Duke of Disgrace (Dukes of Destiny Book 3) Read online

  Well, they’d certainly be more intimate acquaintances after this.

  Swindon sighed. “To hold you down. Then to bring me an iron. It will be primitive but it is the best I can do right now.”

  “Christ.”

  “Please sit down, your grace.”

  He did as he was told and collapsed on a rattan chair, feeling as shocked as though something had exploded right near him. Jeremy looked at his offending hand, again. Swindon would be slicing through bone, veins, sinew…

  “And this is the best course of action.”

  “It is, your grace.”

  “They won’t let me fight again?”

  As he said it, it did not matter that he’d only secured a commission because his father had wanted it, and he, Jeremy, hadn’t been happy about it at the time. Time had changed that a little. Instilled with a strong enough sense of honor that he could not allow himself to do anything piecemeal, he threw himself into his new life after the nerves and disdain wore off. He was not the most decorated or illustrious man of war, but he was proud of what he’d accomplished.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It is a small matter,” said Jeremy with a little chuckle that he hardly recognized as his own. “This isn’t what I wanted to do with my life in the first place, Swindon. Did you know that? God must work in mysterious ways.”

  “No, your grace. I mean… yes, He does, your grace.” Swindon sounded bewildered. He was nondescript enough in his features that Jeremy couldn’t have said, even when he was completely sober, whether Swindon was feeling anything out of the ordinary. Of course, if Jeremy had been sober and uninjured, they would not be having this conversation at all.

  “I wanted to be a barrister. Move into politics. I trained for that, first. I never meant to be a military man.”

  “Your grace, if you will just allow me to secure Mr. Atkins…”

  “You’ll lob my hand off. I know. How much of it do you think will be left?”

  “None” must be the answer to that, he felt. Infection had set in, and to get rid of it, there could be no half-measures. What does it matter? A stump will be left either way. Half a hand wouldn’t look any more normal than a wrist that doesn’t have anything attached to it at all.

  “Your grace, please.” Swindon looked visibly uncomfortable now.

  Jeremy was babbling. He knew he was. For a man who was commended from the tender age of nine years for his “gravitas”, he didn’t have any to spare now. Or that could have been the laudanum in the “concoction” winding its way through his veins, taking most thoughts of dignity from him. He couldn’t tell. He stared hard at Swindon, then exhaled for a long moment. “Do we have to? Isn’t there some way… to keep…”

  “No, your grace. I’m afraid not.”

  “Please?”

  “Lord Hareden, I’m… I am sorry. But if we try to leave you… intact… I don’t think…” Swindon stopped himself, then started to speak again. “You could lose the arm. You could also die.”

  “Death might be preferable to this.”

  “I don’t think you mean that, your grace.”

  “Fine. Maybe I don’t. Go get Atkins.”

  *

  He awoke, his face sticky with his own spit. He’d fallen asleep with his mouth open, no doubt.

  Blearily, he blinked and tried to ascertain where he was. It wasn’t until Jeremy’s eyes landed on Swindon, his chubby torso slumped on the table as he slept, that Jeremy understood where he had been left to sleep.

  Hell, he thought. A cot in hell.

  There was still a candle burning next to Swindon, its flame guttering and wax dribbling.

  Working his mouth gently, swallowing, Jeremy refused to look at his right arm, which throbbed sharply with every one of his heartbeats. He was incredibly ashamed of himself, but at the last instant, his composure fully broke.

  Swindon’s tincture or concoction or whatever it was had helped dull sensations, but it wasn’t enough to damp down the utter horror that swept through him like wildfire when all three of them were in their respective positions.

  He pleaded. Begged. Swindon took his hand, anyway. His hand and the upper part of his wrist. It was swift, as far as these things could go, and Atkins bore down on Jeremy like a vise. When Swindon gave Atkins the go-ahead, he rushed for the iron or whatever the hell they’d used to stop Jeremy from bleeding out. The tourniquet had been removed only after the cauterization.

