Page 1 of His Duchess' Wicked List

CHAPTER 1

“Oh, Maddie! You aresonaughty! I did not think you had it in you!”

Lady Madeline Cole, second daughter of the Marquess of Ollerton, felt her face burning fiercely at her best friend’s words. Selina’s voice was high-pitched with surprise, but Maddie noticed the slight twitch of her friend’s mouth and the twinkle in her blue eyes, which suggested that while Selina might be a trifle shocked by Maddie’s list, she was also highly amused and entertained.

Maddie glanced quickly behind her. Her older sister, Lady Augusta Cole, was acting as their chaperone on their stroll through Hyde Park and was trailing behind them at a discreet distance. Maddie let out a silent sigh of relief. She was fairly sure that Augusta hadn’t heard Selina’s outburst at all.

In fact, her sister wasn’t paying them the slightest attention. Augusta was reading as she walked, as always, with her headburied in a small book, which Maddie knew contained the latest poems of the scandalous rake Lord Byron.

Her eyes slid to the side. Maddie’s lady’s maid, Jane, was also officially chaperoning the young ladies, but she was otherwise occupied as well, intent as she was on feeding the ducks in the river crumbs from a stale loaf of bread.

Maddie sighed again. Augusta and her lady’s maid’s distraction meant that she and Selinacouldtalk freely, without fear of retribution. And that was just as well, considering that their discussion was highly private. Maddie still couldn’t believe that she had plucked up the courage to show her best friend the list at all… but the cat was well and truly out of the bag now!

Selina was clutching the slim piece of paper in her hand. Her blue eyes were the size of saucers.

“I do not know why you are so very shocked, Selina,” Maddie said in a breathless voice. “After all,youare the one who suggested I write such a list, of all the things I would like to do in the next month before I must submit to the yoke of marriage with someone.”

“Well, yes, I did.” Selina tilted her head back, trilling with laughter. “But I thought you would perhaps write that you aim to read all of Shakespeare’s plays or some other such things.” She gripped the list tightly, waving it under Maddie’s nose. “I did not think you would write things like…this!”

Maddie sighed dramatically. “Really, Selina, do you think my future husband—whoever he may be—would never let me read again?” She shook her head. “The list is for things I will in all likelihoodneverbe able to do after marriage. Not in a hundred years!”

“I know that you wish to marry for love, dearest,” Selina said in a gentle voice. “Or that you at least want to be attracted to your husband.” She paused. “It might still be possible…”

“It is not likely,” Maddie grumbled in a glum voice. “This is my third London Season, not my first. Younger ladies are on the rise now. If I am not careful, I will end up a spinster like Augusta. And Mama will not toleratetwospinster daughters on her hands…”

“Oh, no,” Selina said abruptly, slipping the list back between the pages of the book Maddie had brought to disguise it. “Put on your best face, dearest. We are about to have company.”

Maddie turned around quickly. Two gentlemen were approaching them from the left, smartly attired in traditional morning garb, complete with top hats. Maddie vaguely recognized them, but she had always been terrible with names and titles, often confusing them utterly, to her mother’s eternal chagrin.

“Who are they?” she asked in a fierce whisper.

“Lord Babcock and Lord Gingham,” Selina whispered, rolling her eyes, as she adjusted the bodice of her gown, pulling ithigher. “They are two bores we met at the Vaughn soiree two weeks ago.”

“Oh, yes.” Maddie rolled her eyes discreetly as well. “But do not worry. I have a secret signal with Augusta if I am being accosted by a bore. She will intervene on our behalf.”

“Ladies,” one of the gentlemen greeted, smiling widely as he tipped his hat. “How utterly delightful to meet you here!”

Maddie and Selina both curtseyed politely, as custom demanded. Maddie seized the opportunity to glance covertly at her sister. To her relief, Augusta was watching them now, and with eyes as sharp as a hawk’s. As Maddie rose, she scratched her chin, ever so slightly. It was a gesture that no one would have noticed or thought anything about… except her older sister.

“You are enjoying taking the air, ladies?” the other gentleman asked, with a silky smile. His eyes raked over Maddie in a very obvious way.

Maddie’s mouth tightened.

He looks at me as if he is contemplating buying a horse at an auction.It is insufferable!

As Selina mumbled an appropriate response, Maddie tried to pay attention and be polite. But it was almost impossible. She despised small talk with mincing gentlemen, and she had done enough of it over the past three Seasons in London since herdebut. So much of it that she grew weary of eventhinkingof something inane to say nowadays.

She recalled her very first London Season, when she had such high hopes. She had been considered the Diamond that year, and in her second Season as well. As such, gentlemen were always flocking around her, vying for her attention. Her mother had said with a smile, on more than one occasion, that it was like watching bees buzzing around a honeypot.

Augusta was upon them. The two gentlemen gazed at her a little fearfully. Maddie’s sister’s reputation clearly preceded her.

“Gentlemen,” Augusta said in a firm, crisp voice, sounding quite like an authoritative hospital matron. “How can we help you?”

The gentlemen smiled at her weakly, looking unsure.

“We are just conversing with the young ladies,” one of them replied in an almost patronizing voice. “About the weather.”

“The weather?” Augusta sounded affronted. “You truly have no better topic to talk about than theweather? You have no opinions on politics, such as the latest war with France, or the problems that have arisen with the rapid state of industrialization in the north of the country?”

---