Proposing to a Duke: A Regency Romance Novel (Regency Black Hearts Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  Thank you for reading

  CHAPTER ONE

  Proposing to a Duke

  Claudia Stone

  Copyright © 2017 Claudia Stone

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  To my sisters, for all your patience with me.

  Chapter One

  Horace St. John Linfield, the fifth Duke of Blackmore, had been referred to as “The Bachelor Duke” for most of his life. That is until, after many years at sea with the Royal Navy, he returned to his Ducal seat of Blackmore, Bedfordshire, to find that the nephew who was set to inherit his title, was not fit for purpose. Not fit at all.

  “He writes poetry Rowley,” his Grace spat, after the diabolical meeting with Dudley Linfield, his heir apparent; “And he wishes to travel the continent learning how to paint.”

  Rowley, Blackmore’s ever faithful valet, who at sixty-nine was but one year younger than his master, raised his eyebrows in horror.

  “Oh dear,” Rowley said – this would not do. The Blackmores were an ancient, military family; they could trace their lineage back to the Norman conquest. Every generation of Blackmore men since William the Conqueror’s reign, had left the fields of England rusty red with the blood of their enemies. Not one had written a poem, not even a ballad or a nursery rhyme, and they most certainly did not paint.

  “I shall have to fetch myself a wife.”

  The Duke of Blackmore’s mouth was a grim line. He instructed Rowley to fetch some parchment, and began to dictate his requirements.

  “Young,” he stated, which Rowley duly scribbled down; “Of good stock, wide hips, a comely face – and a sizable dowry.”

  The Duke of Blackmore scratched his chin, wondering if there was perhaps something else he should want in a wife, but having covered what he deemed “the essentials”, he could think of nothing else besides what he had already requested.

  “That is all Rowley.”

  Once the list was decided, the order for a bride was sent to Blackmore’s man of business in London, who delivered the young woman in question to Bedfordshire not a fortnight later.

  Tabitha “Tibby” Beaufort, the new Duchess of Blackmore was the third daughter of Lord Beaufort, Earl of Wells. She had just turned eighteen, and was quite the beauty, with soft blonde curls, china blue eyes and unblemished porcelain skin. She arrived at Blackmore Manor shaking with fear and nerves, her mother’s promises that a man of Blackmore’s age would have no desire for much in the bedroom ringing in her ears.

  Her mother was quite wrong.

  With the steely determination of a man who had conquered nations on behalf of his King, Blackmore set out nightly to beget himself an heir. Tabitha, much horrified by the bedroom gymnastics her septuagenarian husband was performing, wrote to her mother beseeching her advice. A curt note arrived a week later, in which mother instructed daughter to stand on her head after his Grace had finished his business - to allow gravity to aid in conception. And so, after two months of rutting – as the Duke called it, and headstands that left the Duchess red faced, a child was conceived.

  “All looks healthy your Grace,” said Dr Elliott, a dashing young surgeon brought down from London to confirm the blessed event.

  “Can I still be expected to perform my wifely duties?” Tabitha asked, a blush rising prettily on her cheeks.

  “Oh there’s no harm for the minute.” Dr. Elliott blustered; “In fact, it’s believed to be quite healthy for both parties to engage in regular exercise -”

  Dr. Elliot was cut off by the small, white hand of the Duchess curling around his wrist, with alarming strength for such a petite girl.

  “I beg of you doctor,” Tibby said, gazing up at him with eyes as blue as the Cornish Sea; “Do not tell my husband that – tell him I am not to be disturbed for the whole of my confinement.”

  Dr. Elliot, being a Cornish man by birth, was rather taken by the blue-eyed beauty, so he chivalrously informed the Duke that his wife was not to be disturbed.

  “I will attend to her personally your Grace,” he solemnly swore.

  And so, the nine months of Tabitha’s confinement, locked away in the west wing of the Manor being attended to by Dr. Elliot, were to be the happiest months of her marriage.

  On the first day of December, 1784 Tibby felt the first stabs of labour pain. The whole house was thrown into chaos. For twelve hours, she labored in the West wing, while her husband knocked impatiently on the door every five minutes to inquire if a boy had been sighted.

  “If you don’t stop bloody knocking I’ll stuff him back inside me to spite you, you miserable bast – arrrgh!”

  These were the first words that Robert Horatio Linfield, now the Earl of Bedfordshire until he inherited his father’s title, heard as he made his debut into the world.

  “He looks just like one of those monkeys that we saw on our expedition to the West Indies, ay Rowley, what do you think?”

  This was the Duke’s first observation upon viewing his new-born son.

  “Your Grace, I could not comment,” Rowley replied tactfully – though in truth the little lad was rather hairy.

  Little Robert, in his bassinet, stared up at the two wizened faces above him, scrunched up his small face – and gave a sneeze that shook the whole of his tiny body.

  “He’s sickly!” said his Grace aghast. All the work he had put in to acquire an heir – and now it appeared on deaths door. It would not do.

