Page 1 of Dominating the Duke

PROLOGUE

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Late May, 1826

Outside Forbidden Pleasures, Wicked Books & Naughty Novels bookstore, London

While walking out of Forbidden Pleasures toward his waiting carriage, Percy, erstwhile Duke of Chelmsford, fingered the expensive, embossed calling card Daedalus had given him with the name and address of his business partner. Was exposing the man going to be that simple? All he had to do was meet with him and convince the rum cove to abandon Daedalus's wrong-headed, filthy book publishing venture.

Of course, since the mysterious businessman owned London's most infamous house of pleasure - gaming, wenching, and the gods knew what else - he'd be of the lowest level of society. He might settle for a reasonable bribe to pull his investments out of the bookstore.

Goodrum...why did that name sound familiar? Maybe he'd seen the name in one of Alice's gossip sheets. In any event, he'd have to have Aikers investigate the man.

As soon as he was back at his writing desk, he'd pen a request for an in-person meeting with the foyst. This would be one of Percy's easier negotiations. Someone who ran a house of pleasure surely could not be that intelligent.

He met his coachman and instructed him to proceed immediately to the Lincoln's Inn office of his man of business, Aikers.

Captain El's Quarters

Goodrum's House of Pleasure

Late May, 1826

El surveyed the six gowns laid across the counterpane covering her huge canopied bed on the top level of Goodrum's House of Pleasure. The styles ranged from a simple muslin striped with hand-painted violets to a glittering gold satin which hugged her curves in all the places designed to render a man incapable of sense or speech.

Her original idea to pull out a simple gray work dress, like the one she'd worn all those years ago when she'd been nothing more than a slave in her father's tavern, was rejected out of hand by Hetty, her lady's maid. The woman had commanded with a look that the misshapen, well-worn dress should be banned to the bottom of the cedar-lined chest where it was stored until she had need of a disguise. Hetty had been with her through all manner of adventures, and misadventures, for so long, neither of them could remember the precise moment El had rescued the tall, regal African woman out of the slave market on Zanzibar.

"My Captain--" Hetty said sharply. "Do you want to frighten this duke? Remind him? Overwhelm him? Or maybe seduce him?"

The look El gave her was raw and unguarded. She honestly did not know what the hell reaction she expected from Percy after all the intervening years that flowed between them. They'd been adolescent friends, nothing more, when he and his father, then a minor baron, had taken well meaning, desperate measures to save her from serving as her father's sexual gambling marker at his tavern in Combe Down.

"There's no time left, Hetty. I told the man to be punctual. He'll expect no less from me. He was ever a plodding, methodical sort. But a kind young man...and my only friend in that horrid little village outside Bath."

"But he's a duke now, no? He may have changed."

"Of course he's changed, but he has no idea of who I am now. Quick. You choose."

Without hesitation, Hetty pulled the violet-decorated muslin from the counterpane and shrugged it over El's head. After she'd settled the dress atop El's underpinnings, she fetched a stiff bristled brush from the nearby dressing table and commenced smoothing the tangles from El's long waves of rich auburn hair. They compromised on a tight bun at the nape of her neck, but Hetty insisted, and won the war with El to tease a few tendrils onto the sides of her face. She also tried to talk El into masking the long scar slashing her cheek with a liberal application of makeup.

El balked at that suggestion of artifice. "This scar is who I am. It's my proof of courage. There's no reason I should shield him, of all people, from who I've become. He deserves to know what came of the 'good deed' he and his father tried to do all those years ago."

Hetty raised her hand in a sign of peace. "So be it...so it is."

1

LATE MAY, 1826

GOODRUM'S HOUSE OF PLEASURE

El forced herself to remember all the times she'd made men squirm: When they'd ended up in the chair across from her, begging for mercy from her vengeance; begging her to smooth over some social gaff they'd committed in her club; or for forgiveness instead to keep her from unceremoniously dropping them from membership in her exclusive club; or worse...destroying them in society for some unforgivable crime they'd committed against one of the women she protected in her business of pleasure.

Now, if she were totally honest, she had a nearly uncontrollable urge to squirm herself.

Unfortunately, the arrogant man currently occupying the chair across from her elaborate, gilt-edged desk, had nothing to beg of her, except...that she cease subsidizing one of her most lucrative investments ever. His brother's naughty book publishing venture.

He sat there, chin lifted, cocksure of complete control over the world he inhabited. It was high time someone explained the facts of business to him. For one mad moment she considered challenging him to a game of chess using her carved ivory chess pieces depicting a titillating variety of sensuous, erotic poses a man and woman might engage in...if they were sufficiently creative.

And still he hadn't recognized her. That young girl she'd left behind long ago who still dwelt deep inside her felt hurt and humiliated. But another part, deeper down in her soul, was almost grateful she wouldn't have to explain where she'd been all these years. She'd done a lot of good with the power she'd accumulated, but she'd also done a great many things she was sure the judgmental man sitting in front of her could never forgive.