Page 2 of Dukes Do It Better
The circle of lantern light swayed across the ceiling with the rocking of the ship. He was due on deck in a few hours, so despite the news of the day and the riotous thoughts demanding attention, Malachi reached up and snuffed the light.
Tomorrow would come no matter what. Georgie would still be dead. Malachi would still be stuck with a title he didn’t want. But, if he slept now, he might be able to dream of the woman who’d written the journal.
Clutching the leather book to his chest, he let the sea lull him to sleep.
* * *
Olread Cove, England
Late March 1825
Emma Hardwick opened her journal, flipping by habit to the back pages. But no. She stopped. New journal. Fresh pages, with plenty of room for all her thoughts. The old journal seemed to have disappeared into the ether months ago. No doubt she’d find it under a cushion or tucked into a wardrobe one of these days. Alton enjoyed hiding things, because five-year-old boys were made entirely of mischief and some mystery substance that made them smell vaguely of wet dog.
Things always seemed clearer after she wrote them down. She’d never kept a journal as a child, but since moving to this cottage at the edge of England, free of the usual social distractions, she had begun to write out her thoughts. No one else was around to hear them, after all, and holding in all those emotions wasn’t an option. Some days she’d thought she would explode with the suppressed feelings. This journal, and the ones before it, was the one place she could be wholly honest. Free to be herself without risk of consequences.
The leather of this journal hadn’t sufficiently softened yet, so the book stood open and stiff, like a soldier at attention, as she flipped to a blank page closer to the front.
“At ease, obnoxious book,” she muttered, smashing the cover flat on her table. A smear of flour from her hand marred the brown leather, and she brushed it away, which only made the smudge worse. She’d thought her hands were clean, but in this kitchen, flour lurked everywhere.
It might be something she complained about on a daily basis, but Emma adored her kitchen. Over the years this room, with its perpetual scent of yeast and baked sugar in the air, had become her favorite place in the world.
She rubbed her fingers together, rolling the residual flour into a slim snake of white goop. Holding the journal in one hand, she painted the spine of the leather with the flour paste. Eventually the cover would soften from frequent use and exposure to natural oils. Or in her case, smears of pie crust. The old journal had been perfectly soft, falling open to the back pages as if awaiting her words.
Pinning the cover down with her left elbow, she dipped her pen in ink and wrote.
Frankly, I’m more upset about losing my journal than I am about Father’s passing. What kind of person does that make me? Father is dead. The mourning period is nearly over. Yet I can’t seem to cry, no matter how hard I try.
One should cry when their sire dies, right? Instead, my mind skims over grief and focuses on the to-do list I need to accomplish to make the journey to London.
A— is over the moon to be there for F—’s birthday this year. No doubt the boys will raise hell as usual. When my brother visits the Cove, the boys essentially run feral. The potential for disaster is substantially increased in London. Which might be why we typically celebrate the summer birthdays here on the coast.
To think, once upon a time, I thought London the most glamorous city in the world, and here I am already missing my cottage.
The words stopped flowing from her brain to her fingers, so Emma slumped in the chair. A piece of hair had escaped her simple coiffure. She tucked it behind her ear and stared out the window over the counter while she fiddled with the edge of the paper.
How her old friends in society would laugh to see the woman once hailed as the diamond of the Season dreading going to London. My, how time changed things.
Beyond the glass, the lawn stretched toward the sea, where it ended abruptly at the cliff’s edge. Along the cliffside, the grasses grew tall enough to sway in the breeze. Closer to the house, the lawn stayed short thanks to Leonard the goat, and Titan, her horse.
As if called forth by her thoughts, Leonard wandered into view, round belly swaying. Emma suspected Leonard might be female and expecting a blessed event. Although who Leonard had found to rut with, Emma had no idea.
Like her, the goat found a mate, then was left to deal with the consequences alone. Lady Emma Hardwick, daughter of a marquess and a much praised beauty, had married a nobody, then disappeared from society.
Not that the accolades mattered much now. To her knowledge, a widow had never reclaimed the title of diamond. Diamonds, after all, were pure, sparkling, and precious. Not dangerous liars. The thought sent a dark twist through her belly.
She drew in a calming breath and set aside the familiar thought. There was a bright side. Widowhood came with certain undeniably enjoyable freedoms. She never needed to marry again. Which, considering the piles of evidence pointing to her being exactly like her mother, was probably for the best. Emma had taken a lover out of wedlock, lied to everyone to cover her tracks, and eventually run away to a place where everyone accepted the lies as truth. Mother would have approved. Her passionate, manipulative mother had wielded her dimples as weapons to get her way, heedless of how her choices impacted others. Father hadn’t been much better, truth be told. When Emma had arrived in Olread Cove at the age of eighteen, she’d already been well on her way to upholding their legacy.
It wasn’t something to be proud of.
A pair of eerily pale hazel eyes flashed in her memory, making a rueful smile appear.
The man with those eyes had been compelling enough to divert her from the restrictions she usually lived under. And what happened? Emma let loose for a few hours and landed in a sailor’s bed.
If ever she’d questioned whether she was her mother’s daughter, that encounter—delicious as it was—laid any doubts to rest. Flirting at the local assembly rooms had been the first time she’d been out in years, and just like that, Emma had reverted to old behaviors.
She’d intended to stop at a kiss.
But damn, it had been a spectacular kiss. No wonder she’d thrown caution to the wind and spent the night with him.
