An Improper Duchess

With a sigh, Melisande opened the book at the top of the pile. Lady Priscilla’s Escape—it sounded most appropriate. Soon she was pulled into the story of Lady Priscilla, a beautiful young heiress betrayed by her dastardly guardian and forced to flee into ruined exile in Italy.

Ruined exile...

Startled by a sudden flash of an idea, Melisande dropped the book with a clatter to the floor. It was crazy, she knew, but surely no crazier than many other ideas she’d had in her life. And certainly something had to be done if she was ever to be truly free—and in turn free her brother and his family from her. She was gossiped about now, true, but no more than any number of other ladies.

But what if she was truly, definitely ruined? “Never spoken to in Society again” ruined? It would be a challenge for a duchess, but not impossible. Everyone already thought that, because she liked to dance and laugh and drink wine, she must also be indulging in many discreet affairs. She wasn’t. In fact, the one little affair she tried after he duke died didn’t go at all well, and nothing else had gone much beyond flirtation.

Yet if she did want to be ruined, she knew who could help her. Lord Abercrombie.

Melisande frowned as she thought about him. Lord Abercrombie, a Scottish nobleman who was almost a contemporary of her husband, had pursued her for many weeks now. Sending her flowers and lavish gifts, which she sent back, asking her to dance with him at balls, dine with him in his theater box. He was handsome and wealthy, known for his lofty connections and razor-sharp intelligence. Women flocked around him, clamoring for his attention. There was always gossip about his latest amour, and it was said that Lady Evansly had tried to kill herself over him and that was why she had to go abroad so suddenly.

Melisande had turned away his attentions, which of course only seemed to make him more ardent. Somehow he made her feel vaguely queasy and frightened, as if she wanted to run away. But he would be the perfect one to ruin her utterly. Then she could go off to Italy like Lady Evansly, and live in peace at last. Charlie could disown her, and never have to see her again.

Lord Abercrombie had said he would be at Lady Brownley’s house party. She could plan it all and set it up there. It was a wild, extreme solution, but surely extreme was needed now.

If she could bear to go through with it...

Chapter Two

“Are you sure you are quite all right, Mel? You look terribly distracted.”

Melisande turned away from the carriage window to smile at her friend Cassandra, who sat across from her. Cassie and her husband, Ian, held hands, but they both watched Melisande with matching concerned frowns. Was her distraction really so evident? She tried so hard to always hide her true thoughts.

But now—now she was having a very hard time staying cool and calm. Her new, wild plan kept spinning through her mind.

“Mel?” Cassie asked again. “Are you well?”

Melisande laughed. Even to her own ears it sounded rather forced. “I’m quite well, of course, and looking forward to the evening. Lady Smythe’s routs always prove to be so amusing.”

“You looked a bit melancholy just now,” Cassie said.

“It must be the weather,” Melisande answered. “It’s so very cold, and I don’t think the sun will ever shine in London again. I think I need a sunny holiday someplace warm. That’s all.”

Cassie and Ian exchanged a worried glance, a wealth of words passing silently between them as it always did. Melisande was so happy they’d found such blissful love together, truly she was. They had longed for each other for ages before they married. But being with them now made her feel so terribly—wistful. If she was ruined, she would be free, but she would also never be loved like that.

“Tell me, my dears,” she said brightly. “Are you going to the Brownley house party next week? It should be so much fun.”

Cassie and Ian said they were not, and luckily Cassie went along with the superficial change of subject. Soon enough they rolled to a stop in front of Lady Smythe’s portico. The grand house, all shining pale gray stone in the snowy moonlight, was lit up like a magical winter fairyland. Golden light spilled from every window, along with the tumbling, lilting strains of music and laughter.

Melisande surrendered her fur-lined wrap to a footman, smoothed the skirts of her emerald silk gown and climbed the winding, gilded staircase to the ballroom. Cassie and Ian followed, whispering together. Melisande just hoped it wasn’t about her. She didn’t want them to discover her plan until it was too late.

As they were swept into the ballroom on a tide of people, she was suddenly glad for the familiar distractions of a party. Lady Smythe’s arrangements were always exquisite, and tonight was no exception. Like the outside of the house, the ballroom was like a winter’s fairy story, with tall alabaster vases filled with tumbling arrangements of white hothouse roses and crystal-dusted ostrich plumes. Everything was white and silver, just like the moonlight.

Cassie gave her another worried glance as her husband swept her away to the dance floor. Melisande just took a glass of champagne from the butler’s tray and toasted her friend before she was herself surrounded and carried off by a laughing group of friends.

