The Unexpected Duke

When Lieutenant Hartley returns home, it’s to become—reluctantly, he might add—the new Duke of Fenniston. If he’s to thrive in the ton, he must call on the help of widow Claire Hambledon, sister of the previous duchess, to guide him into society and help him find a wife!

Penniless and with a young son, Claire is well aware that she’s totally unsuitable for a duke. But she’s also completely unable to ignore the ripples of desire every time she’s near dashing Hart… Or the temptation to start a forbidden affair!

Steynling Cross, Hampshire
March 1813

CHAPTER ONE

Lieutenant Hartley Charles Edmenton, late of his Majesty’s First (Royal) Dragoons, pulled his horse to a halt and gazed down the long, tree-lined avenue leading up to Steynling.   As his gaze swept over the palatial central Palladian block flanked by its two neo-classical wings, bristling with marble columns and carved pediments, a bitter taste filled his mouth and brought a frown to his face.

His batman gave a low whistle.  “Aye, it’s an impressive pile there, Lieutenant.  Or is it ‘Yer Grace’ I should be sayin’?”

“Stifle it, MacInnes,” Hart retorted.  Finding himself unable to move forward, he abruptly dismounted and led his horse back into the shelter of the Home Woods through which they’d just ridden. 

There was no escaping the imperative to finish his long journey from Portugal and take up his responsibilities here, he knew.  Everyone from his friends to Colonel Richardson, his commanding officer, had been urging it since he’d received notice of his cousin’s untimely death just after the battle of Tallavera last July.

“It’s a dukedom, man,” Richardson had rebuked him sharply after word of his alteration in rank was brought to the commander’s attention.  “And you the only direct male heir?”

“My late cousin was young, and the widowed duchess is even younger.  It’s not been that long since his passing.  There might still be the possibility of a son.”

“Indeed, but if there is not?  The welfare of scores of tenants and dependents at multiple properties count upon the estate being carefully managed.  Not to mention the well-being of the widowed Duchess and the rest of your family.  Such a task can’t be left in abeyance.  You’ve been a fine soldier.  You know where your duty lies.”   

And so he did.  Nor had he ever been one to shirk it, no matter how unpleasant, from covering the attack of the Forlorn Hope at Badajoz to serving with the rear guard on the bitter retreat from Burgos.  He didn’t mean to start now.  But he couldn’t help wanting to linger in the friendly shade of the woods and savor his last few breaths of freedom.

As he knew well from his few previous visits to Steynling Cross, nothing but aggravation and conflict lay ahead.

Finally, knowing he could put it off no longer, Hart took a deep breath, remounted his horse, and urged Midnight back onto the carriage way.

All too soon, they arrived at double rise of stairs leading to massive front door behind which, he felt sure, the butler was lurking.  Before he could pull up his horse, two livried footmen sprang out from unseen positions beneath the stairs to catch his bridle and help him dismount.

Brushing aside the proffered hands, he jumped from the saddle.  He’d been expected, he knew.  The poor footmen had probably been posted on lookout duty beneath the steps every day since he reluctantly sent the message from London that he’d returned, at last, from the Peninsula.

After glancing at the immaculate garb of the lackey now holding his own horse’s bridle, his batman looked at Hart, amusement in his eyes.  “Should’a stopped at the inn in the village, as I advised, Lieutenant,” MacInnes murmured.  “Yon uniforms look better than your’n.”

His regimentals were rather threadbare.  But he’d stifled the impulse to purchase new garments when he reported to Horse Guards before resuming his journey.  The inhabitants of Steynling could take him as he was, as battle-worn as his uniform.

If the widow and her family were anything like his late cousin, they would do so reluctantly and with scorn.

Well, he was about to find out.

With ever greater reticence, Hart mounted the stairs.

As he’d suspected, the entry door opened soundlessly before he could knock.  A tall, thin man he vaguely recognized as the butler bowed deeply.  “Welcome back to Steynling Cross, Your Grace.  I hope you had a pleasant journey?”

He caught the man’s flicker of distaste as he took in Hart’s road-weary appearance.  “I’ll have Thomas show you to your rooms so you may…refresh yourself, if you like, before you greet the family.  Michelson, the late Duke’s valet, is ready to serve you until you make your own choice.  The Duchess is still not leaving her rooms, but her sister will be waiting to greet you.”

A sister?  Hart wondered what her role was.  Travel-weary or not, he’d rather get the inevitable greetings over with as soon as possible, so he might relax.

As much as he’d ever be able to in this cavernous, echoing marble tomb.

“Thank you…Tompkins, isn’t it?” 

“Good of Your Grace to remember,” the butler replied, bowing again.

