Page 2 of A Duchess Disciplined (Dukes of Dominance #1)

CHAPTER 1

C atherine grimaced at her poor hand of cards with the same intensity that she might have had if someone had insulted her mother. Such an expression did not suit a proper lady, but Catherine had known since girlhood that she was not proper.

While her governess tried valiantly to coax Catherine into appreciating ladylike pursuits, Catherine always tried to escape the woman. She would hide in the gardens and climb trees, if necessary, to avoid embroidering a single stitch or learning her mathematics. The gardens were alive and beautiful, always promising adventure, while her governess had only dull papers and long, wasted hours to offer.

“I think you do this purposefully,” Catherine said. “You always want to play whist because you know I have no head for that particular game.”

Across the table, her brother Elias grinned. “My dear sister, would I do something like that?”

“Yes,” Catherine said.

“Indeed,” Bridget said, who was the youngest of the Leedway siblings.

“I feel obliged to agree with my sisters,” Dorothy said. “We ladies must look after one another.”

Catherine gave her elder sister Dorothy a nod of mock solemnity. “Certainly, the gentlemen cannot be depended upon to look after us.”

The siblings had only recently returned to the countryside from an unfruitful Season. As a young woman of two-and-twenty years, Catherine knew she had little time left to find a suitable match. She suspected that this was partly her own folly.

She was not an unattractive woman. Like her brother and sisters, she had been blessed with their mother’s thick, dark hair. Her eyes were blue like her father’s and Elias’s. She was tall and slender, and the family’s modiste was excellent. Elias spared no expense, no matter how great, to ensure his sisters looked lovely for the Season. But Catherine was wild and impulsive in a way that ladies were not meant to be.

“Perhaps, next year,” Elias said. ‘I believe that Bridget and I are victorious. Shall we play again?”

“Do you wish to humiliate me so soon?” Catherine asked. “Were the previous nine victories insufficient for you?”

Elias grinned, his eyes gleaming in delight. Although he was the oldest of the Leedway siblings, Catherine had found that he had a penchant for mischief, which often made him seem younger. “I do not know what you mean, Cat. How are you to improve if you do not practice? I am only trying to help you refine your skills.”

Catherine cast him a vexed look. “Somehow, I suspect your intentions are not that noble. Why might that be?”

“I am wounded that you would think me capable of any ignobility,” Elias said, putting a heart to his chest.

Catherine crossed her arms. “Truly? I find it impressive that you can lie so brazenly.”

“Where is the lie?”

“Is it a lie?” Catherine asked. “I think the ton would disagree.”

Elias smirked. “I did nothing in London that every young man does not do.”

“Be nice, Cat,” Dorothy said. “It is only a game.”

“I would be happy to play speculation instead,” Elias said.

“Another game at which you excel!” Catherine exclaimed.

“And I suppose you would prefer a game that you can easily best me in?” Elias asked. “How would that be different from what I am allegedly doing to you?”

“It is entirely different.”

Elias shook his head. “Truly, Aristotle himself would be envious of your nuanced understanding of ethics. Impressive.”

“Maybe he would be. Have you asked him?” Catherine retorted.

“I have not,” Elias said. “Should I find the ghost of Aristotle whilst wandering the moors, I shall be certain that I ask him that.”

“I think it would be rather exciting to meet a ghost,” Bridget said, her expression brightening. “It would be just like one of Miss Radcliffe’s novels.”

“I do feel that some of the allure is lost if the ghost is Aristotle,” Catherine said, folding her cards atop the table. “If I was to encounter a ghost, I would want it to be that of someone romantic. Chivalric, even.”

“Aristotle is very romantic,” Elias said. “He is the father of ethics, law, and rhetoric. I should think that any lady would find such a learned man to be the epitome of romance.”

Dorothy shrugged. “I have no desire to wed at all.”

“Is that how you woo ladies? You approach them and say, ‘ excuse me, madam. I wish to converse with you about the beauty of ethics ’?” Catherine asked in her best impression of her brother’s voice.

A flush spread across her brother’s cheeks, emerging so quickly that Catherine nearly laughed. “No,” he replied. “Most of my female acquaintances are actresses. They prefer that I quote Shakespeare.”

