Page 1 of Secrets of a Duke’s Heart (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #25)

CHAPTER ONE

M iss Clarissa Penfirth was laying on the settee near the fire with her feet tucked up beneath her—a thoroughly undignified, if comfortable posture—reading a treatise on land management when the door to her cousin’s study flew open and hit the wall with a bang. In burst a wild-eyed stranger with tousled sable hair.

“Sir!” she exclaimed, dropping her book face-down into her lap and pressing her hand to her breast. Her heart galloped like a startled horse. The stranger’s gaze slid right past her to where her cousin, Viscount Nathaniel Prescott, was already striding over to them.

“Monty,” he said warmly. “May I introduce Miss Clarissa Penfirth?”

“There is no time for pleasantries,” the intruder declared, casting her a dark look. “Send the lady away. I must have a word with you in private at once.”

Clarissa glared back at him. Dismissive prick. She knew she didn’t possess much in the way of feminine charms, but it was rare that she was ignored outright. Her hair was a shade of deep brown that didn’t exactly inspire poetic odes, her height several inches above average, and her figure on the plump side. Worse, she was wearing her worst dress, the unflattering one perfect for lounging about reading books about improving soil drainage and how to prevent one’s flock of sheep from overgrazing fields.

Still, it wasn’t often she was sent away. Unless one included her extended visit to Viscount Nathaniel Prescott, her cousin and childhood friend. He and her parents had conspired to get her out of the house and out of public view while her much prettier and younger sisters took their turns making their debuts. No one wanted her hanging about like a spectral spinster of unwedded misfortune.

She wasn’t even sure why she cared what this Monty thought of her. He was clearly an arrogant man who was used to issuing orders and getting his way. No one spoke to a viscount that way.

No one ordinary, anyway.

She tilted her head, pondering.

“My niece has been stolen by a pirate!” Monty shouted.

“Don’t be silly,” Prescott said. “There are no pirates in Cornwall.”

The glare Mr. Monty leveled at her cousin was so toxic it could have stripped paint off a wall. He fisted his dark hair and tugged, leaving it even wilder than before.

“We do have our fair share of smugglers,” Prescott conceded.

“Smuggler. Pirate. Same difference,” grumbled Mr. Monty. Clarissa refrained from correcting him that there was a technical difference, just as there was a difference between privateers and pirates. Her cousin would chide her for pedantry if she did.

Her lively intelligence was the main reason she had never attracted a proper suitor. Men liked pretty women who listened attentively, laughed at men’s jokes no matter how stupid or offensive, and didn’t speak. Clarissa had learned the hard way that men did not want a clever woman for a wife.

“When did the kidnapping happen?” she asked briskly.

“Just now. Not half an hour ago. He took her from the Cock and Bull tavern in town. Kidnapped her! Right out from under the noses of the blasted Waterguard!”

“Monty, you’re overwrought.”

“Of course I am overwrought! My niece is missing!” He cast a beseeching look at both of them. “I have taken care of Harriet ever since she was a baby. I named her. I was taking her to be married in Ireland.”

“Cornwall is rather out of the way for a trip to Ireland,” Clarissa observed. Nothing this man was saying added up. Despite his wild and abrupt manner, he intrigued her. Or, perhaps, because of it.

There was no use in denying the fact: she was bored. Although her cousin was a generous host, Nathaniel was busy with managing his estate, leaving Clarissa mostly to her own devices. Now, Mr. Monty had blown in like a summer storm and rained down more secrets in the span of five minutes than she had encountered all spring, and she was suddenly determined to uncover them all.

“Time is of the essence,” she said briskly. “Tell me what the Waterguard’s Riders are doing.”

“One of them rode to Polperro with a message. Two others commandeered a fishing boat to give chase. What happened after that, I don’t know.”

“Then there is nothing more you can do,” Nathaniel said easily. He tipped open the top half of a globe to reveal a bottle of liquor hidden inside. He poured two fingers and held it out to Monty. Clarissa’s conscience twinged when he accepted it with a shaking hand. He really was upset about his missing niece.

“There might be something,” she said slowly. Nathaniel froze with his drink halfway to his lips. He shook his head ever so slightly. She ignored his unspoken warning. “There is a couple who live a few miles from here, in a cottage that used to be part of the Prescott estate. I have heard rumors that the husband, Mr. Thomas Davies, was involved in smuggling before he set up shop in Cavalier Cove.”

“You shouldn’t pay attention to idle gossip.” Her cousin frowned. “Where did you hear this?”

“From Mrs. Gosling,” she said. “Your housekeeper.”

A muscle in Nathaniel’s jaw ticked.

“If there is any hope of finding information, we must go at once.”

Clarissa glanced down at her dress. “I need a moment to make myself presentable.”

“There is no time!” Monty roared. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“I don’t think it would be wise for me to go anywhere with a drunken bully, sir.”

He gaped at her. Clarissa smiled sunnily. Her cousin’s low chuckle prompted their visitor’s scowl to deepen.

“I am not soused,” he declared sullenly.

“I shall only be a moment, Thaniel,” she said, ignoring him and addressing her cousin by a nickname from childhood.

“Whenever a woman says ‘a moment’ she means an hour,” Mr. Monty grumbled.

“Not Clarissa,” her cousin said. “She doesn’t have a vain bone in her body.”

She did not take this as entirely a compliment.

* * *

Lord Jude Walsingham, the seventh Duke of Montague, huffed as that insolent mouse scurried off to change her dress. The amber liquid in his glass sloshed like a miniature sea ravaged by a storm. His hand shook, as did the associated arm. He was a furious and frightened ball of nerves, and he hated it.

“Drink up, old friend. I wasn’t joking when I said Clarissa would be quick.”

