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  JILTING The DUKE

  RACHAEL MILES

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

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  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  CHASING THE HEIRESS,

  ABOUT THE THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  To Ted Dotts (1934–2015),

  for the grace of your company.

  To Jodi Thomas,

  for sharing your time, expertise, and knowledge with

  generosity, kindness, and good humor.

  I could not have had a better mentor.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book makes its way to readers without the kindness of many people, so many that I fear I will miss someone.

  I’m especially grateful to the following: my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for her instincts, patience, and general good sense, and Ingrid Powell, for her generous and insightful critique.

  At Kensington, I’ve been lucky to have a great cover designed by Janice Rossi and illustrated by Anthony Russo as well as engaging cover blurbs written by Erin Nelsen Parekh. But most of all, I’ve been tremendously lucky in my editor, Esi Sogah, for her advocacy, her articulate and perceptive commentary, and her questionable sense of humor.

  I benefited as well from a gracious and attentive group of readers: Cathy Blackwell, Celia Bonaduce, Leigh Bonds, Michelle Carlin, Ann Donahue, Stephanie Eckroth, Jean Kimball, Jeff Kinman, Veronica Rice, Lynn Rushton, Brandon Shuler, Tony Walker, and especially Lowell Rice.

  Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family who never questioned that I could do it and, as always, Miles, who reads everything well.

  Chapter One

  July 1819, London

  Who murders a dying man?

  Aidan Somerville, Duke of Forster, pulled loose the tight knot of his cravat. News of Tom Gardiner, Lord Wilmot’s death had arrived in London the preceding fall. But even after a year, Aidan had no answers, just suspicions. He only knew that he had failed his old friend—and continued to fail him—in not avenging his death.

  The streets were dark, illuminated at intervals by the dim light of street lamps low on oil. It was reckless to walk London streets alone after midnight. But the walk was short—no more than half an hour if he took the path across the park—and it couldn’t be helped. He’d sent Fletcher and his coach home hours ago.

  From the darkened alleyway ahead of him, Aidan heard muffled sounds of movement, and he stepped into the shadows. Waiting to see what trouble emerged, he wished—not for the first time—that he hadn’t gone to Lady Belmont’s salon. Her invitation included more than witty repartee, but he had felt nothing, not even male pride, when she’d let her hand linger too openly on his. And nothing later, when at dinner—during a rancorous debate on currency and the bank question—she had slipped a nimble foot up the inside of his thigh, then asked coyly whether he took pleasure in “the increased movement . . . of foreign markets.” Lady Belmont would have laughed if he had confessed that a dead man haunted his dreams. She would have turned it into a provocative game: “Ah, then, let us undress each other, my pet, and we will chase away the night until it is day.”

  Listening, he moved his hand midway down his walking stick; the solid brass knob on the strong ebony made an elegant weapon. Another sound, closer. He would feel foolish to come up dead after living through the worst campaigns of the Peninsular War. But perhaps his grave would be quiet, quieter at least than Tom’s. Aidan tightened his grip. Another low sound, just beyond the entrance to the alley. He tensed, a seasoned soldier ready for battle.

  From the alley, a large red fox trotted into the light. Aidan caught back a laugh. An old soldier alarmed by a fox. As the animal disappeared into the dark on the other side of the street, Aidan continued past the alley toward the park, his thoughts returning to Tom, a man so ill no one had expected him to live out the year. Others might think it a natural death, but Aidan knew it had been murder, just as surely as he knew who had done it.

  Tom’s wife. Sophia.

  The thought of her name twisted like steel in his chest. Even now, after the separation of a decade, her name still evoked desire and the memory of the supple warmth of her body taking him in. He felt her betrayal as a cold mass below his diaphragm, impeding his breath. If he could discover proof of Sophia’s treachery, he could avenge them both, himself and Tom. Yet despite Aidan’s inquiries, he knew no more than he had a year ago. He quickened his pace, as if exertion could exorcise his guilt, then crossed into the park.

  The night was beautiful, cool, with a hint of the evening rain still in the air. But the scent of something else, something heavy and florid, drew him into a section of the park lit only by intermittent moonlight. He knew the path well, for he often walked it when sleep wouldn’t come. It undulated gently along the side of the park, curving against the open iron fence separating the park from the street in front of his house. Each bank of shrubs concealed the next section of the path, and he always liked the surprise of reaching the end of one bank to suddenly gain the vista of the next.