“Of course,” Catherine said dryly.

She had no strong feelings about her brother’s dalliances, which were known to most of the ton. While Elias was unquestionably a rake, he was—above all else—a loving brother and a competent duke. Catherine also silently admitted, with a small twinge of guilt, that few other brothers would allow their young, unwed sisters the considerable freedom he gave her.

“So,” Elias said. “Whist or speculation?”

“I believe that we should have an embroidery contest,” Catherine said. “We shall see how adept you are at stitches.”

Admittedly, Catherine would not prevail at an embroidery contest either. Dorothy was the most gifted with a needle, rivaled only occasionally by Bridget, who had the patience to craft the most remarkably detailed flowers.

“As entertaining as that might be—” Elias’s eyes drifted past Catherine’s shoulder. “What is it, Geoffrey?”

Catherine turned in her seat to see the aged butler standing in the doorway of the parlor. He bowed stiffly, the movement exposing the thinning patch of white hair atop his head. “Apologies for the interruption, Your Grace. You have just received correspondence from the Duke of Sarsen. I am told that it is urgent business.”

Catherine frowned, mentally trying to recall if she had ever met or spoken to the Duke of Sarsen. Although the name was familiar, she had no specific recollections of the man. She supposed that was promising. If the Duke of Sarsen was dreadful, she would have remembered him in an instant.

“Urgent?” Elias asked, his voice echoing Catherine’s confusion. “I cannot imagine what that might be, but we will have it.”

“Shall I read it to everyone?” Dorothy asked.

Elias nodded. Geoffrey crossed the room quickly and placed the letter in Dorothy’s hand. “Again, apologies for the interruption,” he said.

“No need,” Elias replied, waving dismissively. “If the Duke of Sarsen says the matter is urgent, I suppose we ought to handle the matter at once.”

Dorothy undid the wax seal and unfolded the letter. The paper was very fine, parchment rather than the thinner kind used for everyday correspondence. It seemed to Catherine as though the Duke of Sarsen had decided to emphasize the importance of the missive through the excessive use of materials.

Dorothy cleared her throat. “It is addressed to you, Elias.”

“That is to be expected,” he said.

“Has His Grace made a previous promise to visit us?” Dorothy asked.

“I am unaware of any engagement with us,” Elias replied. “Why?”

“Well, the letter is quite short. His Grace says he will be joining us for tea tomorrow. It seems that he has discovered some recent news which he feels that he must share without delay.”

“The Duke of Sarsen is asking for an invite, surely,” Catherine said. “He cannot simply demand to join us for tea.”

“And yet he does,” Dorothy said, sounding mystified. “I shall join you for tea tomorrow and share what I have discovered amongst my father’s papers.”

“Can he do that?” Bridget asked. “Join us without asking ? Without having an invitation extended to him?”

“No,” Dorothy replied, “but I imagine that our brother will want to greet him graciously all the same.”

“Why should he?” Catherine asked. “Elias is a duke, also, and he would never invite himself to someone’s estate—especially with so little notice!”

Elias sighed. “I did not make the dukedom successful by accumulating unneeded enemies, Cat.”

“If wishing for a duke to follow proper conventions will make him an enemy, he was not a friend from the start,” Catherine retorted. “Perhaps, that we had another engagement tomorrow or otherwise did not wish to meet him! Would His Grace still insist on forcing his company upon us?”

“Perhaps, the news he carries is truly urgent,” Elias said. “If that is true, I suppose we should be grateful that he has given us warning of his imminent arrival, rather than appearing unannounced in our foyer.”

“I suppose,” Catherine said begrudgingly.

If the matter was truly urgent, the Duke of Sarsen would have been unable to announce his intentions to join them. Surely, he would have, instead, arrived without warning, harried from the journey.

“What do you know of him? His name sounds familiar,” Catherine said.

Dorothy furrowed her brow. “I vaguely recall our father being distraught over the death of a friend. I believe that was the late Duke of Sarsen, was it not?”

“Yes,” Elias replied. “The late duke’s sons used to visit sometimes.”

“I do not remember that,” Catherine said.

“You were very young,” Elias said.

