Page 1 of Her Duke at Midnight
CHAPTER1
London,December 1895
Adam North, Duke of Everton, rolled over, yawned, and covered his eyes with one hand, trying to blunt the brutal assault.
“Do you have a particular aversion to the sun, or is it light in general that you disdain?” Roger Bennett had pulled the drapes aside, allowing a spear of sunlight to pierce Adam’s dark rooms.
He resisted shouting or clobbering his intensely irritating friend with a nearby candlestick. With whatever logic he still possessed, he knew yelling and movement would only make the pain in his head worse.
Besides, the man couldn’t seem to help the fact that he was relentlessly cheerful.
“Tell me again how we ever became friends, Bennett? Your affinity for morning is appalling. I can’t believe we have anything in common.”
“We both like good whiskey and the fairer sex.” His friend had the audacity to lower himself into Adam’s favorite chair. “Is that not enough?”
Adam squinted with the only eye that seemed willing to focus. “Don’t forget that I beat Wembley to a bloody pulp because he was a bullying arse to you at school.”
“Ah yes. Won my lifelong appreciation there, you did.”
“But not your willingness to allow me to sleep as long as I like.”
“Good God, man, it’s the middle of the day.”
The clock on Adam’s mantel belied the claim.
“It’s half past ten in the morning,” he grumbled as he rose from his very comfortable settee and ran a hand through his hair. “Not even noon.”
“Regardless”—Bennett waved a hand dismissively—“I have an invitation to extend that is rather urgent.”
“Urgent?” Adam flexed his shoulders, stretching the sore muscles in his back. Of late, he’d spent too much time at the boxing saloon attempting to expel frustrations and battle the self-loathing born of the latest mess he’d gotten himself into.
Bad fortune follows you around, boy.How many times had his father thrown those words at him like a curse? Perhaps the old bastard was right.
“A house party,” Bennett beamed as if he were offering up some scrumptious treat.
Adam’s stomach clenched. “Those words do not hold any appeal.”
“Come now, Everton, it’s been months.”
Six months, to be exact, since the incident that had changed the course of his…habits.
“She isn’t the only reason I loathe house parties.”
“But thatwasthe last you attended?”
“I would be content if it’s the last Ieverattend.” He’d feared his liaisons with women would catch up with him eventually. For years, he’d treated amorous arrangements lightly. Desirable, unattached ladies—usually widows—came and went, and that was exactly how he preferred it.
The equation never included falling in love, and marriage was out of the question.
And then he’d inherited the bloody dukedom that should have gone to his brother after the poor, honorable fool had got himself shot on a faraway battlefield for Queen and country.
That unexpected, unwanted inheritance had marked a sea change. Marriage—previously a shackle to be avoided—became an inevitability. And he’d sought to end the affair he’d begun with a lovely young widow as gently and with as much finality as he had all the others.
“She’s doing well now, they say,” Bennett put in quietly, seeming to realize that painful memories were playing out in Adam’s mind.
“I’m glad,” Adam rasped. “I cared for her. I never wanted anything but the best for her.”
“Right. I understand. The problem was love.”
