Page 1 of Her Temporary Duke (Rakes and Roses #2)

HAMILTON HOUSE, ESSEX

“ M ama, I simply cannot attend Viscount Stamford’s ball next week with my current wardrobe. It is simply intolerable ! No dress is not at least a month old, and nothing at all that I have not worn before.”

That was Emmeline Nightingale’s strident voice. It was inescapable, piercing the walls of Hamilton House. Charlotte Nightingale, Emmeline’s cousin, lowered the romantic novel that she had been reading before Emmeline’s disaster rocked the house.

“Of course, you shall, dear,” Judith, Emmeline’s mother and Charlotte’s aunt, said. “Henry, has a modiste been appointed to produce some new dresses for Emmeline and Alice?”

Charlotte closed her book, tossing back her dark curls.

She kept her place with a finger and stood.

The sitting room she had chosen for a quiet morning’s read was small, tucked away in what she had thought would be a quiet corner of the Nightingale house.

But Emmeline and Judith’s voices had come from just down the hall.

“Not my province, as you know. I leave that to you, my sweetpea,” Henry Nightingale replied to his wife.

His voice came from just outside the oh-so-temporary refuge that Charlotte had found. The door opened, and Henry started upon seeing his niece in the room. He held a book, a clay pipe in his other hand, halfway to his mouth.

“Charlotte, good morning to you. I did not see you at breakfast,” he greeted.

Henry resembled Charlotte’s late father in appearance. Both had strong jawlines, a bold nose, and hazel eyes. Henry lacked his older brother’s stature but shared the same dark locks, a feature Charlotte had also inherited.

“Uncle Henry, I was at breakfast. You were not,” Charlotte said with a smile.

“Oh, was I not? That’s right, I got caught up in an experiment. I was thinking of yesterday.”

“Last week,” Charlotte corrected, “I didn’t join the family for breakfast as I was visiting with the Dowager Countess of Beswick.”

Henry was already selecting a book from the bookcase that occupied one wall of the sitting room.

“Oh, very good. Now that you mention it, yes, I remember,” he murmured absently. “Hmm, have you seen my pipe?”

Charlotte smiled sweetly, plucked the pipe from her uncle’s top pocket where he had placed it moments before, and presented it to him.

“Ah, you are so very helpful and practical, Charlotte. Not at all like my own brood of empty-headed females.”

“I think I will take some sun while it is warm,” Charlotte replied, heading for the door.

Henry was settling himself, tamping his pipe, when his wife appeared in the doorway. He winced as she began to screech.

“I do wish you would take our daughter’s futures more seriously, Henry. They stand little chance of a good match if forced to attend social functions in rags. Like beggars!”

Charlotte could not quite control the grin that broke out on her face at her aunt’s hyperbole.

Aunt Judith was a tall, imposing woman with broader shoulders than her husband and a complexion that found glowering a natural and carried more than a hint of the Spanish.

There was a legend that her family was descended from a sailor of the Armada, washed up on the coast. Such legends were not spoken of in Judith Nightingale’s company.

She regarded her niece with narrowed eyes, pale blue and icy.

“Good morning, Charlotte . Was there something you wished to add?”

“Not at all, Aunt Judith. I was feeling sympathy for Emmeline and Alice’s deprivation,” Charlotte hastily put in.

Henry guffawed. Charlotte wished she had her words back. Uncle Henry was not a man to be politic in his reactions.

“I trust your wardrobe suits the coming engagement?” Aunt Judith asked.

“Well, I, too, have nothing that has not been worn many times before. And nothing newer than two seasons ago,” Charlotte began, wondering if she would be included in the trip to the modiste.

It would be nice, just once. When was the last time I had a new dress made for me? Or even attended a ball and felt that I was as pretty as the other ladies? Possibly my debut, and that was four years ago.

“Very good,” Aunt Judith snapped, turning back to her husband, “Henry, I will write to Mrs. Pumfrey of Castle Street in York and order half a dozen new dresses each.”

Charlotte slipped away, forgotten and chiding herself for the feeling of disappointment.

I am the third child of the household, not in age but in priority. Aunt Judith looks to her own daughters before her niece, and I should not let it hurt.

But it always did when the snubs came.