  It wasn’t the pain, the cleaving of bone and muscle and skin, or the intense, burning heat that shocked him most.

  It was, yet again, a smell. How was it possible, how was it decent, for the smell of his own burning self to rouse almost a hunger?

  There was little difference, as far as Jeremy’s nose was concerned, between that scent and one of meat being cooked for supper.

  I’ll remember it to the grave.

  As he laid there in hell, he came to the disconcerting realization that although his hand was no longer with him, he could feel his fingers better than he had in days.

  Chapter One

  July 30, 1814

  Near the village of Aldbury, England

  Jeremy knew he was being cuckolded.

  But he was allowing it, which he supposed made him a wittol more than it made him a cuckold.

  Although he did not attend many large society events these days, inevitably in most grand rooms he entered, whispers would twist in the air like the hissing of snakes as soon as the ton saw the Duke and Duchess of Bowland. Or heard them announced. It didn’t really matter which.

  Lady Isabel Hareden was evidently so deliciously wicked she was an acceptable spectacle, a way to live vicariously on the edge of what was deemed unseemly for a high society woman. Husbands had mistresses. That was an obvious truth, even if it was not his own truth. Wives did not have lovers.

  At least, they didn’t as openly as Isabel seemed to. They were simply expected to provide an heir, then accept whatever their husbands did for their private, carnal amusements. Not every husband took a mistress, it was true, but the practice itself was neither unheard of nor, strictly speaking, viewed as unsavory. Naturally, one had to be discreet about it.

  There was that business with Paul a fortnight ago, thought Jeremy, smothering a chuckle at his younger brother’s careless behavior. Paul knew how to be sneaky, yet sometimes it did fail him. But he isn’t married.

  He’d been caught with a doxy by the elderly, stately and infinitely prim Lord Renarde at White’s. A building in which women were not allowed. As unbothered as he ever was with tradition, Lord Paul Hareden had somehow managed to sneak the most beautiful redhead in Madame Talbot’s employ into the male sanctum.

  Despite being in the relatively unique and especially flummoxing situation of waiting for his wife to be escorted home by a lover, Jeremy grinned to himself, pleased to be alone because he was sure the expression looked quite unhinged. Yes, Paul had caused quite the commotion, no matter the circumstance of the lady’s entry into the club. Jeremy could laugh about it when Paul was not directly in front of him.

  Quite fortunately for himself, Paul was as free as a wild finch and could bed who he liked. When something like this happened, though, Jeremy always felt at least half a century older than his brother who, from his earliest days, was full of unbridled impulsivity and zeal for life. He’d also been coddled. That had transmuted into a slightly fractious adulthood.

  Staring out over the front of Rosethorpe’s tidy grounds, which were still shrouded with fog that lingered after last night’s warm, heavy rain, Jeremy scanned the horizon for a carriage.

  He tried to be honest with himself, prided himself on knowing his own mind. The trouble came when he tried to communicate his emotions rather than his rationale. He still tried to communicate with Isabel, though communication required at least one other willing party.

  Isabel did not think so, but he believed that they each needed to be listening when the other was speaking. As in so many other matters of life, th
ey disagreed on that. What had gone wrong? Their marriage was not one of passion or even affection but, originally, he’d thought it might be one of respect and honor. How erroneous he’d been.

  Yet that was what he wanted, as much as he tried not to admit that was what he wanted.

  As though summoned by his thoughts, a stylish landau pulled by a pair of dun horses came rolling into the drive, sailing past the ornamental iron gates. Even from here, Jeremy spied the smartly dressed man with dark features, and a sting of jealousy tore through him.

  Who was that? Jeremy chewed his own lip. He seemed young and though Jeremy did not have much of a meter for such things, handsome.

  It appeared that Isabel was hunting amongst the lesser-knowns. The younger sons and the distant relatives. It was clever of her. They could generally philander indefinitely. They were not bound by their fathers, the future of their estates, and their honor to at least marry before they took up with another man’s wife.

