Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Bloomsbury, London
Late Spring 1878
A young woman in search of a husband should not go wandering the halls of Montague Club. This was particularly true if the young woman in question was only pretending to be a gently bred American heiress. Any hint of scandal could not easily be absorbed by a centuries-long family lineage that didn’t exist.
Eliza Dove knew that. She knew it in her bones. The problem was that, sometimes, once an idea took hold, she had trouble reining it in. Her bad angel always seemed to be more persuasive than her good angel.
This is how she found herself searching for the nearly imperceptible crease where the hidden door that would lead her to the club met the wall. The door was covered in wallpaper and made to look like part of the corridor. She wouldn’t have noticed it at all except she’d seen a man in livery pass through it only moments ago. Her fingertips slid over the wall, fingernails trailing over the scarlet-and-gold wallpaper in search of the break in texture. She found it right at the edge of a section of molding, exactly where she thought it would be. There had to be a way to open it.
Aha! Her thumb brushed against a gilded latch that was disguised in a section of gold pattern on the wallpaper. She very gently gave it a tug and the door swung toward her. Victory pumped through her veins, along with a fair amount of wine from dinner. She paused to make certain no one saw her and to give fate a moment to catch up and intervene. No one happened by, and the twinge of guilt that made itself known was so puny it might not have existed at all.
Camille, the Dowager Duchess of Hereford, was Eliza’s sponsor for the Season. The widow was engaged to one of the proprietors of Montague Club, Mr. Jacob Thorne, who just happened to live in an elegant home attached to the establishment. The couple had invited Eliza, her sister Jenny, and their mother over for dinner. Eliza had only seen the secret entrance because everyone was enjoying dessert in Mr. Thorne’s salon when Eliza had excused herself to use the facilities and went exploring on her way back to the group. She probably hadn’t been meant to see the servant using the entrance, but now that she had, there was no way she was passing up an opportunity to get a glimpse at a real gaming club.
What could it hurt to take a peek, especially if no one saw her?
She hurried through the doorway, making certain that the door shut behind her, and found herself in a service corridor. The narrow hallway was rather plain and unadorned except for gas sconces that dimly lit the space. Her excitement dampened, though it made sense that the corridor would exist if Mr. Thorne utilized the club’s servants for his own household.
Luckily, there were doors on the opposite wall, which she was certain would lead her into the club. Now that she had come this far, she couldn’t turn back without seeing something. The doors on this side had visible handles and were not camouflaged into the wall, since they needed to be seen and easily accessible for the servants who would likely have their hands full. Pressing her ear against the first door she came upon, she listened for noise. There were voices, but it sounded like revelry coming from deeper in the club. She slowly opened the door and peeked inside to find a very wide and extravagant hall.
It was like stepping into another world. The walls were white with opulent gilded molding broken up by swaths of scarlet wallpaper. The molding continued all the way to the recessed ceiling where each section was inlaid with gold. Fine paintings of landscapes lined the wall in either direction.
Like the infamous White’s, London’s oldest gentleman’s club, Montague was notorious for its card tables, smoking rooms, and extensive collection of priceless wines and whiskies. Unlike White’s, Montague allowed women into its membership. Eliza had hoped to step into a gaming room or, at the very least, a lounge with men and women draped about in various stages of discussion, debate, or debauchery. Any one of them would have satiated her curiosity.
But all wasn’t lost. While one direction led to a window that no doubt overlooked the street, the other way led to sounds of merriment. Male voices rose in excitement, likely at a gaming table. Other voices could be heard singing out of tune, but no one seemed to mind. They kept right on singing. She could see a railing not twenty feet away from her. She’d only take a quick look and then run right back to Mr. Thorne’s residence.
The secret door behind her had been made to look like the wall with panels of white wood obscuring the entrance. She made note of the location of the hidden latch and set off toward the railing. As long as she kept to herself and generally out of sight, no one would notice her. She only wanted to observe.
Eliza soon found herself in a gallery of sorts. It encircled the room below it, which was one of the gaming rooms. A quick look over the balustrade revealed the gaiety below. A crowd of mostly men, but a few women, gathered around tables playing various games. The table with the loudest spectators had a wooden wheel set into it. The wheel seemed to be divided up into many compartments with painted numbers in alternating colors of red and white. A man wearing an elegant evening suit spun the wheel. The small white marble made a feather-soft whirrrrrr, zipping around the circle of numbered compartments, and then the wheel slowed, stopped, and the ball-of-chance landed with a clink-clink-clunk in number twenty-two. Another cheer went up from several of the men while the others exclaimed in dismay.
She watched for two more spins, silently wagering on where the marble would land, but the stubborn wheel thwarted her every time. Finally, one of the patrons glanced up and caught her watching. He murmured to his friend next to him who also looked up at her. She might be impulsive at times, but she was no fool. When one of them stood as if he meant to come upstairs, it was her signal to go.
