Page 1 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

CHAPTER ONE

“Hugh? Hugh?! Where is that young man? Is he in the library, Perkins?”

Rebecca Vaughan, the Dowager Duchess of Redbridge, carried her eighty years lightly on a tall, straight-backed frame. Her grey silk skirt swished with the briskness of her step as she marched through Redbridge Hall, throwing open doors and peering into empty drawing rooms, games rooms, and studies as she went.

Now, after scanning the billiards room and finding it as empty as all the other rooms, she tapped her foot impatiently on the parquet hallway floor and fixed her powerful gaze on the butler, who had given only a nervous cough in answer to her question.

“Well, Perkins, is he in the library or not? As the butler, you of all people should know where your master is.”

“His Grace is not to be disturbed, Your Grace,” the anxious butler answered, placing himself very deliberately in front ofthe library doors as though to head her off. “I served His Grace brandy and a ginger biscuit, as he is accustomed to have at this hour of the afternoon. Then, we heard that there was someone at the door. As I left the room, he said that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances—”

The imposing silver-haired lady threw a stern hand in the air, disinterested in the butler’s extended narrative of Hugh’s afternoon. “I am not ‘any circumstances,’ young Perkins, am I? I hope I am not an unwelcome presence. I am the Dowager Duchess of Redbridge and the present Duke’s grandmother. I knew your father well, as he was a butler in our London townhouse when my husband was still alive. How is Mr. Perkins Senior faring?”

“I would never imply, in any way, that you are unwelcome in your grandson’s house, Your Grace,” Perkins said, his face a picture of confusion and conflicted emotions. “My father is faring very well in his retirement, thank you, although his rheumatism pains him in winter. He will be honored by your interest—Your Grace, please!”

“Please, indeed!” Rebecca snorted, rattling the brass handles on the locked wooden library doors, having stepped around Perkins to seize hold of them while he was speaking. “Hugh! This is your grandmother, and I know you are in there.”

“Perhaps His Grace has gone to sleep,” Perkins offered desperately. “I’m very sure we should not wake him so suddenly.”

“Well, I’m very sure that the Duke of Redbridge is avoiding all callers as usual and hoping that I’ll go away as soon as possible. Hugh? Where are you? It’s your grandmother. I will not be ignored!”

“Might I serve you some tea in the morning room, Your Grace?” Perkins suggested. “I could try to wake His Grace up while you wait in comfort.”

Rebecca snorted again. “This really is absurd. I have no patience for such games!.”

“I wouldn’t call them games, Your Grace.” Perkins defended his employer loyally, but in a quiet voice, evidently not wanting his words to carry through into the library. “His Grace genuinely seems to believe that… that…”

He bit his lip as the Dowager Duchess turned back and looked at him inquiringly.

“He believes what, Perkins? Believes that he’s under some supernatural curse that he fears bringing down on anyone close to him? Stuff and nonsense! It’s all very well avoiding Edwin and Georgina—that woman gets on my nerves, too. But I’m his grandmother, the wife of the tenth Duke of Redbridge. I won’t have it, Perkins. I will not! Hugh! Hugh!!”

Now the determined patrician lady banged on the door with her fist, loudly enough that no footsteps were heard from inside the library before the lock clicked and the doors suddenly swung open.

“I said I was not to be disturbed, Perkins,” the Duke of Redbridge snapped, his saturnine expression and tone further reinforced by the slim black mask that covered a portion of his face.

The butler quailed somewhat before his tall, black-clad figure, but the Dowager Duchess faced him with her hands on her hips.

“You may address me, Grandson, and not your butler. Perkins, you may return to your duties.”

“Grandmother.” Hugh sighed in resignation. He bowed respectfully to his grandmother and then waved Perkins away, who looked rather relieved. “I did not wish to receive guests this afternoon.”

“Who does?” Rebecca responded acerbically, her eyes showing her understanding, if a little sympathy. “Bad guests are a burden, and even good guests become an irritation when they overstay their welcome. Still, hospitality is the duty of every noble in Society. The Duke of Redbridge has a duty to receive guests.”

“That is as may be,” Hugh answered with disdain. “But I have no more time for these people than they have for me.”

“I’ll have no arrogance or self-pity, Hugh,” his grandmother warned. “Not in myself and not in any member of my family.”

“It’s the truth, not arrogance or self-pity,” he argued, stepping aside to allow her inside the library.

Instead of taking one of the indicated seats, the Dowager Duchess stopped in the doorway, reaching out to grip her grandson’s forearms with surprising strength.

Hugh looked back at her unblinkingly as she appraised him from his dark hair and the black silk mask he wore to the somber mourning suit that seemed his habitual dress.

The sunlight streaming through the library windows haloed his broad-shouldered body and lit up his partly-covered yet still-handsome features. His dark eyebrows were presently knitted in a frown above his deep blue eyes, and his jaw was firmly set, with determination more than intrinsic ill-temper.

“You’re a healthy and fortunate young man, Hugh Vaughan,” his grandmother pointed out. “Why on earth do you persist in shutting yourself away like this?”

“Fortunate!?” Hugh repeated with a bitter laugh. “You really call me fortunate?!”

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