Duke with a Reputation

Wicked Dukes Society

Book One

The Duke of Brandon is London's most infamous rake. But his world crashes to a decided halt when the sins of his past come back to haunt him in the form of one small she-devil of a child who has green eyes just like his. To make matters worse, his disapproving grandmother has decided he must marry or forfeit his inheritance.

Now, he has no choice but to raise a daughter, find a suitable wife, and keep his harridan grandmother from discovering his sordid secrets as the founder of the Wicked Dukes Society. So when the tempting, fiery-haired Countess of Grenfell propositions him, he offers her something else instead—a marriage of convenience.

Lottie, Countess of Grenfell, is London's most notorious widow. Her doomed, one-sided marriage left her with a broken heart and a determination to never wed again. What she wants is simple—passion, independence, and one night in the Duke of Brandon's bed. Or in his scandalous chair. Perhaps even against a wall. She wouldn't marry him, however, if he were the last man on earth.

Brandon is quickly running out of time and his troublemaking daughter has decided no one else shall do as her step-mama but the maddening countess. He must persuade Lottie to become his duchess with all haste or risk losing everything. As he sets out to seduce her into marriage, he's shocked to realize he's done the one thing he previously believed himself incapable of along the way—he's fallen in love. But Lottie's bruised and battered heart is more guarded than his, and she has vowed to never allow another man to hurt her again.

Prologue

The scene in the Wingfield Hall dining room would have put a Roman Bacchanalia to shame. The Duke of Brandon smirked as he surveyed the tableau before him from his vantage point at the head of the table that had been exquisitely carved at the behest of a long-dead ancestor.

No less than three-dozen bottles of the fine French Bordeaux he had procured on his most recent trip abroad—Chateau Margaux, vintage 1874, truly une grande année —decanted and in various states of consumption.

To say nothing of the women in a debauched array of scandalous dishabille. There was a thoroughly sotted brunette with her breasts fully exposed above her bodice like ripe offerings, her nipples rouged to enhance their obscenely glorious display. Then there was the incomparable actress, Mrs. Helena Darby—not to be outdone by a rival—who launched suddenly from her seat, spun about, and flipped up her skirts to expose her full, ivory bottom for anyone who cared to look.

Most of the room, as it happened.

For Helena possessed one of the finest arses Brandon had ever been fortunate enough to see. Or spank. Or…

Well, never mind that . Brandon gave his trousers a furtive tug beneath the table at the unfinished thought. Ah, lewd reminiscences. He might fully indulge in another bout of memory-making later, should this evening progress as he intended.

Or perhaps, he would take his pleasure from another of the bevy of beauties in attendance, or two—or even three at once. Helena had never liked to share, which was deadly dull. Even if she had a mouth skilled enough to suck the silver plating off a vicar's spoon. Why limit himself when the possibilities were endless?

Brandon sipped idly at his Bordeaux, a pleasant haze enveloping him that likely had something to do with the latest potion Kingham—King, as his familiars knew him—had insisted he drink. Had it contained opium? Who gave a bloody damn? This night was the culmination of his efforts—a celebration, of sorts. And he intended to savor every moment with every woman he could.

Hair pins had long since been dropped from all the demimondaines in attendance, along with the initial pretense of decorum. Tapes and hooks and laces had come undone. Neckties and coats and any hint of formality had been dispensed with at the door to the grand dining hall, where a pile of discarded garments had been discreetly carried away by circumspect servants, who were trained and paid well enough to avert their gaze and hold their tongues.

The vignette before him was as pleasing as it was rousing. Oh yes, indeed. Brandon's coterie of friends, summoned for this inaugural fête of sin, were indulging in every vice he had presented for their delectation. They had come up together at Eton, and they were united by two common goals.

Common Goal the First: their mutual disdain for the wretches who had sired them and their desire to show it at every opportunity, in whatever manner possible, regardless of the ensuing scandal.

Common Goal the Second: their desire to pursue pleasure at any and all costs.

