Only a Duke Would Dare Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Quote

  Copyright

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  Other Collette Cameron Books

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  From the Desk of Collette Cameron

  A DIAMOND FOR A DUKE

  Enjoy the first chapter of A DIAMOND FOR A DUKE

  ONLY A DUKE WOULD DARE

  Seductive Scoundrels, Book Two

  By

  COLLETTE CAMERON

  Blue Rose RomanceTM

  Portland, Oregon

  Sweet-to-Spicy Timeless RomanceTM

  “I’m not so foxed that I don’t know what to do

  with a beautiful woman in my arms.”

  Duke of Sutcliffe.

  Delightful, dazzling, and oh-so delicious.

  ~ Cheryl Bolen NYT Bestselling Author.

  ONLY A DUKE WOULD DARE

  Seductive Scoundrels

  Copyright © 2018 Collette Cameron

  Cover Design by: Kim Killion

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  ISBN eBook: 978-194798-687

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1947983694

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  A Waltz with a Rogue Series

  A Kiss for Miss Kingsley

  Bride of Falcon

  Her Scandalous Wish

  To Tame a Scoundrel’s Heart

  The Wallflower’s Wicked Wager

  Earl of Wainthorpe

  A Rose for a Rogue

  Castle Brides Series

  The Viscount’s Vow

  Heart of a Highlander (prequel to Highlander’s Hope)

  Highlander’s Hope

  The Earl’s Enticement

  The Blue Rose Regency Romances: The Culpepper Misses Series

  The Earl and the Spinster

  The Marquis and the Vixen

  The Lord and the Wallflower

  The Buccaneer and the Bluestocking

  The Lieutenant and the Lady

  Heart of a Scot Series

  To Love a Highland Rogue

  Highland Heather Romancing a Scot Series

  Triumph and Treasure

  Virtue and Valor

  Heartbreak and Honor

  Scandal’s Splendor

  Passion and Plunder

  Seductive Surrender

  Seductive Scoundrels Series

  A Diamond for a Duke

  Only a Duke Would Dare

  Boxed Sets

  Embraced by a Rogue

  To Love a Reckless Lord

  When a Lord Loves a Lady

  Stand-Alones

  Heart of a Highlander

  Earl of Wainthorpe

  Dedicated to every girl or woman who also reads while watching television . . .

  Yes, it’s possible to keep track of both stories.

  A special thanks to Kim Killion for ONLY A DUKE WOULD DARE’S gorgeous cover, Period Images for the exclusive image on the cover, to my daughter Brianna for helping me pick the cover models, my talented and oh-so organized assistants CJ and DF who do soooo much behind the scenes for me, and my editors Kathryn Davis and Emilee Bowling for polishing my story until it dazzles. A humble thank you to Cheryl Bolen for her cover quote, and thanks too, to Lana Lee Harmon-Bury for suggesting Acheron’s name, and to Paula Adams, Liz Mackman, Keri Smith, Virginia Smith, and Sherri Jordan-Stephens for helping me name The Blue Rose Inn at Essex Crossings. You are brilliant!

  Colchester, Essex England

  Late June 1809

  Twilight’s gloom lengthened the shadows in the old cemetery as Theadosia—humming Robin Adair, a Scottish love song certain to vex her father—wended her way through the grave markers and the occasional gangly rose bush or shrubbery in need of pruning.

  Having lived at the rectory her entire life, she found the graveyard neither frightening nor eerie. Those lying in eternal rest included a brother who’d died in infancy, several townspeople she’d known, and even a few gentry and nobles for whom Father had performed funerals. As children, she and her sisters and brother had frolicked amongst the stones and statuary, playing hide and seek and other games.

  Situated on the east side of All Saints Church to catch the rising sun each morning, the churchyard provided a convenient, often-used shortcut to the parsonage’s back entrance.

  “Why?”

  A deep, anguished whisper drifted across the expanse.

  Though she didn’t believe in ghosts and despite her velvet spencer, an icy prickle zipped down her spine, causing the hairs on her arms to stand at attention.

  Lifting her robin’s egg blue chintz gown with one hand, she paused and glanced around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. A plump, greyish-brown rabbit, enjoying a snack before finding its way home for the evening, watched her with wary, black-button eyes. After another moment of studying the familiar landscape, Theadosia continued on her way.

  She must’ve imagined the voice.

  The wind had whipped up in the last few minutes. Sometimes, the two ancient oaks acting as sentinels at the cemetery entrance groaned in such a way that the swaying branches sounded as if they were moaning in protest.

