Page 216 of Dukes for Dessert

Dukes, Actually

Erica Ridley

1

Cressmouth, England

Down the lane from Marlowe Castle

* * *

Could it truly be considered theft, if the object Miss Carole Quincy intended to filch from the Duke of Azureford’s summer cottage had belonged to her all along?

Carole sat on the edge of her fourposter bed to tug off her worn leather slippers. It was a brisk, late spring day with no clouds in sight, but in a mountaintop village nicknamed Christmas, ’twas best not to venture out-of-doors without sturdy boots.

Not that she was going far. Last summer, the Duke of Azureford had purchased the adjoining property. He’d be her next-door neighbor… if he were here. She was glad he wasn’t. Dark tousled hair and deep brown eyes were all well and good on most occasions, but she needed to be in and out without anybody paying too much attention. She reached for a boot and yanked on the laces.

She would have retrieved her sketchbook by now, but until recently, the duke’s normally vacant cottage had been housing a recovering soldier. The soldier was gone, the house was empty, the neighbors were all indoors enjoying afternoon tea... There wouldn’t be a better time, but she had to act quickly.

No one knew about the sketchbook. It was the most private thing she owned. It wasn’t a collection of bad poetry or “Carole + His Grace” curlicue doodles, but something even closer to her heart:

Architecture.

Painstakingly precise recreations of her house, her street, the castle upon the hill… reimagined to reflect the world she really wished she lived in. Happy families gathered about a supper table. The assembly rooms decorated not for lackluster “marriage mart” dances, but as a place where Carole and her friends could drink brandy and play billiards and wager their future trousseau on the turn of a card.

How she wished she could draw herself into a place where she could be herself without judgment! As talented as Carole was with architectural sketches, she was positively dreadful at capturing realistic likenesses. Instead, she copied figures from fashion plates as best she could, and outfitted each elegant lady with additional props, like flying rapiers or frothy tankards of ale.

Men enjoyed their gentlemen’s clubs. Why shouldn’t women enjoy equally hedonistic ladies’ clubs?

“Yes, yes, because of the scandal,” Carole muttered as she finished tying her second boot.

Drawing such forbidden activities was not the same as actually performing them, but try telling that to the gleefully shocked gossips if a single page of that sketchbook ever came to light. The moment Carole had it back in her possession, that sketchbook was never leaving her bedchamber again.

Boots on, she hopped off the edge of her bed and strode to her dressing table for the final touch.

Now where were those earrings? She shoved aside a tin of pencils and a stack of tomes on geometry and mathematics until she found the little pouch she’d been saving for just this occasion.

Two delicate gold-and-citrine earrings. She hadn’t worn them in months—not since the day of the party. How could she, when she planned to say she’d lost one of the pair in the Duke of Azureford’s cottage? When his butler let her in to search, she would slip her missing sketchbook back into her reticule, secure the blasted thing with a dozen sturdy knots, “find” her lost earring, and be on her way.

All she had to do was get inside.

After dropping one earring into her empty reticule, Carole fastened the other to her left ear for effect. She smiled when she glimpsed her reflection in the looking-glass. She looked positively piratical. The next sketch she’d draw would be the Duke of Azureford’s cottage, brimming with fashionable ladies decked in eyepatches and—

No. This was the time for action, not imagination. Once she retrieved her sketchbook, she could daydream all she pleased. Only perhaps a month remained before His Grace would return to make use of his summer cottage. First things first.

She flung open her bedchamber door and stepped into the corridor.

Rhoda, the kitchen maid, nearly jumped out of her skin.

Carole rescued the tea tray before its contents could slide to the floor. “Is this for my father?”

Rhoda nodded. “I’m happy to take it.”

“I’ll do it.”

Carole always took her father his afternoon tea. He rarely noticed, but that wasn’t why she did it.

All right, yes. That was exactly why she did it. She missed her father. Missed the days when he used to take meals with her, have long fireside chats with her, do anything with her at all besides their weekly standard billiards game, which was over as soon as one of them scored twenty-one points. Of course she was as good as he was. Father was the one who had taught her to play. The game was over in the blink of an eye.