Chapter1
Donovan Sutcliffe, the fifth duke of Southbury, stood in the center of a large private chamber with his patrician nose high in the air.
Most of his peers would opine that the duke always commanded a position of power in order to glower down his nose disapprovingly at the milling masses surrounding him.At the moment the audience was smaller, but just as demanding:
Donovan was alone in his dressing room with his valet Geoffrey, who was in the process of tying the duke’s freshly starched cravat.
“Now, remember,” Geoffrey said sternly, as he worked his magic.“Tonight at your mother’s ball, we are debuting a delicate new waterfall of folds that are certain to take the cravat-wearing world by storm.I shall expire in a puddle of pure mortification if you mash my creation to bits with that strong, jutting chin of yours.”
“I never lower my chin,” the duke responded without irony.
Donovan indeed glared at his surroundings in silent imperiousness any time he was forced to mingle with the grasping sycophants and desperate debutantes of the ton.
These unfortunates assumed the duke’s dour grimace to be a reflection of his intense distaste for those around him.Although a not entirely inaccurate assumption, as before, the truth was much simpler:
Donovan would sooner perish than disrupt a single crease of his valet’s labor.
“Hold still,” Geoffrey chided, though the duke had not moved a muscle.
By all accounts, Donovan was considered abnormally tall and improbably burly for a peer of the realm.Nonetheless, his French valet outperformed him in both these measures.
Geoffrey Vachon was six foot five, and bore the bulging muscles of a woodsy brute who regularly wrestled bears for a living.In fact, if one were feeling uncharitable in one’s description, Geoffrey very much resembled a bear himself.Abominably tall, broad shoulders, hulking muscles.His shaggy, chocolatey-brown hair always curled away from his sculpted face in an exquisitely careless, flyaway manner belying the long hours necessary to achieve a look of such casual deshabille.
If onewerefeeling charitable—which Donovan was not; he never was—his grace would be forced to admit that the fussy hair and dandy-approved wardrobe stretching over the French valet’s over-large everything all summed up into one unreasonably attractive package.
It was a very good thing that the duke’s valet would remain sequestered upstairs in Donovan’s bedchambers rather than join the imminent festivities below, or the bachelor duke might find every female eye trained on his handsome valet instead of the unwed duke prowling in their midst.
“Your mother expects you to select a bride tonight,” Geoffrey murmured, as if Donovan needed any such reminder.
The soon-to-be dowager duchess of Southbury was relentless in this desire.
The onslaught had begun the summer of Donovan’s sixteenth year—the same year he had acquired Geoffrey.The valet, being French and three years Donovan’s senior, had at the time seemed the most exotic and sophisticated creature on the planet.
Little had changed from that first impression, save to addinsufferably impertinentto the list.Much like his mother.
Her grace’s attempts to marry off her eldest son had begun in a predictable manner.Exhortations to dance with every heiress and wallflower alike.Endless supper parties and teas and assemblies and picnics.
In the twenty years since, his mother’s efforts had redoubled in line with her desperation.
“I don’t perceive a reason to hurry,” Donovan grumbled.
At the advanced age of six-and-thirty, he was perhaps no longeryoung—at least, not in the eyes of fresh-faced sixteen-year-old debutantes—but hunched and wrinkly peers of twice Donovan’s age regularly snapped up nubile young brides, despite their clumsy arthritic hands and the overgrown bushes of white hairs protruding from their droopy ears.The duke was not in dire straits.
Besides, Mother had already achieved one resounding success: Donovan’s younger brother Bernard had met and married his bride over a decade ago.Together, they’d spawned not one butthreestrapping young sons.
One might think such an achievement would make her grace happy.
Instead, it merely gave Mother more ammunition to use against Donovan.If he heardWhy can’t you be as romantic as your brother?one more bloody time…
“Are you going to dance tonight?”Geoffrey asked, as he stepped back to peer critically at his frothy creation.
“No,” Donovan said with a sniff.“I never do.”
That was the difference between being the heir apparent and being the duke.As a lad, he had been forced to follow his parents’ dictates, and dance until dawn regardless of his own desires.
As duke, he need only provide his presence.No dancing.No flirting.No fuss.
His valet sent him a provocative look.“I’ve heard dancing can be fun, Adonis.”
