Page 42 of A Virgin for the Rakish Duke (Romancing a Rake #3)

CHAPTER ONE

Timberely House

A lice Ravenshire poked at her roast potatoes with her fork. Her stomach twisted, but not with hunger. It had been a long time since she had last been hungry—years, perhaps. Probably the last time she had ridden a horse. That always worked up an appetite.

As always, when she thought of all the things she could no longer do, her leg twinged, the stab of pain familiar yet irritating. She reached down to rub her calf, massaging the wasted muscle until the ache subsided somewhat.

“We could hardly have you missing the London Season, dearest,” Aunt Lucinda said to Cousin Harriet. “If there are any items of clothing you’re missing, you know we can always have them made up for you. It would be such a shame for you to miss out.”

Such a shame. Alice stabbed at the potato with her fork, the skin creasing to reveal the steaming, pale flesh inside.

Yes, no doubt it would be such a shame for her cossetted cousin to miss out on a single thing her heart desired, while Alice— forgotten, maligned Alice—no longer had access to any of the things she had once adored.

“I know, Mama,” Harriet was saying. “But I don’t want anyone to think me countrified .”

“Of course they won’t,” Aunt Lucinda assured her. “Tell her, Vernon.”

At the head of the table, Vernon grunted, lowering his paper. “No doubt you will do us all justice,” he said as he returned to the newspaper.

“There you are,” Aunt Lucinda smiled.

Alice set down her fork, potato and all. “Perhaps I could also accompany you,” she suggested sweetly.

Aunt Lucinda coughed, her hand traveling to her delicate neckline. “Accompany Harriet? To London ?”

“I had a Season once, you know.” Alice jutted out her jaw, her chest aching at the rejection she saw coming, once again. “And while I can attest that it did not go precisely smoothly, I know my way around London well enough, and it would be nice to have a change of scenery.”

“Oh, well.” Aunt Lucinda looked at Uncle Vernon, obviously searching for a way out of this latest predicament. “You know the physician has suggested you rest.”

“The physician has suggested the same thing for the past five years.” Alice struggled to keep her voice even. “And my limp has not improved.”

“And so it would be very difficult for you to travel anywhere,” Aunt Lucinda nodded solemnly. “Consider, it would be even more upsetting for you to be stuck inside there than it is here. At least here you have the benefit of a garden. And you have all the peace and quiet you need.”

“It is you who requires me to have peace and quiet, not me.” Tears stung Alice’s eyes, but she blinked them back.

After her accident five years prior, this had been her reality.

Her aunt and uncle hadn’t wanted another body in their home, particularly one with such specific needs, but after her parents had died, they’d had no choice but to take her in.

Alice wasn’t entirely sure they hadn’t resented it ever since.

Oh, they were kind enough, of course. Her uncle even paid for her treatment out of his own pocket—and fortunately, too, because she had little enough to her name.

Her father’s estate had passed to the next male heir, a distant cousin, and she had only received her mother’s dowry, placed on her head in the unlikely event someone might want to marry her.

Privately, she had long ago given up on all her dreams of romance. Once, she’d read books about love and poetry and secretly hoped for her own prince to sweep her off her feet. Now, the idea made her feel queasy—even more so than the potatoes.

“I could at least go riding,” she suggested. “I know it’s possible to fashion special saddles and stirrups that account for only one leg, so my only having one functional foot shouldn’t prove too much of an obstacle.”

Uncle Vernon’s jaw set. In general, he was a rotund, pleasant-faced man, but when it came to this, he looked as stern as any gentleman she had ever encountered. “I won’t hear of it,” he grunted. “Your father may have allowed you to ride about the countryside like a hoyden, but we won’t—”

Aunt Lucinda laid a hand on his arm, halting his tongue, but it was already too late.

Alice pushed her chair back from the table and retrieved her walking stick from where it lay by her side. She despised that she needed it, but worse still, if she attempted to walk any distance without it, she would inevitably fall, and today she could not endure the humiliation.

“I understand,” she muttered, her voice tight. “I am not to be a spectacle. Forgive me; I find myself no longer hungry.”

Abandoning her plate and her family, she hobbled to the door.

A footman opened it for her, and she spared him a tight smile before attempting the stairs.

One hand on the banister, the other braced against her stick.

The smooth, carved wood sat in her armpit, the strain of hoisting herself up an old one now.

When she had first attempted to use it regularly, it had hurt so badly that she had curled up on the sofa and sobbed. But now, she merely set her jaw and continued until she finally reached her bedchamber. There, she found her maid, Jenny, waiting for her.