It was the latter, rather than the two former, that currently preoccupied his friends most. Riverdale had a woman on each knee. Camden had his face buried between the bountiful bubbies of a black-haired beauty. Richford was whispering in a fetching redheaded lady's ear. Whitby had his arm around a blonde's bare shoulders whilst his other hand appeared to be in a lovely brunette's lap. King's face was pressed to the ivory throat of an opera singer.

And then there was the piece de resistance , a naked wench in repose amongst the feast served à la fran?aise , covered in an assortment of tarts—the dessert course. No one had taken the cherry tart resting disproportionately on the peak of her left nipple, even if someone had already scooped the gooseberry galette from her cunt; Brandon had his heart quite set upon that cherry tart. He so despised incongruity of any form, and her right nipple bore only the faintest hint of blueberry.

Rising from his chair and swaying on his feet as he reached for the dessert—the bloody Bordeaux had gone to his head as well as King's sweet brew—Brandon snagged the lonely tart and deposited it on his plate. Now that his guests had consumed their feast and the true revelry of the evening had begun, it was time for a small matter of business.

He raised a glass, tapping it with his fork to draw everyone's attention to him.

When glassy-eyed stares settled upon him, the tittering and naughty murmurings dying down, he spoke loudly enough that his voice would carry through the cavernous Wingfield Hall chamber. The majestic maternal ancestral estate was an excellent place to host his revelries, for although it belonged to his grandmother, she had not entered its walls since his grandfather's passing some years before. Instead, she kept to London or paid calls upon friends in the country, giving Brandon the reins since he would one day inherit the massive manor house and grounds as her sole heir. He had given Grandmother's domestics a few days of paid leave, and he had brought his own discreet servants, all paid handsomely for their silence.

"I call to order this first meeting of the Wicked Dukes Society," he said now, his voice echoing through the centuries-old dining room.

It was the silly, bombastic name they had agreed upon after a three-day party at King's country seat, during which they had raided and consumed nearly the entire impressive alcohol stores of Dukes of Kinghams past.

A chorus of enthusiastic agreement sprang up. "Hear, hear!"

Camden's inamorata raised her wine glass with so much sudden force that her Bordeaux splashed all over her silk bodice and bare breasts, leaving Camden with no choice but to lick up the mess.

"We are gathered here this evening," he continued, "united in a common cause—the pursuit of pleasure. What happens within the walls of Wingfield Hall stays within the walls of Wingfield Hall."

King removed his lips from the opera singer's neck long enough to raise his own glass in toast. "We should all speak a vow of secrecy."

Brandon hadn't thought of that, and he was rather put out with himself for the failure. "Excellent idea, old chap. Have you a vow in mind?"

"Camden has always had a head for poetry," King offered. "Cam, what say you?"

Their friend was still drowning in bubbies, but he raised a bleary-eyed stare at his name. "What say I? What are we speaking about?"

"A vow for the Wicked Dukes Society," Brandon intervened. "King thinks we ought to make one, and he nominated you for the sorry task on account of your poetical heart."

Cam issued an indelicate snort. "The only part of my body that is poetical is inside my trousers."

The room burst into guffaws and titters.

"But I seem to distinctly recall the poem you wrote for Lady Flora Seaton," King prodded. "A beautiful sonnet, if I'm not mistaken."

Cam was usually imperturbable, but now his face flamed. Lady Flora was a delicate subject, one which he preferred to avoid. King always knew how to cut a man to his marrow, friend or foe alike, and he was more perceptive than anyone Brandon had ever met.

Cam's eyes narrowed. "Indeed I did. But I find I'm not nearly as eloquent as Riverdale. Perhaps he ought to write the vows."

"If King thinks we should have one, then King can bloody well write it," Riverdale said, before whispering something into the ear of one of the ladies on his lap and earning a sultry chuckle in response.

"Not terribly sporting of you," King grumbled with a sigh before raising his Bordeaux. "Very well, then. I surrender. You shall have a simple vow from a simple man."

