Page 1 of The Duke's List

Chapter One

November 1820, Bocollyn House, Cornwall

Sidmouth sipped at his coffee,prepared just as he liked it, and stared out the window of the small, dark parlor at the far rear corner of Bocollyn House. When he’d insisted on taking breakfast there each morning, his housekeeper, Mrs. Smythe, had given him an odd look, but had complied.

None of the servants dared say a word, but they all knew. His Grace, the Duke of Sidmouth, had chosen to take his meals in the smallest, darkest room in his vast manor house because the window looked out on his stable master’s cottage.

He did not presently have a stable master, because he’d delayed replacing old Crofton who’d retired more than a year ago. That decision had come to haunt him now that he’d been bested by his duchess. Her Grace, the sultry and delectable Jane, had occupied the vacated cottage ever since she’d stormed back from their honeymoon that fateful night in Venice. He’d apparently not only burned a marital bridge but also chopped the damned thing up into small pieces and built a raging bonfire to consume it.

Across the way, in the stable master’s cottage, his duchess chirruped happily on with his cousin’s son and his ward, Nicholas, at her side, embarrassing proof of the cold ashes of his marriage.

Eight-year-old Nicholas, Marquess of Blandford, and his two slobbering monster mastiffs were temporary guests at Bocollyn. The boy’s mother, Lady Harriet, formerly Marchioness of Blandford, was spending time with her new husband, Lieutenant Bourne, on Sidmouth’s yacht,The Falcon.

His duchess and the boy had formed a mutual admiration society and played endless games of cards. He strongly suspected she was teaching Nicholas to be a Captain Sharp but could not for the life of him catch the two of them in any untoward tricks. He was allowed to join them at the cottage for supper each evening, but he had to return to his own abode at the end of his nightly drubbing at cards.

The previous night, his duchess had worn a blush-colored beaded silk gown that swayed and rustled with every move of her voluptuous body. It seemed as if each time he joined them for supper, Jane found yet another gown designed to drive him insane.

Once his cousin’s husband returned to his ship and she finally retrieved her tribe of boy, dogs, and their attics-to-let grandmother, he had plans for his duchess. He could barely keep from rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

But for now, he had to be satisfied with staring across his stable yard, like a hungry schoolboy standing in the rain outside a warm bakery with the smell of hot raisin buns heavy in the air.

Esther Smythe walkedinto the cavernous butler’s pantry and eyed the two separate tea services used by Their Graces. She preferred a dainty, porcelain set strewn with pink roses that had been used in the previous century, three duchesses past.

Sidmouth, the current duke, demanded solid, heavy pottery in a dark green that had originally been purchased for use in the lodge during the hunting season, when gentlemen gathered for tea or coffee. He insisted on cups he could cradle in his oversize hands without accidentally shattering them.

She and her mother had speculated endlessly about how long the current standoff between the battling Graces would continue. Her mother, who had served as housekeeper before her, now shared their cottage on Esther’s infrequent days off.

She’d been in service at Bocollyn all her adult life, just like her mother, and her grandmother before her. The wealthy, aristocratic generations of Dukes of Sidmouth had all led fairly boring lives, until the present title-holder.

Esther had grown up working in the kitchen where she’d watched, listened, and learned the business of running a huge house like Bocollyn. Working for His Grace, the current duke, had been relatively simple, since he was a good man, and easy to please. Most of the time.

But she’d never seen the like of what the household had evolved into ever since his unexpected marriage to his duchess months before.

He’d grown up on the ducal estate, boisterous, horse-mad, and never tiring of riding across his lands, talking to tenants and forever trying new ways to make Bocollyn’s farmlands more profitable. He’d never, to her knowledge, called on any of the local, eligible young women, nor had gossip of any serious alliances in London ever reached the far edges of Cornwall.

Mrs. Smythe, along with the rest of the staff, had often wondered aloud if the latest duke might never marry, but instead let the title go to his cousin’s son at his eventual death. The only constant female companionship in his life had been his cousin, Lady Harriet Blandford, who had grown up in the ducal nursery alongside Sidmouth.

She’d arrived one cold, wintry night from London, bundled up in the family carriage and accompanied by a wet nurse and Sidmouth’s father, the former duke. The elder Sidmouth had never spoken of the circumstances surrounding the child’s unannounced appearance, but the gossip below stairs was clear.

The former duke’s sister, Ariel, had been the talk of London when she’d run off to become an actress. Her subsequent string of failures followed by a stint as the mistress of a minor baron had produced the wee red-haired bairn with the same startling green eyes as that of the old duchess. Her parents had been married, barely, before her birth. Even as a wailing bit of a thing, she’d had an aristocratic lift to her tiny chin and a direct, piercing stare that brooked no challenges from the nursery staff.

But now, the new Duchess of Sidmouth resided behind Bocollyn House in the stable master’s cottage. She’d appeared as the duke’s bride-to-be without a hint of fanfare, or gossip. She was heiress to a vast fortune, the daughter of the owner of one of Cornwall’s most profitable tin mines. Old Arthur Lemon had called the duke to his bedside during his final illness, and after he was buried, His Grace had brought Miss Jane Lemon home to Bocollyn. They were married the next morning by special license in the estate chapel before leaving on an extensive honeymoon trip through the Continent.

Although most of the staff had wondered at the unnatural haste of the marriage so soon after the death of Her Grace’s father, there was no inkling of any other problem until the new duchess appeared unexpectedly one afternoon without the duke. She’d come to Mrs. Smythe’s quarters and requested her forbearance in finding suitable quarters for her within the estate, away from Bocollyn House.

To say that Sidmouth’s housekeeper been taken aback was an understatement. After the initial shock, the empty stable master’s cottage which had just been thoroughly cleaned after old Crofton’s retirement, immediately came to mind.

For a wealthy woman in her own right, Sidmouth’s duchess had brought surprisingly few possessions with her. The move of all her trunks to the cottage had been relatively simple, and Mrs. Smythe had to admit Her Grace was one of the easiest to please of all the duke’s family she had ever encountered.

Jane watchedNicholas try to figure out the workings of the whirligig she’d had one of the estate carpenters build for him. He was a wicked smart lad whom she’d miss terribly when he went away to school the following year. His fine green eyes he got from his mother and great-grandmother. But the unruly shock of ginger-brown hair reminded her of her stubborn husband, the duke, who, she was sure, stared at her at that very moment from across the stable yard. Their deadlock was probably providing fodder for no end of laughter in the servants’ hall at night.

She wondered what would happen to the two vigilant mastiffs who lay on soft blankets she’d provided for them near the fireplace. What would they do when Nicholas left for Eton? And then she thought of her now dear friend, Sidmouth’s cousin Harriet. From the heated looks she’d exchanged with her new husband and the nightly murmurings from their cabin aboardThe Falconwhen they’d all cruised along the coast, Jane would not be surprised if there were a new babe soon for the gentle giants to protect and worry over.

Nicholas suddenly looked up and gave her a direct stare. “Aunt Jane?” She’d encouraged him to use the title, even though the boy and her husband were actually second cousins.

“Yes, Nicholas?”

“Why don’t you live over at Bocollyn House with Uncle Sid?”