The dukes wicked widow, p.1
The Duke's Wicked Widow, page 1
The Duke’s Wicked Widow
Caroline Lee
Contents
LETTER TO THE READER
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
AUTHOR’S NOTE
SNEAK PEEK
About this book
They call him the Duke of Death, but he’s her last chance at a life worth living!
To Society, Fawkes MacMillan is a nobody; a hanger-on at the edge of respectability with a murky past and an even murkier lineage. But to Lady Danielle Aycock, he is her only hope of salvation before a horrible Christmas deadline.
Having recently lost both her husband and her father, Ellie’s only chance to save herself and her stepdaughter from destitution is to announce her pregnancy with her husband’s heir, therefore prolonging the settlement of the estate. The problem? She’s never been pregnant, and time is running out.
Any man could change that, but she turns to her husband’s cousin, desperate enough to brave the whispers about him. When he shows her unimaginable pleasure, Ellie begins to realize perhaps her previous plan was flawed, and she’s found all she needs in his arms.
But Fawkes’s mysterious connection to the Duke of Stroken isn’t his only secret, and as the hunt for a traitor to the Crown pulls him in, he’s forced to choose between the only thing he’s ever wanted, and the lass who is coming to own his heart.
But what happens when she learns he’s the reason she lost everything in the first place?
Warning: Super spicy! This one starts hot and gets hotter—don’t say you weren’t warned. You’re going to have lots of fun with this laugh-out-loud historical romance!
This year has been a hard one for many reasons, but I have been blessed with a new friend as well. That’s a special sort of thing when you’re my age; new friends don’t just come along every day…especially not ones who are supportive and loving and genuinely kind.
Meli, this one’s for you. Thanks for being my friend.
And for bugging the shite out of me until I got this sucker finished.
LETTER TO THE READER
Hello there, gentle and possibly clueless reader!
Look, if you’ve read my stories before, you know that this letter is where I write the “too important to wait ‘til the end” historical facts you just have to know ahead of time. But that’s not the case here. This letter is just in case you haven’t been reading my Surprise! Dukes series, because if you haven’t, I’m a little afraid I might lose you.
So you know how sometimes, when you get to the fifth book in an overarching series, and the author has to info-dump all the shite that’s gone before, so you can be caught up? Either because you didn’t read the earlier books or you’ve forgotten them, having read eighty-seven books since the last one in the series?
Well, there just wasn’t a good place to info-dump in this book, without it being, well…info-dumpy.
So that’s what we’re going to do here. I’m going to give you a quick rundown on the information you need to know going into this story, okay? (Also: I’ll include character names, so bookmark this in case life gets confusing.)
First of all, a lot of the heroes used to be secret agents, working for the good of the Crown, until their boss “Blackrose” (William Stoughton, younger brother and heir to the Earl of Bonkinbone) started to try to kill them all (“the purge”). Why? Because he wasn’t really working for the Crown at all; unbeknownst to them, he was a traitor selling all those secrets, and the agents were loose ends.
In Duke’s Deceitful Governess (Sophia and Rourke, Duke of Exingham), we find out that Sophia had stolen the evidence against Blackrose, and in the showdown, leads him to believe the evidence has been destroyed.
In Duke’s Bartered Mistress (Georgia, Bonkinbone’s oldest daughter, and Demon, Duke of Lickwick), Demon attempts to blackmail Bonkinbone into revealing Blackrose’s whereabouts, only for Georgia to admit she’s known the whole time.
In Duke’s Counterfeit Wife (Felicity and Griffin, Duke of Peasgoode), we meet Wilson, one of Blackrose’s agents who has been his right-hand man all this time. Wilson reveals Blackrose’s plan is to return to Britain as a lord, in order to be impossible to prosecute, especially “without the evidence” (pretend I’m doing air quotes there because the rest of us all know the evidence hasn’t been destroyed, remember).
In Duke’s Daring Bride (Olivia and Alistair, Duke of Effinghell), Wilson’s sister Olivia owns a newspaper which has been publishing encoded messages from Bonkinbone to his brother. The gang comes up with the idea to poison Bonkinbone (not kill him, just…you know…make Blackrose think he’s dying) so Blackrose will return to Britain.
Said poison is purchased from a shadowy underworld figure called the Duke of Death (with whom Bonkinbone was also rumored to have been meeting!). But before the poison can be administered, Bonkinbone obligingly suffers a heart attack, and has been lingering.
Aaaaand there we go. An info-dump all in one place, bringing you up to speed on the overarching plot. I mean, there’s tons more in each book (lots of sex, for instance, and some rather witty plotty plot-plot), but that’s basically what you need to know to go into this book, without having to spend fifteen pages inside the heroine’s head while she lays all this out in a boring manner. Instead, you spent time in mine. Hi!
