Never Doubt a Duke Read online

  Never Doubt a Duke

  The Never Series

  Book One

  By Maggi Andersen

  © Copyright 2020 by Maggi Andersen

  Text by Maggi Andersen

  Cover by Wicked Smart Designs

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition May 2020

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Dearest Reader;

  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

  Happy Reading!

  CEO, Dragonblade Publishing

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Maggi Andersen

  The Never Series

  Never Doubt a Duke

  Never Dance with a Marquess

  Never Trust and Earl

  Dangerous Lords Series

  The Baron’s Betrothal

  Seducing the Earl

  The Viscount’s Widowed Lady

  Governess to the Duke’s Heir

  Eleanor Fitzherbert’s Christmas Miracle (A Novella)

  Once a Wallflower Series

  Presenting Miss Letitia

  The Lyon’s Den Connected World

  The Scandalous Lyon

  Also from Maggi Andersen

  The Marquess Meets His Match

  Beth

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Maggi Andersen

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Dountry Park, Keswick Cumbria

  Late February 1815.

  “Nellie, you must see this article!” Nellie’s sister, Marian, her green eyes wide, rushed into Nellie’s bedchamber, clutching a newspaper. “It’s about the duke!”

  “I don’t know why you have those scandal broths sent to you. Let me see.” Nellie almost snatched it. Thirsting for any information on the man she was to marry and had yet to meet, she quickly perused the item concerning the Duke of Shewsbury. “Oh, dear Lord!” She thrust the paper back into her sister’s hands as if it burned her.

  “It shows Shewsbury is human.” A gleam of amusement and affection lit Marian’s eyes. She plopped down onto the sofa, waking Peter, Nellie’s beloved King Charles spaniel. He sleepily licked her hand.

  “Does it? A brute and a rake, more likely.” Nellie picked it up from the table where her sister had cast it. “A certain duke whose estate is in Leicestershire, but shall remain nameless…”

  “It may not be Shewsbury,” Marian interrupted as she fondled the dog’s silky ears.

  “It’s hardly the Duke of Rutland, he has a brood of children and breeds racehorses.” Nellie continued to read, “…seems to have had some trouble with his French mistress. This writer was passing a certain elegant establishment in Mayfair when he sighted said duke, descending the steps to the road with a comely lady over his shoulder, one hand on an unmentionable part of her anatomy, the other holding a canary’s cage. Smoke could be seen wafting from an upstairs window. As I watched, captivated, the duke was addressed in voluble French as she pounded her fists on his back. He set her down none too gently to hail a passing hackney. Placing her and the canary’s cage in the carriage, he then gave the jarvy directions, and slammed the door, running back, apparently, to stifle the flames. Might their affair be at an end?

  “This…” Nellie’s voice hitched, “…coming right on top of that other newspaper article describing how he took a member of the press outside Parliament by the scruff of the neck and savagely shook him.”

  “Not a dull man by all accounts,” Marian observed.

  She glared at her sister. Marian refused to take this seriously. Perhaps because her own husband could be relied on to behave badly on occasion. Nellie suspected Marian enjoyed it.

  “Surely, Papa doesn’t expect me to marry a brute!”

  “Papa needs an injection of funds after that stock exchange debacle, but I doubt he’d sacrifice you. He and the old duke were friends, so he must know the family well.”

  “I must speak to Papa. Mama is talking of purchasing new liveries for the footman, hiring more staff, and having the drawing room and the guest bedchambers repainted. I can’t let them spend a fortune to make us look prosperous for the duke’s visit if I don’t intend to marry him.”

  The newssheet clutched in her hand, she went downstairs and knocked on her father’s study door.

  Papa hunched over a stack of letters on his desk, a glass of brandy beside him, while the smoke from his cigar drifted around the room.

  He glanced up from a letter he held and smiled. “What do you have there, Nellie?”

  She approached the desk and held the paper out. “This can only refer to Shewsbury.” He took it from her and read it while Nellie leaned against his desk and fidgeted with his silver pounce pot. “It must be the duke. He’s a rake, Papa. Surely you don’t wish me to marry such a man?”

  He reached across and removed the pot from her nervous fingers. “This is little more than a scandal rag. I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “But what about the item in the newspaper? The one that s
aid Shewsbury attacked a journalist in the street?”

  Her father tossed the paper down onto the desk and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t believe that, either. There will be a story behind it, mark my words.”

  He gestured to a chair. “Sit down, Nellie. Stop hovering over me. I know Shewsbury. He’s a serious and thoughtful man, as his father was before him. I am confident you will make a fine match.”