His memories of Steynling were too painfully acute to forget any detail, Hart thought ruefully.  “I’d prefer to proceed with greetings immediately.  It would be impolite to keep the…lady waiting any longer than necessary.  I’ll go to my rooms afterward.”

To his rooms.  His cousin Fitzhugh’s rooms, really.  Probably furnished with elegant fabrics dripping gold thread and emblazoned with the ducal crest.  A far cry from the tent and simple camp bed in which he’d lived most of the past four years, since Wellesley, as he was then, first led troops into Portugal. 

His lips creased in a smile as he imagined the household’s reaction if he ordered them to remove all the elaborate furnishings and install his camp bed.  He would have the rooms redone, however, if he found they contained too many gilded cherubs grinning at him from the ceiling.

“Richards will show your man to the servant’s wing,”  Tompkins continued.

Hart turned to MacInnes with wry smile.  “We’ve ridden hard.  You can use some rest, too.  Until later, then.”

“Summon me when ye like—Yer Grace,” MacInnes said, giving him an exaggerated bow instead of the usual salute.

“Off wi’ ye, scurvy lad,” Hart tossed over his shoulder in the Scots brogue of his youth as the butler led him away, his batman chuckling.

He followed the butler through the vast entry toward the door to what must be a grand reception room.  Where on the threshold, a tall lady appeared, giving him a look that would have iced over the Douro in July.

“The Duke of Fenniston, ma’am,” the butler said.  “Your Grace, may I present Mrs. Hambleden, sister to the widowed Duchess.”

He had only that fleeting glimpse at the woman’s expression before she dipped her head and dropped into a deep curtsey.  “Welcome home to Steynling, Your Grace,” she murmured.  “Thank you, Tompkins.  I’ll take charge now.  No need for tea.  I expect H-His Grace will prefer to have it—or something stronger—in his rooms.”

“As you wish,” the butler said, bowing himself away.

So the sister was managing, Hart noted with some amusement.  She was a tall woman, slender, but with a figure that verged on the statuesque, well-rounded in all the places a man would want it to be, but garbed in a modest high-waisted style, long sleeves concealing her arms and the fichu covering her from neck to bodice preventing any view of cleavage.  The garment’s midnight blue color signaled half-mourning, appropriate to her position as a near relation of the widow. 

The hue flattered her pale skin, the dark hair braided and tucked under a cap, and the eyes he remembered from her brief glance as a piercing blue. 

Only then did it strike him that widowed Duchess was still not receiving, nearly nine months after her husband’s death.  Had the sister been running the household all that time, as, evidenced by her order to the butler, she was now?  Might that chilly glance represent her fear that his arrival meant her imminent loss of control?

“Please, do have a seat, Your Grace,” she said, gesturing him into the room without looking again into his face.  “You are obviously weary after your long journey.  My sister’s late husband often mentioned you and your…Scottish legacy.  I hope you won’t find our English ways too foreign.”

His first thought was if Fitzhugh had indeed mentioned him, the reference wouldn’t have been complimentary.  His second thought was, with the hall such a large, echoing space, as she approached the anteroom’s threshold, she could well have heard him call his Scots-accented farewell to MacInnes.

She expected a rough Scottish rube, did she?  Maybe he’d give her one.

“Should I tug me forelock to you, ma’am, or should I say ‘m’ lady?’” he asked, as if ignorant of the rules that placed him above her on the social ladder.

She looked straight at him and Hart caught his breath.  The dark hair brushed back under her cap, a few glossy blue-black curls escaping to frame her face, emphasized the porcelain fineness of her skin.  High cheekbones defined her face beside an imperious nose.  Eyes blue as the Mediterranean under sunlight skies mesmerized over plump lips so eminently kissable he felt an unwelcome stir of desire.

That tempting mouth twisted briefly with distaste before she smoothed her expression.  Ah, so she did expect a rube. 

“You must become accustomed to having men tug their forelocks to you, Your Grace,” she replied.  “As is due your station.   And it’s simple ‘Mrs.’ Hambleden.”

Letting that recommendation pass, he replied, “And when should I be meeting Mr. Hambleden, the lucky lad?”

“Not soon enough, I’m afraid.  He died of wounds sustained at Fuente de Onoro.”

After the instant it took him to grasp she’d just hinted at a desire for his demise, he almost smiled.  She might display the same arrogant sense of superiority all Fitzhugh’s family possessed—but she was unexpectedly quick-witted.

And her husband had been a soldier.  Hart didn’t recognize the surname, but if Hambleden had been a good trooper, he could only respect that.

“’Tis sorry I am for yer loss.  A double loss, husband and brother-in-law.”

