Page 1 of Her Rogue of a Duke

CHAPTER ONE

Ashock of dark hair lashed across his face as the rain pounded at him, but he hardly noticed it as he raced down the muddied road in his family’s carriage. He had taken it stealthily, without anyone in his household knowing, needing an escape from the pitying and somber looks of his servants. He knew they pitied him, and he detested the feeling. But he couldn’t entirely fault them for it.

Joshua Kingman, the Duke of Elmcroft, was a broken man.

For half a year, he had been a ghost of himself, haunting the halls of his manor, drowning his sorrows in drink. The very thought of confronting daylight without the veil of inebriation was agonizing. It was too painful. On his worst days, he prayed he would not wake up the next morning, yet fortune hadn’t granted him the escape.

Lifting the bottle of bourbon he had brought along with him on his impromptu ride through the wooded path, he pressed it to his lips and took a deep swig. The landscape before him twistedand rippled like a stream, and the cliffside to his right seemed to swerve menacingly close. Yet, he was indifferent to it all. Hewantedto feel wholly and utterly numb—and that required more of that liquid fire. He snapped the reins of his horses, tearing through another speed barrier. Maybe if they ran fast enough, he could escape the feeling of betrayal that ripped at his heart.

Memories flashed through his foggy mind. Memories ofher… Francesca. His beautiful, treacherous Francesca. He had been prepared to give her everything. His name, his protection, his fortune, his heart—yet, to her, nothing was enough.

And the night he had caught her entwined in the arms of Lord Townsend, kissing him furiously, had plunged him into a living nightmare. A nightmare from which he couldn’t awaken, no matter how hard he tried. A relentless torment, day after day, with no end in sight.

Constantly… constantly gnawing at his soul.

Joshua was so lost in his somber reveries and the haunting image that clung to him, that he failed to notice the sharp bend in the road ahead until he was nearly upon it. With a startled cry, he yanked on the reins, desperately trying to maneuver the horses around the turn. But the road, slick with rain and mud, betrayed him.

The carriage's wheels skidded and faltered, and the steeds let out twin shrieks of terror as the shaft connecting them to the carriage snapped, unable to withstand the violent lurch of the vehicle. Suddenly, the horses were tearing down thepath, dragging away a remnant of the carriage shaft with their reins trailing heavily behind them, while Joshua found himself careening in the opposite direction toward the cliff’s edge.

In a frantic effort to escape, Joshua tried to push himself off the carriage box but lost his footing and fell back, his head violently striking the metal backing of the seat. Pain exploded in his temple, and stars burst in his vision. He slumped over, struggling to cling to consciousness as the carriage continued to slide through the mud. Joshua did not realize he was slowing until the carriage almost miraculously came to a halt. Had he been saved? Had some divine entity reached its hand down and spared him a painful demise?

Joshua blinked into the dark and tried to clear the fog from his mind, but he was overwhelmed with the pain in his skull and could not pull himself entirely from its stupor. He was well aware he needed to climb out of the carriage, but he struggled to pull his limbs into motion. Perhaps he could just rest here a little longer and recover before trying to move again…

Right at that very moment, the carriage shifted ominously. Joshua, with great effort, squinted to his left. It was then he realized with a sinking heart he was perched on the very edge of the cliff… and the carriage’s wheels were beginning to slide, agonizingly slowly succumbing to the fragile, muddy cliff edge.

He needed to move. Needed to get to safety, yet his body felt impossibly heavy, his limbs feeling leaden. The seductive call to just close his eyes and succumb, to end the relentless pain and grief, felt nearly irresistible. And so he did, leaning his headback and letting his body slump in his seat. Perhaps this was for the best. It would bring his pain to an end, at least. Perhaps he should simply accept the fate he had been praying over for months. It would be so easy just to let himself fall…

The cliffside gave way completely, and the carriage began to topple over the edge. Joshua resigned himself to his fate, but just as he was tipping with the carriage to tumble over, he felt a force grasp the front of his body. The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on slick but solid ground. His head continued to swim, and his vision blurred as he fought to keep his eyes open. Had he fallen? Was he dead?

He had assumed death would be a lot more painful than it was… yet the only pain he felt stemmed from where he had struck his head.

Just then, a vague figure appeared over him with blonde hair cascading in wet strands around its face. Asparkleflashed in his eye. An angel. It had to be an angel.

Joshua could not make out the features of his saving angel. Her face was blurred by the rain, shadows, and his wavering vision.

He fought to remain conscious. Yet, as she tenderly caressed his face and hair, her soothing voice began to drift him into a deep slumber.

“You are all right,” she murmured in the sweetest voice he had ever listened to. “A wilting flower can still reach the sun. There is still time to right whatever wrongs you are running from.”

How could she know that? Shereallymust be an angel.

Joshua could not keep his eyes open any longer, though. He wanted to stay there in that moment with her and find out who she was, but he was quickly slipping out of consciousness, and there was nothing he could do to battle the exhaustion. Her gentle strokes on his cheek were the last sensation he felt as he drifted off into a sweet… black oblivion.

He woke with a start, letting out a shout as he sat up in a rush. A mistake he instantly regretted when his head began to throb. With a groan, he dropped his head into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut.

After several moments, the pain in his temple dulled enough that he could raise his head and open his eyes. Glancing around, Joshua was surprised to find himself in his bedchamber at Elmcroft. The curtains over the windows were pulled, and a fire was crackling in the hearth of the large stone fireplace across the room from him. It was warm and a touch stuffy, and yet he still felt a chill that made the hair on his arms stand on end.

He could not remember anything that had happened after the carriage had gone over the cliff. No… that was not true. He rememberedher. He remembered the angel who had saved him. Now that he was nearly sober and in a tolerable amount of pain, he could think more rationally. She had obviously not been an angel but a flesh and blood woman. He could not recall precisely what she looked like… only that she had blonde hairthat remained golden, even under the downpour of rain and the darkness of night.

He also remembered the words she had whispered in his ear.

“…a wilting flower can still reach the sun.”

What had she meant by that? Was he the wilting flower? Her cryptic words were nearly as intriguing to him as the woman herself. If he could figure out their meaning, perhaps he could figure out who she was.

As Joshua’s mind was racing with the possibilities of who his savior could have been, the door of his bedchamber creaked harshly, and his palms shot to his ears to dampen the pain. The butler, Mr. Warren, entered the room somberly.

When Warren spotted Joshua sitting up in his bed, the butler’s eyes widened in disbelief.