Page 1 of A Duke for Opal (The Carmichael Saga #2)

London, England

Winter

1819

O n this fine, quiet, London, winter’s day, with the majority of the ton gone, Lockwood Renwick, the Duke of Strathearn found himself spending the afternoon as he so often did—with a sensual beauty in his arms.

Perhaps the sameness of it all explained Strathearn’s unusual ennui.

The Cyprian, Clarisse, draped her plump legs on either side of Strathearn—her frothy crimson skirts hitching about her waist so her cunny pressed against his shaft. “You like that do you, Your Grace?” she purred, rubbing herself hotly against him.

He mustered his patent rogue’s grin for the eager creature’s benefit. “You cannot tell for yourself, sweet?”

She bit his lower lip so hard, he winced.

Clarisse gripped Strathearn’s length and stroked him through his trousers. Her brown eyes glazed over. “You’re so hard, Your Grace,” she panted, fortunately, oblivious to how bored he, in fact, was.

Oh, his cock responded as it invariably did. He was as flesh and blood a man as they came. This time, this day, Strathearn remained detached.

Restless might be a more accurate descriptor of his mood.

Something… felt off.

He felt off.

Unsettled.

Discombobulated.

While his current companion continued petting him, Strathearn apprehensively searched his gaze around the club.

All of England’s respectable lords retired for the season until Parliament returned, which meant the only fellows left in London were a sorry mix of: Dandies. University-aged lads. Degenerate rakes. And ancient lords who were either widowers or men with disturbingly young wives whom they’d tucked aside in the country.

That unscrupulous lot sat at their reserved tables, with a requisite bottle of spirits, crystal snifter, and nearly naked beauty—or two, or three—for company.

Clarisse moaned. She attempted to claim his mouth, but reflexively, he angled his head away.

The tenacious beauty’s kiss landed on Strathearn’s neck.

“Ooh, you want me there?” she rasped.

Actually, he hadn’t and still didn’t.

Violently catching Strathearn hard by the lapels, she dragged him closer. “I can start here, Your Grace, but I know there’s a place you’d rather have my mouth.” Clarisse loosened his cravat and like some blood-thirsty vampire, proceeded to bite and suck his neck.

Another wave of boredom flooded him.

Christ, I’m getting old.

Perhaps that’s what accounted for his restlessness.

With London nearly empty, he found himself confronted with the fact of how bloody old he was. Well, at least, when compared to the callow youths gambling and whoring and drinking. A duke, approaching thirty, with no family aside from a much younger brother who lived his own rakish existence, Strathearn was surrounded by mere boys. It left Strathearn feeling like an old roué.

He grimaced.

It wasn’t every day a fellow found himself confronted with his advancing years, at a gaming hell, no less.

I’m not that old. Why, there were other chaps here his age.

Dimly, Strathearn registered Clarisse dropping her bodice and guiding his palms to her enormous, sagging, breasts.

“Yes, touch me like that,” Clarisse rasped. She furiously rubbed herself like a cat in heat against him.

At some point, out of habit, he’d begun stroking her nipples. His movements proved as reflexive as the rest of his body’s response this day.

His gaze alighted on Lord Buckley.

Some seventy-years old, the viscount entertained a pair of twins who were near in age to the old reprobate’s eighteen-year-old bride.

Strathearn winced.

Definitely not the man to compare himself to.

Frustrated, Strathearn, did a sweep of the room.

There! Another duke! The Duke of Hastings, to be exact. Some four tables away, the rake, was near Strathearn in age and proved similarly busy .

As if they were two gents passing on a riding path, and not, even now, being attended by notorious courtesans, Hastings lifted a snifter and saluted Strathearn.

And hell, if that casual greeting didn’t make Strathearn feel even more depraved.

Rogue or not, no honorable gent wanted to go about being compared to a licentious, cold-hearted fellow like Hastings .

Strathearn caught Clarisse by the waist. He made to set her from him when his gaze caught on a commotion at the front of Forbidden Pleasures.

What in hell?

“ Grimoire ?”

“What is that, Your Grace?” Clarisse rasped.

Strathearn blinked several times but the sight remained. His closest—and only, real —friend, stood speaking with several guards at the entrance of Forbidden Pleasures.

Previously solely married to his work at a subscription library and now , married to—and very in love with—his wife, Lady Glain, Mr. Grimoire, had never once set foot inside a gaming hell, and never would.