“Six! Good grief, they will only wear one for the ball, won’t they? Why do they need six and at York prices, too!” Henry exploded.

Charlotte hurried by as Alice came down the stairs.

“Would you rather I went to Mrs. Ashworth of Huntingdon? Or perhaps a seamstress from Kettlewick?” Judith demanded.

Alice had her parents’ dark hair and her mother’s ice-blue eyes. At the words she heard, her face fell.

“Did she just say a seamstress from...” she swallowed, “ Kettlewick ? A village woman?”

She clutched at Charlotte’s arm, causing her cousin to drop the book she had been trying to read.

“Please tell me that I misheard. Mama!” Alice cried out without waiting for an answer from Charlotte.

Emmeline appeared from a room down the hall.

She and Alice were as alike as twins, though Emmeline was eldest by two years.

Both were plump with round faces and bold noses.

Jean, the third sister, was the odd one out—both in appearance and the time she spent away from her family’s home in favor of her friend, Sally’s.

Emmeline scurried past Charlotte, stepping on her book in the process. Both sisters bustled towards the previously peaceful sitting room, ignoring Charlotte.

She picked up the book, smoothing out a page that had folded over when it had fallen. The conversation continued at full volume down the hallway, with Henry battling his wife and daughters over the cost of twelve dresses—eighteen if Judith included herself in the numbers.

Charlotte hurried past the staircase and around a corner, seeking the small hallway leading her to the kitchen and then out into the stable yard.

It was the quickest way out of the house.

As she reached the door, her eye was drawn to the portrait of her mother and father.

She stopped dead, eyes going to the place beside the front door where they had previously had a pride of place.

“Mr. Bartleby had the picture moved yesterday,” came a coy voice from behind her.

Lucy Robins, Charlotte’s maid, had quietly descended the stairs, her arms full of Charlotte’s laundry. She had fair hair, tied back, and a petite, freckled face with sparkling green eyes. Her mouth, always ready to smile, was pursed in concern as she looked at her mistress.

“Oh, did he give a reason?” Charlotte asked.

“That such a prominent position should not be given to a lord and lady not of this household. His lordship, your father, was brother to Lord Stockton and should be displayed further into the house,” Lucy said, her tone making her own views clear.

Charlotte used her sleeve to wipe dust away from the portrait.

“It is not my house; I cannot expect to make rules. But it is a shame. I always liked seeing them whenever I came in or went out,” Charlotte said sadly.

Lucy leaned in and whispered. “I had planned to come down in the middle of the night and remove it to rehang it in your rooms. It would be a nice surprise for you, my lady, and one in the eye for Mr. Bartleby.”

Charlotte laughed, won over as she always was by Lucy’s irreverent nature.

“I would appreciate that, Lucy. Now, I must escape that frightful caterwauling. I do not wish to be reminded that I will attend the ball in old clothes.”

“But will be twice as beautiful as those two even if you attend in rags, my lady,” Lucy said loyally.

Charlotte opened the door and took a handful of sheets from Lucy’s arms against the maid’s protest. She preceded Lucy along the hallway beyond, stopping before the door of the laundry room.

There, she handed them back, knowing that Mrs. Hannon, the housekeeper, would have apoplexy if she saw a lady of the household carrying laundry—even if that lady was Charlotte and barely recognized as such.

“I am going to find a quiet seat in the gardens to read this book you lent me,” Charlotte said.

“Very good, my lady. I will bring you out some tea,” Lucy nodded, “and I recommend page ten. Oh my, it made me blush. The hero is so like my Peter.”

“I shall pay close attention,” Charlotte giggled, “and I have not forgotten what month we are in. I have procured the day off for you in three weeks’ time.”

Lucy blushed and curtsied.

“You did not have to do that, my lady. But it is much appreciated. That day is always... difficult, even two years after the good Lord took him away.”

On impulse, Charlotte hugged Lucy, who blushed even brighter.

Charlotte walked into the kitchen, greeting the staff brightly and breezily.

Mrs. Hannon, bird-thin and iron-featured, responded with absolute courtesy while looking as though she were looking down her nose at Charlotte.

The cook, Mrs. Garret, jolly and roly-poly, pressed a hot bread roll into her hands and was reaching for a clay jug of milk when Charlotte held up her hands.

