The
Most Dangerous Duke in London
by
Madeline Hunter
Genre:
Historical Romance
NOTORIOUS
NOBLEMAN SEEKS REVENGE
Name
and title: Adam Penrose, Duke of Stratton. Affiliation: London’s
elite Society of Decadent Dukes. Family history: Scandalous.
Personality traits: Dark and brooding, with a thirst for revenge.
Ideal romantic partner: A woman of means, with beauty and brains,
willing to live with reckless abandon. Desire: Clara Cheswick,
gorgeous daughter of his family’s sworn enemy.
FAINT
OF HEART NEED NOT APPLY
Clara
may be the woman Adam wants, but there’s one problem: she’s far
more interested in publishing her women’s journal than getting
married—especially to a man said to be dead-set on vengeance.
Though, with her nose for a story, Clara wonders if his desire for
justice is sincere—along with his incredibly unnerving intention to
be her husband. If her weak-kneed response to his kiss is any
indication, falling for Adam clearly comes with a cost. But who knew
courting danger could be such exhilarating fun?
Hudson
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The Duke of Stratton was becoming a serious
inconvenience. Part of the joy of being an older woman known to be uninterested
in marriage was that people tended not to notice what she did. Clara had
enjoyed that freedom even before her father’s death and now did so even more
because she occupied Gifford House alone.
Stratton’s curiosity about her complicated
that. Now here she was, sitting in his carriage when she should have been
visiting the decorator she had hired to make some changes at her house on Bedford
Square. Since no one knew about the house, she could hardly have the duke
trailing her there.
She did not care for how he maneuvered her
into spending this time with him. She resented that he had won a little
contest.
“Do you prefer town? You spend a good deal of
time here,” he said once they were seated across from each other and the
coachman had opened the carriage to the air.
From anyone else she would think it small
talk. From this man, she heard an intrusive question. “I like both town and the
country. I spend time in both places. However, after all the months at Hickory
Grange after my father’s funeral, it was time to see some friends here and dip
one foot into society again.” Even as she said it, she worried that she gave
him too much information.
“Your bluestocking friends?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do when you are not talking
letters with them?”
“If I told you, I would no longer be
intriguing and mysterious.”
It was a mistake to say that. She knew it as
soon she said it. His dark eyes settled on her, amused and too confident that
he saw more than she wanted. That gaze unsettled her. She found it stark,
almost naked, in its demand for her attention. It implied intimacies of the
spirit that she did not
want to have or acknowledge.
She hurried to brush her own provocation
aside. “You will find my interests very boring and feminine. I visit drapers
and feast my eyes on the fabrics I cannot wear now. I stroll through warehouses
and covet silk cords and laces.”
“Why not buy them now and store them until you
can use them?”
“Because the anticipation is part of the fun.
There is the danger it will build to a fever, however, and when I finally
remove these black ensembles, I will be so reckless in my spending on a new
wardrobe that Theo will have to bail me out of debt.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
She knew then that this man had learned about
the size of her inheritance. Had Theo told him? Perhaps he had only heard
gossip, but that would be enough.
It entered her mind that his only reason to
pursue her with that stupid proposal was her fortune. As if the Duke of
Stratton needed that! Although, really, who knew if he did or did not? She had
not investigated him the way he had obviously investigated her, although she
intended to.
Still, a man after her fortune. How
predictable. How commonplace. How disappointing.
Once they were in the park she asked her own
questions, while she encouraged their stroll to leave the main path so they
might not be seen together.
“Would you truly not mind if the woman you proposed
to had a lover before you? You keep implying as much.” She thought it a
sophisticated and arch query and waited for him to avoid the meal once she set
it squarely on a plate in front of him.
“You are what, twenty-four years in age? Only
a fool would require innocence of a woman of that maturity.”
“What a liberal outlook you have.”
“I like to think so. I am only being a bit
strict with you because I cannot risk my heir being the son of another man. I
am sure you understand.”
She looked over at him, hoping to see that
little smile or anything that indicated his continued references to his
proposal were now a private joke. Regrettably, he appeared most serious. She
decided that objecting would only dignify the ridiculous notion, so she ignored
it.
