Page 4 of Wedded to the Duke of Seduction

“Come now,” Lady Thornley soothed. “No one can prove anything. And the stories themselves are quite inspiring, don’t you think? My husband has been most attentive since I started leaving them on my bedside table.”

Their laughter faded as they moved away, leaving Marina alone with her conscience. The cool night air did nothing to ease the flush on her cheeks. She had justified her writing as harmless fiction, but Miss Ashworth’s fear had made it suddenly, uncomfortably real.

Still, what choice did she have? Without Lupton’s payments, she would lose everything—her home, her independence, perhaps even her place in society.

And there was a part of her—a part she scarcely acknowledged even to herself—that envied these women and their experiences. At least they had been with a man who had ignited their passion.

The sound of approaching footsteps sent her scurrying back to the ballroom. She didn’t want to be discovered eavesdropping.

Caroline caught her eye as she returned, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. Marina shook her head, not quite trusting herself to speak. How could she explain to her friend that she was now dancing at the same ball as one of her story’s unwitting participants?

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of forced smiles and careful conversations. Marina kept to the edges of the ballroom, safely surrounded by her friends. She couldn’t help noticing that Miss Ashworth’s face flushed whenever the topic of the Duke of Blackmere arose in conversation.

Eventually, her carriage delivered her home to Mount Street, the modest townhouse which was more of a sanctuary to her than her previous residence on Grosvenor Square.

Here, at least, she didn’t need to maintain the facade of a proper widow eternally mourning a husband who had never loved her.

Marina waited until the household settled into silence before retrieving her latest manuscript from its hiding place behind a loose panel in her writing desk.

The Duke of Blackmere’s proclivities, filtered through Lupton’s crude notes and her own imagination, had already fueled one tale that, based on the giggles and hushed conversation she’d heard in the garden, had already found readers. This new story in her hand would set the ton aflame with scandal.

The clock in the hall struck midnight as she donned her darkest cloak.

“I’ll return shortly, Betty,” she whispered to her maid, who waited loyally by the servants’ entrance.

The girl was the only one who knew of her mistress’ nocturnal adventures, and Marina paid her extra to keep that knowledge safe.

“Please be careful, My Lady,” Betty whispered back, her round face creased with worry. “The streets aren’t safe at this hour.”

“They are safer than poverty,” Marina murmured.

She drew her hood low and slipped in the darkness, the manuscript clutched to her chest.

The streets of London transformed at night, taking on a dangerous beauty that Marina knew well after the last year.

She clung to the shadows to avoid the occasional drunkard stumbling home from the gaming hells or the ladies of the evening practicing their own profession. In some ways, she mused, she was not much different from them—selling what she could to survive.

Marina approached the side door of Lupton’s printing house. A lamp burned in the window where his clerk worked late into the night to receive manuscripts from those like herself who preferred not to be seen during the day.

As her hand grasped the knob of the door, something made her pause.

She turned slowly, scanning the darkness behind her, but only saw a mouse scurrying along the edge of the building.

Still, as she entered the building and handed the clerk her manuscript, Marina had the strangest sense that something hadchanged, and she was setting in motion events that could alter her life forever.

CHAPTER 2

“Well, well. If it isn’t the prodigal duke himself. Welcome back to civilization, Blackmere.”

Leo’s mouth curved into a faint smile as he heard the voice of his oldest friend. The Marquess of Blytheton lounged at his usual table in the corner of White’s, a half-empty bottle of brandy before him.

“Blytheton,” Leo inclined his head as he joined Noah at the table, trying to ignore the hush that had fallen over the gaming room at his entrance. After all these years away from London, he expected nothing less. “I see you haven’t drunk the club’s cellars dry in my absence.”

“It’s not that I haven’t tried.” Noah motioned for another glass to be brought to the table. A young steward set a glass in front of Leo. Noah splashed some brandy into the glass. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Your last letter said you were in Vienna.”

“The trail went cold.” Leo’s jaw tightened, and he picked up his brandy and swirled it. His eyes stared into the amber depths as if hoping for divine information. “Our illicit couple have become rather skilled at disappearing just before I catch up to them.”

Leo’s fingers tightened around the glass.

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