Beneath the dukes orders.., p.1
Beneath the Duke's Orders: A Historical Regency Romance Novel, page 1
BENEATH THE DUKE’S ORDERS
A HISTORICAL REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
WHISPERS OF A DUCHESS
HANNA HAMILTON
CONTENTS
A Thank You Gift
Are you an avid reader?
Before You Start Reading…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Extended Epilogue
Preview: Her Mysterious Duke
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Also by Hanna Hamilton
About the Author
A THANK YOU GIFT
Thanks a lot for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to show me your love.
As a Thank You gift I have written a full length novel for you called A True Lady. It’s only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by tapping this link here.
Once more, thanks a lot for your love and support.
Hanna Hamilton
ARE YOU AN AVID READER?
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Join Cobalt Fairy’s facebook group of voracious readers and I guarantee you, you’d wish you had joined us sooner!
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BEFORE YOU START READING…
Our protagonist, Duke Kenneth, experienced a highly traumatic situation that will cause him to avoid forming attachments forever.
If you want to get a glimpse of the day his life changed forever keep reading!
Here is a Prequel Chapter about the day Kennet’s life changed forever which will help you understand and visualize the story inside my book better.
Many of my readers requested it and that’s why I am giving it away for free! I believe you will LOVE IT!
It’s not mandatory to read it but it will be really helpful if it’s your first time with this book.
Read the Kenneth’s Prequel Chapter here.
Just click on the image above! ⇧
ABOUT THE BOOK
“Follow these rules, wife. That is your only warning..."
Henrietta Everbright has embraced spinsterhood. Until a scandal forces her into a marriage with the man she despises...
Nobody dares to defy Samuel Brown. Except for his new wife, who seems determined to disobey his every order...
Samuel cannot decline the challenge of taming his unruly duchess. But as the sparks between them turn into affection, a devastating lie shatters everything...
CHAPTER 1
Although Henrietta Everbright kept tapping her foot in rhythm to the quadrille, her mind was elsewhere. Far elsewhere, like it always was.
She hardly paid any mind to the twinkling lanterns hanging overhead, the rich fabrics draped throughout the halls that created an ambiance of beauty and mystery, or the savory smell of rich foods on the tables in the open room behind her. After all, she wasn’t attending the ball.
Not really, not when she was trying to strategize her way through her next essay.
I will have to change my fourth point to my third since my second is rather weak. No one will take me seriously as a philosopher if I cannot offer at least three arguments for my point on Mary Astell’s mind-body union. What utter––
“Henrietta, really, we cannot have you glaring at every poor gentleman who dares glance your way,” came her mother’s tender but clearly aggravated voice. “Must you act as though you don’t wish for a husband?”
Turning her head, Henrietta frowned at her mother, the Viscountess Tenbooth, a regal-looking woman in her later years who was fanning herself as they stood near the doorway to the refreshments room. Supper had ended already. They had, at most, an hour to go before the evening would finally end.
The sunrise would soon be peaking through the clouds then. Henrietta didn’t care one way or another, since she had paid little attention to her surroundings.
Since their host’s library had been locked—as though knowing she had intended to hide there like she always did at these affairs—she’d had little choice but to join the crowd. Only one of her several siblings was in attendance, and it wasn’t as though she was still permitted to play pranks to pass the time. And spending the time with her mother and father would only serve to hear how much she was missing out on as a spinster. Her final option had been to retreat to her thoughts.
What else could I do? I don’t think anyone would be particularly happy if I brought a frog inside or pulled out my pistol. What dull lives we ladies live.
“Mother.” Henrietta strived for a kindly tone, since it was only the start of the Season and her parents were overtly anxious due to her father’s recent hip injury. “I appreciate your thinking of me. But I’m now six-and-twenty. I’m firmly on the shelf.”
“To most of them, perhaps, but not all of them.” Her mother offered a pointed smile. Her eyes, even bluer than Henrietta’s pale ones, gleamed in the candlelight with a certain eagerness that made Henrietta’s stomach churn. “You could still find yourself a fine gentleman. How nice it would be to have my four girls well and truly settled, don’t you think? I heard Lord Hampton may be looking to marry at last.”
A choked sound escaped Henrietta before she could swallow it. Lord Hampton was older than her father. She’d just attended the engagement party of Lord Hampton’s niece, Nancy Crofter, last Season.
“I don’t think he will be an option. I don’t want anyone, I told you. I wish to make my own way into the world,” she added pointedly.
Or at the very least to be well ignored and do as I like. Is that so hard to believe?
Stepping closer as a few folks passed them by, her mother gave a slight shake of her head. “I know it hasn’t been easy, my dear, but I wish you wouldn’t give up.”