At the mention of loss, she swept a pointed glance over his ragged unform.  A raise of her eyebrows indicated she noted with disapproval that he’d not put off the military dress he no longer needed and donned more appropriate black garments.  But after a pause, she refrained from whatever comment she’d seemed poised to make.

“Do you wish to dine downstairs tonight?  Or would you prefer a tray in your room, so you might recover from your long travels?”

“Will the Duchess be comin’ down?  If’n so, I should appear an’ present my condolences.  I dinna want to call at her rooms and intrude.  It canna be but a…difficult time fer her.”

She tilted her head, as if silently reflecting, then nodded.  “I believe I could persuade her to come down.  She simply couldn’t face meeting you this afternoon, but she must acknowledge you at some point.  Delaying will not make the task any easier.”

“Dinna do so fer me,” Hart said feelingly. 

She gave him a searching look at that, but once again made no comment.  “I shall see you at dinner, then.  I’ll send Michelson up to assist you.”

“No need to bother aboot that, ma’am.  Me batman will do fer me.  He has been these last four years.”

Again, a quick expression of exasperation appeared before she smoothed her features.  “Your unform will do for this evening, I suppose.  A batman as valet is all well and good for a soldier on campaign, but it simply won’t do for a duke’s establishment.”

She shook her head with a sigh.  “Obviously our ways seem strange to you, but I will do my best to help you adjust, as I promised my sister. You are the duke now, and you must look—and act—the part.  It’s not important what I think, but it is very important that you create the correct impression on the staff, tenants and the many visitors you will receive.”

“And ye dinna think much of me, I ken?” Hart said, unable to resist tweaking her again to see if he could incite another flash of the temper he suspected lurked beneath the calm veneer.

He provoked a dangerous sparkle in those excellent blue eyes, but after pressing her lips together firmly for a moment, she replied “Fitzhugh—the late Duke, that is--said you were the most annoying person he’d ever met.  I’m inclined to accept that assessment.  Nonetheless, for him and my sister, I must still do all I can to assist your becoming a worthy successor.”

Hart bit back his reply that it shouldn’t take much to be more worthy of the position than Fitzhugh, if all he’d heard of his cousin’s drinking, wenching and gambling were true.  Added to the fact that he’d met his untimely demise in a fall from the phaeton he’d been racing on a wager down a dangerous dark stretch of road on a moonless night.

His arrogant, self-indulgent cousin had never appeared to him anything like the concerned, involved landowner his commander had stressed a dukedom needed.

Hart suppressed a sigh.  As a boy, Fitzhugh had delighted in knowing he would one be duke and far outrank his country cousin, his arrogant attitude part of the reason Hart had always been glad he’d never hold high rank.  The annoyance it caused his pretentious cousin was also the reason he’d persisted in calling him, “Fitzhugh,” his given name, even though everyone else referred to him as “Barkley,”  the courtesy title of marquess he’d held from birth until he became “Fenniston” upon his father’s death.

Hart had been as appalled to discover he was to become the duke as his cousin had reveled in expecting to be.

Mrs. Hambleden had evidently respected Fitzhugh—or at least, his rank.  Had she harbored warmer feelings than respect toward him?  His cousin had prided himself on charming all the women around him--at least, the ones he felt it worthwhile to charm.

Could her mourning be more personal than grief at her sister’s loss of husband?  That would help explain her obvious animosity.  But if there had been affection there, how had that impacted her relationship with her sister, the duke’s wife?

The situation here might be more complex than he’d anticipated.

Making her a bow, Hart turned to leave, following the footman and fighting a deepening depression.  Despite the presence of the lovely Mrs. Hambleden, who looked to be a worthy adversary, returning to Steynling Cross promised to be as unpleasant and problematic as he’d expected.

Claire Hambleden watched the new duke walk out, his return reviving the tumultuous emotions she’d spent the last nine months trying to bury for good. But the instinctive resentment she’d felt at the appearance of this rough, ill-clad and ill-behaved replacement for the late duke proved she’d not yet completely purged her heart of the hopeless love she’d always felt for Fitzhugh.  The handsome, teasing, beguiling one-time suitor who had dazzled the young debutant she’d been…before going on the following Season to marry her far-more-beautiful younger sister.

She thought she’d hidden it well over the years, that never-quite-extinguished passion.  That she’d fully expunged it after learning how he’d met his death in that ridiculous midnight carriage race—the more ignominious details of which she’d kept from sister—coming so closely on the heels of his reprehensible request. A request she still couldn’t believe her sister had seconded.  Making it all worse, the guilt she still felt over how tempted she’d been to agree.  If it hadn’t been for Alex…

As always, she submerged guilt, grief and uncertainty under the wave of quiet joy thinking about her son evoked.  Focus on Alex and how best to make a life for him, and she’d weather this latest challenge.

