Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

T he Duke of Westall, Stephen Wilkins, stood in the entrance of the Rosenburg estate and watched the servants milling around him in a panic with a cold eye. One was hanging his coat, another offering him brandy, a third dashing back and forth between the rooms as though trying to find something useful to do and a fourth trying to ask him a fifth time about the nature of his visit.

One might have thought that the devil himself had come to call.

It was not far from the truth.

“Your Grace, can I offer you refreshment?” asked a young valet, eyes wide in alarm. “Is there anything that I can bring you after your journey?”

“No,” he said crisply, used to command and used to the sight of unease or even fear in the eyes of other men. “Send word to the family that I have arrived as we have agreed. The rest of you may leave, I have no need of you.”

They glanced among themselves, clearly trying to communicate their concern. A Duke of Westall had never in the history of the two houses set foot on the Rosenburg estate without bringing war in his hand and death at his heels. The bad blood between the families went back centuries, and even now they could not meet without attempting violence upon each other.

Stephen had no qualms about violence himself. When he had been in university, still a young strapping boy, not yet weighted down with the pressure of taking on the mantle of the Dukedom, he had been known to his friends as Mars, the god of war.

Too big, too fierce and too quick to fight.

He had always had too much inside him, too much rage and darkness. It had not gotten better as he had grown. It had grown with him like his shadow.

But then his younger brother, dearly loved and impulsive Herbert with youth and the certainty of immortality in his veins had fought the cursed heir of the Rosenburg estate, Dudley Barnes and both had been badly wounded.

He cared nothing at all about the young Lord Barnes, but seeing Herbert in a sick bed had brought to him how the feud would be if it were allowed to continue, the death and grief and horror that would be dragged in its wake.

For the sake of his brother and for the red eyes and pale faces of his sisters he would not allow that to happen. Which was why he was here, growing mightily impatient with the flutterings of the servants around him.

He was about to break with good manners and walk past them to find his own way when the butler rushed towards them, face flushed in embarrassment and irritation.

“Your Grace,” he said, waving the others off quickly. “I apologize for the delay, there was a little confusion about the time you were expected. Please, let me lead you to the family.”

Confusion, hm? Stephen would have wagered that the confusion was engineered by the family themselves, never willing to waste an opportunity to cause him or his embarrassment. But he nodded curtly and let the man lead him back towards the drawing room at the front of the house. It was a strange place for a man to do business, but Albert Barnes, Duke of Rosenburg was a strange man.

He was shown into a grand drawing room, distinctive with green chairs and a white plush carpet. He made a bow to the room, noting that his Grace was seated in a broad chair with a great spreading back and carved wooden arms next to his son, in a smaller chair, and that four ladies were seated on two settees a little way off.

It was said that no member of the Wilkins family had ever entered the Rosenburg estate in the long centuries the two families had been feuding. Stephen certainly would never have set foot here had he not been driven by necessity.

The ladies he barely knew, having seen them only in the distance at events but he burned at the sight of the Duke of Rosenburg and his son.

God forgive me , he thought. For making a pact with the devil himself but there is nothing else to be done.

“Westall,” Albert said, waving off the servant with one hand. “I believe you know my son.”

Stephen nodded at Dudley Barnes, his heart thudding in his ears. A rush like a fever of rage swept through him. His heart still ached with rage and fear that he might have lost his brother the way that Albert had taken his father all those years ago.

He could not imagine hating anyone as much as these two men. “We have met,” he said instead, his voice cool and level.

The old man did not offer a seat and Stephen did not take one, too certain that if he were to sit he would no longer be able to conceal his anger. Instead Albert took a pinch of snuff from a small box on the table next to his chair and passed the box on to Dudley.

The younger man followed suit, but Stephen noticed how he moved carefully and smiled to himself in dark furious delight. Herbert had done that. Herbert, his wonderful fool of a brother.

“You had matters you wanted to discuss,” Albert said, gesturing as though Stephen were a serf that he could command.

“Indeed, as did you, Rosenburg,” Stephen said. “The matter of the wedding.”

“Ah, yes. The wedding. The dowry shall be three thousand pounds,” Albert said, his eyes sharp and piercing. “There is no need of a long engagement. I’m sure you will agree that our families can only benefit from being brought together as quickly as possible.”

