Page 1 of His Abandoned Duchess

Chapter One

“Did you read this?” Her best friend Lady Charlotte’s voice echoed through the drawing room a bit too loudly, and the Duchess of Blackford winced.

Amelia’s—as she much preferred to be called—head ached overmuch, and she reached for her tea with tired fingers. The Season had only just begun, and Amelia already found herself needing to recuperate from an evening that stretched on too long—and a cup that flowed too much with the drink.

It wasn’t unheard of for her to be troubled in the morning during breakfast. Still, Amelia felt a twinge of guilt for being this worse for wear after only her third rout of the Season. Thank God above for the cool spring air that wafted in through the cracked window—and the lack of her husband’s presence——or she would most certainly have overheated even in her thin undress.

“Dear,” Selina, the Dowager Duchess of Soulden, chimed in, “you look so pale. Shall I send the abigail for more tea?”?”

Amelia nodded gently at her before switching her gaze up toward Charlotte who hurried into the room clutching papers, Magnus following soon after her.

As Selina requested additional refreshments from Amelia’s maid, Jane, Ethel perked up at Charlotte’s entrance, her nose for anything on dit picking up the scent of potent gossip from even just Charlotte’s few words.

“Here we go,” Isaac drawled from his seat across from us, and I smirked lightly at the roll of his eyes.

Unlike Ethel, daughter of the Viscount Mayfield, Isaac cared very little about whatever was reported in the papers about the latest pairings and events, filling his social calendar with only the gatherings and drums Amelia hosted there at Heartwick.

One of her oldest friends, the Earl of Ellingham, or Isaac as she always called him, was a very intelligent man and, seemingly as a result, had little time for “such drivel.”

“You must have a look,” Charlotte cut in, and Amelia took the offered papers while slowly rubbing her aching temples.

As she tried to focus on the words through the haze that still plagued her vision, Amelia noticed the scowl on Charlotte’s older brother Magnus’s face. He took up a spot near Isaac in one of the tufted, armless chairs, trying to busy himself with staring at the low flames casting gentle flickers of light on the caryatid figurines of the fireplace surround.

“Honestly, Sister,” Magnus whispered almost beneath his breath, “can you not give the woman a peaceful morning.”

“It’s quite all right, Magnus.” Amelia flicked the papers into a firmer stance, gripping the sheets tightly as she pulled herself up straighter. “Let’s see what all this about then, shall we?”

As she regarded what Charlotte had been so up in arms about, Amelia first realized that she did not hold a newspaper as she’d assumed. Instead, Charlotte had given her the scandal sheet, and her stomach clamped down, sending a wave of nausea through her.

“Halfway down the page, Amelia.” Charlotte turned to her brother. “And a true friend would show her the article at once, Magnus. Amelia must know about it.”

Amelia’s eyes scanned through the type that had been clustered onto the page haphazardly. Scandal sheets were not well-crafted presentations like the newspaper might be. Still, as Charlotte pointed out, about halfway down the page, Amelia found the source of all this uproar.

And her morning came to a screeching halt when she did.

Unable to keep herself from reading the words aloud, Amelia mumbled out the treacherous headline for all to hear.

“Duchess of Blackford, one Amelia Knight, seen foxed and in the arms of the Viscount St. Vincent.” The words finished, andAmelia’s lips spread wide in a disbelieving grin. “What on earth? They can’t possibly be serious.”

“Amelia, what else does it say? Are they questioning your status?” Selina’s brow furrowed as she leaned in over Amelia’s shoulder.

Rolling her eyes, Amelia straightened out the sheet once more and held it aloft. “I should hardly like to dignify the author by reading such a ridiculous piece of drivel, but very well.”

She found the piece once more with her tired stare, and Amelia put on a show of reading the ludicrous claims against her in a voice befitting the Banbury tale.

“This past evening, only just weeks after the start of the Season, the Duchess of Blackford hosted yet another of her drums; Heartwick Estate turned into little more than a gentleman’s club. Evidently in possession of too much of the blue ruin, the Duchess was entwined with the Viscount far more than any might claim to be with even a caper merchant.

“Has the Viscount been reduced to nothing more than a cicisbeo thanks to the Duchess’s plentiful libations, or is our Duchess little more than a doxy who has come up dished up and in dun territory and looking to fulfill the position of Duke as the proper man of that claim has never set foot in Heartwick since their arrangement day?

“The Duchess clearly attempts to gull both the Viscount and the Duke of Blackford. A hoyden to be sure, the Viscount could verywell be the ladybird of our here Duchess or at the least to be seen as one in a vain ploy to hasten the return of her leg-shackled Duke.”

Amelia burst out laughing, the utter absurdity of the words printed causing her to nearly burst the seams of her undress.

“Amelia,” Charlotte announced as Isaac snatched the scandal sheet out of her hand, “this is hardly a laughing matter. This is a serious claim against your fidelity. It could positively destroy your reputation.”

Wiping under her eyes to rid herself of the tears, Amelia looked between Isaac as he read over the article for himself and Charlotte, who narrowed her eyes so firmly toward her that Amelia was forced to swallow down the last dregs of giddiness that crept up the back of her throat.

While she understood Charlotte’s concern, the Duke of Blackford—her husband by paper alone—had been gone for some five years. Rumors had surfaced as they always had, and none of them had managed to bring the Duke home from the country.

---