Page 7 of Duke of Pride (Sinful Dukes #4)

CHAPTER 7

Disillusions

S tephen was never going to admit it, but this visit to Lord Prevost was indeed as excruciating as Victoria suggested it would be. But it was inevitable. And Stephen was capable of enduring any displeasure with dignity. Hell, he had stomached days with Victoria Crawford, and miraculously she was still alive.

But Lord Prevost was too much, even for Stephen. He was too proper, too stiff, too prim, and rigid to the extent that Stephen felt like a progressive reformist in his company.

The drawing room was suffocatingly still, as if time itself had been forced to mind its manners. The clock on the mantel ticked with oppressive precision, marking each painful moment Stephen had to endure in the old man’s company. Even the tea sat untouched, as if drinking at the wrong temperature was a punishable offense.

“I am sure you see why I had to write to you, Your Grace.” Lord Prevost’s even voice cut through the stifling atmosphere.

Stephen only nodded.

“The presence of the likes of Miss Victoria Crawford in Colborne House is a scandal. That house was respectable and proper. If your father?—”

Stephen would not tolerate being treated as a child. He was now the Duke of Colborne, outranking the frail, old man daring to drag his father’s name into this. He set his teacup down with deliberate precision, the faintest click against the saucer the only sound in the room. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his gaze locking onto Lord Prevost’s with the full weight of his authority.

“If my father were here,” he said, his voice smooth as cut glass, “he would be sitting precisely where I am, as the master of Colborne House, as the Duke of Colborne.”

Lord Prevost stiffened, then nodded.

Stephen, satisfied with that sign of submission, adjusted his cufflinks and then resumed drinking his tea, motioning for the older man to continue.

“What I meant was that a… lady like her should be looking for a husband, not plotting mischief.”

Stephen’s jaw ticked. The tone Lord Prevost had used in referring to Victoria irked him. Did he sound the same when he addressed her? With such contempt and derision? Perhaps he, too, was lucky to have survived those few days under the same roof as her.

As the older man droned on about the importance of discipline, propriety, and the moral decay of modern society, Stephen studied him. And frowned.

Was this what lay ahead for him? Was this his future? Living alone in a deafeningly silent room where nothing was out of place, where the only form of entertainment was spying on neighbors and sending out complaints?

His mind went back to that very morning. The way the entire estate echoed with pure joy. His mother’s face came to mind, the way she was positively elated. And then he saw Victoria. How alive and vibrant she looked, brimming with vitality, her smile lighting up any room she entered. She was not wasting her life worrying about stupid rules. She grabbed life by the horns and forced it into a game of ridiculous croquet.

And him? What did he do? Did he go out? Did he roll up his sleeves and join them, teaching them how to play properly? No. He yelled at them from the window like an old, gruff man, snuffing out all the fun and joy.

“And those gatherings—scandalous, I am sure.” Lord Prevost’s tone brought him back to the mausoleum that was his drawing room.

“Gatherings?” Stephen pretended to be interested.

“Yes, ladies’ gatherings. All the nearby ladies meeting at Colborne House for God knows what.”

Stephen almost scoffed at the older man.

Lord Prevost was so prudish that he seemed to be protesting over some ladies gathering for tea and gossip. His mother had dutifully taken care of his father, basically alone in the house. She had every right to have some friends over.

“I will see into the matter,” Stephen said curtly.

“I am telling you, your mother was always a proper lady, the very picture of decorum. The moment that… woman came in, everything fell apart. But of course, vulgar nouveau riche , mingling with dignified ladies of the ton. Sign of the times.”

Stephen fixed him with a look that, if withstood a second more, would have given him a heart attack. And so he looked around the drawing room in a bid to suppress the rage rising inside him.

“As I said, I will look into the matter,” he offered. Before the man had the chance to protest, he added, “I see that you arrange your books by color, not by alphabetical order.”

Lord Prevost looked over his shoulder at the bookshelves taking up one wall of the room.

“Quite rebellious of you, My Lord.”

Lord Prevost blinked, visibly thrown off course. He turned stiffly to regard his meticulously organized bookshelves, pressing his lips together as if questioning his own system.

Stephen suppressed a smirk.

* * *

Covering the small distance from Lord’s Prevost residence to his house, Stephen was adjusting his gloves with annoyance. Spending a good portion of his evening listening to the man’s preposterous accusations, his musings on failing morals, and his conspiracy theories about the debaucheries taking place in the house under the guise of tea parties and baked good competitions had been a complete waste of time.

He had decided to partially lift the third rule he had imposed on his household and allow some small, decent gatherings just to vex Lord Prevost.

He had spare time before dinner that he intended to spend reading up on next week’s legislative session.

Stephen was still in the gardens when he heard the noise. Chatter and music. He looked out at the house across the street. Empty and closed, as always. No, this was coming from inside his house.

He went up the stairs with alarming speed and flung the door open, following the commotion to the big drawing room. The sight he was greeted with made him double-check that he was, in fact, in his own house.

He stopped at the threshold, one gloved hand resting against the doorframe, surveying the chaos within, not knowing where to focus.

At a round table sat his mother with a brilliant smile on her face, along with Lady Hardwick, her ever-silent sister, and his housekeeper , Mrs. Charlotte, all engrossed in a game of cards, the former smirking as she slid a few coins across the table.

They were gambling! In his house!

The music came from the pianoforte, which was currently manned by Lady Weatherby, a widow of three husbands and not a shred of shame if he were to judge by the lively tunes she was hammering and the scandalous lyrics that went with it, making the ladies gathered around the instrument cackle.

And in the middle of it all was Victoria Crawford.

