Page 1 of When her Duke Returns
Prologue
Portsmouth, England, 1803
The only thing Lady Mary remembered from that day was the beauty of the English sea. Beyond that, she could only guess at what had transpired on that pier as if trying to grasp at a dream she had thought best forgotten.
She remembered walking slowly behind her betrothed, the most formidable Duke of Redgrave. She was certain there had been words—too many words at that—spilled and shared with no great decorum. She imagined the lingering of a vagabond hand upon her back, settling scandalously at her waist when it came time to depart, and her ensuing unease at the watchful stares of the men who frequented the docks early that morning.
They would forgivehimhis impertinence, surely, for he was a man set for distant tides and war. She would not be spared their judgment, despite her casual apathy toward the man, as was the devilish fate of all women of the ton.
She saw him there beyond the veil of memory and time. He had been handsome and young, his golden, chestnut hair refracting the sun. He stood fiercely tall over her. And in that memory, he reached down to tuck a strand of hair around her ear and under her bonnet. She could feel the warmth of his hand upon her skin in that dream, and she could taste the bitterness of his name upon her lips.
“Your Grace,” she said through a sigh, keeping her eyes low.
His soft laugh rang out like the beginning of a song. “If I am to meet my end across the channel at the tip of a French bayonet, you must grant me the satisfaction of a smile before I leave,” he said. He had always spoken in her company as if they were apart from the world, and it made the ground quake beneath her.
She looked up in earnest and forced a smile. “Is this more to your liking, Your Grace?”
“Quite,” he said with a grimace to match her own.
A group of men rushed by, sharing the load of a crate between them—young men from the Portsmouth naval school, no doubt. Mary watched as they loaded it onto the large ship, the King’s colors flapping eagerly overhead, unable to bring her eyes back to the Duke.
“You must promise to wait for me,” he pressed. “Swear it that I might die a happy man.”
“I swear, Your Grace. It is my duty to remain true.”
“Good,” he sighed. “I am heartily glad. I fear I shall come to crave the warmth of these moments in time.”
“You are not so shackled to this war as others,” she said despite herself. But it was true: the Duke had thrown himself readily at the British Army at the first whisperings of war with France.
“If only that were true. All men, good or otherwise, are at the mercy of this war, I fear.”
“I could not say, Your Grace, for I am no man.”
He stood silently for a moment which felt like an eternity in her memory, and Marythoughtshe had vexed him. With a sigh, he reached into the innermost pocket of his red jacket and retrieved a small trinket. It glinted amber as it hit the sun and then fell into shadow in the palm of her hand.
“Humor me, Lady Mary,” he ordered softly, “that you might keep me close.” The trinket was a small, rounded brooch made of bronze. At its center sat the Redgrave coat of arms upon a vaguely heart-shaped shield.
“I know it’s not particularly well-crafted,” he added, “but I have long held it in my possession, and I—” He stood in quiet contemplation for a moment. “I cannot bear to think of it in any hands but your own.”
All at once, Mary felt the stirrings of unfamiliar sentiment within her, brewing like a low storm beneath the sea: sympathy, obligation, and, most poignant of all, resentment. She held her emotions at bay, placed the brooch over her heart, and spoke the words she knew he yearned to hear.
“Then let us pray luck bids us meet again, Your Grace,” she said with little confidence or sincerity, “that I might return your heart to you.”
ChapterOne
It had been four years since Alexander had set foot on British soil, and it was with open arms that he welcomed the heady airs of London. He had traveled from Calais to Dover to London with nary a night’s rest or a meal to speak of, but he was of no mind to enjoy the journey.
Alexander stepped out from the carriage onto Markham Road upon which sat Rowe Manor. The cobbled streets of the borough felt foreign underfoot, but the house that loomed ahead was unmistakably his. Its large maroon door hadn’t changed a splinter, and its white façade and marble pillars were no different than they had been in his dreams.
He sent the coachman away with earnest thanks and made for the lion-headed door knocker. His heart sank at once. He had not received a letter from his mother in months, and the war, he knew, had not exactly left him unchanged.
He reached a tentative hand toward the bandages on his face. Perhaps the end of his correspondences, both with his mother and other acquaintances, had not been a cruel twist of fate but a thing of purpose by which to strike him down. And if it had been so…
“It would not matter,” he spoke quietly to himself.
He was, after all, the Duke of Redgrave. What had been his before his time at war would be no less his now.
When at last Alexander had found the courage to knock, he had been greeted by a less than forthcoming butler he had never seen before.