There was no sign of Lord Abercrombie, but that was good. She needed time to devise her plan most carefully. After all, her future depended on it.

“Your Grace! I am so glad you could come to my humble soiree,” Melisande heard her hostess cry. She turned to find Lady Smythe smiling at her as she waved her white feather fan at the lady who stood just beside her. “You remember Lady Sanbourne, I’m sure. She was just admiring your beautiful gown.”

“Of course,” Melisande said with a smile at Lady Sanbourne. She was rather sure the countess, who had been a distant acquaintance since her marriage to Gifford, hadn’t been admiring anything at all. The Sanbournes were well-known as a strictly respectable, high-in-the-instep family, except for a younger son who was some sort of mysterious scandal, and Lady Sanbourne’s pursed lips and narrowed blue eyes said her opinion hadn’t changed. Melisande would always be questionable to people like her.

Especially once she was truly ruined. Then the Sanbournes and their ilk wouldn’t speak to her at all.

She bit her lip to hide a smile at the thought.

“So lovely to see you again, Lady Sanbourne,” Melisande said. “Surely you have been away from Town for some time?”

“Indeed we have, Duchess,” Lady Sanbourne answered. “Our estate has had a great deal of business, of course. But we returned to greet our younger son, who has just arrived back in England after a time in the West Indies.”

Ah, yes, the prodigal son. “How fascinating,” Melisande said. She didn’t think she had met the Sanbournes’ younger son, only heard those vague rumors about him, but she did envy him. He could run away to the West Indies without a thought.

“Oh, yes,” Lady Sanbourne said. She gave a doubtful frown. “But he can tell you about it himself. I persuaded him to come with me tonight.”

Lady Sanbourne turned to gesture with her gloved hand, and Melisande made herself keep smiling. Younger sons of good families, she’d often found, were a strange breed usually best avoided. They liked to dance and flirt—and proposition, as if they had nothing better to do with their time. Unless they went traveling, as this young man seemed to do. She did remember scraps of gossip now, gathered when her stepdaughter made her debut. He cared for nothing in his respectable parents’ world, causing trouble around Town, until he vanished. To the tropics it seemed. The usual sort of thing.

But her smile faltered when she saw the man making his way toward them through the crowd. He looked like no rakish younger son she’d ever seen. He looked like no one else at all she had ever seen.

He was tall and lean, but not thin—he seemed sleek and powerful beneath his well-cut dark blue coat and silver brocade waistcoat. His dark hair was brushed back from the chiseled angles of his face, but one wave of it insisted on being unruly and draping over his brow, which called attention to brilliant sky-blue eyes and sharp, high cheekbones. Those eyes were bright and aware, as if he saw and noticed everything around him.

Including—especially—her. He watched her as he came close and she found she could not look away. She felt utterly foolish, like a silly girl just out of the schoolroom giggling over the first handsome man she saw, yet she couldn’t seem to stop. There was something in that man’s eyes that just seemed to capture her.

What is wrong with me? she thought frantically. She tightened her grasp on her glass until it bit into her hand.

“Duchess, this is my son, Lord Grayson Sanbourne,” the countess said as he reached her side. She took his arm and he smiled at her, but he still looked at Melisande. “Grayson, this is the Dowager Duchess of Gifford. Her Grace was expressing interest in the West Indies, my dear.”

“That is very kind of the duchess,” he said, smiling at Melisande. It was an infuriatingly knowing smile, as if he could see her very thoughts.

As she smiled back at him, she found she very much wanted to know his thoughts too. But that charming smile of his gave nothing away.

“Perhaps we could talk about my travels over a dance later in the evening, Your Grace,” he said.

Dance with him? Melisande knew very well she should do no such thing, even as she also knew how foolish she was being. For a woman determined to ruin herself, she was feeling very missish indeed. But Grayson Sanbourne wasn’t a man like Lord Abercrombie, a man where she knew very well what was expected from her and what she could expect in return. One quick smile from this man and her world seemed to tilt.

That was dangerous, especially now.

“Thank you, Lord Grayson,” she said. “But I don’t intend to dance tonight, I think.”

“And you did promise to dance with Lady Branch’s daughter, don’t forget, my dear,” Lady Sanbourne said quickly. “In fact, we should look for her now...”

As the Sanbournes turned away, and Melisande was released from the force of Lord Grayson’s smile, she felt her shoulders slump and her smile fade.

What on earth had just happened?

* * *

Melisande. Such an exotic name for such an intriguing woman...

Grayson took a deep drag on his cheroot, staring out over the dark, cold garden as he hid on the terrace from his mother and her “suitable” debutantes. He needed the quiet moment to take a deep breath and think about her. The duchess.