Page 1 of Duke of the Sun (Regency Sky #1)
PROLOGUE
“C ordelia!”
Outside of Cordelia Celeston’s bedroom window, she watched a flock of geese land on the lawn in front of Darkenhill Manor. There were a good amount of them resting or grazing the grass for something to munch on. An easel with a squat canvas sat in front of her, and she dragrged her brush across it, color filling the blank page. The sound of her sister’s, Irene, sharp voice made her twitch the wrong way and the geese she recreated suddenly had an oddly twisted neck.
“Devils,” Cordelia hissed, lowering her brush and snatching up the strip of cloth that was already stained with paint.
The door to her bedroom snapped open.
“Cordelia,” Irene repeated, now standing on the threshold. “Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, quite the contrary,” she muttered as she dabbed the cloth against her mistake. “I heard you very well.”
Irene sighed and delicately waded into the room, her hands on her hips. “What have you done now?”
She stepped back, extending a hand to the unfinished painting. “Well, the geese have arrived earlier than usual this year. I have been wanting to -”
“For heaven's sake, Cordelia,” Irene interjected. She shook her head as though she reprimanded a child. “I don’t mean the painting.”
Cordelia lowered the cloth. “Other than being here, I haven’t done a thing!”
“Father is in a raging mood over you.”
“Look at me, Irene,” she snapped, gesturing towards the canvas. “I have been trying to paint. Whatever is on Father’s mind has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with -”
A shout carried through the halls of Darkenhill, just barely reaching Cordelia’s room. Even from the distance, she could almost make out the noise, noticing how it oddly sounded a bit like her own name. Cordelia flinched. Unfortunately, it was a sound she knew all too well.
Irene raised a slender, proud brow. “You were saying?”
“I still haven’t done a thing.”
“Either way, you better come down to the parlour.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Is Duncan there as well?”
“Of course he is.”
She shook her head even further. Dealing with her Father’s wrath alongside her stern elder brother was a recipe for disaster. Even though Irene was the eldest out of the three of them, Duncan acted as the head of them all, destined to take over their Father’s legacy. There was no doubt of Duncan’s love for the family, but he rarely showed it as love. Cordelia eyed her painting. She’d avoid them like the plague if she had to.
“Let Father find me himself if there is a true problem,” Cordelia said, turning her attention back out the window. The geese were fluttering about and the painting wasn’t even halfway finished.
“There are more important things than your art, you know.”
“Not all of us can be as beloved as you, Irene.”
Irene scoffed. “You ought to come before he sends a servant.”
She returned to her painting eagerly, ignoring her sister. Normally, she wouldn’t linger for too long. In fact, Cordelia’s decisions were her own, and her siblings rarely got involved when their father was already in on it. They handled her rebelliousness long enough to know that the Duke of Darken would, eventually, be the final straw. After dipping the brush in a pool of auburn then a quick dunk in the water, Cordelia began to fill in the geese’s wings, carefully stroking along where the feathers laid. All the while, Irene remained in her room.
“I’ve never seen you so stubborn before,” Cordelia mumbled as she leaned in close to the canvas.
Irene sighed. “Stubbornness is not the same as responsibility. If Father called me, I’d be coming to his aid in an instant.”
“There,” Cordelia mused, “Is the difference between you and I, sister.”
What Irene so effortlessly called stubborn was something quite opposite to Cordelia. She had done enough for her father. An upcoming marriage was beneath her belt, one she argued and fought against for longer than she pleased. In the end, the betrothal remained, and Cordelia planned on living the last bits of her freedom in whichever way she pleased. She was owed at least that, wasn’t she?
“Lady Cordelia,” another voice came from the threshold.
She turned to see one of the Manor’s footmen standing there, bowing his head respectfully.
“The Duke requests your presence in the parlor.”
Irene’s slender brown brow rose. “Did you hear that, Cordelia?”
“No need to rub it in,” she mumbled, finally lowering the brush onto the easel.
After straightening out her dress, not bothering to swipe at the bits of dried paint that clung to her fingers and arms, Cordelia held her head up high as she crossed her bedroom. Irene followed silently behind her with gentle steps. All the way through the halls and down the stairs, Cordelia felt her heart beginning to patter harder against her chest. Not that confronting her father frightened her, but rather, there was the ever present gnawing thought in the back of her mind that never dared to leave her.
