Page 1 of Yours Truly, the Duke
CHAPTER 1
FLOWERS
—MRS. SIGOURNEY
I’ll tell thee a story, sweet,
Here, under this shady tree,
If thou’lt keep it safe in thy faithful breast,
I’ll whisper the whole to thee.
Bold lettering on the stiff paper in his hand blurred as the Duke of Wyatthaven tried to concentrate on the infuriating matter before him. Proposing marriage.
To a lady he’d never met.
That prospect, and sharing an overindulgence of brandy throughout the evening with his two friends, had him inwardly shuddering with indecision. A feeling that was new to him. In his defense, he had more than adequate reason for the hesitancy. After all, tying himself to a woman for the rest of his life was something he hadn’t expected to do for many years to come.
Flames from the recently tended fire had the finely appointed library of his London town house teeming with excessive heat, making the back of his neck damp. With its tall ceiling, packed tight with thousands of books, old family treasures of porcelains and silver, and some of his father’s cherished inscribed marble tabletsscattered about, the large chamber had always been a sanctuary for him. Until tonight.
But he’d get on with reading the letter to them.
“Dear Miss Fredericka Hale,”he read aloud.
“It has not been my pleasure to be acquainted with you as of this writing; nonetheless, I am compelled to contact you. I am in need of a wife. Posthaste. You come with high recommendations from your esteemed solicitor to fill that position. I am assured you’d be agreeable to an offer of marriage from me and—”
“Wait, stop.” Rick shook his head in earnest while holding up his hand. “That won’t do at all.”
“It’s bloody awful, Wyatt,” Hurst mumbled in agreement while shifting his weight to rest an elbow on the arm of his black velvet chair. “That’s no way to start a proposal to the lady you want to marry.”
That was the problem. He wasn’t ready to marry. Wyatt let the sheet of his official engraved stationery drop from his hand and fall soundlessly to the leather mat on top of the Louis XIV desk. His temples throbbed, and the room dimmed for an instant when he looked away from the thick parchment.
Muttering a curse, he cast a long glance from one friend to the other. Their dour expressions said it all, making him glad he hadn’t mentioned he’d already spent hours on the letter.
Wyatt leaned away from the grand heirloom his grandfather and father once sat behind, picked up his glass, and gave the amber liquid a swirl before throwing down a swallow. Proposing marriage was no easy task.
He looked at Rick and Hurst and listened as earlyspring rain fell against the windowpanes. The fire crackled. He didn’t like being pushed into a corner, as was the case this night. Which was why he’d summoned his long-time friends to come to his town house for an urgent matter. Sequestered in his library, he’d hoped the two dukes, along with an expensive bottle of fortified wine that was now nearing empty, would help ease his mind concerning the dreaded task of how to ask a lady for her hand. So far, neither was working.
It wasn’t so much Wyatt minded marrying or being married. He had to take a wife one day. It was the thought of being a husband that had him twitching like a fly-bitten horse in the height of summer. By his father’s own admission, the man had never been any good at being a husband. Wyatt had no reason to think he would be either, given that everyone always said he was just like his father in many ways. Wyatt accepted that assessment and lived by it.
The Duke of Stonerick, called Rick by only a handful of people, was the first to break the silence. “Staring us down isn’t going to make drivel better.”
A muscle in Wyatt’s cheek twitched. Rick had always known how to rile him. Or anyone else for that matter.
He reached over and slowly pushed the letter toward his friend. “What would you say?”
“That you bloody well leave out ‘posthaste’ and ‘high recommendations.’ Women are looking for… something more.”
“Exactly.” Hurst cleared his throat and frowned. “They want to hear things that make them swoon. Start with a gentler nature, as in calling herMy dearest, Miss Hale.”
Wyatt grunted ruefully and grimaced in earnest. “She’s not my dearest,” he stated impatiently, and thenproceeded to drain the last sip of his drink before plunking the heavy crystal back onto his desk.
“And she’ll never be if you send that rubbish.” Rick pointed to the paper with the hand that held his glass. “That’s no way to ask for a lady’s hand. It sounds like a blasted demand.”
Hurst shrugged and brushed his pale-blond hair away from his forehead. “To be fair, it reads more like a business correspondence.”
“It is,” Wyatt said, dismissing the comments. Perhaps they were too deep in their cups to be of much help. He wasn’t going to pretend he liked this intrusion of marriage into his life. “I’m trying to enter a contract with her, not a romance.”
