Page 1 of The Duke Says I Do
Chapter 1
Wapping, East End of London, April 1818
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Alaric Dempster, the fourth Duke of Granville, paused under the overhanging eaves while with utter dismay, he watched the scene unfold before him.
The woman was in trouble. With foolhardy gallantry, she faced down the hulking brute with an even more disreputable-looking mongrel on a rope at his side. It was clear as the lout crowded her toward a side alley that all the courage in the world wasn’t going to save her.
Alaric Dempster was praised as the perfect gentleman. He always did the right thing. From boyhood, proper behavior had been instilled in him. Proper behavior meant coming to the rescue of damsels in distress. He knew that. But by every saint in heaven, he wished that fate had presented him with a different damsel.
Portia Frain wasn’t giving up easily. She did her best to hold her ground. He gave her credit for that, if not for good sense. As he knew to his cost, Frain women weren’t overburdened with good sense.
He didn’t like her. She didn’t like him. She never had, even though he was accounted the most eligible bachelor in Britain. When his engagement to Portia’s sister Juliet ended in humiliation and scandal, he’d sworn that he’d never again have anything to do with that ramshackle family. He had no proof, but he’d lay good money that Portia was at least partially behind last summer’s disaster.
“Give me the dog and I’ll leave you alone,” Portia said with the dismissive self-confidence that always made Granville want to push her into a bush.
The commanding tone set the ruffian chuckling. Granville couldn’t blame the bastard for his contempt. Portia was tall for a woman, but in comparison to the bruiser, she looked minuscule.
“Now, why the dickens would I do that, pretty lady?”
To his regret, Granville couldn’t argue with that description either. Juliet Frain was a diamond of the first water. Portia, with her wheat-gold hair and sparkling blue eyes, might even surpass her older sister. It was a pity that she was such a firebrand. She’d frightened off most of the men who might want to court her.
She stood as straight as a soldier. Her valor only emphasized her fragility. By God, her opponent could crush her with one blow from those beefy hands. “I’ll pay you. I have money.”
Despite his growing fears for her safety, Granville couldn’t help rolling his eyes. Now she really was in hot water.
The villain accosting her saw that, too. Another knowing chuckle. “That’s good to hear. I’ll have that. I’ll have you. And I’ll keep my dog. A fine day’s work, I’d say.”
Even at the distance, Granville saw that she paled. Those ruler-straight shoulders tightened. She might be a fool, but she wasn’t so much of a fool that she missed the threat.
This had gone far enough. Noblesse oblige and all that. Sometimes the oblige part was onerous. This was one of those occasions.
Granville mightn’t like Portia Frain, but he couldn’t stand uninvolved while she was assaulted.
He stepped forward and put on his best ducal drawl. “I say, old fellow, let the lady go on her way. There’s a good chap.”
Two pairs of eyes leveled on him in astonishment. “G-Granville,” Portia stammered. “Where on earth did you come from?”
“Just passing.” Jolly lucky that he had been. These alleys near the docks were a maze where murder could – and often was – committed, the body dumped in the Thames, and no culprit ever found.
A chill rippled down Granville’s spine. Despite everything that rankled about Portia and her family, the idea of her beauty and spirit lost to a muddy grave made every cell in his body protest. She was a pain in the arse, but he didn’t want her dead.
“Right, with Sir Lanca-bloody-lot turning up, you can go on your way, flower,” the thug said, shortening the dog’s leash.
Thank the Lord, the man was willing to retreat, now that Portia had someone to defend her. Where the devil was her maid? Her coachman? Well-bred maidens didn’t wander around alone. Even in Mayfair. And right now, she was a long way from Mayfair. Wapping wasn’t the usual beat for aristocratic females. How in Hades had she managed to stray so far?
Granville took her arm. She was bristling. Outrage rather than fear, he guessed.
“Yes, come away, Lady Portia. This is no place for you.”
“I’m not leaving without the dog.”
“There are plenty of other dogs,” Granville said in the soothing tone that he used on his slow-witted cousin George.
“I want this one.”
Granville eyed the mongrel cowering behind the bruiser. An unpromising specimen of indeterminate breed with black and white patches. “I’ll buy you a dog. I’ll buy you two, in fact.”