Ha! Brandon couldn't stifle his chortle at his friend's claim. There was nothing simple about the Duke of Kingham. Indeed, King was the most complex person he had ever met.

King raised a brow at him. "Brandon, is there something which amuses you? Perhaps you'd care to share with the rest of the company."

Brandon wiggled his fingers in a dismissive gesture. "Carry on with your simple vow, old chap, before we all grow old and gray."

"Old and gray?" Whitby shuddered dramatically. "I hope I meet my ignominious end well before that day."

"Oh do stubble it, Whit," Richford said congenially as he gave the redhead's breast an indolent fondle. "We all know that you've the devil's own luck. You'll likely be hearty as a stallion at five-and-ninety, quite unlike some of us."

Whitby grinned. "Am I to blame for my own good fortune?"

"Enough," King interrupted in a lighthearted tone. "I've settled upon a vow."

Brandon inclined his head in his friend's direction. "Carry on then, old chap."

King frowned. "We should have a bible to swear upon."

"I haven't got one." Brandon thought for a moment, frowning. "We'll have to swear upon the Chateau Margaux. Raise your glasses."

All six incipient members of the Wicked Dukes Society raised their glasses.

"Repeat after me," King ordered. "From this moment on, I solemnly devote myself to the pursuit of pleasure and to the utter destruction of my father's legacies."

The friends repeated King's vow, followed by the clinking of glasses and a resounding cry of, "Hear, hear!"

"May he rot in Hades where he belongs," added Riverdale grimly.

In that moment, the Wicked Dukes Society was born, steeped in sin and fine French wine.

Chapter One

Brandon was having a nightmare.

That was the only explanation for the sight opposite him, he was certain of it. Either that, or he had imbibed one of King's ingenious brews and was now suffering the delusional aftereffects of the dubious elixir.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself, Brandon?"

The sharp, censorious voice, however, was disturbingly real. As was the glacial green-eyed glare so similar to his own. And the massive, billowing silk gown, beneath which hid a crinoline more suited to the fashions of thirty years ago than now.

He blinked, hoping the action would dispel the image before him. Pull him from the throes of sleep. Cast away the demons brought about by one of King's inspired concoctions.

But no.

His grandmother remained.

Hellfire. Perhaps she was real after all.

Brandon cleared his throat. "I do beg your pardon, Grandmother, but I have no notion of what I ought to be saying for myself."

"Have you not heard a word I have just spoken?"

Admittedly, he had been wool-gathering. Hoping he had found himself thrown into some slumberous alternate reality.

"I'm afraid not," he conceded.

Her nostrils flared, and for a fanciful moment, he imagined her breathing fire like a mythical dragon swooping in to scorch him and other unsuspecting mortals in her path.

"I will begin again, Brandon," she said succinctly, as if she feared very much he possessed the mental acuity to comprehend. "Do try to heed me this time."

Her scolding was nothing new; Grandmother had always been harder than granite. Although her dark hair had long since turned snowy and the face that had made her the most-sought-after debutante of her day was now lined, there was nary a hint of infirmity surrounding her. She was a tiny wren of a woman, but sturdy of form.

Now, as ever, she terrified him.

Brandon shifted on his dashed uncomfortable chair, wishing he'd had the forethought to have Grandmother await him somewhere other than the drawing room, a chamber he scarcely used for its Louis Quinze devotion. "Of course. Pray, proceed."

She inclined her head and with a regal air, continued. "As I was saying, a visitor most unexpected and uninvited paid a call upon me yesterday. I am told she was turned away by your domestics. Ordinarily, I would have no desire to concern myself with such matters. Indeed, it is most unseemly. However, the child has your eyes and nose."

Surely he must have misheard.

"The child?" he repeated, feeling as if the world had suddenly turned on its head.

Everything before him was unrecognizable.

"The girl child," Grandmother elaborated, disapproval dripping from her voice.

Brandon was still struggling to understand. Was there wine about? A cursory glance of the drawing room suggested only tea that Grandmother must have requested. He needed something far less tepid.