Jenny had been her maid from when she was a young girl in her parents’ home. After their death, she had followed her mistress to her aunt and uncle’s home and was the closest thing Alice had to a friend.

“That bad?” Jenny asked sympathetically as she poured another bucket of hot water into the tin bath.

“I asked if I could accompany Harriet to London.” Alice lay back on the bed and stared at the darkened canopy. Winter had rushed over the country in one icy breath, and the chill permeated even these thick walls. “They, naturally, refused.”

“Well, they are probably concerned about your health.”

“They are, almost as much as they’re concerned about what people will say about me.”

Jenny said nothing, and Alice closed her eyes against the cold tears that coated them. She rarely cried now, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the thickness of tears in her throat, or the tightness of them in her chest. Just that crying never achieved anything.

This was her life. Trapped within these four walls, unable to go further than the wall that ran around the kitchen gardens. Limited by the stick she loathed and needed in equal measure.

“There now,” Jenny soothed. “Your bath, Miss.”

Alice sat up, narrowing her eyes at the bath steaming behind the screen before the fire. Only a handful of steps—nine, perhaps. She could make them without her stick.

Jenny stood back. This had become somewhat of a tradition. Alice would attempt it, and Jenny would be there to catch her when, more often than not, she fell.

Today, she was determined not to fall.

“Fetch the newspaper please, Jenny,” she said.

Jenny hesitated. “Are you sure it’s the right—”

“Please, Jenny.”

Her maid bobbed her head. “Yes, ma’am.”

Slowly, painfully, Alice rose from the bed and tested her weight against her twisted leg.

In the carriage accident that had taken her parents’ lives, she had fractured her leg in three places. The bone had punctured the skin. The doctors who attended her at the beginning said she would never walk again, but over the years, she had mastered some level of mobility.

Even so, her bones ached, and sometimes she had nightmares of those Early days: the searing, shattering agony; rough hands forcing shattered bone back into place; leather straps pinning her down; brandy poured between clenched teeth. It was a miracle she hadn’t become addicted to laudanum.

One step . Two.

Her leg ached. Her foot scuffed against the carpet, and she cursed, drawing the colorful word from the stable hands’ vocabulary—from back before the accident, when she had been permitted to ride, and often.

Three steps. Four. Five. Six, seven .

She was going to make it!

Her weight listed to the side, and she reached out a hand for the patterned screen, intending to support herself before the last few steps.

She managed one more, but twisted, and her full weight landed on her injured leg. A muffled shriek left her lips, and she toppled forward, colliding with the screen, which fell against the bath. Water sloshed against the floor.

Alice landed painfully. She lay there for a few moments, trying to get her breathing under control. Pain still burned through her limbs, and she had bruised her ribs from her fall. Tears, pointless and hot, filled her eyes, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

The door opened and Jenny rushed to her side. “Miss Alice! Let me help you.”

Exhausted, Alice allowed Jenny to wrap her arm around her shoulders and pull her up.

Once Alice could support herself against the wall, Jenny righted the screen and helped Alice with her dress, letting it slip from her shoulders and onto the floor.

Alice had a series of steps and supports to help her climb into the bath, and once that was achieved, she lay back in the hot water.

Steam billowed all around her. Some of the ache in her leg eased.

“Any announcements?” she murmured wearily, eyes closed. “Read them out to me.”

Jenny perched on a stool beside the bath and began to read all the announcements. When the scandal pages came, the maid read those aloud, too, both keeping abreast of the news and following the fortunes of a certain gentleman.

Alice had never met him in person, but she knew of him. The reckless Duke of Langford and the carriage crash that had changed the course of her life forever and allowed him to walk away unscathed.

Jenny’s low voice read out the announcements—engagements between peers of the realm and daughters of other peers. Deaths. Babies. The words blurred until Jenny stopped with a small gasp.

Alice cracked an eye open. “What is it?”

“The matrimonial alliance between His Grace, the Duke of Langford, and the accomplished Lady Penelope Millington, daughter of the Earl of Rushworth, takes place next week.” Her voice faded. “He’s marrying, Miss.”

Marrying. Marrying?

The Duke of Langford had ruined her life! And now… now, he was going on to marry and do everything she could no longer?

Despair burned away under the fires of her rage. This was unacceptable! She would not allow it!

Alice sat up straight, the water sloshing around her. “Jenny,” she said. “I’m going to need your help.”

“Whatever for, ma’am?”

She gave a grim smile. “We are going to London after all.”