She’d continue to care for her son and her floundering sister, adding to those tasks her duty to help the interloper—who looked and sounded every bit the crude, uncouth Scot her sister’s late husband had described.

Still, to be fair, as the duke’s estranged cousin, he’d never thought to inherit.  It was unrealistic to expect he’d be prepared for the task.  He’d spent years as a soldier instead, and if he were clinging to that familiar role in the midst of  vast change, one should hardly fault him.

 He might be rude and uncouth, but her careful inquiries revealed that Lieutenant Hartley Charles Edmenton had been an exemplary soldier, one of heroes assisting the Forlorn Hope’s successful breaching of the walls during the siege of Badajoz, a man mentioned in the dispatches by Wellington himself.  Under his unfinished exterior lurked a man of proven character.  She’d just have to try to polish it up.

And after that--what?  Liliana was unlikely to let go of her anytime soon, not since she now ran her sister’s household so efficiently. When Claire had accepted her sister’s invitation to take refuge at Steynling Cross after her own husband’s death, as time went on, she’d just naturally resumed the role she’d played since their childhood, mothering her younger sister. 

Sighing, she walked to the window, gazing out at the manicured topiaries in the side garden, their pristine appearance reflective of her care for the estate.  The assumption of responsibilities had happened so gradually, she’d scarcely noticed it at first.  With Mother as usual occupied with Father in London, assisting as he went about his duties as private secretary to a cabinet minister, everyone in the family had approved having her retreat with her young son to Steynling.  It would give her a home—as she had no other, her late husband being a younger son of few resources—and enable her to look after her recovering sister, who’d suffered a miscarriage all too soon after the difficult delivery of a daughter.

In the course of caring for her sister, Claire had taken over one household task, then another, then another, until the staff began to look to her rather than their mistress for direction.  When Mr. Evans, the estate agent, suffered a serious illness, she’d taken on most of his duties as well.  Though the ducal establishment was much larger than any household she’d lived in before, after having in her teen years assumed charge of their country manor during her parent’s frequent absences to London and then managed for her husband while following drum in Portugal, by now, the direction of a diverse staff and multiple duties was second nature to her.

Would she move with Liliana to the Dower House after the new duke settled in? Would Liliana want to go to London and consider marrying again once she was out of mourning?  Claire had no idea.  Her sister needed to be looked after, thrived on attention and flattery, especially from attractive men, and had loved being Duchess.  But a widowed duchess was another matter entirely.  Liliana was far too young and beautiful to spend the rest of her life wearing black, sitting among the dowagers. 

As she had no answer to the troubling question of where she might end up next, Claire focused back on the present.  Since the new duke didn’t wish for a tray in his room, she’d consult Cook to make sure all was in train for dinner in the Green Room, the smaller space used when they took meals en famille.  Not the vast state dining room, though as annoying as man was, it would serve him right if she had his meal presented on the thirty-foot table where he’d have to practically shout to be heard from his place at the head by her sister holding court at the other end. 

Which would probably not be a problem, though.  Despite the thick Scots brogue, one couldn’t miss the commanding tone in his voice—the timbre such that his words would travel even over that distance.  A useful attribute in a battlefield soldier, she imagined.

Despite his somewhat ragged appearance, she had to unwillingly concede that he cut an impressive physical figure, too.  Though she was tall for a woman, he was taller still, the broad shoulders and muscled arms filling out the sleeves of his frayed uniform doubtless the result of years of wielding a dragoon’s heavy cutlass in battle. His legs were well-muscled too, speaking to countless hours on horseback.  Though she’d limited her glances straight at him, she couldn’t help noticing a face most would deem handsome—a high forehead over which a lock of dark hair curled, penetrating gray eyes, strong chin and firm lips that curved into a beguiling smile, crease lines by his eyes a testament to skin weathered by many years’ exposure to the glaring Peninsular sun. 

Arresting in his ragged regimentals, he should at least look the part in proper ducal dress.  As she reviewed his physical attributes through her mind’s eye, she felt an unexpected and highly unwelcome stirring of sensual awareness. 

Irritated, she squelched it.  His physical attractiveness was a positive attribute in a duke. However compelling he might be, she had reasons enough not to be susceptible, she informed her rebellious senses.  Armed with his pedigree, proper clothing and after some coaching in manners, which she hoped he would accept without fighting it too much, she could take him to London, find him a suitable Duchess, and her duty to her sister complete, be through with the man.

Time to return to household matters, she told herself, dismissing further thoughts of the ill-garbed lieutenant-turned-duke. Dismissing as well a niggling sense that she’d eventually part from the new master of Steynling Cross with more regret than she now assured herself she would feel.