One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)

“Oh, dear. I may vomit.”


Laurent passed her the basin. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d been ill on this journey. Nor even the second, or fifth. Apparently her unborn child didn’t enjoy coach travel any more than she did.

Afterward, he soothed her back. “Don’t be upset. I’ll find another buyer.”

“No, don’t.” She pressed her sleeve to her mouth. “I think it would be easier to see Briarbank razed than inhabited by another family. Sell it to Vinterre, and do it quickly.”

The sooner all the dealings were completed, the sooner Jack’s debts could be paid. And the sooner that happened, the sooner Amelia could return to Braxton Hall, pockets empty but heart undivided. She would set about convincing her husband that she was devoted to him, above all.

The coach made its creaking turn into Bryanston Square and soon lurched to a halt before the house. Laurent helped her alight from the carriage.

At the door, they were met by a wild-eyed Winifred. After sparing Amelia a brief nod, she latched on to Laurent’s arm. “Oh, thank goodness you’re finally home. I’m beside myself, utterly. We need to order more wine—whole casks of it, likely. And spirits for the gentlemen.” She pulled her husband into the house, and Amelia followed them over the threshold.

“The fish course is a horrid dilemma. Naturally this would happen on a Monday, when there’s no decent fish to be had for gold or silver. Naught but common oysters in the market.” Her voice pitched a half-octave closer to hysteria. “I can’t serve oysters to a duchess!”

Amelia laughed. “I shall do just fine with oysters, thank you. You’ve served them to me many a time before.”

Her sister-in-law turned to her, wearing a puzzled expression. “Forgive me, Amelia. But of course I didn’t mean you.”

Of course not. Amelia sighed.

Winifred’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Hampstead will be joining us for dinner. I’ve just received the note from one of my dinner guests, Mrs. Nodwell. Her cousin is married to Her Grace’s nephew’s adopted brother, you see?”

Amelia didn’t, but she nodded politely anyway.

Winifred turned back to Laurent, pulling him into the Rose Salon, where servants were removing porcelain cherubs from the shelves and pushing the furniture to the sides of the room. “Obviously,” she said, “I couldn’t decline. And then Mrs. Petersham sent a note round, asking if she might bring her cousins visiting from Bath. I couldn’t say no to them, either. And now these cards keep coming …” She gestured toward the row of calling cards propped on the mantel. “I do believe tonight we’re going to be overrun with Quality.”

“But …” Amelia shook her head to dispel her confusion. “At this time of summer? Why?”

“For you, of course! They all assume you and Morland will be in attendance. Everyone is desperate to see your first public appearance in London since the marriage.” She lifted an eyebrow. “There are some very interesting”—she pronounced each syllable distinctly, EEN-ter-est-ting—“rumors coming out of Oxfordshire, you know.”

A bittersweet smile curved Amelia’s lips. She’d known there would be gossip, after that display at the Granthams’. The memory of that night—the dancing, the lovemaking, the conversation and sweet embraces lasting into morning—it wrung her heart with surprising ferocity. The pain made her think of Spencer’s broken ribs. She hoped they were healing well.

Lord, she missed him, with everything she had.

Moving to the side of the room, she took a seat on a recently relocated footstool. “Well, I fear your guests will be disappointed,” she told Winifred. “I’m not feeling well enough for socializing this evening, and the duke is not even in Town.”

“But he is!”

Amelia’s jaw dropped. “He is?”

“Yes, he arrived this very morning in Mayfair, and the news has already appeared in the afternoon papers.” Winifred snapped her fingers at a footman. “Not there. By the window.”

Amelia quietly reeled, trying not to betray the magnitude of her shock. Spencer was here in Town? Could he have any idea of her own arrival? And what about Claudia? Where was she?

As Winifred went into another flurry of instructions for the servants, Laurent crouched at Amelia’s side. “Shall I have the carriage take you to Morland House?”

“No, no.” She couldn’t see him like this, not yet. She wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t even certain he’d want to see her. “I will send him a note.”

With a few more snaps of Winifred’s fingers, a lap desk and quill materialized before Amelia. The paper was a terrifying expanse of white. She was afraid to lay her pen to it at all, fearful of marring that blank perfection with the wrong word and mucking up everything again. In the end, she simply wrote:

I am here in Town, at my brother’s house. You are invited to dinner this evening.