The least of the reasons being the stoic man didn’t possess a membership. The better reason being Grimoire had never been a roguish sort. Which also explained, the fierce exchange between the head guard, Mr. Latimer and the librarian.

Strathearn started to rise and go intervene on his friend’s behalf, but Grimoire and Latimer appeared to reach an agreement. The unlikeliest of librarians possessed an ability to bring anyone around. That skill also accounted for Strathearn’s sizeable investment in Chetham’s Subscription Library and also why the fellow managed to secure some of the wealthiest donors in London.

Latimer pointed at Strathearn, and directed Grimoire’s attention across the club.

The other man fastened a flinty gaze on Strathearn.

An impending sense of doom rooted around his belly. There could be but a handful of reasons why Grimoire was barreling down on him.

One: Someone died.

Two: There’d been a fire—or some other emergency—at the library.

Three: trouble had befallen Grimoire’s sister-in-law, Lady Opal.

Four: the man’s merciless father-in-law, the Duke of Devonshire had inflicted some kind of suffering upon Grimoire and those he loved.

Or…

Strathearn’s stomach muscles seized.

Or…Lady Glain Grimoire whose earlier pregnancies ended in loss, was encountering difficulties with her latest one.

Christ.

“I’ve displeased you.” The forgotten beauty in his arms pouted. “I will do better, Your Grace.”

“Huh?”

Catching his cravat between her teeth, she pulled the white satin fabric all the way free with a tug…the exact moment Grimoire reached Strathearn.

Heat climbed his neck, and if Strathearn’s cravat weren’t askew from the courtesan’s efforts, he would have yanked it.

“If you’ll excuse me, Clarisse.” Strathearn helped the young woman from his lap. “I fear I’d forgotten about a meeting.” He spoke in quiet, ducal tones that effectively earned everyone’s compliance. The tenacious Cyprian proved no exception.

As she sauntered away, Strathearn, jumped up. “Grimoire.”

A spark of disapproval flashed in the other man’s eyes. “Strathearn.” Grimoire motioned to the table. “May I?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

And damned as they both sat, if Strathearn didn’t feel like the mischievous lad who’d disappointed his father. Unlike Strathearn who’d been born lucky and handed a fortune from birth, Grimoire had risen up from nothing. Strathearn’s own failings never stood out more clearly than when he was in the librarian’s company.

“May I offer you refreshments?” Strathearn asked, starting to raise his hand to call for a glass.

“That won’t be necessary.”

He let his arm fall. His own humility and sense of inadequacy forgotten, Strathearn leaned forward. “Lady Glain—?”

His friend headed off the remainder of that worry. “She is well.”

Tense and cryptic as Grimoire was, Strathearn couldn’t make out what the other man was thinking.

His worry deepened.

Grimoire finally got to it. “You have done so much for my wife and I.”

Strathearn waved away his unnecessary thanks.

“Which is why I regret having to ask you for any further help than you already confer, Strath—”

“Anything,” he interrupted. “What is it you need?”

Some of the tension left Grimoire’s big shoulders. “We’re hosting a winter house party.”

Oh, hell on Sunday.

He resisted the urge to squirm.

“It is a small gathering,” Grimoire said, clearly reading Strathearn’s desperate urge to run. “Just a handful of guests: Lords Brightly, Everhart, the Duke of Savage. The usuals, along with their families.”

“The donors,” Strathearn murmured. Some of the tension left him. “It is an event for the library, then?”

An event for Grimoire’s circulating room was one he would always stand behind.

“Yes,” Grimoire confirmed. “Of a sort…”

He eyed his friend guardedly. “ Of a sort ?”

The other man nodded.

Strathearn’s frown grew.

“Opal is returning from finishing school, for the winter season,” Grimoire explained. “The event is not so much to raise funds, but, more a…a…”

“ A ?” Strathearn prodded, his dread growing.

“As she was denied a St. Nicholas’s Day, we thought to bring Opal the same festivities…just belated. The duke allowed us but a week with her and he did so only on the condition only certain guests were invited.”

Sure enough…

“Me?”

Grimoire gave a sheepish grin. “You.”

With a groan, Strathearn dropped his head face-first upon the table. “I preferred it when he hated me,” he muttered into the gleaming, oak surface.

“Oh, he still hates you.” Grimoire’s response contained a smile. “He values your title and will use it—and you—to increase his family’s place in society.”

Strathearn picked his head up. “A proper, respectable house party?” he mumbled. “I should cut my patronage.”