Since he had coerced her into spending this
time with him, he could not object to some frank questions about his life and
his family, especially if he really believed they would marry. Althea was
charged with investigating this man, but every bit added to the pile would
help.
“Why did you leave?” she asked while they
strolled through a little copse of budding trees.
“It was time to come back.”
“I did not mean why did you leave France. Why
did you leave England?”
His mood altered in a snap, as if the question
opened a door to the dark humor she sensed in him. “My mother did not want to
remain here after my father’s death, so I took her away and ensured she was
settled in Paris.”
“She wanted to go home, you mean. That is
understandable.”
“She had lived here for decades. This should
have been her home, not a foreign land to escape. There were those who never
welcomed her, however, or allowed her to make
her place here.”
“If she is happy in France now, that is what
matters, isn’t it?”
“I did not say she was happy. She did not want
to return to France. She just did not want to remain here.”
His sharp tone made her stop walking. “I am
sorry if I misunderstood. I was careless in my response. Of course she could
not be happy to leave her home of so many years.” She swallowed the question
that begged to be asked. Why did she not want to remain here?
They stood under one of the trees, in the
tangle of linear shadows its branches made.
“Do you really know so little about my life?”
he asked. “Did you never hear the talk about my mother? You were out before she
left. Before my father died.”
She did not have to search her memory long to
remember some of the talk she had heard. Her grandmother’s voice always dripped
with disdain when she mentioned Stratton’s French duchess.
Grandmother was one of the people who suspected the worst of everything and
everyone French during the war.
Others had sniffed when the Duchess of
Stratton walked by at a ball, however. Clara had always assumed they envied her
beauty and sought bad gossip out of spite. In truth she had not much cared what
people said, however. The old war between her family and Stratton’s had left
her unsympathetic to whatever slights were visited on his mother.
“I will admit, now that you speak of it, that
I do know something of what she endured,” she admitted. “If that drove her
away, it was not fair.”
To her surprise he took her hand and raised it
to a kiss. “That alone did not do it. However, it is good of you to see how
unfair it was.”
That kiss on her hand, brief though it was,
created a bridge of intimacy. She felt that kiss all the way up her arm and
down her body. His gaze captured hers before he kissed her hand yet again,
slowly.
She did not pull her hand away. She did not
avert her eyes, as she most definitely should. Instead she stared while that
kiss and those dark eyes enlivened her whole body.
He drew her closer, closer, until she either
had to step toward him or fall. She did a bit of both, stumbling awkwardly, and
found herself in his arms.
He was going to kiss her. She was sure of it.
That must not happen. Instead of pushing away, however, she could not move. His
gaze paralyzed her and incited an unseemly excitement.
His arms embraced her. He looked down. Dazed,
she closed her eyes and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
When nothing happened, she opened her eyes.
Instantly the euphoria lifted, and she felt a fool. She tried to extricate
herself from his embrace, but he did not allow it.
“Of course not. You are the last man I want
kissing me, I assure you.” She refused to look at him and continued trying to
pull away.
“That is not true. Let us be honest with each
other in this if nothing else.” His head dipped and his lips hovered over hers.
Her breath caught. Heavens, but he was
beautiful. And exciting. Even that darkness seduced. Thrills kept spiraling
through her, begging to have excuses to become something more powerful.
“Part of the fun is the anticipation,” he said
quietly, imprisoning her with his gaze. “Although there is always the danger of
it building to a fever.” His lips brushed hers, ever so faintly, but enough to
create a starburst of sensation.
It was a terrible tease. A provocative promise.
Madeline
Hunter is
a New York Times
bestselling author with more than six million copies of her books in
print. She has twenty-nine nationally bestselling historical romances
in print, including most recently, The
Wicked Duke, Tall,
Dark, and Wicked, His
Wicked Reputation,
and The Accidental
Duchess. A member of
RWA’s Honor Roll, she has won the RITA Award twice and been a
finalist seven times. Her books have appeared on the bestseller lists
of the New York
Times, USA
Today, and Publishers
Weekly, and have been
translated into thirteen languages. She has a PhD in art history,
which she has taught at the university level. Madeline also writes
the Romance Unlaced column for USAToday.com’s Happy Ever After
site.
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