Page 1 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

1

Mayfair

London, England

1822

Lady Ravenna Boscastlewas too engrossed in her current intrigue to notice the Duke of Rochecliffe standing on the other side of the ballroom. He was insulted that she had ignored him twice in the same night. No one would guess they had been friends for almost a decade. Not as close as he would have liked, but they’d shared bittersweet memories, indeed. From the moment Simon had begun to understand the meaning of desire, he’d assumed Ravenna would be his wife.

It seemed only natural that a friendship like theirs would deepen into love. She was the first girl he’d wanted to kiss. And the last woman he would place in danger.

Yet he managed to do both before the sun rose the next day.

For now he was puzzled that she refused to acknowledge him.

He had fallen under her family’s spell over a decade ago while visiting his boyhood companions in the Welsh castle that belonged to the collateral branch of the scandalous Boscastle line. He’d maintained ties to her family ever since.

Once upon a time Ravenna had run to Simon for protection. She had looked out for him. Whenever he so much as sniffled, she would brew a revolting herbal tea, which made him wish for death and he drank only to please her. Sometimes the passionate notions it put in his head made him fancy she’d slipped him a love potion.

She’d bandaged his arm when her twin brother Rhys inadvertently stabbed him with a knife during a raucous supper. She had read to him when the family and castle dogs gathered around the fire on snowy nights. He recalled stories of Merlin and forbidden marriages between human men and fairy women. Her lyrical Welsh voice and deep laughter soothed his demons and made those improbable tales seem possible. She had made him believe in love.

Tonight she was acting as if they were strangers.

They had not come face-to-face in years, but he hadn’t sprouted horns or a forked tail in the interim. He wondered if she was avoiding him because she’d discovered his secret, and she was embarrassed for him. It was unlikely. Only two other men had known of Simon’s humiliation. One had suffered a sudden violent death. The second had sworn he would never tell.

Another lady, not desirable at all in an enormous ostrich-feathered headdress, hovered into his view. She interrupted his study of Ravenna.

“Simon, you beautiful disgrace,” she said with an indiscreet smile. “What a pleasure to find you in London. Shall we renew our acquaintance with a dance?”

He inclined his head. “Did I promise I would?”

“You never promised me anything.”

“Then not tonight. I have another assignation.”

“Who is she?”

He straightened. “I hesitate to admit I don’t know her name.”

“That sounds completely decadent.”

“One can hope.”

“But not for you,” she said with a wistful laugh. “You’re as elusive as ever.”

Not as elusive as Ravenna. Or as enticing, even without the winsome smile she’d withheld from him tonight.

The woman shrugged in disappointment and wandered back to her friends. He returned to study the softly rounded figure in sky-blue satin. Ravenna knew perfectly well he was looking at her. Had she been forbidden to talk to him? Had someone else distracted her?

She had seen him earlier in the evening at the supper buffet and looked right through him. He had watched her toy with a bowl of orange pudding and then vanish with her twin, who’d given him a friendly wave and mouthed, Champagne together later tonight? Their subtle conspiracy reminded Simon of the first evening he and Ravenna had met.

He’d been staying at Castle Glamorgan for the winter. He and two of the Boscastle brothers were schoolmates at the time; Simon was mourning his father’s death. Ravenna had clumped past him on the small tower staircase, dressed as a young gentleman in a plumed hat and boots for her part in an amateur production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in the great hall.

The original comedy featured a twin brother and sister separated during a shipwreck, with the heroine disguising herself as a male and marrying a duke at the end. In this revised performance, however, Rhys wore a lady’s costume and played his sister’s part in a few memorable scenes.

Ravenna hadn't paid Simon undue notice in the beginning. In fact, no one in the castle seemed impressed that he was Simon Caverley, an orphaned aristocrat who had become the sixth Duke of Rochecliffe at fifteen. But then he was by nature reserved, unaccustomed to her tempestuous family. Simon had been raised not to express sentiment except through the acceptable channels of sports that allowed young gentlemen to batter one another brainless.

She was a duke’s only daughter, and she hadn’t let the privilege spoil her. She and her three brothers, the eldest deceased, had been brought up by a pair of steel-willed aunts who accepted Simon into their lively and flawed brood.