  Even in the hazy morning light, Isabel’s hair shimmered cool rose-gold, the effect of the sun on the strands lending them a burnished glow even in the patches of fog. She, of course, wore her hat, but without the practiced hands of her maid, her hair itself was disheveled. Her gown, a new creation of cerise silk and ivory lace that she had just purchased from the modiste, was as neat as possible. But Jeremy suspected that her friend was more than capable of managing a lady’s garments before the morning sun chased her from his bed.

  Jeremy noted that the landau was unmarked. Perhaps this lad has more sense than I would give him credit for? No. More likely, he didn’t have a marked carriage.

  Isabel, in spite of the many windows in the manor before her and the possibility that anyone could see—no, the footman did see, were seeing—kissed her lover goodbye before she alighted from the landau. Jeremy could not tell exactly how thoroughly she was kissed, nor did he really want to. When she was admitted into the manor, not on her lover’s arm, although it certainly appeared as though she might try to take him inside, too, Jeremy had to clench his fist to physically resist running downstairs. If any servants were still abed, he would do them the favor of rousing them.

  No, it was very early in the morning by the gentry’s standards, but the staff had been awake for at least an hour.

  Jeremy counted to fifteen. In that time, he heard his lady wife speaking with Mr. Snow, their competent, elderly head butler, and Mrs. Snow, the wonderful housekeeper. He recognized the tones of their voices more than what was actually being said, noting with interest that Isabel sounded as gay as ever. She was always happy when she got her way.

  That would change when she was confronted with the child. Jeremy loved Luke through a stroke of what felt like divine inspiration, because he knew, Isabel certainly knew, and even the servants seemed to know that Luke was not actually his true son. Some men would have been driven mad by the knowledge immediately, but Jeremy had been stupefied to learn that he wasn’t. First there was shock, then a deep feeling of betrayal.

  It had taken a while for Luke’s true parentage to show itself—newborns often looked like one another and Jeremy then had no reason to doubt Isabel’s faithfulness. Once Luke grew into having more individualized features, it was painfully obvious that he was no Hareden. He didn’t even look much like his mother. When Jeremy asked Isabel about it, she’d just smirked and shrugged and asked him if he really believed she would step out on him. Her behavior had not been so outrageous, then, and he had not seen her with a lover. Yet.

  Her bedroom was not near the ducal apartment, and after Luke had been born, she realized with horror that in her fervor to have her privacy, she’d chosen rooms nearer to the nursery than her husband’s bedroom. Between a squalling infant and a husband, she seemed to prefer the latter, even if “prefer” was a strong word.

  Isabel had arrived on this floor. She said to a maid, who must be passing by in the corridor, “Martha, a bath, if you please.”

  A bath? thought Jeremy, pressing his palm to his mouth to avoid his chortle becoming too audible. Then he reached for his trusty vial of laudanum, feeling like the tiniest nip might do him some good. Nobody knew he still nursed it, taking little increments almost daily. It was his only personal secret; everything else about his business felt like it was starkly common knowledge.

  “Yes, of course, your grace,” said Martha, the timid mouse of a woman. She must have known her mistress was trying to wash away adultery, but she did not have the temperament to sound as though she knew. Boldness was not in her nature, though she had been part of the household since Jeremy was in his late teens. He had yet to witness any expression on her face other than one of the utmost fear. At everything.

  In a rustle of silk and with the softest of footsteps, Isabel walked directly by the doors to his private sitting room.

  After a few minutes, there was a knock on Jeremy’s door. He quickly pocketed the laudanum.

  “Enter,” he said. He arranged himself to look as though he had not just been spying on his wife and her lover through the broad windows. When the door opened, he turned his head toward the visitor, who could be only among his closest family members. His brother, Paul, was visiting, and his mother, Lady Margaret, always resided in Rosethorpe.

