Page 2 of Daring with a Duke (The Jennings Family #2)

2

Felicity

Devonford Castle, Sussex, England.

A week and a half later.

THE WIND WHIPPED around Felicity, slapping against her face and sending her cloak lashing around her legs. She wrapped it tighter around herself, trying to seek any sort of warmth in the soaked wool.

She looked up into the pelting rain, a stone fortress looming in front of her from the inner bailey of Devonford Castle. She blinked against the storm’s onslaught, but it wasn’t just the deluge, nor the darkness of the night that made it difficult to take in. It was the sheer enormity of it.

Towers and walls of hauntingly grey stone stretched endlessly in both directions, surrounding her, closing in on her. Towering over her. The wind wailed, a foreboding scream whistling off slick stone.

Thunder crashed overhead, and she flinched. She could have sworn she felt the resounding boom all the way through her person. Or perhaps that was just her heart crashing against her chest. Because the reality of The Plan, of what she was about to do, was settling over her, and it was about as terrifying as riding in a carriage on an open road while lightning flashed disarmingly close.

Which is what she had just endured—for hours. It had been an extreme risk, traveling here, and in this weather. She could easily have been set upon by highwaymen. But fortunately, only someone utterly leather-headed traveled in such weather. In other words, not highwaymen, just reckless young women.

Determined , reckless young women.

She stared at the shadowed entry, recessed into the castle’s exterior. To protect from inclement weather, no doubt. Inclement weather she was still standing in. But she was having trouble convincing her feet to move in that direction.

It looked more like a mouth—a mouth of a beast—and she feared if she walked up the few steps into the dark alcove, she would be swallowed up. So instead, she stood here like a drowned rat while cold, wet rain soaked her to the bone. A tremor wracked through her frame.

“Re-m-mind yourself of your p-purpose, Fliss,” she said, teeth chattering.

She squared her shoulders.

Strength .

She lifted her chin.

Tenacity .

She glared at the entry.

Control.

She had attempted one final desperate appeal and pleaded her case to her brother after the encounter with Colborn at the Chesterfield ball. She had told her brother exactly what Colborn had said. And still Felix had denied her request to end the betrothal. You’ll be married within the year.

He had reminded her that Lord Wessex was going to be a duke , and she was going to be a duchess . She was truly starting to hate the word duchess. It held none of the meaning she was led to believe. And when she had told Felix exactly that, he had promptly reminded her of the kind of power she would hold as a duchess, the influence she would have, the ability to make changes in the world.

Which was all infuriatingly true.

He had also bombarded her with rapid-fire questions:

“Do you not find him handsome?”

Yes, she did. He was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen.

“Do you not enjoy the time you spend together?”

Yes, he always made her laugh, and he was quite fun to keep company with—in a rapscallion sort of way. When he wasn’t sticking his prick in other people.

“Did you not want to marry him initially?”

Yes, but that was four years and probably four hundred women ago.

He had waved off that last bit. Felix was somehow very sure of the fact that Colborn would come around and fall in love with Felicity. How could he not? Felix had said. You are the most beautiful woman in London .

Based on her betrothed’s many assignations, Felicity didn’t think Colborn was all that discerning in that area. She had almost told her brother she was fairly certain the only way Colborn would fall in love with her was if her vagina had magical properties. Fortunately, she caught herself in time.

Her brother didn’t understand. He knew this match was one Father had always wanted, and that niggling guilt was a heavy cloak Felicity wore as well. So, Felix was unrelenting when it came to dismissing Felicity’s pleas.

Sometimes she wanted to plant the loveable oaf a facer.

Her brother was blind to her concerns because to him they were trivial. He reminded Felicity she could marry a handsome, diverting—albeit unfaithful—duke and have riches and power and a brood of children. What on earth was Felicity complaining about? Lord Wessex had his teeth , blast it all. What more could Felicity ask for?

Felix could never be with his lover. Well, not publicly anyhow. Felicity and Colborn had the chance to grow to love each other. That would never happen with whoever Felix married. He would have to somehow force himself to create an heir with a wife when he couldn’t bear the thought of being with a woman. And… Felicity had immediately felt like an ungrateful, whiny child. The doubt had crept in, like it always did. That perhaps her concerns weren’t warranted. That she was being unreasonable .

She growled and bared her teeth at the looming entryway. She. Was. Not.

Felicity had been sitting with Maribeth in her best friend’s chambers devouring one too many lemon hand pies, resigned to her fate, and Mare had made some excellent points: Why did Felicity’s future need to suffer just because others had a tough lot in life? And if her father was alive now, would he truly want this for her?

But there was no way out.

Until The Plan had formed. A plan which put her in front of her betrothed’s country estate in the middle of the night. When her fiancé was quite conveniently back in London.

She took a step forward.

Revenge .

Another two steps.

An escape.

Three more steps, and she was before the stairs to the entry.

She stared into the dark entry, a lone torch’s flame dancing frantically in the gusts of the storm.

And the last, most forbidden reason—one she hadn’t even voiced to Maribeth.

The Duke.

She had always harbored a secret tendré for the Duke. Most women in England did. If his son was beautiful, the Duke was devastating. At three-and-forty he was all man, whereas his son was all spoiled boy. The Duke rarely left his estate. He was a man of few words. Reserved and grave and rough around the edges. Intriguing .

So, when she and Maribeth had been chatting away and the topic of the Devastating Duke came up and Mare had jokingly suggested The Plan , they had laughed and then fallen silent when reality hit: The Plan had merit.

Maribeth was always coming up with outrageous, scandalous suggestions for Felicity. Maribeth wanted Felicity to have fun, live a little. Colborn was unfaithful, so why shouldn’t Felicity be as well?

Because Felicity was a naive, totty-headed, fool . She wanted to be faithful. She didn’t want to seek out other partners. Felicity had always used her parents’ marriage as her reason for not lifting her skirts , so to speak. She wanted a love like theirs: True love, a fairy tale. Or in other words—a steaming pile of manure.

How bird-witted could she get? The incredible amount of infidelity surrounding her—her betrothed, her best friend, her parents, the numerous assignations at the Chesterfield ball—should have been a blazing bright beacon . Fool .

Felicity was perhaps becoming a mite self-disparaging and cynical. She shook off those thoughts, the ones creeping into her brain like the rain creeping into her skin beneath her cloak. She still had a chance to save herself.

Thus, Maribeth’s joke became very non-joke like, and Felicity dove headfirst—off a cliff, toward a stormy sea lined with jagged rocks—into The Plan . She just had to hope she wasn’t sent packing before she had a chance to execute said plan.

Revenge and escape were heady. As was what they meant: Control. Over her future, over her life, over herself .

She couldn’t fail.

There was no turning back now. Her hired carriage was gone.

She shivered, though she didn’t think it was from the cold. She couldn’t ignore the fact that the plan also scratched a very tempting itch. The kind of itch that made one feel as though they would crawl out of their skin if they didn’t get to it.

She had tried to hide that fact from herself. But then she saw another one of Colborn’s exploits in the scandal sheets a few days prior. And decided it was quite stupid to lie to herself. What was wrong with having one bloody itch? Her fiancé obviously has a serious ailment with how many itches he was scratching. He probably also had the pox. Perhaps that was why he was so itchy.

So here she was at Devonford Castle.

She stepped up to the door, grasped the giant iron knocker and slammed it down, the sound of her future echoing off the stones surrounding her.

Time to seduce the Duke.