Cordelia grew more whittled every time she realized she was not as elegant as Irene, or as serious as Duncan. The closer she came to her father, hearing the distant sounds of his disgruntled shouts, the more she remembered how much of an outlier she was in the society she needed to be fluent in.
Irene took a few longer strides to walk beside her. “Perhaps you might regard Father with a higher respect than you have in the past.”
“What on earth for?”
Irene shook her head with disappointment. “You never understand, Cordelia.”
They came upon the parlor before their conversation could continue any further. Cordelia marched inside proudly. There wasn’t a thing she had done wrong, at least, nothing she knew of off the top of her head. Never before was her painting a problem, especially when it kept her from doing something the family would, once again, feel ashamed over. Not that she outrightly did something to procure shame. No, Cordelia just happened to not fit the mold the rest of her siblings so easily squeezed into. Was that such a bad thing? She took in a deep breath as she rounded the room to stand in front of her flaming father.
Behind him, Duncan had a hand on the top of their father’s seat. He watched Cordelia with a tight frown, his head already swaying with chagrin.
“Good afternoon, Father,” Cordelia said. “You called for me?”
Solomon Celeston, the Duke of Darken, was a fairly frail man. None of them could blame him. The man carried his Dukedom along with the succession of his children on his shoulders. Their mother passed years ago, leaving him solely responsible for their courtships and future legacies. While Irene and Duncan remained blessed children, willing to be the pictures of perfection in society, Cordelia never once strayed from being the odd one out.
He made an effort to rise from his chair but collapsed into it instead, receiving a steady hand from Duncan on his shoulder. Solomon breathed in sharply, looking up at Cordelia with an untamed glare. He carried the wispy sheets of scandal sheets in one hand.
“You will truly be the death of me, child,” he snapped.
Cordelia fought the urge to roll her eyes. “What have I done now, Father?”
“Respect, Cordelia,” Duncan warned.
Solomon thrusted the pages towards her. “All of the Ton know the scandal that has now found its way into our family,” he explained. “What say you, child? Explain yourself!”
Cordelia reached for the pages. The daily prints always had some sort of scandal recently committed listed in a short column within the papers, but she rarely paid them any mind. All of it sounded rather improper, and yet, she was the one known as being too free spirited for the Ton. With a wary eye, Cordelia scanned the column.
“The foolish boy has thrust our name into ruin,” Solomon continued, smacking his fist against the armrest. “Do you have any idea what this means for your family, Cordelia? What you have done to us now?”
She shook her head, the words not making any sense. “Run away?” she murmured, reading the column aloud. “The Earl of Vaun has… run away ?”
“He is safe from most scandal,” Duncan suddenly added.
Irene huffed from her spot on the sofa. “Nevermind the consequences we shall now face in the light of his poor actions.”
Cordelia could barely hear them. Not that she was sad. In fact, a bit of her glistened with a newfound hope. There was no piece of her that wished to marry Colin Evans, the Earl. He was a fine gentleman, as most happened to be, but it was obvious that he too had no interest in her. But to run off with a lover? All the way to Gretna Green? She lowered the pages, almost dropping them to the floor.
If anything, she was quite jealous. The Earl was officially free of unwarranted responsibility and the repercussions of his actions. Instead, it now rested in Cordelia’s lap.
“Are you proud, child?”
Cordelia raised her face to her father once more. “The Earl is more than capable of making decisions on his own,” she said.
“Do you have no care for what this has done to our name?”
“Perhaps it is a blessing we were blind to.”
An uneasy silence took over the parlor. With shaking legs, Solomon slowly rose to his feet, instantly towering over his youngest daughter. Behind him, Duncan stood steadfast, one hand out to steady his father if need be. Cordelia glanced between them and grew sour.
“A blessing ?” Solomon repeated.
“Now,” she continued in a smaller voice, “I might be free to -”
Solomon raised his hand, silencing her immediately. “What you so ignorantly believe to be a blessing in disguise will be the thing that drives you into an irreversible state of ruin. You are lucky, child, to have a father such as I to have already procured you another option. Thank me, thank your brother, thank the standing your sister has within society.” He leaned forward even more, his shadow casting over Cordelia ominously. “Without them, you would have been thoroughly shunned and forgotten long, long ago.”
