Page 1 of The Runaway Duchess

Prologue

London

May 1883

The Duke of Cranbrook did not kneel to propose. Over the years of their acquaintanceship, Lavinia Yardley had thanked the heavens more than once for the man’s rheumatic joints, which limited his range of motion. She’d been able to sidestep his pinching fingers, dodge his kisses.

Most of the time.

Nasty old goat. Of course, she’d never had the satisfaction of addressing him thus.

“Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” The Duke of Cranbrook repeated the words. Oh, he was goatish indeed. Staring back at her hungrily, lips curling away from yellow teeth. His hair, tufted above his ears, thinned to wisps near the crown.

“Miss Yardley,” he said. “Or should I say, Lavinia. Dear Lavinia. I want to give you so much more than trifles, these little tokens of my regard.”

His gaze trained on the bouquet of bloodred roses sitting atop a battered cabinet. The room was hot—uncomfortably so—but Lavinia felt cold, cold to her very bones. How foolish she’d been, to believe her mother.

The roses? I bought them. Aren’t they cheerful?

What other tokens had her mother accepted on her behalf?

“I know you’ll give me much happiness in return.” The way he dropped his voice, the insinuating note. He slid his knuckles down the side of his face, tugged at his silver whiskers. She crossed her arms over her breasts.

Her throat tightened. “In truth, I’ve known little happiness of late. I’m in no position to give it out.” She spoke haltingly.

The Duke of Cranbrook took a step forward, lips twitching. The eagerness of his expression revolted her.

“I was stunned to hear that the prosecution pressed the matter, took things to such an extreme. Stunned. Stunned and frankly aghast. To be dispossessed of your very home.”

He laid a hand on his chest, moved more by his own reaction to her plight than by the plight itself. He hadn’t removed his gloves. A relief, to be spared the sight of those puffy white fingers. She still remembered the night they’d kneaded her thigh below the table at Lady Chatwick’s dinner party, how her stomach had seesawed with disgust. She’d kept silent. Her father’s architecture firm had just submitted plans for the renovation of one of Cranbrook’s country houses.

“It was a great miscarriage of justice, I believe that firmly,” he said. “Weston acted out of turn. But alas, a man abandoned by the woman he loves is capable of anything.”

He referred to the rumor—one of many that had circulated in the winter months—that heartbreak explained her former fiancé’s ungentlemanly insistence on bringing her father to trial, standing by when she and her mother were turned out of their residence at Chesterton Gardens. An enduring bit of gossip, its juiciness guaranteeing its popularity. Even she could see the appeal. A notoriously hotheaded aristocrat, jilted and vengeful. A capricious beauty whose family was ruined by her faithlessness. Pure romance.

Pure nonsense.

Miss Yardley’s brilliant engagement to the Duke of Weston had been short-lived. According to the papers, she had ended it.

She hadn’t, though. He had ended it. Anthony had never wanted to marry her. He’d been manipulated into the engagement by her father. One of her father’s many abuses of power. Her dear, doting papa had exploited his position as the trustee of Anthony’s family estates. He’d lied, and he’d stolen, and worse. He’d wronged Anthony, and he’d wronged Effie, Anthony’s sister.

In so doing, he had wronged her, his own daughter. She, too, had been betrayed.

“A man in love is also capable of anything.” Cranbrook parted his lips. Those yellow teeth protruded. He took a step toward her, and she caught a whiff of something sweet and rancid. The scent of his sweat and cologne mingled with the roses spoiling in the heat.

There was no mirror in this dim suite of rooms—the Rossell Hotel was shabby, even squalid—but the windows gave her back her reflection, confirming she was just as beautiful as she’d been when she debuted. Every social column of 1880, of 1881, had agreed that she was perfection itself. And yet . . . perfection wasn’t penniless. Perfection’s father did not reside in Holloway Prison.

She’d taken comfort in her old gowns, toiling to dress herself each morning without the help of her maid, but now she wished she were wearing sackcloth. Something that hid her body. Or at least something that squared better with her surroundings.

She was standing near the window, behind a chair, and she gripped its back. She would ram it into him, if need be.

“Perhaps shame holds you back. I confess, visiting you here . . . seeing the reduction in your prospects, knowing you are quite cut off from Society . . .” He shook his head. “Most men would hesitate to connect themselves with a woman in your situation. But I am not most men. My wealth and status confer upon me absolute freedom in my choice of spouse. Fondness is my first and only guide.”

A pause, while she stared at him blankly.

“Love,” he clarified. “Will you deny that a certain sympathy exists between us? My heart has ached for you these past months, as though your suffering were my own.”

A strange sound escaped her. Perhaps a strangled laugh. Sympathy? Was that what he labeled his furtive, repulsive liberties? She would say it, finally.