She sprinted to the secret door and hurried inside. When she pulled it closed, she was shaking with laughter at her own audacity. That might have been the most reckless thing she had done since she and her family had arrived in London.
Determined to make her way back to the residence without getting caught, Eliza turned to dart through the door that would take her back to the dinner party but ran into a solid wall of muscle instead. The impact nearly knocked the breath from her. The man grunted but didn’t move.
“Pardon me,” she said and backed up against the club door to create space between them. The corridor was very narrow, not large enough for two people to stand abreast easily.
The man didn’t say anything. In fact, he seemed to be leaning against the wall awkwardly, using it for support. He was dressed entirely in black with his hat low over his forehead, his jaw tight, his chin unshaven, his arms wrapped around his middle as if holding in pain.
“Are you injured?” she asked, but he didn’t respond.
Where had he come from? He leaned heavily against the door that would take her back to Mr. Thorne’s residence, but she didn’t think he had come from there. She had no clue where the service corridor might lead or how he had come to be in it or why he stood blocking her path. He wasn’t dressed like a servant. His coat was finespun wool, and his boots had a sheen that made them appear to be of the highest quality.
“Do you need—?”
Before she could finish, he moved, a sound like a groan rumbling deep in his chest. His steps took him down the corridor away from her, though he continued to lean on the wall. His hat fell to the floor behind him, and she picked it up.
“Your hat!”
He paused again, but she didn’t think it was because he had heard her. He rested his head back against the wall, breathing shallowly. When she took the few steps needed to reach him, he didn’t acknowledge her in any way. The light from a nearby sconce bathed his face. He was young, likely in his twenties; older than her but younger than Mr. Thorne. A thick shock of dark hair fell over his forehead. Pale skin was pulled tight over a face that was too coarse to be conventionally handsome but too interesting to be common. His eyes were closed in obvious pain.
“You are injured,” she said.
His eyes glittered when he opened them, but he didn’t seem to see her. They were glazed in a look she had seen once before. Years ago in New York, her mother had had a male friend over to visit. He’d spent the evening drinking and smoking a pipe that had left a sweet smell in the air. By the time he had left, his eyes had been glazed like marbles and he had regarded her without focusing on her face. This man’s eyes had the same look, but whether it was from intoxication or pain or some mixture of both, Eliza couldn’t tell.
The injury seemed to originate from his midsection, so she dropped his hat and gently attempted to open his coat. He allowed her ministrations by easing the grip of his arms, and she parted the wool and gasped aloud. He was shirtless. His chest was broad and solid with well-developed muscles. That alone might have been enough to surprise her under normal circumstances, but it was the gore that made her catch her breath. Streaks of blood crisscrossed his chest and stomach. There were knicks in his skin, but she couldn’t tell if those were the source of all the blood. Some of it had dried to blotches of black, but there were patches of crimson smears near his shoulders. His ribs were mottled with what would likely become bruises as the night wore on.
“You need a physician,” she whispered. The club must have someone on staff who could be called upon to handle medical issues. If not, then a doctor could be sent for.
The man only grunted in acknowledgment of her words and pushed forward. It seemed it took all of his concentration to stay mostly upright as he continued down the hall. She made to put an arm around him to assist him.
“No.” It was the first word he’d said and was spoken in a low and gravelly tone that gave her pause.
“I can help you,” she insisted.
“No.”
Standing upright again, she looked at him with growing annoyance. “Who are you?”
“Who’m I?” He might have laughed. She wasn’t sure how to interpret the chortle that barely made it out of his chest before he swallowed it. “I’m the Duke, milady.”
A duke?
He didn’t give her a chance to respond as he continued down the hall, his shoulder pressed to the wall to keep himself upright. This time an arm trailed behind him, exposing his scraped knuckles.
What had he been up to tonight, and what did he mean by calling himself that? He wasn’t a duke. Although his accent was decidedly English, it lacked the crisp drawl she had come to associate with the aristocracy. The word duke wasn’t spoken with the dj sound that so many of them seemed to use, and the words who and am had slid into one.
Light seeped in beneath the secret door that led to Mr. Thorne’s residence. Her good angel urged her to open, open, open that door. It would lead her to safety and to a life where a very well-qualified nobleman would marry her at the end of summer to gain her inheritance.
Her hand hesitated on the latch. Safe was almost always boring.
Sensing weakness, her bad angel rose to the task of leading Eliza astray and urging her to follow the strange man. He was already halfway down the corridor and a million miles away from the monotonous life that had been laid out for her. It would take her five minutes to find out who he was and where he was going. His destination couldn’t be that far. If she was quick, no one would be the wiser and her boring life would be waiting for her.
She followed him.