Stephen snapped his head to stare at Albert sharply, then at the ladies and back to Albert. It was an insultingly low amount, one that a duke’s family would barely offer a mere gentleman, let alone a duke. “There is no need of a dowry,” he said coldly.

“A dowry is traditional,” Albert said, his own cheeks flushing slightly insulted in turn. “To give none would be insulting to our daughter.”

“There is no need of insult. She will be well cared for with the wealth I have.” Stephen knew that Albert envied the Westall estate and the riches that exceeded his own and felt a little cold pleasure at the way that the old man tried and failed to hide his bitter anger over the reminder.

“So it shall be,” Albert said, a rictus of a smile on his face. “We are agreed.”

“And once the wedding is had, there will be peace between us.” This was the true prize after all, this was what Stephen was here for with his pride kept carefully at bay. They would put an end to the fighting and the killing and those of his who came in the future would not need to look over their shoulders in fear of a Barnes blade.

“You will leave mine be, I shall yours.” Albert looked across at his son, whose face was contorted in a most unbecoming scowl. “That is agreed.”

“Very well. Who is the lady?”

A smile crossed the old man’s face, twisted and mocking. “Come forwards, Elizabeth, my dear daughter.”

Stephen looked over at the ladies. He recognized the Duchess easily, and two of the younger ladies looked familiar from events he had attended amongst his duties. The woman who stood and approached her father was not one he could recall having seen before.

She was short, that was the first thing he noticed. Small enough that he was sure she would not come to his shoulder if they stood side by side. The second thing he noticed was the proud tilt of her chin as she met his gaze. And the third, the third thing that he noticed was her clothing.

While the other two young ladies wore chemises of fine cloth cunningly embroidered, this one was dressed so simply that he would never have guessed her to be a member of the family if he had been asked. Her hair was fair, a warm golden color completely different to the rest of her family and her eyes were not the watery icy blue of her father but a warm brown.

She held his gaze steadily, a challenge in her eyes. He was the first to look away, glancing to her father.

“I had thought, Rosenburg, that you had two daughters. How is it that your bounty has been increased now to three?”

“My dear Elizabeth was a gift from her dead mother,” Albert said, that same twisted smile still playing on his lips. “While she is certainly my daughter, she is not a daughter of my wife and so she is not out in society.”

The younger two Barnes daughters lifted their fans to cover what Stephen suspected were cruel smirks and the Duchess looked across at her husband, her cold beautiful face unsmiling and set.

He was being given a bastard.

It took a moment for the insult of it to sink in, to really settle in Stephen’s mind. He was asking for a family connection and instead this was what he was being offered, this insult was all he was worth. His lips thinned. “What of the lady’s sisters?”

Albert barely glanced back at his two legitimate daughters, smiling even wider. “They are spoken for, Westall.”

They were not. Stephen would never have come to the Rosenburg estate had he thought there was no Barnes daughter he could tie his fortunes to. He knew that the elder was promised to the Duke of Seymour but there were two of them.

Albert met his gaze. He could see the old man knew that he knew he was being insulted, that he was just waiting for Stephen to call the whole charade off, insult the young lady to her face and cast her aside as a marriage prospect. It was the best they could possibly expect from him, it was all he could be expected to do.

But Stephen was not a common man. He was a man with a driving purpose. Both families wanted the feud to end, Albert just as much as himself. While he was not willing to concede peace without trying for one last win over Stephen’s family by offering a bastard child, he still didn’t want his only son and heir murdered in the bloody battle between the families.

No. Stephen would not allow Albert Barnes to win. He would have Elizabeth Barnes for his wife. He would end the enmity no matter the cost.

“Leave us,” Stephen said coldly. “Clear the room so I may propose to the young lady.”

The titters and murmurs from the younger ladies stopped dead. Dudley stilled, even Albert froze in a moment of unguarded shock as they all looked at Stephen and then at Elizabeth Barnes and back again.

Stephen almost smiled. Choke on that, you devils.

It took a minute or two for the rest of the family to leave them. It was clear that none of them were eager to give in to his demand, but he was in the right of it and it was how things were done. So, slowly and reluctantly, they left and it was him and the young woman alone.