  In the first section, banks of flowers, blooming white in the night, escaped their beds and crowded the path. Ipomoea. Without thinking, he remembered the flower’s proper name, and—without wanting to—Sophia’s hand warm in h
is, teaching him the names of the night-blooming flowers as they walked through her uncle’s gardens.

  Name it right, and I’ll give you a kiss.

  Will you not kiss me if I name it wrong?

  You’ll have to name it and see. But I’ll tell you a secret: If you drink in the scent when it blooms, like now, you’ll have visions and dreams while you sleep. And they always come true.

  I don’t need dreams. I already have you.

  Then he had kissed her, naming all the flowers by their botanical names in a line from her lips, down her neck, and to her breasts, and back to her mouth, until her kisses, sweet against his lips, turned mad with longing. In his youth and inexperience, he’d mistaken her fervor for love.

  He pushed the memory away. Had he taken her advice and slept, not in her arms but in the scent of the flowers, he might have known she would betray him. Instead, the wound she’d struck festered still, leaving him a future as bleak as his past.

  The moonflower’s scent was delicate, familiar, but not the source of the heady hyacinth-like perfume that pulled him deeper into the garden. Along the next curve of the path, the moonlight fell on a bank of tall flowers covered with whorls of white and pink blossoms. Their scent was so rich that its sweetness echoed on his tongue. He did not know their name, and he found their anonymity comforting.

  As he stood, he sensed the presence of someone, or something. At the opposite end of a long bed of flowers, a figure emerged out of the darkness into a pool of moonlight. The figure turned slowly toward him, revealing a woman in a long hooded cloak that fell almost to the ground.

  Her face came fully into the moonlight. He would have known her—the shape of her face, the contours of her cheeks—even if it had been pure dark. When her eyes met his, he felt trapped, paralyzed, as the body does at the end of dreams when not fully awake. He didn’t attempt to speak. She wasn’t real. Instead, he stood, fists clenched, his heart beating fast, waiting for her to disappear.

  She seemed unsurprised to see him, as if she had been waiting for his arrival. In one hand, she held a cutting of the plant, its white blooms still open. She lifted the other hand slightly, palm up. To welcome him or ask for forgiveness, he didn’t know. She paused, watching his face. Then she stepped back into the darkness.

  He knew not to follow.

  In the pool of light, a white blossom lay on the ground.

  * * *

  Sophia Gardiner, Lady Wilmot, kept to the darkest parts of the path, cursing. He hadn’t recognized her, she consoled herself. He couldn’t have. It had been too long, and she was much changed. Her face had lost the winsome fullness of youth, her lips had thinned with worry and determination, and her eyes carried the sadness of one who had long lived with death. But what if she were wrong?

  At the end of the park, her hands struggled against the latch of the iron gate, tearing the skin at her knuckles. She ignored the pain, looking over her shoulder into the darkness. Only darkness. The gate pulled free, but she forced herself to close it quietly behind her, lest the sound betray her escape.

  Past the gate, she needed only to reach the corner, then a turn would protect her from sight. His sight.

  She’d risked the night to see the Nottingham Catchfly—Silene nutans, she could hear her father correcting. They only flowered for three nights. That afternoon, her son Ian had brought her a spent white flower, asking her to name it. And she had been unable to resist the pull to smell its richness once more. The last time, she had been seven, her mother still alive. On each night of its blossoming, she, her mother, and her father had walked through the fields, until they reached the spot where the scent overwhelmed their senses. Afterward, they celebrated with savory biscuits flavored with rosemary and candied lemon peel.

  She turned the corner and leaned back against the cold wall, listening for the sound of his pursuit. But she heard only the hard beat of her heart.

  She had planned to propagate the cutting in her hothouse, then show Ian how the burgeoning buds heralded which nights the plant would bloom. She’d hoped the pleasure of the flowers blooming white and sweet might dispel some of the lingering sadness in Ian’s serious blue eyes.

  Had she imagined Aidan would find her in the park, at that hour, she would have stayed home for another year, or twelve. It wasn’t solely for mourning that she hadn’t ventured out; no, she’d stayed home to avoid the risk of seeing him again. Now her efforts had gone for naught, and at what cost? What would he do now that he knew she was back in London? She pulled away from the wall and walked swiftly to the alley that led to the mews behind her home. Before she turned in, she looked back. The street was empty.

  When she had seen him standing at the end of the row, she’d known immediately who he was. She felt the pull of his presence, tight in the depths of her stomach. How could she not know him? Memories of his lips, warm on her neck and shoulders, had never left her. Even on her wedding day, her thoughts had turned to him.

