How to Capture a Countess (Duchess Diaries 1) (33 page)

Charlotte looked at her friend. “You’re not surprised.”

“Lord Cameron and Miss Isobel have wished to marry for over eight years now, but her parents aren’t
amenable for he has no property and, thanks to his wastrel brother, is greatly in debt.”

“Oh my! I never knew.”

“I must give Lord Cameron credit for being so persistent. It seems that his affections remain unchanged.”

“Did you plan for Miss Isobel to find Miss Balfour and Sin together?”

“Lud, no. I didn’t realize that Miss Isobel and Cameron had, er, sealed their relationship, as it were. It just happened that way, that’s all.”

“But you knew why Miss Isobel was in the hallway. You could have used that to scotch the scandal about Sin and Rose.”

“I could have, if Sin hadn’t angered Mr. Munro so. After that . . . ” She shrugged. “But this way Sin and Rose had to come together to fight the scandal. Nothing binds a couple better than a little adversity.”

Charlotte shook her head. “You are amazing, my dear. What a lovely day, and such a beautiful wedding, too.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“Sheer perfection. Everyone is so happy . . . Well, except poor Sir Balfour.” Charlotte sighed. “The poor man. A widower, you know, and you can see he’s worried to death about his daughters, as he should be. Two lovely girls, and no prospects whatsoever.”

Margaret looked thoughtfully across to where Lily and Dahlia stood to one side, looking out of place among the guests. “Those poor, motherless girls.”

“Yes. I’m sure their mother would wish someone to assist them in finding good husbands. I do hope they have a kind aunt somewhere.”

Margaret straightened. “Charlotte, I never thought of it before, but now that Rose is off to the continent for an extended honeymoon, Lily and Dahlia have no hopes of meeting eligible men.”

“None. It’s so sad.”

“Tragic!”

“I know. I can see why Sir Balfour is so despondent.”

“He would probably be happy if someone—say me, as the girls’ godmother—were to offer to assist him.”

“Margaret, what a lovely idea! You are so generous.”

“Perhaps another house party for Lily. But no archery. Poor MacDougal still gets the shudders if one but mentions it.”

“I can’t blame him,” Charlotte said. “Shall we make a list of whom to invite? If we don’t hurry, all of the young men will have gone to London for the season.”

“Lud, yes. We must set to work immediately!”

“Lily will need clothes—”

“And dancing lessons, too.”

“And a new hairstyle, perhaps something with ringlets.”

“Oh dear, there’s so much to do!” The duchess beamed.

Charlotte smiled serenely. “I can see we’re facing a very busy month.”

“Or two. It could take longer.”

“However long it takes.”

From the Diary of the Duchess of Roxburghe
I’m not the sort of person to get involved in the lives of others—live and let live, I always say. But how can I ignore someone who is so plainly in need of help as Sir Balfour? Only I have the connections necessary to find suitors for fashion-mad Lily, and then shy Dahlia. So help him, I must.

And I think I know just the hard-hearted bachelor to woo Lily . . .

Read on for a preview of the next novel

in the Duchess Diaries series by

Karen Hawkins

Coming soon!

Kelso, Scotland

June 10, 1813

The carriage creaked to a stop beneath one of the towering oaks. The old woman pushed back the curtains with a hand heavy with jewels and looked at the thatched cottage with disbelief. “
This
is it?”

“What? You do not like it?” Piotr Romanovin, the royal Prince Wulfinski of Oxenburg, threw open the carriage door and called to the coachman to tie off the horses. “It is charming, no?” Grinning, the prince reached up to help his grandmother to the ground.

His Tata Natasha, a grand duchess in her own right, looked at the cottage and noted the broken shutters, the half-missing thatched roof, the front door hanging from one hinge, and a profusion of flowering vines growing across the windows. “No,” she said bluntly. “This is not charming. Come, Wulf. We will go back to the house you bought and leave this silliness to the wilds.”

“That is a castle.
This
is a house. And here I shall live.”

“But the roof—”

“Can be fixed. As can the shutters and the door and the chimney.”

“What’s wrong with the chimney?”

“It needs to be cleaned, but otherwise it is strong. The craftsmanship is superb. It just needs some care.”