  “I shall have to have another one Rowley.”

  “A spare your Grace?”

  “Indeed.”

  And so Tibby, who had thought herself safe from her husband’s amorous advances, soon found herself nightly performing handstands once again to beget a spare heir for his Grace.

  The day that Lord Edward Wesley Othello Linfield was born was the day that the Duchess moved into the west wing of Blackmore Manor.

  “I have done my duty to you twice,” she told her husband with a sniff; “Which is more than most women would have done.”

  And so young Michael grew up in a house where his parents communicated by handwritten notes and maids came-and-went almost fortnightly - though these are small things which often go over a child’s head.

  Michael was a solemn young man, whose coloring favored that of his father’s - dark hair, blue eyes, while the little Lord Edward was an angelic vision, with blond ringlets and a sunny disposition. Both boys were schooled by a stern-faced governess called Mrs. Porter, who had helped to raise the children of seven of societies more notable families. Their father engaged in ad-hoc tutoring lessons on the duties that the Blackmore family owed to the estates they owned, the crown, government and the House of Lords.

  “Is there any need for Edward to do these lessons your Grace?” Rowley asked one afternoon, while secretly wondering if there was any point in either child doing them as Edward was but three years old and Michael only four.

  “That one’s poorly Rowley,” the elderly Duke sai
d with a disapproving rasp, pointing a finger at the stout, ruddy faced Michael - who stared back at his father with a somber expression.

  Ever since Michael could remember his father had been predicting his demise or despairing of his “frail” health, and all this left Michael with a strange feeling in his throat, like something was stuck. When he had shared this feeling with his father, instead of finding reassurance, Michael had found himself paraded before every physician in both London and Bath. They had peered down his throat, poured vile tasting drinks down his throat, poked wooden sticks down his throat and forced him to say “Ahh”…

  All this had made Michael sure of one thing - life was much easier when you didn’t speak.

  “What say you boy?” the old Duke rasped, annoyed, as his lesson on the Enclosure Acts came to an end.

  Michael said nothing, while Edward - being only three - clapped and banged the table for no reason.

  “Argh I’ve bred two simpletons,” Blackmore said in annoyance before giving a phlegmy cough and dismissing his two young sons with a wave of his hand; “Off with you both before I fetch my whip.”

  Michael took his younger brother’s hand in his, and both boys toddled off to the kitchen to find Cook, the only person in the household who appeared to understand that the most important thing in the world was not crop rotation, or the Blackmore line - but sweetmeats.

  It was later that night, when he was wandering the dark corridors of the Manor with a stomach-ache, that young Michael became the Sixth Duke of Blackmore.

  He hadn’t intended it of course..

  A chink of light fell onto the floor of the landing from the door to his father’s library which was ajar. The sounds of banging and moaning could be heard from within.

  Was someone attacking his father?

  Puffing out his chest, young Michael ran forward, pushed the door open and roared at the top of his lungs “Stop!”

  “Gah!” was the response that greeted him, elicited from the old Duke - who appeared to Michael to be busy attacking the new maid, who seemed to have lost all her clothes.

  “Gah,” the old Duke said again, a hacking cough causing his whole body to convulse, before he fell - with a thud - to the ground.

  “You killed him,” the young maid whispered after a moment’s stunned silence, in which woman and child had stared agape at the half dressed corpse of the Duke.

  “I-I-I-I-I…”

  Michael struggled to form the words to protest, as the lump in his throat seemed to become even bigger.

  “You did, you killed him,” the maid continued in a mean whisper, straightening her clothes about her; “You came in here shouting like a mad man and you killed your Papa.”

  In later years Micheal would understand that the young woman was probably petrified for her job and her reputation - and that with the Duke dead whatever monetary incentive had been offered for a tupping with the disgusting old man had died with him. His four year old self however, could not think quite so rationally.

  “I-I d-d-duh-din’t mean t-t-tah-ha-ha - “

  Panic overwhelmed Michael and the final word became lodged in his mouth as tears streaked down his cheeks.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” the maid said slowly, as she angrily hoisted the Duke’s breeches up. It appeared to be a difficult task, for her cheeks were pink with sweat and her breathing labored. The body fell to the floor again the Duke’s eyes wide and open, staring at the shaking Michael who could not tear his eyes away from the petrifying vision.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” the maid said again, once she was satisfied that the Duke looked semi-respectable before turning to the young boy.

  “We must return to our rooms though Master Michael,” she whispered with a conspiratorial smile; “And pretend that neither of us was ‘ere this night. Rowley or Tibbs will find your Pappa in the mornin’. Do you understand?”

  “Y-y-y.”

  Michael gave up trying to form the word, and dumbly nodded his head in response.

  “Not a word to anyone remember?” the maid said as she led him back out to the corridor, with a pinch to Michael’s arm for good measure. The girl then disappeared down into the darkness of the Manor, leaving Michael to make his own way back to bed.