Of course , it was Victoria. Always Victoria.

She sat with two other ladies on the sofa, deep in a wicked conversation, a glass of something he sincerely hoped was only tea dangling carelessly between her fingers. And there was a satisfied look on her face.

It took approximately three seconds for the women to register his presence. Three long, deafening seconds in which Stephen felt a headache begin to bloom behind his temples.

“Oh,” Victoria murmured, tilting her head, eyes gleaming with unholy delight. “You’re back.”

“It seems that I should never have left,” he growled. “From what I see, in my absence, this place was transformed into an unruly den of vice.”

Lady Weatherby had the decency to stop playing but not enough to stop puffing smoke in his drawing room.

“Den of vice!” Victoria had the audacity to smile. “How very dramatic. This is merely a small gathering. You did suggest we partake in ladylike activities, after all.”

Stephen leveled her with a glare so severe it could have frozen a lesser woman on the spot.

Unfortunately, Victoria Crawford was no lesser woman. If anything, the heat of his glare only made her amusement burn brighter.

“I also recall suggesting embroidery and watercolors.”

“Oh yes, we tried those.”

Victoria pointed at some discarded canvases with the hand that still held the glass, which he was increasingly certain did not contain tea. Then, she looked back at him with mock seriousness—a look that said that he challenged her, and she responded.

“We decided that it was boring. So, we decided to try other ladylike activities.”

“I did not realize ‘ladylike activities’ now included gambling and tobacco consumption.” He took a menacing step toward her, just to intimidate her with his height.

“You really must keep up with the times.” Victoria tsked.

Stephen was going to murder her. His eyes must have conveyed as much because for a brief moment, her confident facade cracked. As if she just realized she was playing with fire.

She swallowed and wetted her lips with a quick flick of her tongue. For some reason, that made his gut clench, fueling the fury that was commanding his body.

“This,” he said, his voice icy and deadly, “ends now!”

He had used the same tone in the House of Lords, its force bringing men— great men—to their knees, shaking. In the room filled with ladies, it had a devastating effect. With his eyes still locked onto Victoria’s, he could hear the ladies scurry away.

Lady Weatherby finally stubbed out her cheroot, mumbling that it was getting late, and the other ladies around her agreed hastily. The gamblers gathered their winnings and their belongings and left, giving him a wide berth. Mrs. Charlotte, looking appropriately ashamed for a woman who had just been caught gambling with her employer’s mother, scurried out of the room without a backward glance.

The room was empty except for his mother, Victoria, and him. And absolute disdain from all sides.

Stephen let the silence stretch, the sound of retreating footsteps echoing in the hallway. Then, slowly, deliberately, he turned to his mother.

“Mother, I think it’s best you retire for the evening.”

Dorothy gave him a look that held fury, sadness, and a ton of disappointment. “Stephen, you are being?—”

“I am being the Duke and lord of this house,” he asserted, softening his voice for her sake.

His mother was not to blame. She was always so mindful of her ways. No. There was only one person to blame here.

“Very well,” Dorothy sighed. “Let us go, Victoria.”

“Miss Victoria will stay,” he said, eyeing her narrowly.

“I think there is no need to—” Dorothy tried.

“I happen to see every need,” Stephen bit out.

Victoria turned to his mother and took both her hands. Something unspoken passed between them, and she responded with a smile to whatever plea Dorothy was conveying. Then, with just a nod, Dorothy left the room.

“Well,” Victoria drawled, “that was rather theatrical.”

“What are you doing?”

“I did warn you, Your Grace,” she said brazenly. “I would find other ways to amuse myself.”

“I ask again, what the hell do you think you are doing?”

“Well, we were simply playing cards and enjoying some lovely refreshments. But then you burst in, in your usual charming fashion, and now”—she gestured vaguely to the door—“everyone’s gone, and you’ve ruined the fun.”

“This is not a game!”

“I beg to differ. It was quite entertaining.”

He took another step, forcing her to arch her neck if she wanted to keep pinning him with that bold look of hers.

“The rules clearly state no social gatherings. No visits from unwanted company. No unnecessary disturbances to the order of this house.”

“For the love of God!” She laughed. “We were drinking tea and lemonade and playing whist. We were not gorging on alcohol and running an illegal gambling hall.”

“You were gambling in my house.”

“Penny wagers,” she shot back. “Hardly the downfall of civilization.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, clearly trying to maintain his composure, but his voice was clipped when he spoke again.

“Smoking!”

“Only Lady Weatherby.” She shrugged. “But she’s buried three husbands. I think she’s earned a vice or two.”

“That is not the point!”

“Then what is the point, Stephen?”

The use of his name, the way she breathlessly uttered it—stripped of his title, of decorum—made something dark coil low in his stomach. The way she demanded an answer from him, not the Duke of Colborne. His jaw tightened.

“The point, Victoria ,” he bit out, returning the favor, “is that this is my home. And I will not have you turning it into a?—”

“A place of joy?” She dropped all fake mockery, raising her voice. “A place where your own mother can laugh and live instead of being trapped in this suffocating mausoleum you call a home?”

Mausoleum , the same thing he called that dreadfully sad room at Lord Prevost’s house. Something inside him shattered a little.

“It is not a mausoleum,” he said, with less conviction in his voice.

“Please. This house is colder than you are, which is truly saying something.”

That stirred something that Stephen had never known was there. He decided to focus on his rage—it was simpler, cleaner. They were locked in a death stare match, with no one backing down.

For the millionth time ever since he had first laid eyes on her, Stephen decided that he had to get Victoria out of his house and out of his head.

Easier said than done.