"Are you attending me, Brandon?" she asked, her voice sharp.

He wrested his gaze from the tea and pinned it back upon his grandmother. "What girl child?"

"The one who was delivered, much to my butler's horror, to my door yesterday afternoon by her mother, just before the woman ran off with her lover."

"Who was the girl's mother?" he managed, his necktie feeling more like a noose by the moment, growing tighter and tighter.

"She said her name was Mrs. Helena Darby-Booth." Grandmother's lip curled as if she had just tasted something spoiled. "A woman of ill repute, to be sure. She was dressed like a harlot, and it is to my everlasting shame that such a sinful creature should have had cause to arrive at my door after having been refused from yours. Have you any notion of the tongues that will gleefully wag? No, I dare say you do not. You are too busy cavorting with your lemans to save a thought for anyone other than yourself. Just like your father. I warned my darling Diana not to wed that scurrilous scoundrel. I didn't care that he was a duke."

His grandmother shook her head, caught in the throes of the past and temporarily distracted from her diatribe. Brandon was in shock. Helena had been his lover off and on over the years until she had abruptly married and left the stage some time ago. Had not that man been called Booth? Brandon searched the dim recesses of his mind for the name and the particulars. He had not seen her since, and nor had he heard from her. What cause had she to call upon his grandmother, bringing a girl child?

One with his eyes and nose?

He swallowed against a rising sea of bile. "The sins of the father, madam. Tell me, if you please, why Mrs. Darby-Booth should have called upon you, bringing a child."

"Because Mrs. Darby-Booth is following her new gentleman friend to America, and according to the letter she left with the girl, the man in question could only afford passage for two." His grandmother's green eyes, assessing and bright, narrowed. "She was required to leave the child behind, and she therefore deemed it better to leave the child in the care of her father's family rather than an orphanage."

No, no, no. He heard the words Grandmother was speaking, but he didn't wish to understand them. Surely this was all a dreadful mistake. Some manner of ploy Helena had concocted. He had always taken care with his mistresses. He used a sheath. Unless…there had been occasions, particularly in times of drunken revelry at Wingfield Hall or in St John's Wood when he may have been too sotted to take care…

Dread seized him, a fist choking his lungs.

"In the care of her…father's family?" he repeated.

"Yes, since the father himself refused to see her. There was a ship leaving, and our Mrs. Darby-Booth only had so much time in which to complete the task of abandoning her bastard child."

His grandmother was forbidding.

Bastard child.

The father.

Eyes and nose like his.

A daughter.

Fucking hell, could it be possible he had a daughter he hadn't known existed? That when Helena had left London, she had been carrying his child?

"How old is she?" he asked hoarsely. "The girl."

"She tells me that she is four years of age."

It was as if Brandon had been dealt a vicious punch directly to the gut. The breath left him. He gasped for a moment, trying to suck in air, to make sense of everything he had just learned. The timing certainly suggested, along with Grandmother's description, that he was indeed the father of the girl who had been deposited at her house yesterday.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Surely not.

Surely it was impossible.

Surely he could not be anyone's father.

"You…you spoke with the child." He swallowed hard.

"Of course I spoke with the child." Again, his grandmother's lip curled. "Despite her rude origins, the girl appears polite and well-mannered. But I will warn you, Brandon, that I will not lower myself to playing hostess to your illegitimate children. You must tend to your responsibilities as you see fit. I'll not concern myself with them."

The world was spinning madly about him. How much wine had he consumed last night? Was it the news or was it the despicable after effects of too much indulgence that had him feeling as if he were about to cast up his accounts?

"Her name," he managed. "What is her name?"

Not that it mattered one way or the other. But if he was to be a father, then he might as well know what to call her. Somehow, that seemed of grave importance.

"Her name is Pandora," Grandmother informed him archly. "It seems uniquely appropriate."

Pandora.

He had a daughter. Quite possibly. An illegitimate one.

And she had a name and his eyes and nose.

