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Spencer Granger, the Duke of Plymouth, had died during the noise and confusion of the battle at Waterloo. Only recently, Sterling and the other four remaining gentlemen known in Society as the Ruthless Dukes had learned that Plymouth had been murdered by a fellow officer rather than dying during that battle, as they had previously believed to be the case. They were now determined to establish which of the other five officers, also present in their part of the arena of battle that day, was responsible for the murder.
Alaric Montrose, the Duke of Melborne, and Grayson Vaughn, the Duke of Flint, had already eliminated two of those officers from suspicion.
It was now Sterling’s turn to discover whether or not Lord Thomas Marshall, a man killed in a fall from his horse two monthsafterthe battle at Waterloo, was guilty of the heinous and unforgiveable crime of striking Plymouth down.
Sterling had rarely bothered to attend Society events, even before he had ridden off five years ago to serve as an officer in Wellington’s army. Since leaving the army the previous year, he had preferred to spend his evenings either alone or occasionally in the company of the four remaining Ruthless Dukes. He would meet one or two of them, never all four nowadays, either at their club to dine and drink, or at one of London’s gambling establishments. Without ever talking on the subject, Sterling knew they all missed Plymouth too keenly to all be able to meet at the same time and so make their friend’s absence all the more noticeable from their number.
Until now, Sterling hadn’t realized his avoidance of Society entertainments meant he had been completely unaware of Lady Elizabeth’s stunning beauty.
Quite why Whitlow had dared to call her fat was beyond comprehension when Lady Elizabeth was slender as a reed, too much so in Sterling’s opinion. Her heart-shaped face was delicately lovely, with pale brows above those violet-colored eyes, a small straight nose between high cheekbones, and her full lips a perfect bow above a pointed chin.
She wore no jewelry, as was the custom during mourning, except for a pair of pearl earbobs which perfectly complemented the unblemished luster of her skin. In truth, a fragile beauty such as hers did not need even that adornment.
He frowned when he recalled she had not once attempted to verbally defend herself—which was why Sterling had believed the one being berated was a dog—against the earl’s insults.
Sterling would hazard a guess on that being because Elizabeth had possibly tried to do so in the past and paid the price for it. Whatever the reason, she currently maintained a serene expression which revealed none of her inner feelings in regard to the earl’s viciousness or Sterling’s presence.
And he, Sterling realized, had been staring at her for far longer than could be considered polite.
Even less polite—and totally unprecedented—was the heat of his completely aroused cock inside his pantaloons, simply from being in the presence of this ethereally lovely creature. His pulse was also racing, his heart beating loudly and in the same rhythm as his cock throbbed.
This physical reaction was not only unexpected but unacceptable for a man who prided himself on never allowing his actions to be fueled by the demands of his cock.
To that end, he never dallied with the ladies of Society, young or old, married, unmarried, or widowed. He and his close friendswere well aware of how the doyens of Society complained of the Ruthless Dukes’ aversion to spending time at social events, let alone in the company of women of matrimonial age or fortune.
No doubt that would change when they were ready to marry and produce an heir. Indeed, Flint and Melborne had recently met and were now married to the two young women whom they both freely admitted to loving to distraction.
Sterling was pleased for his two friends, but he in no way envied them. He had a nature that was both practical and cold, and he could not imagine himself loving any woman in the doting way that Flint and Melborne now did their respective wives. Sterling believed he was capable of feeling affection, but nothing like the all-consuming love his two friends so obviously felt for their brides.
When Sterling felt it necessary to indulge in outside sexual stimulus, he preferred to pay for the services of a lady of the demimonde. It was far easier, once a physical need had been slaked, to walk away from such an encounter. He also made a point of never satisfying those urges with the same lady twice, having no wish to give the impression that he had a partiality for her.
An only child, and orphaned at a young age, Sterling had then been taken into the household of an elderly uncle of his mother’s, Lord Edward Neville, until he was aged eight and could then be sent away to boarding school. He would come home for the holidays, but very often, his great-uncle would not be in residence at the same time, and Sterling would spend the time alone, apart from the servants. That lack of familial closeness was the reason Sterling hadn’t grieved particularly after that elderly gentleman died shortly after Sterling had reached the age of two and twenty.
Another result of Sterling being brought up in such an emotionally distant way meant he did not make friends easily.Which was why he valued the friendship of the other five Ruthless Dukes, after the six of them had met at Oxford, above everything else. To learn that one of their number, specifically Plymouth, had been murdered, was unacceptable, deserving that retribution and justice be brought against the person responsible.
Miraculously, he had discovered he had a cousin, a young lady named Gwen, after his great-uncle died. She was the daughter of Edward Neville’s own daughter, whom he had disowned after she had eloped with the local curate. That couple had one child together, Sterling’s cousin, Gwen. Gwen had also married a parson once she was of age. The two of them were now happily married, also with a young daughter, Emily.
Sterling valued the young family, perhaps more so because until Gwen had visited him and introduced herself after her grandfather died, he had believed he had no family. He visited them as often as he was able, and often had them all to stay for several weeks at his ducal estates.
But, Sterling realized, his thoughts had digressed.
Deliberately so?
Because he was delaying thinking of, minutely dissecting as he knew that he would, this unprecedented attraction he felt toward Lady Elizabeth Marshall, who was clearly not a lady of the demimonde but of Society.
Sterling’s enquiries about the lady before he traveled to Cornwall had revealed that Miss Elizabeth Ames had been the eldest daughter of an impoverished lord, and so was considered unacceptable to be the wife of a future earl, most especially by the present earl. Something which Lord Thomas Marshall had resolved by eloping with the lady and presenting his father, and Society, with a fait accompli.
Having now seen the lady, Sterling could understand the deceased man’s determination to claim the then Miss Elizabeth Ames for himself.
Sterling understood, becausehewas now filled with a primitive desire to physically claim Lady Elizabeth Marshall, the other man’s widow.
Elizabeth barely stopped herself from openly staring at the most haughtily handsome gentleman she had ever set eyes upon. She was unable to completely turn away because his looks really were far too compelling for her to be able to do that. Instead, she glanced at him from beneath the thick sweep of her lashes.
He was possibly aged in his early to mid-thirties, and at least a foot taller than her own height of a little over five feet. His shoulders and chest were wide, tapering down to a narrow waist, and all shown to advantage in a perfectly tailored black riding jacket. His gray pantaloons molded to muscular thighs, brown-topped black Hessians doing the same to equally strong and defined calves.
His hair was very dark and fashionably overlong beneath his tall hat. Despite his striking features, his face appeared harsh and unsmiling. His eyes, beneath thick dark brows, were a pale and icy green, and revealed absolutely nothing of what he was thinking or feeling as he looked coldly down the length of his nose at the world.
The slight sneer upon his chiseled lips, when he turned to her father-in-law, appeared to be the exception. Possibly because he felt no need to disguise his obvious contempt for the older man?