Grimoire chuckled. “You’d never.”

“I’d never,” Strathearn confirmed.

“There is just,” Grimoire held his thumb and forefinger a fraction apart, “one more thing.”

“I’m listening.” Reluctantly .

“Would you be so good as to host?”

Host?

Strathearn laughed until he noted Grimoire’s grave expression.

Bloody hell.

His amusement faded. “You’re not jesting.”

Grimoire curled and unfurled his fingers into the side of the table. “I’m afraid not.” Frustration and fury all leant a terseness to the other man’s words. “Given Opal’s movement are so carefully guarded by Devonshire, your hosting a party is the only reliable way to ensure Lady Glain and I may see her and Lord Linley.”

Where dukes were concerned, the only thing a man could rely on in terms of friends was that one didn’t actually have true ones. That’d certainly been the case for Strathearn—until Grimoire. He’d do anything for the other man.

Even so, Strathearn couldn’t keep from groaning.

Relief filled the other man’s features. “We cannot thank you enough.”

Strathearn waved off more—unwanted and unnecessary—gratitude.

Grimoire shifted in his seat. “My wife may have anticipated your response,” he said sheepishly. “Just as I was leaving to pay you a call, she informed me she’d sent out invitations on your behalf.”

Strathearn chuckled. “Did she?”

“With the help of your staff.”

Now, that sounded like the Lady Glain, daughter of his late father’s friend, he knew all too well. Once heartless and cold, she’d been changed by Grimoire into a warm-hearted, generous, caring lady. But then, that appeared to be Grimoire’s power. After all, Strathearn had once been a duke who lived only for his own pleasures and pursuits, until a chance meeting with the head of Chetham’s Subscription Library. From that moment, Grimoire somehow got Strathearn to not only care about books and the mass’s ability to reach them but the man’s in-laws, as well.

Strathearn took a much-needed drink. “Need I attend, Grimoire?” He dreaded—but already knew—the answer.

A frown flashed across the librarian’s face. “Uh…we…Lady Glain and I certainly hope you will. At least for some of the occasion. Nor will you be required to take part in the festivities—unless you want to, that is. We’d both welcome your participation. If you are absent from the entire gathering it’ll be talked about and Devonshire will undoubtedly bar Lady Opal from attending any further events hosted by you.” Fury and frustration burned in Grimoire’s eyes.

How hard it must be for a man as proud as Grimoire to be unable to fully protect his wife’s family.

Strathearn took mercy. “Aside from the use of my property and my attendance for some of the affair, Grimoire, is there anything else you need to inform me about my house party?”

“Yes.”

Strathearn collected his bottle of brandy and poured his snifter to the rim.

“Lady Opal wasn’t due to return until the spring but Devonshire summoned her back early which leaves us an incredibly tight timeframe.”

Strathearn set the decanter down. “ Grimoire .”

“It is in a sennight,” he blurted.

Groaning, Strathearn let his head fall a second time this day, hard upon the table.

“Lady Glain wanted me to assure you that you needn’t worry about any of the details or planning. She will continue to handle everything and even act as hostess.”

“That is a consolation,” he muttered into the wood.

Grimoire didn’t again speak until Strathearn lifted his head. “Do you know what would certainly help you with those unwanted chores of hosting requisite, respectable, ducal events?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Picking up his glass, Strathearn toasted his best friend. “Perhaps having a friend who didn’t require I perform unwanted chores?” He took a sip.

“I was going to say, a duchess,” Grimoire drawled.

Strathearn choked and spewed his brandy in the other man’s face.

Without even flinching, Grimoire removed a kerchief and wiped the deep amber remnants from his person. “Obviously, my wife’s suggestion.”

“ Obviously .”

There came a scrape of wood on wood as Grimoire backed his chair up, and stood. “I’ll tell her you agreed to think about finding a duchess.”

He shuddered. “ Please , don’t.” Lady Glain could have stopped Boney in his tracks before he’d even begun his march through the Continent.

Grimoire laughed. “Good day, Strathearn.”

“Good day, indeed.”

His mutterings of misery were met by more of the other man’s amusement.

“Oh, come, you never know, Strathearn,” Grimoire said, patting him hard on the back. “You might find yourself having a good time.”

He snorted. “Of all the stories you’ve peddled from your library, Grimoire, that has to be the biggest yarn of all.”

The librarian’s laughter followed him out.