Page 1 of The Duke's Price
1
The Duke of Richport was bored. Carlos was not as much fun as he remembered. To be fair, nothing had truly amused Perry Frampton, Duke of Richport, since he had fled from England just ahead of embarrassment, scandal, and possible retribution.
Certainly not Carlos’s plans to seduce his cousin’s governess. Miss Ruth Henwood was eminently seduction-worthy. Perry guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, but she had the kind of bone structure that meant she would be beautiful in her nineties, and a figure of which most women could only dream.
“I will, of course, bed my cousin as soon as we are married,” Carlos said.
Wait. What? “I thought you were going to promise the governess that you would allow your bride to grow up a little before demanding your marital rights,” Perry said.
Carlos snorted with disdain. “A promise to a woman. Who regards such a thing? Not I.”
Pouring another drink was better politics than commenting. Perry never made promises. Not to women; not to anyone. But—perhaps it was a vestige of his upbringing as a gentleman—he firmly believed that promises made must be kept. “A gentleman’s word is his bond,” and all that.
Carlos paid no attention to Perry’s silence. “No, no. I cannot wait. Bella must have children, enough to secure the throne. It is my patriotic duty to plant them in her as soon as possible. I shall have them both, and expect to get pleasure from both, I promise you. Bella will be fifteen soon enough, and is ripe for the plucking. Fiery, too. I shall have to school her to show her who is master. I think I shall have to teach discipline to the governess, too. There is fire, I believe, under that starchy English reserve.”
Undoubtedly, and Perry wanted to be the one to uncover it. Not to quench the flames, either, as Carlos would, but to pour fuel onto them and warm himself at the conflagration. He took a sip from his drink.
“What will Princess Isabella’s people think of your marriage?” he asked. Carlos would be inviting a conflagration of quite a different kind if the citizens of the principality of Las Estrellas thought their princess was being badly treated.
“My people love me,” Carlos boasted, emphasising the word ‘my’. “I am their war hero. I saved them from Napoleon.”
Carlos had, it was true, led a cadre of guerillas in the mountains, taking the war to the French troops in all kinds of devious ways. He had clearly forgotten that those left at home in this small mountain principality had defended it against invasion not once but nine times, even expelling four invasions—one each by the Spanish, the English, and the French, and the final one eighteen months after the war by an army of deserters from all three nations.
And those domestic warriors had been led throughout the war by the father of the same princess he wanted to ‘school’. The prince had given his own life in expelling the third invasion. By that time, his daughter aged nine, was ready to take up her father’s mantle, with the help of a private committee of adviserswhich included retired soldiers as well as Madre Katerina, the Mother Superior of the local convent.
By the time of the fourth invasion, in the turmoil after the war, that committee included Ruth Henwood, the princess’s governess. Carlos might be a hero to those he led, though Perry had his own opinion about that, but the bulk of the population preferred the heroines who protected their homes. The princess was a warrior, as were the women who supported her. Teach the governess discipline? Perry resisted the urge to snort. Carlos was likely to wake up with his throat slit if he tried.
Carlos, when he and his men finally sauntered back from Paris three years ago, had used his authority as the princess’s guardian to replace all the women on the council, including the princess, with his own men. Spanish men, for that matter, not Estrellasans. Apparently, the population was unhappy with the change.
“I am certain you will do the right thing,” he said, utterly convinced though he was of the opposite. But Carlos was his host, and no guest with any pretension to manners would tell his host to pull his head out of the dark orifice into which it had been improbably stuffed.
It was time for him to leave Las Estrellas. He did not want to see Carlos bring his plans to fruition, which he would, for no one here was likely to stop him before he had done his worst.
Nor did he want to be included, as Carlos’s guest, in any retribution that followed, as it would, for the people loved both the princess and Miss Henwood.
“I am for my bed, Carlos,” he said. Also, not true. He planned to go up and walk on the castle’s battlements, and clear his head. He raised his glass in farewell. “Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow, my friend.” Carlos returned the salute. “Shall we go hunting? I had a report of a sighting of wolves up on the mountain.”
Wolf hunting. Oh, joy. Perhaps it would rain. Perhaps a large earthquake might hit the castle and solve everybody’s problems. “How delightful,” Perry said.
Ruth Henwood stoodon the battlements of the castle and looked out into the night. She was stuck like a rat in a barrel, and the Duque de la Sombras had his guns fully loaded and aimed.
She could run, of course, but that would leave her pupil Bella to the girl’s wicked guardian’s non-existent mercies. Besides, he would probably send people after her, and she doubted she would even reach the border.
If she took Bella with her, she would guarantee the recapture of them both, for the duque would leave no stone unturned until he had his princess back again. She was daughter to his foster sister, and therefore no relation, though she called him uncle, and her father had named him her guardian. Without her, though, he had no legitimate role in the principality’s government.
Ruth could get Bella out of the castle. She thought it possible, even likely, she could get her out of the town. But after that? Two women on their own, in a country where their faces were as well-known as if they were members of every household? And even if they made it out of Las Estrellas, how would they fare in Spain or France, with little money and no way to cover their tracks? Impossible.
Her other choices were even less palatable. She could continue to refuse the duque’s advances, but only for as long as he allowed her to do so—she could tell he was losing patience, and one day she fully expected him to take her by force. Probably somewhere in private, for he was still enamoured of his ownreputation as the kindly uncle who loved his niece and fought to save her from the evils of Napoleon’s army.
Refusing him would not protect Bella, either. As her legal guardian, he had given consent to their marriage. A man approaching forty. Bella was only fourteen. Furthermore, she did not like her uncle. “He makes my skin crawl, Ruth,” she said. “And he is cruel. He beats his servants. Also, he is disrespectful, not only to me, but to you and to Madre Katerina.”
Madre Katerina was the mother superior of the town’s convent of Carmelite nuns, and a member of the Council that had ruled the principality during the war.
Bella was correct. The duque acted like a gentleman when he was being watched by men of status, but in private, or when only women or servants could see him, he was rude, cruel, and offensive.
She had one chance to protect Bella. Except she did not believe that would work either. He had made her a solemn promise— “On the bones of my sainted sister,” he said—that if she would come willingly to his bed, he would put off consummating his marriage to Bella.