Dorothy hummed. “If memory serves…one of them was a menace.”

“Only one?” Catherine asked, waving a hand towards Elias.

“Hilarious,” Elias deadpanned. “You have some audacity for calling anyone a menace, Cat. You may have forgotten all the trees you tried to climb as a girl, but I have not!”

Catherine grinned. “You are just jealous because I could climb them better than you!”

That was not a difficult feat, for her brother had never climbed a tree. Meanwhile, Catherine had become as adept as a squirrel in increasingly desperate attempts to evade her long-suffering governess.

“Well, I assumed that menace went without saying,” Dorothy said, waving a hand at their brother, who adopted a look of mock offense. “Was it Thomas? He used to vex your governess so. He would hide behind hedges and in trees, and when the poor woman approached, he would leap from hiding and frighten her.”

“That was Thomas,” Elias said, smiling fondly. “He was an adventurous boy. I remember him talking about how much he admired naval officers. He wanted to embark on great adventures and fight in wars.”

Bridget, the most romantic-minded of them all, sighed longingly. Catherine imagined that her sister was probably thinking about how much she loved the idea of a brave, young naval officer fighting in wars and returning home to her loving arms.

Bridget was to be introduced to London society the next Season, and a small part of Catherine fluttered with worry every time she thought about her lovely sister trying to decide which, if any, man to wed. She was so innocent and kind, so inclined to find the good in everyone. Bridget did not realize that some men were wolves, seeking to devour young ladies and leave them ruined.

“Wait,” Catherine said. “I seem to recall he died in a duel. I think that is how I know the name.”

“In all likelihood,” Elias said. “I am surprised that you know that much.”

“Why?” Catherine asked.

“Because I was…” Elias trailed off. “We did not talk often after Mother and Father died.”

Catherine privately wondered if the sudden responsibility of becoming the Duke of Reeds and being responsible for three younger sisters had driven him apart from his old friend. Sometimes, the weight of her brother’s sacrifices struck her very strongly, and Catherine felt a spark of sorrow for her brother being burdened with such a powerful responsibility and at such a young age.

“Do you wish that you had?” Catherine asked.

Elias shrugged. “Sometimes, I suppose, but perhaps, it is for the best that we no longer kept in touch with one another. His Grace had a reputation for being reckless.”

“Be careful,” Dorothy said quietly. “You also have a reputation for being reckless.”

Silence fell over the table, and Catherine was quite sure that they all had similar thoughts. A shiver jolted down the path of Catherine’s spine when she thought of her brother—usually a man who smiled easily and readily—with his features set in grim determination as he went to fight a duel for the sake of his honor.

After a long moment, Elias cleared his throat. “Well, I have yet to offend anyone that badly. Dorothy, you need not worry over me. I may be impulsive, but so are most young men. I would never do anything that might result in shame or harm coming to our family.”

Dorothy plucked at the lace edging the right sleeve of her gown. “That is easier said than done,” she said. “You are a young man, after all.”

“The late Duke of Sarsen did not have you to ensure that he was careful,” Elias said. “If he had a good sister, I do not imagine that he would have been quite as reckless.”

Dorothy bit her lip and looked askance.

“This is William,” Elias said, his voice edged with something melancholy.

Catherine glanced between her siblings, desperate to smooth the tension between them. Although none of them really fought in earnest, Catherine still found that the icy disagreements made her uneasy.

“What can you remember about him?” Catherine asked. “Was he a menace like you and Thomas?”

Elias frowned and absentmindedly flipped a card between his fingers. “Truthfully, I cannot recall much about him at all. We have exchanged pleasantries during the Season, but beyond that, we have communicated very little. I am uncertain if we have even shared a real conversation with one another.”

“Perhaps, it is some venture that his father undertook with ours.” Dorothy sounded reluctant, and Catherine suspected that her sister would have preferred to discuss Elias’s reckless streak. “Or perhaps, an investment of some manner.”

“If it was that, I would surely know about it,” Elias said. “I have spent a great deal of time looking over our father’s ledgers. There is not a penny unaccounted for. And if I missed some substantial sum, surely you would have noticed.”