She had still to say anything.

“Won’t you sit down,” Stephen said, his tone flat and cold. Whoever and whatever she was to this family, she was to be his wife. But she was also the daughter of the man who had made it his business to try to erase the Wilkins family name from the history books.

Elizabeth kept looking at him, her eyes warm and brown and her face set so still that he wondered if she knew how to smile. “I shall not,” she said firmly in a voice as clear as a bell. “I will meet my fate head on, on my feet.”

Stephen almost fell back a whole step in surprise at her boldness. Did she not understand the importance of what they were doing? It felt as though he could not escape the piercing intensity of her gaze and it made him feel frustrated, ill at ease in his own skin. “Very well. What is it that you think of this union, Lady Elizabeth?”

“Would my thoughts have merit to a duke, Your Grace?” she asked, her hands folded so demurely at her front that one could almost imagine that she was not speaking knives. “I am but a woman, after all.”

“I have never held a woman’s thoughts at a lower merit than a man’s,” Stephen said firmly. “My sisters have my ear as much as my brother and their words have as much worth to me. I would know your mind on this matter as you are just as much involved as I.”

“Just as much? Am I not more?” she asked, tilting her head to one side curiously. “After all, shall I not be leaving my family home and all those I love to go to yours?”

Stephen frowned at her words. The sharpness of her wit was something he might have enjoyed at another time, in another place. If she were not a Barnes, he might even have been enticed by her. But here in the drawing room of this accursed family all he felt was vexation. One simple answer was all that he wanted. “And you will be given wealth and a home of your own in return,” he said. “You will be a duchess. Many would say you are the winner here.”

“Is there a winner here?”

It was so strikingly close to his own thoughts that Stephen was begrudgingly impressed. She was such a small, drab thing and yet her words were so fast, her wit so quick to match his own that he had to admire her for it, for all that she was driving him mad.

“Is there a loser?”

“I don’t know, Your Grace,” Lady Elizabeth said, smiling at him. It was the faintest raising of the corners of her lips. It was as much of a lie as anything her father had ever said. “Do you think of me as a prize?”

He almost snorted and had to cough to cover it. “Lady Elizabeth,” he said finally. “I will not insult you by using the usual forms of a proposal and pretending that this is not something you expected or that you are unaware of my merits as a prospect. We are sensible people. I am asking for your hand in marriage, you know how much rides on this arrangement. What do you say to the matter?”

He did not go to one knee or protest romantic love. He felt that she would scorn him behind those sharp, fierce eyes. He felt that it would be something she would detest and moreover he would never get down on a knee before a Barnes. She thought for a moment, and then laughed - a hard noise so loud and sudden that it shocked him. When she spoke, her voice was cold and mocking.

“You speak as though I have a choice in the matter, Your Grace , and yet we both know that my father and you have already decided it all for me. At least do me the respect of not pretending otherwise.”

Stephen felt himself flush in anger, the sharpness of her words inflaming him almost as much as the fire in her eyes. He took a great step towards her, pleased as she backed up, retreated from him.

Yet she never looked away, her chin tilted back defiantly as he walked slowly towards her, backing her up until she was trapped against a wall, his arms caging her on either side.

“Have a care, Elizabeth,” he said lowly, leaning in so that his breath was hot in her ear. “You should not try to provoke my anger.”

“Or what,” Elizabeth said, her eyes blazing. “What shall you do, Your Grace?”

He caught her chin, bringing their gazes together like lightning striking. “You will not like the consequences if you do,” he said.

He could smell her scent, something light and barely perfumed and he could feel the heat of her, like a fluttering bird. He looked down on her cheeks and could see a flush spreading up from her neck, down past her fichu.

How far might it go down her body?

The thought caught him, pinned him, made his heart beat fast in his chest. What she was doing to him made him more aware of himself than he had ever been in his life, more overwhelmed, more - out of control. He could touch her cheek and feel her skin beneath his fingers, he could…

Stephen stepped back abruptly and bowed, composing himself. “I will see you at the wedding, Madam.”

He turned on his heel and stormed from the room. He was not going to lose himself to her. She was a means to an end and that was all. That was all she would ever be.