The smile on her face twisted. Though Henrietta couldn’t see it, she certainly felt it. There was a particular message that her mother was attempting to convey, as if she was telling her it was time to recover from the incident of her second Season. But it was easy to say for someone who had not suffered in the actual incident.
“I never gave up. I simply never played,” Henrietta countered.
Telling everyone she had never cared to marry was easier than telling people she had once had such hopes, if deeply hidden and uncertain, only to give them up. Not even Madeline, her closest sister, understood.
With her desire for freedom from Society and men, Henrietta had redirected her attention elsewhere. She wished someone else in her life could comprehend this. Didn’t anyone aspire to anything more in their lives? Women were meant to be so much more than they were. If only she could convince them to read Wollstonecraft, then surely they would see everything differently.
Although she had come into her own money now, thanks to her parents who made sure she was set for life, Henrietta knew her father regularly voiced how substantial her dowry was. Her older sisters had all married well enough, so it was expected she would do the same.
Except I’m on the shelf. Worse, I’m a bluestocking.
The thought made her snort. Although her mother and Madeline regularly insisted she was stunning, Henrietta wore her spectacles with pride. While they helped her to see better, they had a way of making everyone else think her invisible.
“You really are beautiful,” Madeline had been saying just the other day while struggling into one of her normal day dresses that could barely fit, since she was quickly increasing. “Truly, Henrietta. You have the richest and thickest hair I’ve ever seen. And if you took off your spectacles, everyone would agree. You would have gentlemen lining up at the door for your hand.”
Such an idea only made Henrietta queasy. She had laughed instead, saying, “What should I do with so many useless men? Besides, the glasses are not the problem. I am as tall as nearly every man in London. At least, that’s how they act. And a gentleman’s pride cannot suffer such a thing as a tall bride.”
Tonight, in particular, I seem to tower over them. It appears we are missing quite a few in person, but I stand above everyone, besides Mother. Then all of the gentlemen as well, all except for Hillford, my brother-in-law, and…
Any hope of saving the last hours of the ball vanished as Henrietta found herself unfortunately looking at none other than Samuel Brown, the Earl of Sefton.
I am very glad Madeline married her Duke. But blast it all, why did she need to make peace with his friend? Lord Sefton is a miserable hound.
She didn’t like him. She never had. Since the moment she met him upon Madeline’s marrying, Henrietta knew the Earl was trouble. He was handsome, to be certain, and he used it as a weapon. His tongue, especially. Everything had to be his way; anything else was wrong.
In what? Henrietta remembered asking one night at another ball much like this one. Women are not tools to be pushed aside when they are not needed. We have skills and feelings like any other.
Then he’d dared to demand she stay behind when her own sister’s life was at risk. Afterward, he’d reminded her that her interfering could have caused more trouble. The two of them had hardly managed to stay in the same room since that evening nearly a year ago.
“Mother, why don’t we try some refreshments? The room is too warm, and you look flushed,” Henrietta said, her eyes still on Lord Sefton.
It was only so she might be careful, of course. That was the only reason she watched him. She had to steer clear of him. If not… Already she felt ire rising hot within her. The hand clenching her fan balled into a fist as she considered how she might address him if he dared come any closer.
And that was the trouble of it. He was coming closer.
“Oh, I do think you’re right. I am rather warm.” Her mother sighed. “You’re not going to dance anymore, are you? I’ll find your father, my dear, and we might as well be on our way. I think we’ve stayed long enough.”
Henrietta reached out. “Perhaps I should come with––”
Her mother had already disappeared into the crowd.
Sighing, Henrietta turned back toward the dancefloor. She had best disappear as well. Though she wasn’t hungry, she could hide by the refreshments table until a particular someone was far away from her.
“There you are.”
Henrietta whirled around to find that particular someone now standing in front of her. It was a small miracle she managed to clamp her mouth shut. She hadn’t realized how close he could appear so quickly.
She jutted up her chin at Lord Sefton. He stood a few good inches taller than her, but she did her best to look down on him. His black hair had recently been trimmed. And those green eyes of his glared at her as if she’d kicked his puppy.
Narrowing her own eyes, Henrietta feigned disappointment. “And tonight was going so well.”
“So well that you weren’t even dancing.”
“Neither were you,” she retorted before belatedly wishing she had asked how he knew that. But she couldn’t ask now. Biting her lip for a second, she huffed. “Why are you seeking me out if you find all women intolerable?”
As a couple jostled by them, Lord Sefton looked over his shoulder in distaste before being forced to come closer. She tried to move back, only to find herself pressed against the wall. This left only a few inches of space between them. Her heart pounded. She rarely spent any time around men, especially if they weren’t in her family.
