Page 1 of A Duke, a Spinster, and her Stolen List (Duchesses of Ice #1)

Chapter One

“ W ait, My Lady. A moment!” The man’s voice cut through the din of the masquerade, urgent and far too close.

Celine Huntington’s heart pounded as she wove through the swirling crowd, her silk slippers skidding across the polished parquet. The air was heavy with the scent of beeswax candles and her own Fleur de Minuit, the forbidden French perfume clinging to her so intensely that it almost made her dizzy.

“I only wish to know your name!” the stranger called again, his masked face bobbing above the sea of feathered headdresses and glittering domino masks.

Celine’s breath hitched, her fingers clutching the emerald-green skirts of her daring new dress—cut low at the neckline, with a continental flair that had already drawn gasps from the ton’s matrons. She dodged a couple dancing a lively quadrille.

What was I thinking, following that wretched list?

She and her closest friends, Helena and Dahlia, had come up with a seemingly innocent, if a tad daring, list. The items, now burned in her memory, made her blush anew.

Attend a masquerade ball, with no one knowing it’s you. Wear that dashing green dress and a French perfume.

Foolish, reckless, she’d wanted freedom, not this.

“Pardon, miss, might I have this dance?” Another voice, this one from a portly gentleman in a gold mask, blocked her path. His eyes lingered on her cleavage, making her skin crawl.

“No, I am afraid you may not.” Celine tried to control the ice in her voice, grateful now more than ever for the black lace mask concealing her face.

The man stepped forward, his mask glinting as he grabbed her by the elbow, swaying with the effects of too much alcohol. “Such fire! One dance, my dear, and I’ll be your servant.”

“I wouldn’t hire a leery man like you even if I were to be paid,” she retorted, sidestepping him.

Her temper was getting the better of her at his disregard.

The crowd pulsed around her, a kaleidoscope of silk and velvet, laughter and violins. Her perfume, that heady jasmine and amber, seemed to draw them in like moths. Or was it her dress, the bodice scandalously snug, the skirts whispering rebellion?

The ton ignores me as a spinster, but hide my face and I’m suddenly the most intriguing lady in the room.

“Please, My Lady!” the first man’s voice rang out again, closer now. “You can’t vanish without giving me a name!”

“Oh, can’t I?” Celine muttered to no one but herself, her blue eyes narrowing behind her mask.

She pushed past a gaggle of debutantes, their giggles grating on her nerves.

This was meant to be fun—freedom from the ton’s judgment. Instead, she felt like a deer in a hunt, her anonymity a magnet for every bored lord and fortune-hunter in Lady Ashford’s ballroom.

“There she is!” A third man, younger, joined the chase, and her stomach lurched.

She ducked behind a marble pillar, the cool stone grounding her for a moment.

I should’ve burned that list. Helena was right—champagne makes fools of us all.

“Miss, one word!” The first man, wearing a blue domino mask, was gaining on her, his boots clicking loudly on the floor.

Celine scanned the room and spotted a hallway beyond a velvet curtain.

Freedom.

She darted forward, her skirts swishing, ignoring the gasps of a matron whose wine she nearly spilled.

“Pardon me!” Celine shouted over her shoulder.

The mask on her face gave her a lot more confidence than she usually had, which was, on its own, more than usual for a young woman her age. On any other night, she would have been much more soft-spoken, but not tonight.

She slipped through the curtain, the hallway dim and blessedly quiet. Her slippers echoed as she ran, passing gilt-framed portraits, until she spotted a cracked door.

A library, its shelves looming in the candlelight.

She slipped inside, shut the door with a soft thud, and leaned against it. Her eyes fluttered shut. Her chest heaved, her perfume mingling with the scent of old leather and wax.

“Please, let me escape this without a scandal,” she prayed quietly, her fingers trembling. “And I promise to never be so reckless again.”

Reckless. That was what this entire ordeal was.

When she wrote her list of dares on that cold night, Helena, the rational one of their trio, had told her that she was merely acting under the influence of champagne. But she knew it was more than that.

She was a spinster whom many considered past her prime. She wanted to challenge the ton and their rules. She wanted freedom. Her list of scandalous activities should have been burned that night, but Dahlia, her more mischievous friend, had egged her on.

Helena would have my head if she knew I was actually doing this. She would have done everything in her power to stop me.

Footsteps thundered past the door, a man’s voice fading. “Where did she go?”

“Animals,” she muttered under her breath.