  “Mother,” he muttered, dropping his pretense of studied carelessness. The dowager duchess would see right through such an act. She fixed him with a sharp, blue-eyed gaze. Jeremy could only hope that his own eyes could be so arresting when they needed to be. They were definitely the same hue, a blue reminiscent of bluebells growing under the trees. That was probably where the similarities ended, for Lady Margaret Hareden did not brook nonsense or fools.

  Jeremy felt, these days, that he either did or he was one. But to be fair, Isabel created her fair share of nonsense. He supposed she was also a fool. Really, though, I must be a fool, too. He could have left Rosethorpe for London or the even bigger manor in Oxfordshire. Or he could have cast her out. That would be more of a punishment to her. Here, they were so close to London that it was only an hour’s journey by carriage.

  Couldn’t he make her go?

  Of course he could. A duke could do almost anything.

  Then he thought of the nasty sobriquet that had swept the papers a few weeks ago. Mr. Snow had discreetly pointed it out one morning after he’d ironed the newsprint, and Jeremy had almost spat his tea onto the carpet. He’d be called the “Duke of Disgrace” even more often than he apparently already was if he abandoned his wife, wouldn’t he? No matter what his motivation was. It was inevitable, for he can’t have been given a nickname like that for sympathetic reasons.

  Caught in this line of thought, he reasoned that Luke would stay here even if his mother did not. He was the Bowland heir unless or until Jeremy said otherwise. Isabel, conversely, seemed to feel more strongly about her insufferable lapdog, an ungodly creature that she’d wheedled Jeremy into buying her not a month past. Narcissus and Luke did not get along.

  Narcissus looked like nothing so much as a giant, brown rat, so Jeremy could see why he terrified Luke. I’ve seen bigger rats.

  “Good morning, Jeremy,” said Mother. She shut the door behind her. “I have asked Beth to tell Mrs. Snow we require some coffee.” Beth was his mother’s lady’s maid, a spinster who had served her since both women were in their early twenties. They were into their late fifties, now, and it seemed the most salacious thing either had encountered was Jeremy’s marriage. It was a dubious honor.

  “How thoughtful. Although I cannot imagine why we may not simply have breakfast in the breakfast room.”

  “That is up to you, in the end, is it not?”

  Jeremy cringed inwardly when he thought of how much correspondence might be waiting for him on his salver. “You look as beautiful as ever, Mother,” he said, a warning smile creeping onto his face. She was as much a lady of fashion as Isabel, though her tastes ran less ostentatiously. Even at this early juncture of the day, she wore a smart dress of the palest blue and her hair was perfectl
y arranged. Mother was, and had been, a beautiful woman.

  “You never were any good at distracting people, Jeremy.”

  “Why do you believe I’m distracting you?”

  Tall of stature, she still sank with graceful ease onto the low settee upholstered in aubergine. Jeremy sat in the window seat, feeling entirely like a twelve-year-old boy about to be lectured.

  “Must we have this same discussion every time Isabel returns home in the fashion to which she has become accustomed?” Her words were rapid-fire and precise.

  “Which conversation, madam?” But Jeremy knew which one.

  “If I were you, I would see her turned out and taken to one of the smaller houses within the day,” Mother said. “Even if a divorce must be granted by an act of Parliament, you don’t need Parliament to permit you to send her away. Why do you torture yourself so?”

  He blinked. That was his mother, especially as he’d come to know her these last few years—blunt and to the point. It didn’t matter that he’d just had the same thought. He balked at someone else speaking it.

  “Well, you are not me. I’ve no idea.”

  No, he rather did. He just did not care to explain it in detail. First of all, he worried what would be said if he took action. More, probably, than what was already said. Right now, there was the occasional mention in the gossip sections, as well as the annoying hum at social gatherings, but he could weather that. He knew what to expect. If he did something, that could all change for the worse.

  Secondly, he felt that if his wife was unfaithful, he must be doing penance for something. Not that he knew what. The issue had become so pervasive and bizarre that he could barely think of it without rousing his own anxieties to a fevered pitch. Until there were mornings like this one, he did not. He had too much he wanted to do, and being incapacitated by nervousness would not help him.