“Speaking of women,” he said in a biting tone, “I seem to have misplaced mine.”
She blinked. “What?”
“My sister.”
That made much more sense.
Henrietta willed herself to relax. She fiddled with her reticule. Her small notebook and pencil were in there, along with a handkerchief and a few diamond pins, in case her hair needed some fixing. Oh, and her pistol. It was the smallest one she’d ever seen and something she carried with her at all times.
One needs to be careful, after all.
“Then perhaps you should take better care of her, My Lord,” Henrietta replied mockingly. “What, do you think I have her hidden away in my reticule? All I have in here is my weapon, to keep men like you at a distance.”
“You did not bring that––never mind that now. Where’s Winny? I saw the two of you together this evening. Thick as thieves, you were,” he pointed out. He pointed his finger at her before catching himself and crossing his arms over his chest. “You’ve been leading her astray for months now. I won’t have it. Where did she go?”
Mouth dropping open, Henrietta stared at him. “What do you mean, leading her astray? Winny is a bright young lady. The cleverest in her family, in fact.”
He huffed. “You’re not half as funny as you pretend to be.”
“And you’re not half as intimidating as you pretend to be.”
Twisting his head to look away, Samuel inhaled deeply, as if he refused to breathe near her. She watched for some reason she couldn’t explain. It was like her entire body was frozen still, waiting for his next move. Her heart hammered a hundred times in between.
The seconds ticked by until he spoke again.
“I know you know where she is, Miss Henrietta,” he ground out. She wondered whether his jaw would break if she poked his cheek. “You’re hiding something, I know it. Just tell me where she is, and then I’ll leave.”
“Already I told you that I don’t know, but you should still leave. Don’t curse us to a fate neither of us want,” she told him, before rolling her eyes as dramatically as she could muster. “I mean it when I say I don’t know where Winny is.”
At least, not exactly. Not precisely.
“You…” He stepped forward. There was heat in his gaze, and that twist of his lips. Her stomach made an odd jump when he closed the distance between them. She hastily ignored it. “You are a menace to society, Henrietta.”
Although Henrietta always envisioned herself as calm and collected, she found it nearly impossible when he was around. She leaned forward so that his hand, that finger again pointing at her, nearly touched her chest.
“Am I?” she asked him in a mocking tone. “It’s Miss Henrietta to you. We are not friends. I wouldn’t count us even as acquaintances.”
“Not voluntarily, at least,” he muttered.
She huffed. “You hardly know me, Lord Sefton. You most definitely don’t know women. You can’t even keep track of your sister’s whereabouts. Why do you think I would ever tell you anything you wish to hear? It’s you who are the menace. I was having a perfectly pleasant evening until you interrupted. And now? What are you doing, My Lord? Threatening me?”
It wouldn’t be the first time, but now she was prepared. She had something in her reticule to protect herself.
Except she didn’t think she would need to use it with him. Although Henrietta wanted to feel the cool metal of her weapon, she knew every reason why it would be a bad reason to bring it out. But for some reason, she found it rather unlikely for him to actually intend to cause her harm.
All they fought with were words. It was all they needed. No one dared last in an argument with her for more than a minute or two, besides her two nephews. And they only survived because she couldn’t say no to them for long. Not that Samuel was anything like her spoiled nephews.
She waited, but the Earl seemed to be… well, silent. He wasn’t saying anything. Unnerved, Henrietta couldn’t bring herself to do anything either.
The seconds passed. Her eyes narrowed as he continued staring her down. The more he stared at her, the more she felt she might go cross-eyed. He said nothing as he searched her gaze. All Henrietta could do was hope she wouldn’t give away a single secret.
“Trouble. That’s what you are.”
He spun on his heel and vanished back into the crowd.
Relaxing against the wall, Henrietta felt the tension in her shoulders ease. She breathed out again. The man was gone. There were no threats, no dares, nothing dangerous had happened. She thought she glimpsed him heading toward the small orchestra as she opened her eyes again.
She supposed that, in his own way, he was a good man if he cared for his sister so deeply. The two of them only had each other now, from what she understood. His care for his younger sister had to be his only redeeming quality, although he could be something of a brat about this.
Had he been about to threaten her? She wasn’t certain. If only she could have read his mind. Then she would probably understand more than she truthfully wanted to learn. Winny had tried to tell Henrietta a time or two about her brother. He was overprotective, since they had lost their parents some years ago, and then their grandmother in the summer.
While Henrietta supposed grief could push a person to be cold and stern and rude, she didn’t think it was an excuse for his behavior. He was a pest. One that insisted on making an appearance in her life much too often.
