was driving Marcus mad. He didn't need Nate watching and hovering and—

But Nate had always done that to some degree. They were cousins, but they'd grown up as brothers, Nate being the elder by three weeks.

“
Did
you have the girl half out of her dress as Lady Dunlee has been saying?” Alex asked.

“Bloody gossips.” They'd finally reached Hart House. Marcus sighed. “Come in and I'll tell you the whole sorry tale.”

As they climbed the steps, the curtains on one of the windows twitched, and then the front door flew open to reveal Finch, gray hair standing on end as if he'd been combing it with his fingers.

“Oh, thank God you've found him.”

For a moment Marcus was afraid the butler was going to fall on his neck and hug him to his elderly bosom, but fortunately the man caught himself in time.

“I only went for a walk, Finch,” he said as he stepped over the threshold.

Kimball appeared at Finch's elbow. “But you were gone so long, Your Grace.” His fingers shook slightly as he raised them to tug on his waistcoat. “We were concerned. You were not in the best of spirits when you departed.”

What had these two thought he'd do—throw himself into the Thames?

Their expressions said that was precisely what they'd feared.

This just got worse and worse. “Well, as you can see, I'm perfectly fine.” He forced himself to laugh. “I'm a grown man. You don't have to worry I'll get lost.”

Finch looked at Kimball. Oh, Lord.

Kimball cleared his throat. “It's just that your father took to disappearing when he was your age, Your Grace.”

Finch nodded. “'Twas the pressure, don't you know.”

He should pension these two off. He hadn't considered it before, but Kimball was well into his sixties and Finch had passed seventy.

Kimball swallowed. “It starts the day the Duke of Hart turns thirty and gets worse as time passes. It was that way with your father, and my father said it was that way with your grandfather.”

“The curse,” Finch said, doom in his voice.

“The succession.” Kimball looked as if he might cry. “Marriage and then. . . .”

The last bit of color drained from both men's faces.

Egad, was he doomed to have these two as well as Nate hover over him for the rest of his days? It made death look almost appealing.

“Well, since I have no plans to marry for many, many years, you needn't look so Friday-faced.”

The two old men straightened.

“So you aren't going to wed Miss Rathbone, Your Grace?” Finch asked.

“Of course not. Do you think me a complete cabbage head?”

Finch let out a long breath. “Definitely not, Your Grace.” He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

“This is splendid news, Your Grace.” Kimball grinned so widely his cheeks must ache.

“Yes, well, perhaps now you can get back to your duties. Oh, and Finch, have a cold collation brought up to my study, will you?”

“At once, Your Grace.”

“Those two are worse than a pair of nervous nursery maids,” Marcus said once he and Nate and Alex were safely ensconced in his study. “Care for some brandy?” He certainly could use a generous measure.

“It's not surprising, Marcus,” Nate said, taking a glass. “They've lived with the curse for years. They've seen it unfold.”

“But it's just a story, isn't it?” Alex took his brandy and sat down in one of the wing chairs, stretching his legs toward the fire. “For God's sake, no one really believes in curses these days. The notion is laughable.” He looked at Nate and Marcus and frowned. “Except neither of you is laughing.”

“No.” Nate took one of the other chairs. “We're not.”

Marcus tossed off the rest of his brandy and poured himself some more.

“You can't mean all that drivel the
ton
whispers about Marcus dying before his heir is born is true?”

Nate scowled at Alex. “That's precisely what we mean.”

Alex gawped at them. “That's ridiculous. How can you believe that? You're both intelligent men. It—”