  The next morning Mrs Porter came in to wake Michael - who was now a four year old Duke, to tell him that his father had died. The young boy, his eyes rimed with dark circles, visibly struggled as he tried to form a response. This continued for the rest of the day, though many assured Tibby - who had emerged from the West Wing a twenty-two year old widow, that it would pass. When at the end of the week, the boy was still stuttering, his young mother began to worry.

  “It is probably just a reaction to the shock,” declared Dr. Elliott - who had set up a small practice in the village of Blackmore in order to remain close to the Duchess, whom he worshiped; “He will snap out of it after a while. A month perhaps, maybe two.”

  But snap out of it he did not. For the next seven years every time the Duke of Blackmore attempted to speak, he was met with a brick wall of frustration. The words he was trying to form would get stuck, blocked in his throat and when that happened he tried to force them out, but it just made things worse. Tabitha learned to conceal her dismay as she watched her eldest son’s muscles clench and and face contort from the sheer physical effort of trying to speak.

  When it came time for the Duke to attend Eton, he clung to his mother’s skirts and wept.

  “D-d-don’t s-s-s-he-hend me,” he sobbed, and his young mother felt her heart break at his desperation - but what was she to do? The Blackmores had been educating their males in Eton since the sixteenth century.

  “You’ll be fine lad.”

  It was Rowley who made the trip to Windsor with Michael. They traveled by carriage, the young Duke sobbing softly for hours until his father’s valet could stand to listen no more.

  “You’ll be fine lad,” he repeated, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a fierce shake; “Because you’re a ruddy Duke and out-rank all those little blighters what might make fun of you.”

  Michael stared at him blankly, his face tear stained,his lip trembling.

  “And what’s more you’re a fine big lad, you’re nearly taller ‘en me. If anyone says anything to you yer’ Grace, just hit ‘em.”

  Michael nodded slowly - he was very big. Clumsy because of it, but nobody needed to know that.

  “So firstly keep your mouth shut,” Rowley finished with a smile that was now nearly toothless because of his age; “And secondly - if anyone says anything to you, even hello, just hit ‘em.Set yourself up as the pack leader before any of ‘em even realize it’s a competition.”

  And so Michael did just that. When the first year dormitory came under attack from a group of second year boys later that night, it was Michael who led the offensive. He leapt fearlessly into the tangle of punching, kicking limbs and emerged minutes later, battered, bloodied - and very much the leader of his pack. His reputation as a hellion, which followed him through his career at Eton, was sealed when the Headmaster, woken by the sound of warring boys, broke the fight apart.

  “Tell me who started it Blackmore or it’s twenty lashes.”

  But of course - even if he wanted to Michael could not. Twenty lashes later he had earned the respect of his peers and his elders (those towering twelve year olds) and a reputation amongst the school’s staff as a trouble maker. He played up to this excellently, managing to grunt his way through four years of the most prestigious education England could offer. It was only in his final years that Michael finally learned to tame the beast that was his tongue, and that was with his mastery of foreign languages. Having to think before he spoke, and sharing a room with twenty boys whose tongues could not master the complexity of French, Latin and German meant that when he spoke in other languages - even the dead ones, he did not stutter and start like he did when he spoke English. He spoke with confidence.

  When his schooldays finished Michael like so
many of his peers, went down to Oxford. There he spent three years, ostensibly to study Classics, though in truth he whored and gambled his way from Michaelmas to Hilary to Trinity each year. It was at the end of his education - when his contemporaries were getting ready to depart for lives of louche idleness in London, that Michael did something that truly shocked society. He bought himself a commission as an officer in the army.

  “But what if you are killed Michael?” his mother wailed - for the Napoleonic wars had just begun the year before.

  “Edward will be able to carry on the title,” the Duke replied grimly. The continuation of the line was always going to be Edward’s responsibility - there was no way that Michael could breed, not when he had been such a monster himself.

  “That’s not why I am afraid of you going,” Tibby had protested - damn men and their obsession with titles and breeding.

  The war went on for much longer than anyone had anticipated. Michael rose from his initial rank of Captain to Lieutenant General in the twelve years he served, inspiring his troops as he personally led them in daring and dangerous missions. When he had leave, which was rare, he would return to London to find that his exploits had been much gossiped about, and that the young Misses of the ton had attached some very romantic notions to him.

  It took two seasons for him to perfect the reputation as a tyrant, and soon most rumours surrounding him were of whom he had reduced to tears and why, not who he intended to marry and when.

  At the end of 1815, when the war was coming to a close Michael found himself in Vienna with Wellington, working on the peace treaty. It was painstaking work, dealing with so many foreign dignitaries, but a deal was eventually hammered out after many months of negotiations.

  “What will you do now?” the Italian Countess who had shared his bed for months asked lazily as Michael prepared to depart the continent, to return once more to the shores of England.

  ‘Perhaps you will marry?” Marina smiled lazily, her almond shaped eyes dancing; “Find yourself a pretty little English girl?”