While Elias was impulsive in some regards, like with the female company he chose to keep, he was utterly meticulous in others. One such area was the ledgers. He checked them as often as his solicitor did, and when the numbers did not match what he calculated, he enlisted Dorothy’s aid. Her acumen for numbers was unrivaled.

“A mystery,” Bridget mused. “How exciting!”

“I would not be too excited,” Catherine replied. “I imagine that it is something dreadfully boring. If it was an exciting matter, he would have told us.”

“In all likelihood, yes,” Elias said, straightening his spine. “Regardless, I suppose that we should prepare to greet His Grace tomorrow. He will solve our mystery readily enough.”

“It would have been nice if he had afforded us a little more time,” Dorothy said. “Then, we might have been able to properly prepare.”

“Perhaps, we ought to turn him away,” Catherine said. “Or maybe it would be best for us to find some other engagement. That might dissuade His Grace from being so inconsiderate in the future.”

“We shall greet him with grace,” Elias said.

“Yes,” Dorothy agreed. “Another man’s impropriety is not just cause for abandoning our own.”

Catherine shook her head. Sometimes, she did not understand why her siblings remained so insistent on embodying perfect behavior. Who would be the wiser to their true motivations if they decided to take an unexpected trip to Bath? No one.

What was the harm, then? They could avoid this unexpected visit, return the duke’s impropriety in kind, and keep the family’s reputation intact. It all seemed quite obvious to Catherine.

“I do not anticipate that Sarsen will expect much,” Elias said. “If His Grace is a reasonable man, he will realize that we did not have sufficient time to prepare for his arrival.”

“Because of his behavior,” Catherine said. “He chose to invite himself to the estate. He ought to be grateful that we are making ourselves available to him.”

Catherine drummed her fingers on the table, wondering what manner of man the duke might be to so brazenly ignore conventions. Despite her irritation with his assuming that his presence would be so readily accepted, she was forced to concede that his brazenness alone made the man far more interesting than most gentlemen of the ton.

Dorothy set the letter aside. “Nevertheless, I do think you ought to mention—tactfully, of course—that His Grace is being most ungracious in demanding that we meet him so suddenly.”

“I will do no such thing. It is only a small offense,” Elias said, sweeping all the cards from the table and into his hands. “So, shall we play again? Whist or speculation?”

“Neither,” Catherine said, climbing to her feet. “It is a lovely day, and I think we ought to engage in some exercise. I am going to walk along the moors.”

Her brother grinned. “Running from a challenge, I see.”

She arched an eyebrow. “A true gentleman would not be so smug.”

Elias shook his head. “You always have a witticism prepared. It is really quite remarkable. If you were born a man, I daresay you might have made an unusually clever solicitor.”

“Thank you,” Catherine replied. “Does anyone else wish to join me?”

“I will!” Bridget exclaimed.

“Wonderful,” Catherine said cheerily. “Dorothy? If you agree, Elias will be forced to abandon any card games that he might wish to play.”

Elias made an effort to look affronted, but Catherine was clearly aware that his lips twitched as he tried in vain to hide a smile. “You are unnecessarily cruel to me.”

“You are truly the picture of suffering. Elias the martyr,” Catherine said, shaking her head in mock pity. “Dorothy?”

Dorothy shook her head. “I think I will continue playing.”

There was a note in Dorothy’s voice, which indicated that—despite Elias’s efforts to abandon the conversation about his reckless ways—Dorothy was not inclined to leave the conversation so quickly. Catherine imagined that the cold atmosphere would only grow once Catherine and Bridget had left.

“Enjoy your walk,” Dorothy said.

Bridget rose. She and her sister linked arms and left the parlor. It was unfortunate that Dorothy had not joined them. Then, Catherine would have felt truly victorious. “What do you think about His Grace?” Bridget asked. “It is exciting that he will be here!”

“We shall see,” Catherine replied.

She was still of the opinion that they ought to leave the estate for the day and let the duke realize that they had gone. Their country estate was a remote place where they seldom entertained visitors. For her entire life, Catherine had considered it the domain of no one but her siblings. His Grace was an interloper, a man who had no reason to disturb their peace.

Even if she was just a little intrigued by the thought of him.