She had turned down several advances since she had arrived at the ball, but somehow her resistance spurred them on. If she weren’t fearing for her dignity, perhaps even her virtue, she would have laughed at the sheer irony.

They never looked her way twice at any other ball. No one would approach the Stone Cold Spinster.

She stood still for a few more minutes, feeling the cool wood pressing against her back, calming her ragged breathing. She couldn’t hear any more voices.

“Thank God,” she whispered.

Relief washed over her, but it was short-lived.

“A pity,” a deep voice drawled from above, rich with amusement. “I was getting intrigued.”

The voice echoed around her, surrounding her completely.

Celine’s eyes snapped open, her heart lurching when she saw no one around her.

“God?” she asked timidly, wondering if her unchaperoned presence was so scandalous that the divine was forced to intervene.

A low chuckle echoed, and a figure descended the library’s spiral staircase, his boots deliberate on the oak steps.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to claim to be a god,” he said, his voice dripping with the cockiness of a man who had never wanted for anything in his life, “but I think I recall others calling me one.”

Celine scoffed, her fear giving way to irritation. She’d recognize this man anywhere. She’d heard too many people fawn over him, watched from corners as he toyed with the hearts of several girls, each one waiting like a lovesick puppy to get the chance to dance with him.

Even though he wore his black velvet mask firmly on his beautiful face, she knew him. She couldn’t mistake those broad shoulders for anyone else, the dark brown hair curling at the nape of his neck, the arrogant tilt of his head.

Rhys Harken, the Duke of Wylds.

“You,” she almost snarled.

He represented everything she despised about the ton. The Wild Duke himself, a notorious rake and a thorn in the side of every mother with a good head on her shoulders. And a notorious trap for every mother without one, blinded by his status.

Her mask hid her identity, but his presence set her teeth on edge.

“Me,” he responded, like he was taunting her.

He watched her every move with amber eyes. The black velvet surrounding them highlighted their golden tone to an almost predatory gleam.

“So tell me,” Rhys drawled, his voice as smooth as the claret he likely savored, “who do we have here?”

Celine’s pulse hammered, her back pressed against the library door, the oak still cool even though her hands were now trembling.

The low candlelight threw shadows over towering bookshelves, their leather spines exuding a musty scent. Beyond the door, music thrummed, but here, the silence was broken only by the deliberate tread of boots descending the spiral staircase.

The Duke of Wylds moved with an ethereal grace, his black velvet mask accentuating the arrogant curve of his lips and the glint in his eyes.

“No one that concerns you,” Celine replied, her voice clipped.

“A mysterious lady hiding in my refuge? I have every right to be concerned.” His voice was sultry.

She had never stood so close to him while he spoke, never been this close to him.

Such flawless skin. No wonder every lady is losing her mind over him.

“Let me guess, a debutante who escaped her chaperone, craving a night of danger?”

Celine’s scoff cut through the dim room, as sharp as her masked gaze. “Wrong, Your Grace. And your reputation precedes you, so spare me the theatrics. I expected more wit from the infamous Wild Duke.”

He paused on the bottom step, his broad shoulders filling the space, his dark brown hair catching the candlelight. “So you have heard of me.”

His smile was a blade, charming and dangerous. She hated how it made her stomach flutter.

Why did it have to be him?

“Don’t flatter yourself. Everything I’ve heard about you has been strictly against my will.”

“Not a debutante, then. They’re never this cold toward me. A widow, perhaps, tasting the freedom of anonymity?”

“Wrong, again,” she snapped, her blue eyes flashing behind her lace mask. “And you’re less dazzling than gossip claims. A rake should at least be clever.”

Her words were cold, but her heart betrayed her, quickening as he stepped closer.

“Your words are sharp, but your eyes tell a different story.” He laughed.

Curse him for noticing .

Her cheeks flushed beneath her mask.

Rhys chuckled, the sound rich and warm, bouncing off the bookshelves. “But still not clever? You wound me, My Lady. Yet I’ve struck a nerve, haven’t I? You’re here for freedom—escaping the ton’s chains, chasing a thrill.” His voice dipped, teasing. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Celine’s jaw tightened, his words hitting too close.

That wretched list brought this chaos upon her, and now its weight felt like a rock in her reticule. She had meant to cross some things off her list after the ball, but now everything was spiraling into chaos.

“You’re insufferable,” she said, her tone glacial despite the heat in her chest. “I’m not chasing thrills. I’m here because I choose to be, not to entertain rogues like you.”

“Rogues like me?”