You’re welcome. Now buckle up, buttercup, you’re in for a hell of a ride!
Prologue
A good mother likely would not bring a child along to a sexual liaison.
Swallowing her guilt, Lady Danielle Aycock stroked the flaxen hair of the wee head which rested upon her lap, glad the sway of the carriage had lulled Merida to sleep. She didn’t want the lass to know—to understand—what was about to happen.
Why—oh why—did things have to be so complicated? The Earl had made it clear Merida wasn’t welcome in the house, even if she was his son’s natural child, and Danielle—or Ellie to a very select few—didn’t dare leave the poor girl home unprotected.
Not tonight, when she was only weeks away from being tossed from the house herself.
Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the squabs, wondering if any of the servants had noticed her leaving and would report her to her father-in-law. Some of them—like Matthews, the coachman currently aiding her in this errand—were sympathetic to her.
Others reported to the Earl.
Rufus, why must it have happened this way?
She might have loved him, once. Well, Ellie liked to think that, had fate allowed them a normal marriage, she would have grown to love him. Instead Rufus had fallen ill soon after their marriage, and she’d spent the last year tending him while he slowly wasted away.
Death had come as a blessed relief.
Less than a fortnight as a widow, and now you are hunting for your next lover?
Lover? No.
No, tonight wasn’t like that.
Tonight was about protecting Merida.
The coach hit a hole, jostling the occupants, and the lass sat up suddenly. “Ellie?”
“Shhh.” Ellie wrapped an arm around the girl, steering her back down. “I am here. Close your eyes.”
“Ellie, it’s dark.”
“Yes it is. I had an errand, and I thought you might enjoy the adventure of sleeping in the coach.”
Her stepdaughter yawned. “I like my bed.”
Yes, she would. To hear Rufus tell it, the lass’s early years had been spent in squalor, but she’d fitted into his household quite well more recently. At six years old, Merida was precocious, intelligent, and bold as brass.
“I know, honeybear. Shush now.”
Obligingly, the lass tucked her legs under the blanket Ellie had thrown over her and rested her head on Ellie’s lap. “Where are we going?”
“I have to—to see one of your Papa’s cousins.”
Merida was silent for a long moment. Then, “Papa is dead.”
“Yes, darling.” Ellie’s voice caught in her throat. “He is.”
Ellie mourned Rufus. Of course she mourned him…didn’t she? Their match had been the talk of the Season, the carefully orchestrated merger of two powerful families. But after almost a year of hell, she and Merida now faced true danger.
“Ellie, can I meet him too? Papa’s cousin?”
Ellie wondered if it was possible to feel one’s heart breaking. “No, love. This is something I must do alone.” She felt the girl trying to rise, and slowly pushed her back down. “Hush. Go to sleep. I—I will tell you about him in the morning during our walk. Is that acceptable?”
Merida hummed sleepily. “Promise.”
If tonight was successful, there was no way Ellie could tell the girl even a modicum of what happened. But the last year had taught her how to smile, how to pretend as if nothing was wrong. So…
“I promise,” she whispered.
Her husband was dead.
Her father was dead.
You could go live with Georgia.
Her older sister was married to a reclusive—and extremely foul-tempered—duke. They spent their time in Scotland and were very much in love. And Georgia was expecting their first child in a month.
The Duke of Lickwick would not appreciate his wife’s sister showing up on his doorstep at a time like this, particularly with Merida in tow.
Ellie needed to find a way to save the poor lass—to save both of them—without bothering her sister’s new family.
The address of tonight’s liaison was far enough away from Rufus’s gilded townhouse that—blessedly—Merida fell back asleep before they arrived. As the coach slowed, Ellie carefully slipped from beneath the girl’s head, popped a cushion underneath her soft cheek, and tucked the blanket more securely around her small shoulders.
God willing, the wee sprite would stay asleep.
Taking a deep breath, Ellie adjusted her shawl. The coach was cozy enough thanks to the heated bricks, but outside, the December wind could bite through any exposed skin.
For this errand, she’d agonized over her wardrobe.
It had been a bold choice to slip into something besides a mourning gown.
Her husband had finally died thirteen days ago, and her father the month before that. While her tears at Rufus’s funeral were real—although more for the future of the young girl whose hand she clasped than any real sorrow at lost memories—she’d been stoic when they interred Father in the family vault.
Mainly because of what she’d found in his library when going through his papers…damning evidence she couldn’t think of right now.
She was officially in mourning. But black wouldn’t do tonight.
She’d never met Fawkes MacMillan, and only knew what her private investigator had learned in a few short days. He was a gentleman—educated, having trained as a chemist—and the illegitimate son of an earl’s disgraced sister. Whatever career he held, it paid for a modest flat in a modest part of London.
