The Duke’s Seduction of Lady M

Prologue (#uf121cba6-d67d-54cd-a39a-f380f122f1cd)

To his heartfelt relief, the village hadn’t changed. Behind the neat row of cottages the fields were a sea of green. Cows grazed in one meadow, and green shoots of corn showed their heads in the next. The trees that fringed the fields were in bud, and along the verges wildflowers nestled amongst the sturdy tufts of grass. It was, Brody realised, the epitome of middle England. Mid-afternoon, it had a somnolent feel to it, as if it was waiting for something to wake it.

Or someone?

Him? He snorted and his horse shook its head so the bridle jangled, loud in the silence. Not likely, no one expected him.

Brody settled deep into his saddle and realised how much he’d missed it. All of it. The views, the tranquillity, the safeness.

Especially the safeness.

My land, my world.

People glanced at him with little curiosity as he rode along the tidy street, past the pond with its five resident ducks, one loud and bossy drake and several ducklings, and around the long-disused stocks, but no one spoke or waved. The maypole stood forlorn in the middle of the green, a ring of scuffed grass around it, a sign it was at times used well. But now? It was simply a pole, denuded of ribbons.

A heron took off with a squawk, and its long wings stirred the air. An old, white haired and whiskered man, unlit pipe in his mouth, sitting on an equally ancient chair outside one of the thatched cottages, pointed to the bird, but ignored Brody.

I could be invisible, Brody thought, wryly. I’ve done that. I don’t want it here.

The blacksmith came out of the forge, looked Brody over and decided he was no one he needed to acknowledge then went back inside.

Brody stifled a snort. This was his village, his people and he was unknown to them. Had he changed so much? A few years older, undoubtedly wiser, but still himself, surely? He shook his head. How would he know? After all, did he recognise anyone he saw? No. At that moment it was an alien land to him.

The door of the school opened with a squeak that pierced the quiet afternoon, and a young, dark-haired lady dressed in a deep blue gown emerged. He certainly didn’t know her but one swift look told him he’d like to. In every way possible. As she bent to pick up a large wicker basket from inside the school foyer and then shut the door behind her, her trim figure drew his attention like a lodestone. Brody slowed his horse and stared at her again, willing her to look up. Her gown clung to her contours and showed him a posterior perfectly rounded, and, when she straightened, pert breasts which from that distance looked to be exactly the right size to fill his hands.

For the first time in many a long month a certain part of his anatomy perked up.

Down boy, on a horse is not the place to make your presence felt. However he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman, and was hard pressed not to catcall after her.

Sadly – or perhaps luckily, judging by the state his body was now in – she didn’t so much as glance his way, but walked across the lane and turned into an alley beside the bakery.

Ignored again, by god. Brody on the other hand couldn’t take his eyes off her shapely body. She moved so confidently. Each stride showed a brief glimpse of a well-turned ankle and a sway of that shapely rear. He was a connoisseur of perfect ankles and bottoms. And legs, torsos and breasts. From his vantage point all her features looked more than up to scratch.

He hesitated and wondered how best to make an introduction.

Too late. The lady carried her basket in one hand, lifted the latch and turned into the side entrance of the bakery. The door swung shut behind her and she disappeared from view. In front of an interested baker and goodness knows how many customers was not the time or the place to show interest in a stranger, especially as he would have to tell one and all who he was.

Damn. I’ve lost my touch. Pray to god he found it again, and soon.

Who was she? Brody admitted sadly she might be a lady, but her clothes indicated she was no Lady. Trade? He had no idea, but if he tried to further their acquaintance he could see problems. Brody mentally shook his head at himself. By her very lack of attention to his presence, she was evidently someone else who wasn’t interested in him. It was a salutary lesson. He might be home, but he was now unknown. The story of his life for the last few years.

Brody had hoped that was over and done with, but it seemed not. Although here, even if people didn’t notice him, perhaps he didn’t have to be on guard? And maybe, just maybe, he could discover who the lady was. It was one thing telling himself to forget her, another thing to pay attention to his diktat.

Although, he allowed, as he left the village and set his horse to negotiate the hill up to the castle, it might be a good idea to find out who he now was, first.

Chapter One (#uf121cba6-d67d-54cd-a39a-f380f122f1cd)

Brody Charles Dominic Weston – the no longer quite so new Duke of Welland – never thought a homecoming could be so simple, so hard and, not to put too fine a point on it, so bloody tedious. Months of boredom behind him and goodness knows how many in front. He tripped over the stair runner, missed a step, came down on his arse on the tread of the next with a noise like a herd of cattle who had a full manger in sight, and swore loudly.

‘Wha…’

Three heads popped out from behind the green baize door tucked under the stairs.

Brody wheezed as all his breath was forcibly expelled, and blinked at the sight in front of him. Just like bloody jack-in-the-boxes.

‘Your Grace, are you all right?’ an under-footman asked anxiously as he hovered close by, obviously scared to haul his duke to his feet without permission.

