Elizabeth Beacon - The Duchess Hunt

‘You?’ she observed as she finally opened heavy eyelids, her gaze still half dazed with dreams of him.

‘Me,’ Jack replied, as if even he was surprised.

‘You should be with your guests, not hobnobbing with a nonentity like me,’ she said with a drowsy smile.

A frown twitched his dark brows together and instead of going away, as she told herself she wanted him to, he sat himself beside her so she couldn’t get up without an undignified struggle.

‘I won’t have you categorise yourself a nonentity, since we never entertain any of those at Ashburton, my dear Miss Pendle.’

‘Don’t mock me,’ she ordered him crossly.

‘Not you, but I do deplore your quest to constantly belittle yourself, Jess.’

Forcing her mind to sharpen, when it wanted so badly to soften, she met his eyes steadily. ‘And I shall never join the chase and allow others to belittle me instead, Your Grace.’

‘What chase would that be?’ he asked silkily, and moved so close to her that her breath came short. ‘It’s the closed season for most country sports, Miss Pendle.’

‘Other than spinster-baiting and duke-hunting, Your Grace?’

ELIZABETH BEACONlives in the beautiful English West Country, and is finally putting her insatiable curiosity about the past to good use. Over the years Elizabeth has worked in her family’s horticultural business, became a mature student, qualified as an English teacher, worked as a secretary and briefly tried to be a civil servant. She is now happily ensconced behind her computer, when not trying to exhaust her bouncy rescue dog with as many walks as the inexhaustible Lurcher can finagle. Elizabeth can’t bring herself to call researching the wonderfully diverse, scandalous Regency period and creating charismatic heroes and feisty heroines work , and she is waiting for someone to find out how much fun she is having and tell her to stop it.

Previous novels by the same author:

AN INNOCENT COURTESAN

HOUSEMAID HEIRESS

A LESS THAN PERFECT LADY

THE RAKE OF HOLLOWHURST CASTLE

REBELLIOUS RAKE, INNOCENT GOVERNESS

ONE FINAL SEASON

(part of Courtship & Candlelight )

A MOST UNLADYLIKE ADVENTURE

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‘And you’re quite sure the Duke of Dettingham kidnapped or killed that delicious Mr Seaborne we all swooned over when we came out, Eugenia dear?’ a young matron asked on a nervous titter at one of the last great balls of the London Season.

‘The gentlemen are taking bets on how he’s got away with it for so long, Lottie,’ her overexcited informant told her as if it was gospel truth. ‘Nothing was entered in the betting books, of course, since the Duke must challenge any man who declared him guilty of such a dreadful crime and he’s a crack shot. He certainly wouldn’t balk at putting a bullet in any gentleman brave enough to expose him when he’s disposed of his heir in such a villainous fashion.’

‘Although the Duke is rather delicious as well,’ Lottie said wistfully. ‘That air he has of not caring a snap of his fingers what any of us think quite makes my heart flutter and when he actually looks at me … Ooh, even now meeting those compelling green eyes of his makes my knees knock together and then I can’t think of a single sensible word to say.’

‘I don’t approve of conscienceless rakes,’ Eugenia told her friend stiffly.

‘Once upon a time you would have given your best pearl necklet if it persuaded him to even dance with you, and sold your soul for anything more.’

‘Which means I know what a heartless care-for-nobody he truly is,’ Lottie’s disgruntled confidante informed her as if that settled the matter.

‘And how you wish he’d once played the rake with you,’ Lottie argued.

‘Only to find myself murdered in my bed once he grew bored with me? I rather think not,’ Eugenia said coldly and went to find more receptive ears to pour her poison into.

Jessica Pendle had never found it more difficult to sit quietly and pretend she was deaf and daft as well as lame.

‘Jessica!’

She could almost feel her mother willing her not to stand up and publically denounce that malicious cat for circulating such silly, damaging stories about Jack Seaborne, Duke of Dettingham.

Jack and his cousin Richard would not harm each other even if their very lives depended on it and anyone who knew them at all well would happily swear to the fact, but she knew a single lady, even one of her advanced years, could never defend an unrelated gentleman without making bad worse.

‘Mama?’ she murmured absently.

‘Pretend you didn’t hear them,’ Lady Pendle urged softly.

‘It doesn’t even make sense,’ Jessica muttered distractedly. ‘Jack’s already the duke, so why would he need to kill anyone to secure his position, let alone his cousin? Do they think Jack will now hunt down every male Seaborne in the country on some lunatic rampage to exterminate all competition?’

‘You don’t suppose such inveterate gossips consider the implausibility of the stories they make up then spread as if they were truth, do you, my love? It all sounds like the plot of a very bad sensation novel thought up by some bored creature without anything to do and too much time to do it in, but how much good do you think it would do Jack if we both swept into battle on his behalf?’

‘None at all,’ Jessica admitted. ‘But that woman made such ruthless efforts to trap Jack into marriage when we first came out that I wonder he didn’t go about in a suit of armour. If he was prepared to murder anyone, it would have been her.’

‘A woman scorned can be very dangerous indeed, but we will discuss this at home when nobody else can hear but Papa, if he happens to be in one of his listening moods. For now we must pretend we have heard nothing untoward,’ her mother advised.

‘But Jack is an honourable man. Even when he’s looking down his lordly nose in a way I can’t help but find so infuriating that sometimes I long to smack him, I still know that much. I could never believe him capable of such villainy,’ Jess continued with a bewildered shake of her head.

‘You make yourself such an easy mark for his teasing by flaring up at him on the slightest provocation, my love,’ her mother said mildly and Jessica wondered why her family and his never seemed to find Jack’s regal-duke act infuriating.

‘There’s no need for him to play the autocrat whenever he isn’t being such a disgraceful rake nobody will even whisper in my hearing what he’s really been up to since he came down from Oxford even now,’ she muttered grumpily then caught an amused glint in her mama’s eyes and looked at her enquiringly.