Chapter 1

"And where did you say are the prettiest bonnets in London again, my dear?" The Dowager Duchess of Newden arched her delicately plucked eyebrows as she leaned towards the young lady who sat opposite her. "I declare I am all agog to hear the answer!"

Thomas Riverton, the Duke of Newden, barely managed to suppress an irritated sigh, bouncing his leg in an absent-minded way, almost managing to spill his tea. His grandmother shot him a pained glance. He knew what that look meant. After all, he had been on the receiving end of it too many times to count.

Lady Susannah Winter looked a bit dazed, gaping like a fish, when she realized she was being addressed by the old lady. She had been prattling on in an artless way about bonnets, of all things, her speech breathless as she admitted her fondness for dyed plumes over flowers. Or was it flowers over dyed plumes?

Thomas couldn't quite recall. He had only been sitting in the drawing room of Chamberlain House, his London residence, for a mere ten minutes having tea with the young lady and her equally alarming mother, Lady Wickham, but already, he was bored witless.

He gritted his teeth. When was it going to end?

"Madame Debois on Bond Street, Your Grace," Lady Susannah replied, blinking rapidly. "Oh, Madame Debois makes the most divine bonnets! Does she not, Mama?"

"Very pretty, indeed," Lady Wickham agreed, nodding vigorously, her double chin jiggling alarmingly. "Madame Debois studied her craft in Paris, after all!"

The Dowager Duchess raised an eyebrow. "Really? How fascinating." She swiveled in her chair, glaring at her grandson. "Do you not think so, Your Grace?"

"Pardon?" Thomas had drifted off again. He forced a smile on his face as he gazed at his grandmother. "What am I supposed to think?"

The Dowager Duchess harrumphed. "Bonnet making, my dear boy! Do you not agree with Lady Wickham and Lady Susannah that Paris is the epicenter of the craft?"

"Ah," Thomas said, trying to suppress a laugh as he frowned, pretending to take the question seriously. He could hear the dry amusement in his grandmother's voice. "Paris is the epicenter for most creative pursuits, Grandmother, so I suppose it must take the prize for the craft of bonnet design as well."

"My thoughts exactly," the Dowager Duchess replied in a dry tone, her gray eyes full of mischief. "The great paintings of Le Brun, Moillon, and Mignard pale into insignificance compared to the genius of Madame Debois, bonnet maker of Bond Street."

Thomas almost spat out his tea.

Lady Wickham blinked, looking uncertain, but smiled weakly. Lady Susannah tittered in an awkward way, casting a quick glance at her mother, seeking reassurance.

Thomas could tell they weren't certain if his grandmother was making fun of them or not. But then, most people weren't. His grandmother had that effect.

Oh, when will this insufferable morning tea party end? When will Grandmother concede that I am not interested in Lady Susannah and have no desire to court her or marry her?

Thomas drained his teacup and then placed it down, barely able to suppress his boredom. It was almost causing him physical pain.

His eyes flicked to Lady Susannah. She was pretty enough, in the conventional fashion, with tightly coiled curls like those of a poodle framing her wide, bland face. She was the daughter of an earl and so had the necessary pedigree, but she left him as cold as a gravestone in the boneyard.

He sighed irritably. But then again, Lady Susannah could have been the most famed beauty in London, charismatic and sensual, desired by a hundred gentlemen, and he still wouldn't want to marry her.

He didn't want to marry anyone. Ever. A fact his dear grandmother knew but liked to ignore. The Dowager Duchess was as set on her grandson marrying as Thomas was set on remaining an eternal bachelor. It was a battle royale, indeed.

And today was just another battle in the ongoing war.

His grandmother shot him another venomous look then turned to the artless young lady, pursing her lips, looking determined.

"And what do you like to read, my dear?" she asked. "Are you familiar with Homer or Virgil?"

Lady Susannah's jaw dropped in a most comical way. Quickly, she gazed at her mother, who imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders, looking as confounded by the question as her daughter.

"I… I am not familiar with them," she squeaked, her pale blue eyes wide with terror. "Do they write gothic romances at all? I am very fond of them when I have the chance to read although Mama doesn't like me to read overly much as she says it will make me go blind…"

The Dowager Duchess raised her eyebrows so high that they almost reached her hairline. She looked like she was in physical pain.

Thomas suppressed a laugh. His grandmother was an avid reader of the finest minds and couldn't abide an ignorant person who never, or rarely, picked up a book. She called such people cultural deserts.

"It is true, My Lady," Thomas said, looking grave, unable to resist. "If a young lady spends too much time reading, she will inevitably go blind, and devouring too many novels will make it hard to conceive a child as well." He let out a sorrowful sigh. "Or so I have heard."

The Dowager Duchess stared at him, looking thunderous. Thomas grinned at her. He stood up. He couldn't take any more of this. He had better things to do with his time…

Suddenly, his grandmother swooned, clutching her chest in a most dramatic way. Lady Wickham gasped, springing out of her chair with such haste that it almost fell over, rushing to her side.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Are you feeling poorly, Grandmother?"