  She sank onto the chair. “But the mistress, Papa!”

  “I dislike discussing a man’s mistress with my daughter.” He cleared his throat. “Men do, on occasion, take a mistress. Charles was heartbroken, and his father told me after he suffered a broken engagement. I imagine that was the reason. And it’s all I will say on the matter.”

  In Nellie’s opinion, that only made things worse.

  “Where would you be now, daughter, if I’d let you run away with that Irish poet without two pennies to rub together?” her father asked. “And what did the fellow do when I had words with him? He scurried off to Ireland. A fortune hunter. Good thing I discovered it in time and put a stop to it.” He frowned. “You weren’t thinking clearly, Nellie.”

  While no actual plan of elopement had been in place, she had been left heartbroken and angry with her father. At eighteen, one’s first love carried a good deal of importance. And for a while, she continued to make excuses for Walsh, until she was finally forced to admit he was a coward, and his feelings for her did not run deep. He’d needed no prompting to leave her and return home. But the hurt remained and tore at her confidence. She would never trust her heart to another man again.

  Her father smiled at her, pleased as punch with the arrangement. Shewsbury was a wealthy duke, after all. He pointedly picked up the letter he’d been reading when she came in.

  Nellie left the chair. Unlike many fathers, he had given her the opportunity to find a husband of her choice. It was not his fault that she had failed to do so.

  “I will agree to marry him if I find him acceptable, Papa.”

  “I have no doubt of it. Now, Nellie, leave me to this correspondence.”

  She slowly mounted the stairs, the newssheet scrunched in her hand. It appeared she would have to marry the duke. She did not believe the portrait her father had painted of Shewsbury. But she could hardly let her father down when his financial future now depended on their union. She just hoped for a tolerable marriage and a husband busy with his own matters, who wouldn’t ask too much of her.

  *

  A month later, Nellie studied her reflection in the Cheval mirror. She gathered the violet-gray muslin folds of her dress at the waist.

  “I am nothing like her.”

  “Like whom?” Marian peeped over Nellie’s shoulder, her eyes questioning.

  “Drusilla, Marchioness of Thorburn.”

  “Oh, Shewsbury’s ex-fiancée. No, you’re not. I saw Drusilla once in London. She looked as if she’d blow away in a slight breeze. You have breasts and hips.” Marian put a hand on her own rounded hip. “Belfries approves of mine. Says he prefers a woman with a bottom. Something to grab hold of.” She raised her eyebrows. “Surely you don’t wish to be like her.”

  Nellie drew in a breath. “Of course not. It’s just that I’m not his type. I am neither an exotic creature like his mistress nor a slender waif.” What she feared most, she struggled to express even to Marian. “Although it won’t be a love match, I do want a husband to approve of me. I want us to be content together and have children. But if I find it impossible, I won’t accept him.”

  “You would go against Papa’s wishes?” Marian asked in mock horror.

  “I have explained it to Papa. If the man is a brute, he won’t insist on it.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Apparently, Shewsbury loved Drusilla. I can’t help wondering what happened for the engagement to end.”

  “Perhaps her father married her off to the old neighbor in a greedy land grab,” Marian suggested. “Do you remember Shewsbury wasn’t the heir at that time?” She turned Nellie toward her and smoothed a stray wisp back into her upswept hair. “But it’s in the past, surely.”

  “Drusilla is exquisite. So fine-boned. But that’s not the point.”

  “I’m struggling to see the point.” Marian smiled. “You’re just anxious, dearest. And it’s not surprising.”

  Nellie sighed. “He didn’t choose me.” She gave a hard tug to rearrange the sash, which never sat well beneath her ample breasts. “I know my worth as a woman, Marian, but I fear we will not suit.”

  “You can’t be sure of that, Nellie. And you don’t have time to dwell on it. He’ll arrive at any moment. The house groans with guests and their servants. There’s a distinct air of expectation.”

  “And there’s the article I wrote against foxhunting,” Nellie added, leaning forward to pinch some color into her pale cheeks. Should she resort to rouge? Mama would have a fit. “Shewsbury must be told if we are to marry. If I don’t tell him, he might discover it, and I shall be subjected to his ghastly bad temper.”

  “He’s unlikely to hear about it,” Marian said as she glanced over at the untidy desk piled high with books and papers, quills, and an inkwell. “Unless you intend to write another.”

  Nellie shrugged. “I had planned to do more. There is a groundswell of opposition to fox hunting.”