  Perhaps Jessica’s chickens had made an odd noise, Theadosia reassured herself as the wind lashed her skirts around her ankles. Situated on the other side of the parish where the vegetable and flower gardens were, the chickens often made odd sounding cackles and clucks.

  The empty basket that had held the ch
icken soup and bread she’d delivered to the sick Ulrich family this afternoon banged against her thigh as she resumed her humming, even daring to sing a line from the song since she’d inspected the area and her parents weren’t present to chastise her.

  “Yet him I lov'd so well—”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  The same tormented baritone rasped through the burial ground once more.

  That, by Jehoshaphat, she had not imagined.

  She stopped again and turned in a slow circle, trying to peer around the greeneries and headstones. Many were large and ornate, and she couldn’t see past the nearby stone markers.

  “I jus’ want to know why.”

  The rabbit froze for a second before darting into the hedgerow.

  A shiver tiptoed across Theadosia’s shoulders, and she swallowed against a flicker of fear.

  Come now, Theadosia Josephine Clarice Brentwood. You are made of sterner stuff.

  Besides, ghosts didn’t slur their words. At least, she didn’t think so.

  Gathering her resolve, she pulled herself to her full five-feet-nine inches and called, “Who’s there?”

  She squinted into the dusk. The voice had come from the graveyard’s far side. The side reserved for aristocrats and nobles.

  Another wind gust whistled through the dogwoods and flowering cherry trees bordering the cemetery’s north side and tugged at the brim of her new straw bonnet. She held it tightly to keep it in place.

  Once more, a mumbled phrase—or perhaps a sob this time—followed on the tails of the crisp breeze.

  What distraught soul had ventured into the graveyard at this hour?

  Visitors usually came ’round in the morning or afternoon. On occasion, they even picnicked amongst those who’d gone before them. Superstitions and unwarranted fears usually kept mourners away as darkness descended, however.

  Whoever the person was, they were in distress for certain, and Theadosia’s compassionate nature demanded she offer to help. Slipping the basket over her forearm, she strode in the direction she thought she’d heard the voice coming from. As she rounded a weeping angel tombstone, so old and discolored the writing could scarce be read anymore, she skidded to a halt.

  A man—a very startlingly attractive man—lay amongst the dead.

  Rather, surrounded by a low, pointed iron fence, he lounged atop what must be his greatcoat, his back against a six-foot marble marker. Even in death, the dukes and duchesses of Sutcliffe, as well as their immediate kin, kept themselves separated from the commoners—those they deemed beneath their illustrious blue-blooded touch.

  That was what the locals claimed, in any event.

  She’d never found the Sutcliffes uppity or unfriendly. A mite stuffy and formal, for certain, as nobility often were, but never unkind. Not that she’d spent a great deal of time in any of their company.

  Preposterously long legs crossed at the ankles and his raven hair disheveled as if he been running his fingers through it, the gentleman took a lengthy swig from a green bottle.

  Whisky.

  Father would kick up a fierce dust if he found out.

  The tanned column of the man’s throat, a startling contrast to the snowfall of a neckcloth beneath his chin, worked as he swallowed again.

  Something had him overwrought.

  As he lowered his arm, she widened her eyes.

  He’s home!

  Theadosia’s heartbeat stuttered a trifle as she raked her gaze over Victor, the Duke of Sutcliffe. Though she hadn’t seen him in three and one-half years, she easily recognized his grace.

  A wave of sympathy swept her.

  She also knew what tormented him.

  His father’s suicide.

  ’Twas his father’s grave he sat upon.

  Eyes closed, his sable lashes fans against his sculpted cheekbones, the duke lifted the bottle once more.

  “You didn’t even leave a note telling us why.”

  Theadosia wasn’t supposed to know the reason the seventh duke had hanged himself. Such things were never discussed except behind closed doors. Her Father, the rector of All Saint’s Church, frowned upon gossip or tattle of any sort.

  What she thought surely must be a tear leaked from the corner of his grace’s eye. His obvious grief tore at her soft heart.

  She shouldn’t.

  Her parents wouldn’t approve. In fact, Father absolutely forbade it.

  Biting her lower lip, Theadosia closed her eyes for an instant.

  She really, really should not.

  But she would.

  She couldn’t bear to see the duke’s suffering.

  Reservations resolutely, if somewhat unwisely, tamped down, she passed through the gaping gate.

