Kathryn Caskie - How To Seduce A Duke

Near the front window was a large, mahogany secretaire-bookcase, edged in satinwood with gleaming lion’s head brass pulls.

She grasped the two rings on the front drawer and pulled it open. Inside were numerous legal documents, letters, and…at last, a sheet of foolscap paper.

Snatching it up, Mary closed the drawer, then turned the key that opened the glassed bookshelves on the upper half of the secretaire. She withdrew a pot of ink and a pen.

She hurried with her takings to a rosewood writing table and sat down to pen her message.

“Oh, perdition!” Mary stared down at the foolscap. She hadn’t noticed that the reverse side had already been used.

Standing, she was about to return the scribbled page back to the secretaire’s drawer when she noticed her name written upon the sheet.

She walked to the window and tipped the page to the morning light.

Country Miss Wins Duke’s Heart

A Royle Wedding

Both of these were crossed through. Evidently not the winning selection. That was written below and underlined three times.

Miss Royle Weds

Duke in Surprise Wedding

As Mary read the writing below and recognized it as the column she’d read in the newspaper-the column that had necessitated another wedding, a legal wedding-her mood veered into black anger.

Rogan had written the column and had dispatched it to be placed prominently in the newspaper. He had done it!

She slapped the paper to the writing table. But why? Why would he do such a thing?

Bah! Did it really matter?

No, it didn’t.

He was manipulating her, again.

Nothing was sacred to him. Everything was naught but a game of chess.

She turned and ran to the bedchamber and snatched up her father’s book of maladies and remedies. Everything else she left behind as she stormed from the house, slamming the front door behind her.

She didn’t know or care what society would say about her or him and the sham of a wedding. At this moment, she didn’t care.

All she knew was that she was never coming back.

How lucky for her that she had lost the wedding ring.

Had she not, she might never have known what Rogan had done with absolutely no regard for her or her sisters.

Swinging her arms angrily as she walked, Mary barged across the square in the direction of Oxford Street, on her way home to Berkeley Square.

After Mr. Lawson left the courtyard, Rogan lingered a while longer. Everything about this day seemed sweeter-the air, the sun…his life.

With a smile curving his lips, he strolled down the shell path into the garden, tilting his face toward the warm sunlight.

He veered off the crunching pathway, stepped through the clinging ivy, and passed the walnut tree, until he reached the clearing.

He nodded to himself. This was the place.

The very place where Mary had confessed her love for him.

And it would be the place where he would do the same before God and family.

This was the spot where they would marry.

Just then, something caught his eye. Something glittering and winking at him through the soft green blades of grass. He knelt down and picked up a circlet of gold.

Mary’s ring.

It must have slipped off last night whilst they’d… made love.

Rogan rose and rubbed the gold ring on his coat, polishing it.

Then it occurred to him. When Mary had run into the courtyard in a state of undress, her face stricken, it had been because she had just realized that the ring had slipped from her finger.

Rogan grinned. Even now, she was probably tearing the bedchamber apart looking for it. Turning on his boot heel, Rogan headed back for the house.

The bedchamber was in shambles, as he had predicted. Pillows, sheeting, and the coverlet were thrown on the floor. Even the mattress had been turned on the bedstead. He chuckled, imagining what a sight she must have been in her panicked search.

Supposing she must be searching other rooms for the ring, he walked down the stairs. But he did not find her in the drawing room.

Nor in the library, nor the breakfast or dining rooms.

He headed down the passage for the study and poked his head through the doorway. “Mary, are you in here?”

Rogan started to turn away, when from the corner of his eye he noticed something out of place.

He entered the room and crossed to the writing table. He picked up a sheet of foolscap he found next to a pot of ink and a pen.

Though the writing utensils had not been there the evening before, he noticed immediately that the scrawl on the paper was in Quinn’s own hand.

Raising the document to his eyes, he began to read.

He had barely begun when, to his astonishment, he realized what he held in his hand.

And what Mary had found.

“Bloody hell.”

Cavendish Square

“Mary is hurt. She, even her sisters, will not see me, will not take my cards, nor my messages.” Rogan raised his eyes from the hat in his hands to Lady Upperton’s round face. “I need your help. She will listen to you.”

“Dear boy, she will listen to you as well,” the old woman told him. “You only need to give her a true reason.”

“What more reason is there than I love Mary and want to spend my life with her?”

“Do you now, Blackstone?”

“I do.”

“Have you told Mary this?”

“No…not specifically.” Rogan turned his hat in his hands and thought about her question. “She knows how I feel about her. I am sure of it.”

Lady Upperton huffed at that. “Never underestimate the power of words, Blackstone. Sometimes, when we most need to hear them, words can be stronger than deeds.”

Rogan thought about what Lady Upperton said. And it was true. When Mary had whispered, “I love you” into his ear, his heart had swelled.

He hadn’t known then how much he’d needed to hear those three simple words. It seemed he’d been waiting his entire life to hear “I love you.”

“I shall speak with Lotharian. We will assist you, Blackstone.” Lady Upperton raised her hand before Rogan could argue the wisdom of her suggestion. “Now, now, do not interrupt. Lotharian needs to redeem himself. He wishes to see you and our Mary together almost as much as yourself.”

The little woman scooted to the end of the settee and pulled a lever, which shot forth a footstool. “You said that the rector is able to officiate on Wednesday, is that correct?”

“Indeed. Ten in the evening.”

She stepped onto the footstool, then to the floor. Rogan took her elbow and walked alongside her into the entry hall.

“Do not change your plans,” she told him as they reached the front door and the footman opened it.

“But how will-”

“No, no. No more chatter for now.” She patted his arm. “Wait for my message on the morrow. There will be a wedding.” Her crimson-painted lips curved upward. “You will see. Trust the purity of Mary’s heart. She will not let you down.”

It was Wednesday.

And this night Mary would have become the Duchess of Blackstone.

Instead, she remained inside the house, curtains drawn, the knocker removed from the front door as though the family was not at home.

When Mary heard the door open, she rose from the window seat in the parlor and walked to meet her sisters, who had gone to Portman Square to collect her belongings from Rogan.

Only they had returned very quickly.

When Mary walked into the entry hall, she saw that Elizabeth and Anne were not alone.

Quinn’s cane clicked on the marble floor as he stepped toward her, his hand outstretched.