He patted his nose absently, thinking it perhaps a bit too sharp for a girl. "Where is she now?"

"In the absence of a proper nurse for the child, I've left her under the care of my companion, Miss Heale, at my town house," she informed him icily.

He nodded, wondering what the devil he was meant to do with a child. "I suppose I must have her collected, then."

"Yes, you must," Grandmother said, stern. "I'll not be responsible for her. It is time you bore some duty upon those strapping shoulders of yours."

He stiffened at the judgment in her tone. "I do have a great deal of responsibility."

And by that, he meant that he put rather a tremendous amount of effort into being an excellent host. His social gatherings were the stuff of legend. As the founding member of the Wicked Dukes Society, he took pride in his prowess.

As if hearing his thoughts spoken aloud, his grandmother clicked her tongue. "Hosting scandalous routs is not a responsibility, Brandon. When have you seen to any of your estates recently?"

"I correspond with my steward regularly," he defended, even if that was an exaggeration.

In truth, the more recent letters he had received from the man remained stacked and unopened somewhere in the clutter of his study desk. He was far more concerned with Wingfield Hall than the entail.

"How regularly?" she demanded.

"It is none of your concern," he countered. "With all your disdain for the former Duke of Brandon, I wouldn't think you should worry yourself over the present one."

"I do when the present one is my grandson and appears to be intent upon beggaring himself."

He took umbrage at that. "I am hardly beggaring myself."

"You depend upon the vast fortune you will receive from me when I die."

God, she was too damned clever. It wasn't that he anticipated Grandmother's demise. For all that she was as hard-shelled as a tortoise, she was a part of his mother. And Brandon had adored his mother, who had died in childbirth when he had been but a lad of eight.

"I do nothing of the sort," he said, shifting again on his chair.

"Has it ever occurred to you that I need not direct my funds or Wingfield Hall to you, Brandon?"

"No." His answer was swift and honest. "It has not."

Brandon was his grandmother's sole heir, and his mother's side of the family had been hideously wealthy from decades of building a fortune in manufacturing and trade. His father had never allowed his mother to forget her lack of noble forebears, though he'd had no compunction about availing himself of her immense dowry.

"Then perhaps it should." Grandmother's eyes narrowed. "I will not leave my fortune and my family's lands to be pilfered by you as you abandon a string of illegitimate children about London in your wake like your father before you. Wingfield Hall is sacred to me, as you know. I would sooner consign it to Hades than leave it to a profligate to plunder like some sort of modern-day pirate."

Wingfield Hall had become Brandon's most exclusive den of pleasure. Vast and sprawling in the Hertfordshire countryside, it had been the site of the inaugural meeting of the Wicked Dukes Society for its convenience to London and verdant privacy. It had for those same reasons been the host of each meeting thereafter. It was also a desperately lucrative—and intensely secret—business. One he had taken great care to make certain his grandmother would never discover. Losing it had never seemed a possibility.

"You would deny your only flesh and blood his birthright?" he asked with deceptive calm, hoping she would see reason in such folly.

But Grandmother's pointed chin went stubbornly up. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to that, but I will do whatever I must to save Wingfield Hall—and you—from ruin. I would sooner see Cousin Horace have it."

"Ruin?" He might have laughed, were he not still so shattered at the prospect that he had somehow been a father for four bloody years without knowing, and had his grandmother not just threatened to give the shining jewel of his estates to a country booby cousin who smelled like sheep.

Grandmother sighed. "I have heard rumors you are a member of some infernal society devoted to iniquity. I needed my hartshorn when Theodosia Dowling told me she had heard it from Lady Agnes Bryson. I never could abide by Lady Agnes—she has hated me for years, ever since I won your grandfather after she had set her cap at him. It goes without saying that I disapprove wholeheartedly of any such scandalous claptrap. I thought better of you, Brandon. Truly I did."

She extracted a fan and, despite the relative chill in the air, began fanning herself. Brandon stared at her, everything he had just heard making no more sense than it had when she had first uttered it.