“The roll will be quite enough, Mrs. Garret. It smells delicious. There is no finer bread in Yorkshire, I do declare. Lucy will bring me out some tea in a while.”

“That will be one fewer roll for the family,” Mrs. Hannon sniffed.

“Of which Lady Charlotte is one,” Mrs. Garret pointed out with a wave of a wooden spoon she always had in her hand.

“Not Lady at all, Mrs. Garret,” Mrs. Hannon said with a raised nose.

“Daughter of the late Earl of Abbotsbury, without whose generosity this house would not have its fancy new wing and would be a crumbling ruin beside,” Mrs. Garret countered.

“I always said it was a mistake to join two households. The staff of Abbotsbury are not our sort.”

Charlotte excused herself as an age-old argument began again between the two women. She slipped into the stable yard and hurried along the path to the garden. Finding a bench under a bower of fragrant roses and lazily buzzing bees took a few moments. She sighed as she closed her eyes briefly.

Hamilton House has always been Bedlam! When my cousins are not arguing with each other, they are berating their father or the staff. Who wars with those who came with me from my parents’ house. A moment’s peace to escape is all I ask.

She opened her eyes and unfastened her book, finding her place, which was not too far from Lucy’s recommended spot.

The prose was tolerably written, though Charlotte believed she could have done better.

But the story of a rakish Duke redeemed by the woman who loved him touched her heart.

She could picture the handsome rake in her mind’s eye.

He would be tall and dark with a strong face and smoldering eyes.

“ Lady Janet swooned as Kenneth took her in his arms, giving way to the...” came a male voice behind her.

Charlotte jumped, dropping the book for a second time. She leaped from her seat and spun. Luke Hadlow stood behind the bench, having climbed the wall that backed it. His red hair framed a round, boyish face and a smile that rarely seemed to leave his lips.

“Luke! Whatever are you doing, scaling walls and giving me the fright of my life!” Charlotte exclaimed.

He hopped over the back of the bench to perch upon it.

“I saw you in the distance and thought I would surprise you. The wall wasn’t difficult to scale. And the effort was worth the look on your face.”

Charlotte stooped to pick up her book, brushing grass from its cover.

“Whatever are you doing reading such drivel?” Luke asked.

“It may not be Shakespeare, but it is a guilty pleasure I allow for myself,” Charlotte declared boldly.

“Hmm, I won’t tell my mother. She would be bitterly disappointed,” Luke said.

“Please do not!” Charlotte could not help laughing at the idea of the Dowager Countess of Beswick learning that the woman his son was courting read scandalous romantic fiction.

The woman he pretends to be courting anyway. Another secret to be kept from her.

“I also have this for you,” he held out an envelope, “it is for you, but was delivered to the Priory by mistake. I really must have a word with the postmaster at Huntingdon. This is the third time the post has gone astray.”

Charlotte took the envelope, feeling a thrill of excitement. It bore her name in her sister’s handwriting.

Finally, Amelia writes to me. She has never left it so long before. I was beginning to worry.

She opened it. Luke tried to read over her shoulder, possessing no apparent boundaries. Charlotte flicked his ear, and he yelped, sliding out of her reach. She grinned as she started to read.

“She is well and enjoying the season in London,” Charlotte read aloud, “she asks after me...”

“And me?” Luke asked.

Charlotte raised an eyebrow, scanning the letter. As she read on, she stopped, reading something she had not expected.

“Yes,” she said absently, “she does ask after you.”

Luke jumped from the bench and snatched the book Charlotte had put down to read her sister’s letter. He laughed as he flicked through the pages.

“When you write back, be sure to tell her...” he began.

But Charlotte did not hear. She re-read the part of the letter that she could not share with Luke. The part in which her twin sister asked to switch places with Charlotte for a month as they used to in their youth.

She wishes to come here and live my life for a while. And I go to London! Live with the Willoughbys! It has been so long since we did this last...

But as Charlotte read on, she began to sense a difference in Amelia’s words. Gone was the playful excitement that had presaged one of their previous switching adventures. Amelia’s words made her seem almost desperate.

Whatever her reasons, I will help her however I can.