  She wiped unbidden tears with the back of her hand, then cursed herself for crying. But he’d been so beautiful, even with his face in the half-light, the shadows forming smooth planes below his cheekbones.

  He hadn’t spoken, only looked at her as if he saw through her. She wondered what he had seen in that long gaze: her guilt? her fears? her desire? But as he’d watched her, she’d known—if she hadn’t known before—that she would never be free of loving him.

  She would never risk visiting the night-blooming flowers again. Even though she’d promised Tom, she wasn’t yet ready to share her secrets with Aidan.

  Chapter Two

  Perkins dug in his shovel, loosening the dirt of the garden beds. “M’lady, which plants were ye wanting as a border for this bed? There’s plenty of boxwood.”

  Sophia looked from her plans to the plants from her country estate. “I want box as a border for the outer beds, but for these inner beds, I want a different texture. Lavender, perhaps?”

  Perkins wiped his brow with the back of his hat, leaving a smudge of dirt on one temple. “We’ve enough for this bed, and there’s more at the manor house.” At the wagon, he chose similarly sized lavenders to form an even border.

  Turning her attention back to her plans, Sophia saw the torn skin at her knuckles. She bent her fingers, the dull ache a reminder of her recklessness. There would be no consequences, she promised herself for the twentieth time. Aidan had not followed. He had not known her.

  For more than a year, she’d been plagued by a sense of foreboding. She had left London a bride not yet twenty and returned a widow not yet thirty. Buffeted by the salt wind as the ship approached the white cliffs of Dover, she’d knelt beside her watchful young son, drawing his shoulders into her side and whispering comfortingly, “This is England, Ian. This is home.” But she knew it wasn’t true. After the deaths of her parents, she’d never had a true home in England, only the unstable generosity of her father’s relatives. And the loss of Tom’s protective presence left her feeling hollow along her spine.

  But if England were not her home, she could make it a home for Ian, and home for both of them meant a garden. Each night after she kissed her dark-haired boy good night, she sat at her easel, drawing and redrawing the garden beds, then watercoloring each one to see how the plants would complement one another. Her estate manager, Seth Somerville, had sent so many plants from the estate that she wondered if he had been pleased to see her setting aside her mourning.

  Perkins, a laughing Cotswold plantsman with a gift for “growin things,” returned from the wagon and began setting the lavender in the bed.

  Sophia watched him work. She loved the planting. Seeing the flat paper of her watercolor designs transform into the depth and height of the plants gave her a sense of purpose. For too long she had felt like a tree struck by lightning, not dead, but never putting out new growth. She was afraid of disturbing that precarious stability, but perhaps—despite her encounter with Aidan in the park—she would find a way to take root and thrive here.

&n
bsp; “What goes inside the lavender, m’lady?” Perkins interrupted her reverie, his wheelbarrow empty. He stood, tucking the spade into the side of his belt.

  “My son asked for forget-me-nots, petunias, and marigolds . . . all in a jumble together.” She tucked a lock of walnut-brown hair back under the confines of her bonnet. “They were my husband’s favorites, and tomorrow is the anniversary of his death. I’d like to have this bed ready as a remembrance.”

  “Happy plants, those are. I will have the bed planted this afternoon.” Perkins pushed his wheelbarrow back to the wagon.

  As she watched Perkins move the marigolds, already blooming, into the wheelbarrow, Sophia recalled a long-forgotten memory. Ian, holding out marigolds in both hands, toddled toward her, with Tom, ever watchful, walking closely behind. Tom’s eyes had met hers, and they had both smiled. Struck by the sweetness and the sorrow of the memory, she felt her throat tighten.

  Perkins returned from the wagon, then looked past her toward the house. “Mr. Dodsley needs your attention, my lady.”

  Sophia turned to find her butler, all smooth propriety, approaching with a small silver tray. “M’lady, a note from Mr. Aldine. His messenger is waiting for your reply.”

  She recognized the plain, concise hand of her solicitor as she took the note, a single sheet folded to make its own envelope.

  “Also,” Dodsley continued, “Mr. Murray has sent another packet. I took the liberty of placing it on your desk in the library.”

  “Thank you, Dodsley. I’ll write my reply in my dressing room and ring when I am finished.” Sophia took her leave from Perkins, who was setting Ian’s garden into an orderly chaos. As she walked back to the house, she broke the seal and unfolded the note.

  “If her ladyship would be so kind, some pressing business requires her attention. I could visit her ladyship two hours hence, if she will be at home. Your most humble, sincere, and obedient servant, Mr. H. William Aldine.”