For what Ellie was about to ask—to beg—him to do, she’d carefully chosen an unadorned shirtwaist and skirt, in a pale blue. Something simple, unlike this dratted situation.
But since this errand was nothing like a social call, she’d made certain the ensemble could be easily donned—and removed. And she’d neglected to wear a chemise or a corset.
Another fortifying breath, and she felt as ready as she’d ever be to face what was to come. Slipping from the coach, she started when the coachman appeared out of the mist behind her.
“Matthews! I did not expect—” She composed herself. “What are you doing, climbing down on a night like this?”
In the light of the streetlamp, the old man looked hurt. “Milady, I weren’t gunna let ye pop out all by yerself, was I?”
She laid a gentle hand on the servant’s arm. “Matthews, I am perfectly capable of opening a coach door by myself, I promise.”
“This errand—”
“And I am perfectly capable of knocking on a perfectly respectable door by myself as well.”
The old man was eyeing the building in front of which they’d stopped. “It don’t look suspicious, milady, but my left knee’s been tingling. Ye know what that means?”
Yes, it meant the old coot needed to stay seated and snug under a pile of blankets. But Ellie was well aware of Matthews’ various prophetic body parts. “Snow in the forecast?”
“Nay—well, aye. There’s snow a’coming, and a harsh one, by the pricking of me earlobe. The right one, seeing as how I lost the left one in the wars.”
She patted his arm again. “You lost your left knee in the wars, as I recall, as well.” He was never clear on which wars. It may have been a long offensive with the butler.
“Aye, but that doesn’t stop the thing fro’ telling me when danger approaches. This place might look respectable, milady, but danger’s a’coming!”
With that, the man reached up and pulled a heavy stick from the coachman’s seat. The thing was so large, and the movement so sudden, that he began to tip over backward.
Ellie hurried to grab his shoulders. “Matthews, listen to me. I have a very important mission for you.” Here. In the coach. Far from my shame. “I need you to use your—your weapon to protect Merida.”
The old man frowned. “Milady—”
“I will be safe, Matthews.” Please, God, let that be the case. “What I am doing tonight, I do for Merida and her future.” The coachman’s frown grew, and she knew he was trying to second guess her plans. “It will all be for naught if the Earl learns I am not with her tonight, or in the townhouse, or—God forbid—ruffians harass you.”
She could see him considering her words, so she nodded firmly and stepped back.
“Please, Matthews. Protect Merida.” With those words, she reached up and slid the lock on the outside of the coach door. The lass was determined enough—and acrobatic enough—to slip through one of the windows, but hopefully she would stay asleep during the time this errand took.
Finally, the old man nodded grimly. “Aye, milady. I will. Just let me get back up to my post, eh? Ye hold me wooden fingers, would ye, and pass them up to me when I’m settled?”
With only a few grimaces, hopefully unseen in the dark, Ellie accomplished the task.
Once in his place, Matthews tugged on the brim of his hat. “Godspeed, milady. If I’m no’ here when ye’re through, it means we had to take off to avoid trouble, but ye stay right there and I’ll circle back as soon as I can.”
Ellie lifted her hand, already shivering from the bite of the wind. “Be safe,” she whispered, before turning to the building before her.
Inside it was warmer, but only just. The halls were barren, but clean, and it was easy enough to find the flat she was looking for.
Behind that door was the man who could save her. He didn’t even have to do much—well, very much—but if she was successful tonight, she could secure Merida’s future honorably.
Fawkes MacMillan.
Rufus’s cousin.
The closest male blood relative of the same age who wouldn’t report her betrayal to the Earl.
His blood—his seed—could be the difference between life and death.
Taking another deep breath, Ellie squared her shoulders. She slid the shawl around her elbows and took the time to undo the top buttons of her shirtwaist, revealing skin at the base of her throat. Too many? Not enough?
As an afterthought, she pulled the ridiculously large gold band from her finger and slipped it into a pocket of the skirt.
Steeling herself, she knocked.
The moments ticked by, measured by her heartbeats.
When she reached the count of fifty, she decided this was all quite anticlimactic, and she really ought to stop holding her breath.
She knocked again, this time shifting her weight from side to side.
It is almost midnight. Most reasonable people are asleep by this point. Perhaps you should open the door and surprise him?
No. Surprising a man in his own home—even if he was a simple chemist in a simple flat—would be supremely unwise. Men didn’t appreciate home invaders. Even those in skirts.
After another interminable wait, she was lifting her hand to knock a third time when she heard a noise on the other side of the door.
“Who is it?” growled a voice.
She froze.
He was home. He was there.
And…hello? He would like to know who you are! Try answering the man.
“Who is it?” the voice asked again, much more impatiently.