Jude scoffed. “She cannot know who I am or why I came here.”

“The secrets of the Wayward Dukes are safe with me. Without the Duke and Duchess of Cranbrook’s intervention, I might not have succeeded in my suit to reclaim the Prescott viscountcy.”

“Did your nefarious double get what he deserved?”

During the Wars, Thaniel—then a mere commoner—had been taken captive by Napoleon’s troops. A younger son, he’d been keen to join the army and had quickly risen through the ranks as a charismatic leader, but eventually his regiment was defeated and taken captive. During his imprisonment, a stranger bearing a strong resemblance to him had claimed the Prescott viscountcy after his older brother’s untimely demise in a carriage accident.

Nathaniel was Eleanor St. Giles, the Duchess of Cranbrook’s, great-grandnephew. She had rallied the Dukes to help free him from a foreign prison and evict the impostor—but not before he had nearly bankrupted the Prescott estate.

Jude had been too consumed with finding his own footing as a duke and covering up his younger sister’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy to be involved in the war, or the fallout from these events. The Montague name was to be cherished and protected at all costs. But he owed Nathaniel the news he had been sent to deliver, and Harriet’s wedding had proved to be a convenient cover to visit his friend in Cornwall—until she was kidnapped while he’d stopped to ask directions at a tavern in town.

He still couldn’t fathom it. Imagining the horrors his dear little Harriet might be enduring right now made his blood boil.

“He did,” the viscount said with satisfaction. “Transported to Australia. We will never see hide nor hair of him again.” He sobered abruptly. “Which is precisely the fate your niece’s kidnapper deserves. Clarissa can help.”

True to her word, the lady was back in record time. She had exchanged her sack-like pink dress that did nothing to flatter her appearance for a cream linen sprigged one. Pale green stripes marched down the skirt, elongating her curves and drawing attention to her elegant throat. The matching emerald spencer brought out the green flecks in her otherwise brown eyes. She was prettier than he’d thought at first glance.

“Charming,” he grunted. “Where are we going?”

She tucked her hands into her elbows—an unmistakable defensive posture—and started toward the door. “We are going to visit the owner of a cottage that used to be part of the Prescott estate. I have heard mention that the new occupant, Mr. Thomas Davies, was involved in smuggling.”

“Don’t you need a chaperone?”

“No one cares what Clarissa does with herself. She is a spinster and firmly on the shelf,” the viscount said bluntly. “Besides, you’re hardly leaving the property. No one will notice.”

A shadow flitted over the lady’s features. She smoothed her expression into one of placid pleasantry when she realized he was looking at her. Jude followed her outside. “That was a rude thing to say,” he mused.

“It’s true,” she shrugged. “I will be twenty-nine next month. I have been sent here to molder in the countryside lest my failure to land a husband blemish my younger sisters’ efforts this Season. I assure you I have no matrimonial designs upon you or anyone else, but if you need protection from an unwed lady, I can request a maid to chaperone us, Mr. Monty.”

She didn’t know he was a duke. He intended to keep it that way.

Dusk gathered on the horizon. As they strode briskly to the rear of the house and down the hillside, angry clouds hung low over the bay. Lightning flashed within the roiling gray mass. He found a measure of solace that nature matched his mood.

“The only thing I am liable to need protection from is the rain.” He sneezed. She set a brisk pace. The countryside here made his eyes water and his nose itch. He missed Acton Heath, his estate in the north. But he had a duty to fulfill and he could not return home until he had delivered Harriet to her intended husband.

“Tell me more about your niece’s marriage,” Miss Penfirth said, breaking his thoughts like a stray sunbeam through storm clouds. “Was she excited about it? Nervous?”

“Of course she was excited. She was on the shelf, too. Any woman would be relieved to find a husband after five fruitless Seasons.”

“Any woman?” his companion asked sharply. She kicked a pebble into the grass.

“Yes, any woman.” He ignored Miss Penfirth’s sharp sidelong glance. Tetchy. No wonder she hadn’t found a husband. “Particularly since she is fortunate enough to be betrothed to an earl.”

Guilt gnawed at him. Lord Lucarran was more than twice Harriet’s age and generally of a cantankerous disposition, but beggars could not be choosers. By any external measure, Jude had done well by his niece.

If Harriet had gone quieter than usual before their departure, and remained that way throughout their journey, wasn’t that merely a sign of a nervous bride? She would adapt. He knew she wanted children. She adored babies. But how much of this information should he share with the inquisitive Miss Penfirth?

“Not every woman wishes to marry into the aristocracy,” she said. “I, for example, would vastly prefer a mere mister. All those formal dinners and the public expectations.” She gave a delicate shudder. “Personally, I commend myself for avoiding matrimonial entanglements.”

Her self-congratulatory attitude rankled him. “I’ll allow there might be a rare exception. Whether you approve or not, I went to great lengths to secure Harriet’s engagement.”

“But did you consult your niece as to her opinion of the groom?”

Jude’s temple throbbed. Storms sometimes provoked headaches, but this was an inconvenient time for one to start. “What are you implying, Miss Penfirth?”

“I wonder, Mr. Monty?—”

“It’s Montague,” he snapped. He ought to have used his other name, Walsingham, but in the panic after Harriet’s abduction, he’d forgotten. He could only hope that she failed to recognize his distinctive title and take greater care not to give this observant woman any additional clues to his true identity. Harriet’s future depended upon his ability to keep this catastrophe a secret.

Thunder rolled overhead. Rain pelted the bay in the distance.

“Mr. Montague, is it possible that your niece ran off intentionally?” Miss Penfirth asked, picking up her pace.

“No, it is not,” Mr. Montague bit out as they strode quickly down the path.