Page 4 of To Dare a Duke

Oh heavens. Not only buck teeth, bad breath and a stutter. He thinks women ought not to read lest it give them opinions. I had the most appalling row with mama about it, who quite agrees with him. Sadly, he is quite obscenely wealthy and is the youngest son of an earl, which is naturally the only thing she cares about. I won’t do it though, Prue. I won’t. There is a season to come yet. I shan’t give in. Not yet.

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Alice Dowding to Miss Prunella Chuffington-Smythe.

***

5th April. Otford. Kent. 1814

Prue reached for another sausage and ignored Minerva’s grimace of disgust. Her cousin had spent the last ten minutes nibbling at a piece of toast like a dainty mouse. Well, if she wanted to starve herself to look fragile and waif like, it was entirely her own affair. Prue couldn’t think on an empty stomach and, as she often forgot to eat lunch when the words were flowing well, a hearty breakfast was a necessity.

“Oh, do look at this one,” her aunt exclaimed, turning the latest copy of The Lady’s Weekly Review to show Minerva one of the fashion prints. “Isn’t it lovely?”

Minerva dropped her toast with a little squeal of excitement and Prue rolled her eyes.

“There’s a small fortune in the lace alone,” Prue observed, aware of her aunt’s slender finances and her penchant for frittering it away on frivolous items they could ill afford.

“I wasn’t asking you,” her aunt snapped, glaring from under an extravagant lace cap that she’d bought the day before, and which rather proved Prue’s point.

Still, her aunt was quite correct. It was not her affair. Once she had enough money put aside, and hopefully a commission to write another novel, she would be free to leave. If she was careful, she had calculated she would be safe to do so by the end of this year. Fond imaginings of a dear little cottage filled her mind’s eye, somewhere close to friends, where she could see them often. Why, they might even come and stay with her.

That idea was more than a little problematic, as a woman living alone would be a scandalous creature. Prue had hoped to convince one or more of her friends to join her, for their mutual benefit and to ease the costs, but she knew it was a lot to ask. There were few women who would countenance such a situation. She, however, was one. Anything for her freedom, her independence. The idea made her smile, though she suppressed it at once as Minerva caught sight of her.

“What are you looking so pleased with yourself for?” her cousin snapped. “I know you think I’m stupid, but I need new dresses for the season, you know I do. I shan’t let you stop us buying them. Not this time.”

Prue pursed her lips and bit back the retort that was brewing there. It would only cause a row which would make her late getting upstairs and back to the Duke of Bedsin. If Phyllis was such a pea-brain as to get them both into debt, why should she care? Yet despite her impatience with the two frivolous creatures, her aunt had taken her in when no one else had. Prue owed her a good deal for that. She was grateful and tried to help where she could.

“I don’t do it to spoil your fun, Minerva,” she said, wishing she was better at sounding reasonable instead of merely irritated. “Only to ensure you have enough to pay your rent and put food on the table. We all have limited funds and you must see that a gown like that would use every penny your mother has saved, and more besides. It isn’t feasible.”

Minerva’s temper erupted with a flash of fury and she stood, her chair toppling over backwards with a crash. “You’re just jealous, that’s all! I might not be as clever as you, but I will catch a duke, you miserly old Prune,” she said, using the childish nickname she’d saddled Prue with years ago. “So, it doesn’t matter how much we spend. When I’ve hooked him, he’ll pay for everything. He’ll beg to do it.”

Prue stared at her and then turned to her aunt, waiting for her to suppress her daughter’s idiotic flights of fancy, but Phyllis only gave a nervous little laugh.

“Oh, Min, dear. We said we’d not talk of this to anyone, did we not?”

Minerva gave a snort of disgust. “It’s only Prune, it’s not like she’s anyone. Not anyone that counts. Besides, she’ll see soon enough.”

Prue blinked, wondering what manner of madness had possessed them. She’d always known Phyllis had hopes of her lovely daughter catching a title, and she was lovely—and penniless and without connections—but a duke?

An unpleasant shiver of foreboding crawled down her spine and she turned back to face Minerva.

“Which duke?” she demanded.

Minerva righted her chair and made a show of smoothing out her skirts and sitting down again, a prim little smile settling over her bow shaped mouth.

“The Duke of Bedwin.”

Prue gasped and looked to Phyllis, who had the grace to colour a little and would not meet Prue’s eye.

“If you hadn’t spent all night sitting in a corner with your nose in a book, you’d have heard the news,” Minerva continued, turning Prue’s attention back, her voice sweet but laced with arsenic. “His grace is on the lookout for a new duchess.”

The idea was horrifying enough to make Prue gape in astonishment. Her gaze flew once more to her aunt.

“You can’t be serious! You would want Minerva married to… to such a man?”

Aunt Phyllis put her chin up. “He’s a duke.”

As if that was all the answer required.

“Aunt Phyllis,” Prue continued, her heart thudding in her chest. “You know the rumours as well as I do. He’s a libertine, depraved! My God, they say he murdered his first wife!”