  “Your father had stomach cancer. I overheard Papa telling Mama one day after your father . . . That is, after he died. Papa felt guilty for not telling you and your mother, but the duke swore him to secrecy, and of course he had no idea your father would . . .” Why people choose to keep such serious matters from their families boggled the mind.

  Eyelids flying open, his grace jerked upright.

  His hypnotic gaze snared hers, and yes, moisture glinted there.

  Her heart gave a queer leap.

  She remembered his vibrant eyes, the shade somewhere between silver and pewter with the merest hint of ocean blue around the irises. Not cold eyes, despite their cool colors. No, his eyes brimmed with intelligence and usually kindness, and they crinkled at the corners when he laughed. He’d laughed often as a young man; her brother James had been one of his constant companions whenever his grace was in residence at Ridgewood Court.

  “Cancer?” His eyelids drifted shut again, and he nodded. “Ahhh.”

  That single word revealed he understood.

  Mayhap he’d find a degree of peace now.

  “Thank you for telling me,” he said.

  “I’ve always thought you should know.”

  He should have been told years ago.

  Bracing himself on his father’s headstone, the duke maneuvered to his feet. With the whisky bottle dangling from one hand, he squinted as if trying to focus his bleary-eyed gaze.

  “Theadosia?” Uncertainty raised his deep voice higher on the last syllable as he looked her up and down, an appreciative gleam in his eye.

  “Thea, is that truly you?”

  Only her siblings and dearest friends called her Thea.

  His surprise was warranted. Mama said Theadosia had been a late bloomer. She’d almost despaired of developing proper womanly curves.

  She bobbed a half curtsy and grinned.

  “It is indeed, Your Grace. I’m all grown up now.” At sixteen—embarrassingly infatuated with him and possessing a figure a broomstick might envy—she’d believed herself a woman full grown. Time had taught her otherwise.

  The duke’s extended absence had caused a great deal of conjecture and speculation, and many, including her, wondered if he’d ever return to Colchester.

  She so yearned to ask why he’d come back after all this time, but etiquette prohibited any such thing.

  He hitched his mouth into a sideways smile as his gaze roved over her.

  “I’ll say you are. And you’ve blossomed into quite a beauty too. Always knew you would.”

  He’d noticed the thin, gawky girl with the blotchy complexion? She’d barely been able to cobble two words together in his presence.

  A delicious sensation, sweet and warm, similar to fresh pulled taffy, budded behind her breastbone. She shouldn’t be flattered at his drunken ravings. In fact, she ought to reproach him for his brazen compliment. After all, he was a known rapscallion, a man about town, “a philandering rake,” Papa avowed. Nevertheless, it wasn’t every day a devilishly handsome duke called her beautiful.

  Actually, rarely did anyone remark on her features.

  Her father frowned on the praise of outward appearances, which explained why the gentlemen he’d encouraged her to turn her attention to couldn’t be said to be
pleasing to the eye.

  The Lord tells us not to consider appearance or height, but to look at a man’s heart, he admonished Thea and her sister regularly.

  Easier to do if the man didn’t boast buck teeth, a hooked nose to rival a parrot’s beak, or a propensity to sweat like a race horse: the last three curates, respectively.

  His grace, on the other hand, was most pleasing to the eye. Oh, indeed he most assuredly was.

  Deliciously tall—perfect for a woman of her height—and classically handsome, his face all aristocratic planes and angles. Even the severe blade of his nose and the lashing of his black brows spoke of generations of refined breeding.

  Papa, a plain featured, thick man himself, had married a Scottish beauty. It truly wasn’t fair he demanded otherwise of his offspring.

  Why couldn’t he find a good-hearted and somewhat attractive man to woo his middle daughter?

  Was that too much to ask?

  But she knew why.

  Because a handsome face had turned his eldest daughter Althea’s head, and she’d run off with a performer from the Summer Faire. For the past two and a half years, Papa had forbidden anyone to utter her name.

  Theadosia’s heart ached anew. How she longed for word from her beloved sister, but if Althea had ever sent a letter, Papa hadn’t mentioned it. His blasted pride wouldn’t permit it.

  Even Mama, more tolerant and good-natured than Papa, didn’t dare remind him what the Good Book said about pride and forgiveness.

  Sighing, Theadosia ran her gaze over the duke again.

  James would be delighted when he came up from London next.

  “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Thea.”

  A charming smile flashed across his grace’s noble countenance as he bent into a wobbly gallant’s bow—dropping the whisky bottle and nearly falling onto his face for his efforts. He chuckled at his own clumsiness.