Cordelia’s hands tightened into fists and she did not bother trying to hide them.
“Can you, child, at least tell me what you did to drive the man off?”
She gaped. “Drive off?” she repeated. “What do you take me for, a wild woman incapable of polite society? Just because I -”
“Silence!” Solomon interjected as he returned to his seat. “After everything you have put this family through, you lost the right to defend yourself.”
His words stung deeper than she thought they would. Cordelia was no stranger to disappointing her family. She noticed the looks on their faces and knew exactly what they meant. Even more so now that Colin decided to run off, landing her in a spot that framed her to look like a piece of discarded clothing. For a moment she considered the few meetings she had with Colin, the promenades they had taken. Perhaps there was something she did wrong, something that settled in with him and pushed him towards fleeing to Gretna Green with an even better woman.
Cordelia shook her head. Never would she succumb to that thinking.
“We have one last resort,” Solomon continued, talking more so towards Duncan than her. “Unfortunately there is no time for proper introductions or anything else respectable.”
“Do you mean I won’t even meet the man before being forced to marry?” Cordelia blurted.
Solomon’s head flung back towards her in a wild rage. “The longer we wait, the more this scandal settles in on the Ton! The less they are to forget it, and the easier they are to ridicule us in all forms of society! Do you wish for your cherished siblings to face the wrath of society for your misgivings?”
She bit back the things she really wanted to say. “No, Father.”
“Then you will do as I say,” he snapped, “And make sure you keep this one.”
Cordelia jerked her head away, the angry hot tears threatening to streak across her face. “Might I please be excused, Father?”
Solomon jerked his hand around at her without saying another word.
She spun around on her heel and stormed out of the parlor. Shooting through the hall, Cordelia marched till she came to the pair of double doors that led out to the gardens behind Darkenhill Manor. Shoving them open, a burst of fresh air crashed against her face, and she inhaled it eagerly. In the distance, she heard the squawks and quacks of the geese. They shot by overhead, flying towards their next destination, and leaving her behind.
Behind her, gentle footsteps drew near until Irene stood at her right.
“Do you know who I am to be betrothed to?” Cordelia asked.
“The Duke of Solshire,” Irene replied. “But you will love him all the same.”
“ Love? ” Cordelia repeated. “What makes you so sure?”
Irene sighed wistfully. “Because you must.”
“I refuse.”
“Why must you be against us so much, Cordelia? It is not like you do things we haven’t already done before you. It is not like this is out of the ordinary, or not what has been expected of you all along.”
Cordelia looked over the gardens and past them, all the way towards the rolling hills and the distant horizon. “Mother always told me to never be rid of my free-spirit,” she murmured. “‘Never forget the things that make you you .’ That’s what she said.”
Irene eyed her silently for a moment. “Mother is gone, Cordelia.”
“I’m well aware.”
“We are here,” she continued. “Father is here. Don’t you wish to see him proud, to see him happy in his aging years?”
“Tell me when he has sought out my own happiness, and I will say yes.”
Irene sighed heavily again, shaking her head. Pity laced her gentle green eyes. “I fear your stubbornness might drive you far away from this family, Cordelia. You can only be so carefree for so long.”
“Society has already shunned me,” Cordelia muttered. “Will you do the same, Irene?”
Her sister remained quiet again, as if she listened to the distant birdsong and the gentle breeze that brushed by them. Eventually she reached, giving Cordelia’s cold hand a firm squeeze before she turned back towards the doors leading into Darkenhill Manor.
“If you’re not careful, dear sister, I’m afraid you’ll be all alone sooner rather than later.”
Before Cordelia could reply or question her sister’s cryptic nature, Irene walked back into the Manor, shutting the doors behind her. Cordelia looked over the fields once more, watching the stablehand move in and out of the wooden stables to the east. Even though she had yet to meet her husband to be, to know the life that had been placed upon her lap, Cordelia couldn’t help but feel as though she were sinking. In that instant, she was oddly jealous of a flock of wild birds, imagining what it would be like to fly free of the place that so often held her back.
“If only,” she murmured as the geese disappeared over the horizon.