"I need my smelling salts," the Dowager Duchess gasped, making a fluttering motion with her hand. "I am in the grip of a dizzy spell!" She gazed up at Lady Wickham. "I am so terribly sorry, Lady Wickham, but can we reschedule the house call? Until I am feeling better." She smiled weakly.

Thomas felt a jolt of relief. Within minutes, Lady Wickham and her daughter were out the door. He looked at his grandmother. She was sitting straight now, a devilish glint in her eyes. The fainting spell had been a ruse to get rid of them. She often resorted to such tactics in times of extreme necessity.

"Before you say anything," she said, in an imperious tone, "I had no idea what hideous bores they are, Thomas!"

Thomas sighed, sitting down. "Why must you insist on this, Grandmother? Why must you insist upon parading every young lady you encounter before me in such a way?"

"You know why," his grandmother shot back, glaring at him. "You need to marry, my boy! You require a duchess." She sighed irritably. "The duchy requires an heir. And you are getting older, my dear grandson. In a few years, you will be thirty." She flung the word at him as if it were distasteful. "It is time."

Thomas glared at her. "We have been over this a hundred times," he growled, feeling the familiar irritation with her rise in his chest. "I do not wish to marry. Not today. Not next week. Not ever."

The Dowager Duchess sighed dramatically. "But why, Thomas? I refuse to take you seriously on this subject. You just have not met the right young woman yet."

"I will never meet the right young woman," he interjected. He couldn't help grinning. "My plans for beautiful, charming young women do not involve marriage, Grandmother, but they never complain."

The Dowager Duchess glared at him. "You are a handsome devil," she scoffed. "I have no doubt you can charm honey from the bees." She pursed her lips. "But you have sowed your wild oats for long enough! Your reputation as a rake precedes you now. It is my duty to repair it. Most respectable young ladies believe you will eat them up for breakfast!"

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Well, if they like it that way…"

"Thomas!" The Dowager Duchess's face was brick red. "You are being insolent. Do you know how hard it was for me to get Lady Wickham to agree to bring her daughter here? Even though you are a duke with great wealth and an ancestral estate almost as large as Buckingham Palace?"

Thomas sighed. "Lady Susannah is as boring and bland as butter."

"Yes, but that is neither here nor there," his grandmother said irritably, flicking a dismissive, ring-laden hand in the air. "She is the daughter of an earl. She comes from a respectable family. I believe with the right guidance, to overcome her shortcomings in intellect and ignorance, she would make a fine duchess…"

"You do not really believe that," Thomas shot back. "You were as irritated with her as I was. She prattled on about bonnets without drawing a single breath and believed reading would make her go blind."

The Dowager Duchess sighed. "She is young and a bit ignorant, to be sure, but she can be trained…"

"No." Thomas's voice had turned implacable. His fists clenched into balls at his sides. "I will not train some silly young lady just to have a wife with the right lineage and connections. I do not even want a wife. How many times must I tell you? Enough is enough, Grandmother."

They glared at each other. The air was so thick with tension that it could almost be cut through with a butter knife.

"Your late father said the same thing, you know," she continued as if he hadn't even spoken. "When he was your age, he told me he would never marry."

"And perhaps you should have listened to him," Thomas huffed, his heart flipping. "You forced him into marriage, and look how that turned out!"

"Your father was in love with your mother," his grandmother shot back, looking affronted. "He was head over heels in love with her. They had many good years together. No one knew what the future held, after all."

"Perhaps you should have consulted a fortune teller, then," Thomas said in a sour voice. "She ran away with a sea captain when I was only eight years old, Grandmother. She broke his heart. He never recovered from it."

The Dowager Duchess looked pained. They rarely talked about the incident, as his grandmother termed it, from all those years ago. They rarely talked about his mother at all. It was as if he had been found behind the cabbage patch in the garden.

"Yes, well, that has no bearing on you needing to marry, my boy," the Dowager Duchess argued in a huffy voice. "That will not happen to you. Lightning does not strike twice, you know."

"How do you know?" Thomas glared at her. "How do you know it would not happen? You just admitted you do not have prophetic abilities. You cannot foresee the future."

"Do not be ridiculous, Thomas…"

"Or even if my wife does not abandon me," he continued in a tight voice, "the marriage may still be utterly miserable. In fact, I would wager it would be utterly miserable. I have rarely seen a happy one."

His grandmother blanched. "You are too harsh."

"Am I?" His voice was steely. "I rather think I am realistic. I do not look at the world through a gilded lens, Grandmother." He drew a deep breath. "I have not done so since I was eight years old."

"My dear boy?—"

"Enough." He got to his feet. "I have wasted enough time on this nonsense for one day. I have better things to do with my time."

"Thomas!"

But he ignored her, striding out of the room. He only just managed to stop himself from slamming the door behind him.

He marched down the long hallway, glaring at the gilt-framed oil portraits on the wall—his illustrious ancestors. Well, the line would stop with him. That was just the way it had to be.

He stopped abruptly, glaring at himself in a mirror. He resembled them. A tall, well-built man gazed back at him with dark brown hair and blue-green eyes. The same as his father and grandfather. But there would never be a portrait of his son. He shuddered at the very thought of it.

Still, would his grandmother ever let up? There was only so much harping on the subject he could take. What was he going to do about her?