‘Fine,’ Brody said with a tight-lipped smile. What else should he say? No, I’m half left? ‘I was thinking of other things rather than where to put my feet.’ Such as how, though ostensibly his now-widowed mama was overjoyed to see him – hale, hearty, and in one piece – she was the sort of woman who often expressed the feelings expected from her by society. Her real emotions weren’t so easy to guess.

Then there was the matter of how his interest in his estates wasn’t encouraged. That needs changing. He was no longer the profligate, rakehell rogue he had been before he had departed for foreign shores all those years ago. The day the man who must not be named had approached him, and offered him the chance to help the country, not ruin it, had been the best day of Brody’s life in many ways. War, however you fought it, had a tendency to make you grow up, face your responsibilities and discover what was important and what was not. It was that or die, and Brody had no death wish. Brody learned a lot about himself over the following years, and not everything was pleasant. However, he came out of those years a better – he hoped – person.

As a much younger man, Brody had not listened to his father when he spoke about his role in life – although how he wished he had. Now, he allowed his mama had good reason for thinking that if she let go of the reins he’d spend any monies the estate had in proliferate idiocy, on wagers and wenches. However, Brody knew he would not. Those days were long gone. Ever since he’d lost Mercedes, the love of his life, he had changed. Now he had his priorities correct.

Welland, and all it entailed, was top of the list.

‘Your Grace? Do you need help?’

Brody realised the under-footman still hesitated anxiously next to him. Plus the tweenie and the housekeeper were staring at him as if he might get up and turn on them. He counted to ten under his breath and stood up. ‘Truly, I didn’t even stub my toe. I, um… I’ll be in the billiards room for a while.’ By the disapproving look on all three faces – and why a tweenie should be disapproving of a Duke he had no idea – it wasn’t where they thought he should be.

Tough. I’m me, not my papa.

The late Duke of Welland had been a well-loved and respected member of society and Brody suspected he, the new Duke, had a hard job on his hands to convince people he could fill his father’s shoes. Especially when he’d been conspicuous in his absence, even though it had not been of his choosing.

Deep into spy and hostile territory, it had been days before Brody heard of his parent’s demise, by which time he reluctantly agreed it made no sense to show his hand and go home. It was decided by all involved – his mother most vociferously, he heard later – that it was better for him to stay where he was, incognito, and do his bit to defeat the Corsican. Even so, it would have been nice, he often thought, to have been given the option.

Enough introspection. Brody left the hall and marched down the corridor to the billiards room. Not that he wanted to play the game but in all honestly he had no idea what he wanted to do. He was, for the first time in many years, a man who had no idea what should come next. It was frightening.

‘I don’t want to play billiards.’ Had it come to this? Talking out loud to himself. ‘Brody, my man you are in deep mire.’

In more ways than one.

Once Bonaparte was behind bars and at last there had been no reason not to return to England, he’d made his way home. His brothers and sisters were euphoric because, as his youngest sibling told him earnestly, they were lost without someone to steer the family in the right direction.

‘Mama…’ his youngest sister – Murren – declared grandly, ‘… demands, not asks, and that puts people’s backs up. Especially mine.’ Rudderless, so to speak, they were adrift. Now they expected him to give them direction and help them make their way in the world. Which was all well and good except it was many years since he’d faced the ton, and really those memories didn’t tempt him to repeat the experience. At least his mama had understood he needed time to come to terms with his new status and had taken his siblings on a lengthy tour of her family. He hoped that was her intention anyway, when she’d said she was giving him breathing space before the assault on him and his single status began in earnest. With her, one didn’t always know.

Brody opened the billiards room door and walked past the table to unlock the door onto the terrace, and take several deep breaths. He couldn’t go on like this, purposeless and aimless.

Being alone at Welland, Brody had discovered he was at a loose end and with no hope of tying said end up to anything at all. He wondered if that had been what his mama aimed for, thinking he would then head to London and take his place in the ton once more.

If she had, her plot had backfired, spectacularly, because one thing he did know was that he had no inclination to head to the capital. The Season hadn’t started, Parliament was not in session and he had no intention to be pushed into the arena of husband-hungry debs and their mamas who had returned early to the city, or never left. Some things needed a wide birth, so at Welland he stayed.

He could understand why his parent doubted his intention to take over the dukedom, and run it in the proper manner, she had no reason to think he’d changed his attitude. Brody accepted he’d not been in the best of fettle when he returned, exhausted, heartsick and grieving, but even so, she hadn’t let him show her who he now was. Surely she could give him the benefit of the doubt? Just a little.

Get some air. Brody made his way across the terrace and headed for the paddock behind the stables. A groom nodded and doffed his hat as he passed him, but nothing was said. The new Duke it seemed was an unknown quantity who no one wanted to test.

‘Are you wantin’ your horse, Your Grace?’ Evidently the groom decided something had to be asked by way of acknowledgement.

Brody shook his head, relieved to at least have some normal interaction with someone. ‘No thank you, just some air.’ What was the man’s name? Not to know, was a crime.