Page 1 of If the Duke Dares
Chapter1
Weston, England, August, 1814
The windows of the small sitting room of the Weston Hotel provided a sweeping view of the beach below. Persephone Barclay and her sister, along with their four friends, spent most of their afternoons there, having commandeered it for the month of August for three years running now. They sipped tea, read from books and newspapers, and shared everything.
This afternoon, they were missing one of their number, Persephone’s younger sister, Pandora, as she had consented to walk with the Earl of Banemore. Bane, as he was known, possessed a rakish reputation, but he’d proclaimed himself enamored of Pandora, and she was wholly in love with him—or so she’d confided to Persephone.
Persephone knew from experience that infatuation was not love, and only time would tell which of those Pandora was truly experiencing. She’d counseled Pandora to be cautious with the earl, but her sister was so wonderfully giddy that Persephone had also supported her desire to spend time with him.
Their walk would be chaperoned by Persephone and Pandora’s mother, the Baroness Radstock. A stiff and demanding woman, the baroness was positively ecstatic that the heir to a dukedom was courting her daughter.
The door burst open, and Pandora hurried inside. Her pretty, heart-shaped face was red, as were her eyes. She looked like she’d been crying.
Persephone leapt up from the settee she was sharing with Min—Lady Minerva Halifax, daughter of the Duke of Henlow. “Pandora, what’s happened?”
“Utter disaster.” Pandora buried her face in her hands and cried.
As Persephone put her arm around her sister and guided her toward the settee, Min jumped up and closed the door. Helping Pandora to sit, Persephone kept her arm about her, hating the way her sister’s shoulders were shaking. Whatever had happened must be truly awful for her to be reacting so poorly.
Min sat down on Pandora’s other side, putting her hand on Pandora’s back and murmuring words of comfort. With sable hair, delicately arched brows, patrician features, and pale gray eyes, Min was the embodiment of a proper Society miss, though she hadn’t yet had a London Season. Her gaze met Persephone’s with sympathy and concern.
The entire room had fallen into a worried silence except for Pandora’s sobbing. After a few moments, Pandora drew a ragged breath and wiped her hands over her eyes. “Forgive me, I’m completely overwrought.”
“Please tell me this isn’t Bane’s fault,” Persephone whispered, though she feared it was. The man, for all his declarations of admiration for Pandora, possessed the reputation of a cad. He flirted with anything in a gown and supposedly frequented a specific brothel in London called the Rogue’s Den. It was, apparently, where Society’s most elite gentlemen went for their bed sport.
Pandora sucked in a breath and nodded. “I don’t understand. He said he loved me.”
“What happened?” Min demanded. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to make sure he’s out of the Grove by nightfall.” The Grove was her father’s house situated just outside town. Min, along with her companion, Ellis Dangerfield, spent every August there. Min’s older brother, the heir and Earl of Shefford, came and went during the month with various friends, including Bane. This year, they were joined by the Viscount Somerton, cousin to another of their friends, Tamsin Penrose, and Lord Droxford, a surly gentleman who seemed oddly aligned with the more jovial trio.
“He may be packing to leave even now. Or his valet is, probably.” Pandora sniffed. “Everything was going so well. Then Mrs. Lawler saw us…together.”
Persephone’s gut clenched. “Together how?” she asked in a low tone.
Pandora flicked her an apologetic glance. “Embracing. I suppose it was a…compromising position. That’s what Mrs. Lawler said anyway.”
“What did Mother do?” Persephone was afraid of the answer and surprised she’d allowed Pandora to come here to the sitting room.
“She wasn’t there,” Pandora murmured, her eyes full of regret. “I didn’t tell her about my excursion with Bane.”
Persephone stared at her sister. Pandora had lied when she’d said the baroness knew and would chaperone. It had never occurred to Persephone to confirm anything. She trusted Pandora to do the sensible thing. Pandora had not, however, done that. But Persephone couldn’t blame her because she knew what it was like to be swept away by emotion and arousal. However, when it had happened to Persephone, she hadn’t been caught.
Min met Persephone’s gaze over Pandora’s head, silently conveying that this was not good. Persephone knew that, but she would hope it wouldn’t be a disaster, as Pandora had said.
“I wish my mother were at the Grove,” Min said. “I would ask her to speak with Mrs. Lawler.”
“Would she?” Pandora said hopefully. But then her face fell. “It doesn’t matter since your mother isn’t there.”
“A compromising situation isn’t the end of the world,” Tamsin said from the other side of the room. At one and twenty, she was just a year younger than Persephone. However, her youthful appearance—wide blue-green eyes and soft, round cheeks—and her relative isolation in Cornwall made her seem even younger. She spent August in Weston with her grandmother, who lived in a charming cottage near the beach. “My great-aunt was compromised. They simply got married, which had been their intent anyway.”
Persephone feared what Pandora would say next.
Pandora’s mouth tightened, and anger stole into her expression, lighting her eyes. “Bane will not marry me. After Mrs. Lawler saw us and admonished him for compromising me, then congratulated me for ensnaring a future duke.” Pandora twitched and wiped away a tear before continuing. “Bane responded that he was, regrettably, already betrothed to someone else. He apologized to me—profusely, not that it mattered—and I ran away.”
Rage ripped through Persephone. She’d never wanted to do harm to another person, but in that moment, she would gleefully have watched Bane suffer any number of tortures. “If I were a man, I would call him out. If I could shoot, I would call him out.”
Min slapped her hand on the arm of the settee. “The scoundrel! He must be forced to marry you. I’m going to speak with my brother at once.” She stood, as did Ellis, who was seated in a chair angled near the settee.
Ellis, who at four and twenty was the oldest of their unofficial club, looked to Pandora with sympathy. “I’m so sorry for what’s happened. Men can be absolutely awful.”