  “Well then, I expect you’ll learn how the duke feels about it,” Marian said prosaically. “But a groundswell hardly describes the few people I’ve encountered. Fox hunting has gone on for hundreds of years. Didn’t you say it began in ancient Egypt?”

  Nellie frowned. “Yes, but it was because of the law passed in 1801, which allows common land to be enclosed and makes it difficult for hunters to shoot rabbits, that fox hunting became a despicable, so-called sport.” She shook her head. “I don’t like secrets in a marriage, and I shall have to tell him.”

  “There are always some secrets within marriage. It’s inevitable. Might it be prudent to wait for a better time?” Marian glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “And we are late.”

  Nellie sighed. Shewsbury would never understand her aversion to foxhunting. “Papa and Mama had an arranged marriage. Papa says very few in Society marry for love. Love is only for the lower classes because no money is involved.”

  “Your marriage to the duke is to honor the pledge Papa made with the old duke. Never mind that it was years ago, and the duke has since passed away. Men are funny that way. A gentleman’s honor means a lot. Not always practical, but there it is. Turn around and let me take a good look at you.”

  Nellie obliged.

  Marian smiled. “You look wonderful in that. He will be struck dumb.”

  Distracted, Nellie smoothed her skirts. “A man of his ilk will disparage my interest in poetry. We have absolutely nothing in common.”

  Marian grabbed her arm and steered her toward the door. “Is that so important?”

  “Well, of course it is!”

  “Mm. In the bedroom, certainly.”

  “Oh, the bedroom. Mama attempted to explain all that to me. It sounded embarrassing and uncomfortable. I wanted to put my hands over my ears, but I didn’t wish to upset her when she clearly wasn’t enjoying telling me about it. I prefer your version, although you put me to the blush, Marian.”

  “You must admit my version of events sounds more fun. And I rather think the duke… Oh, we must hurry, Nellie. We’ll be unforgivably late, and I can’t wait to clap eyes on him. Surely you feel the same, and that article about his mistress is rather titillating.”

  Nellie eased her tense shoulders. “Titillating is hardly the word. It’s positively unnerving. The man is an obnoxious brute!”

  “Listen! There’s the duke’s coach,” Marian cried, flying to the window. “Father will be furious.”

  “All right,” Nellie said breathlessly. “Into your basket, Peter!”

  Peter merely yawned and rested his head on his paws.

  “Really! That dog is most dreadfully spoiled,” Marian observed. “
He should be outdoors.”

  “Lilly will take him for a walk.”

  Marian shrugged, “You have a very obliging maid. Mine would protest and say it was a footman’s job.”

  They left the bedchamber and hurried along the corridor. Nellie paused in the gallery to gaze down into the great hall. Hinkley had just admitted a gentleman who handed him his hat and gloves. His short-cropped hair shone inky black in the light from a tall window.

  Their parents’ voices rose in welcome as they greeted Charles Glazebrook, His Grace, the Duke of Shewsbury.

  “You should be there to welcome him.”

  Nellie’s fingers gripped the banister rail. “I needed time to compose myself.”

  “And are you composed now?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Goodness, but he’s tall. Look at those shoulders,” Marian observed thoughtfully. “He could easily carry a woman.”

  “I’ll bet she was as hipless as a gazelle,” Nellie said through her teeth.

  “Don’t gazelle’s have hips?” Marian asked, her attention on the hall below.

  Nellie watched from behind a column. “He looks as if he owns us,” she murmured. It was the way he walked. He seemed to prowl across the marble floor.

  The duke accompanied her parents toward the staircase leading to the drawing room.

  “He is to prop up Papa’s finances, so maybe he will,” Marian said as they made their way to the stairs.

  Nellie’s chest swelled. She intended to be a reasonable wife, but he would never own her heart. She shivered, recalling another item Marian had found in The Times, which described the duke as an uncompromising negotiator in the House of Lords, who reduced his opposition almost to a state of helpless rage. Her sister had garnered every scrap of gossip she could about the duke, details which only served to further alarm her. She’d assumed there would be a mistress but still felt unprepared. He looked like a man who would want regular… She wrestled her mind away from the subject.

  Shewsbury was a member of the Quorn Hunt, a Melton man, his estate in Leicestershire was where the oldest and most famous of the fox hunting packs were found. And renowned for his sporting prowess. Marian, scouring the journals, discovered the duke also excelled at fencing and boxing. With a First in mathematics at Oxford, he was known to have a meticulous eye for detail in everything he undertook and did not suffer fools gladly. It all served to make Nellie very tense.