His mind whirled.

Grandmother had heard about the Wicked Dukes Society? But how? Years had passed since that Bordeaux-soaked night when he and five of his old Eton chums had first settled upon the notion. He had not supposed word would ever reach anyone, let alone her. After all, it was meant to be a secret society. Not that it was much of a society. More than anything, it was a friendship—a brotherly bond that each of them had found absent in their lives previously, whether by lack of blood brothers or lack of blood brothers who weren't arseholes. It was also making them sinfully rich.

"Grandmother, I can assure you that I do not belong to any such society, infernal or otherwise," he said smoothly, "and that Mrs. Dowling and Lady Agnes are indulging in scandal broth. It is idle gossip, nothing more."

"Do not lie to me, Brandon."

He held her gaze. "I would never lie to you, Grandmother."

Unless I have no other option , he added internally.

"I'll not be cozened," she snapped. "Do you think me an imbecile? I've been hearing whispers about you for years, but I have refused to indulge in rumors. Look at where my forbearance has led—to your natural child being delivered to my door."

Blast. This interview was not going well. His head was beginning to ache, and not just because Grandmother had been peppering him with a volley of unpleasant questions and revelations. But also because he was a father, and suddenly, his world had been not just upended, but burned to ash.

He had to concentrate upon what was truly important in this moment. It didn't matter if Grandmother had heard the whispers, or that every man or woman who entered the hallowed walls of Wingfield Hall did so under a vow of strictest silence some had clearly broken. What did matter was the child—Pandora, he reminded himself.

She had a name. Dear God, what was a voluptuary like him going to do with a child? He'd need to hire a nurse. Could he send the girl away somewhere? So many details to sort through, and the lingering effects of the previous evening's merriments still fogged his poor mind. It was too early in the afternoon for such dire news.

"Brandon, are you attending me at all?"

At the shrill tone entering Grandmother's voice, he jolted from his musings.

"Of course, my dear," he reassured her grimly. "It is impossible not to attend you when you are shouting at me."

"I am not shouting!"

The echo of her voice in the chamber was a stark rebuttal.

He had never seen his otherwise impassive grandmother exhibit such a frenzy of emotion. She was in fine dudgeon now, twin patches of angry color in her cheeks, eyes sparking with fire.

"I apologize for the child's unexpected arrival," he said. "I'll send someone to fetch her now if you'd prefer it."

"She is a child, not a parcel."

There was no pleasing his grandmother today.

And unfortunately, at that moment, the strains of the final aria from La sonnambula pierced the vexed silence that had fallen. Brandon winced, quite having forgotten that the famed soprano, Madame Auclair, had accompanied him home the previous evening. Any hopes he'd harbored of bedding her had died when she had begun to snore on the short carriage ride, the chanteuse having apparently consumed far more champagne than he had realized. He had seen her to a guest chamber.

Grandmother's eyebrows rose. "What is that sound ?"

Dear God. What was Marie doing? The singing—whilst beautiful—was growing nearer. Where was Shilling, damn it? He relied on his butler to save him from such unfortunate circumstances.

Brandon tugged at his necktie. "Ah, opera, I believe."

"Ah! non credea mirarti," Marie sang.

The horror etched on his grandmother's face would have been comical had the situation not been so disastrous. "There is an opera singer in your house?"

She may as well have said there was a rat in his house, so thorough was her disgust.

"Perhaps," he offered noncommittally just as the drawing room door burst open.

"Sì presto estinto, o fiore."

Marie was wearing one of his dressing gowns, her long, dark hair flowing in waves down her back. Judging by the swaying of her full breasts and her bare feet and ankles, it would appear she was completely nude beneath it. Her voice warbled at the sight that presented her—an august white-haired woman and Brandon fully dressed, a tea service between them—and then her song died entirely.

"Forgive me," she said in heavily accented English. "I didn't realize you had a guest."

Grandmother's tea fell to the floor, the delicate porcelain breaking into shards.