She eyed her grandson sourly. The prince was a big man, larger than all of his brothers, and they were not small men. At almost six foot five, he towered over her and all nine of their guards. But large as Wulf was, he was her youngest grandson and the most difficult to understand, given to fits and starts that were incomprehensible to all and left his parents in agonies.

Take the simple matter of marriage. His other brothers had fallen into line and found matches among Europe’s royal families, but Wulf refused every princess who came his way. Be they short or tall, thin or fat, fair or not—it didn’t matter. With only the most cursory of glances, he’d refused them all.

Tata Natasha looked at the cottage and shook her head. “Wulf, your cousin Nikki, he was right: you have gone mad. You purchased a beautiful house—” At Wulf’s lifted brows, she sighed. “Fine, a castle, then. With twenty-six bedrooms, thirty-five fireplaces, a salon, a dining room, a great hall, and more. It is beautiful and fitting for a prince of your stature. But this—” She waved a hand. “This is a hovel.”

“It will be my home. At least until I’ve found a bride who will love me for this, and not because I can afford a castle with more chimneys than there are days in a month.” He took his grandmother’s hand, tucked it in the crook of his arm, and pulled her to the cottage door. “Come and see my new home.”

“But—”

He stopped. “Tata, it was your idea for me to meet the world without the trappings of wealth.”

“No, it was
your
idea, not mine. I only offered to travel with you.”

“Fine. Then travel with me a few steps further.” He pushed the crooked door to one side.

“Why must you make everything so difficult?” She tugged her arm free so that she could hold her skirts out of the dirt. “Why not marry a princess? They are not all horrible people.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t see one that I liked.”

“What
do
you like, Wulf? What sort of a woman do you wish to meet?”

His eyes grew distant as he raked a hand through his black hair. “I want one who will treat me as Piotr and not as a bag of gold. One with passion and fire. One who will marry me because of me—not because of my title or wealth.”

“You cannot deny your birthright.”

His jaw tightened. “No, and for that reason, I will not hide that I am a prince. But I will not admit to my wealth.”

Tata sighed. “I wish your father had never passed that blasted law allowing you and your brothers and sister to marry as you wished.”

“He married for love, and he wished us all to have the same luxury.”

“He married my daughter, who was a crown princess of Bulgaria!”

“Because he loved her and she loved him. Not because he had to. He knew he was fortunate in that.”

Tata threw up a hand. “Love, love, love. That is all you and your father talk of! What about duty? Responsibility? What about that?”

He crossed his arms over his broad chest and smiled indulgently. “Rest assured, Tata. I will marry a strong woman, one who will give me many brave and intelligent sons. Surely that is responsible of me?”

Tata wished she could smack her son-in-law. What had he been thinking, to free his children to marry commoners? It was ridiculous. And now look what it had led to. Here they were, she and her favorite grandson, looking for a wife among the heathens that populated this wild and desolate land. “If you will not believe in the purity of bloodlines, then how will you know which woman is right for you?”

He didn’t even pause. “I’ll know her when I see her.”

She ground her teeth. “Why did we have to come to this godforsaken part of the world to find this woman? Scotland isn’t even civilized.”

He sent her a humorous glance. “You sound like Papa.”

“He’s right in this instance! For once.” She scowled.

“Tata, everyone knows me in Europe. But here . . . here, I can be unnoticed.”

“Pah! As usual, you take a good idea and carry it too far. No one would know you in London, either, and we’d live far more comfortably there.”

Wulf grinned but paid her no heed as he looked about the small cottage. “My little house is more spacious than you thought, no?” It was, too, for he could stand upright, providing he didn’t walk toward the fireplace. There the
roof swooped down to meet it, and he’d have to bend almost in half to sit before it.

Still, he looked about with satisfaction. The front room held a broken table and two chairs without legs. A wide plank set upon two barrels served as a bench before the huge fireplace, where iron hooks made him think of fragrant, bubbling stew.

Tata scowled. “Where would you sleep?”

“Here.” He went to the back of the room, where a tattered curtain hung over a small alcove. A bed frame remained, leather straps crisscrossed to provide support for a long-gone straw mattress. “I will have a feather mattress brought down from the castle. This frame is well made and I will sleep like a baby.” He placed a hand upon the low bedpost and gave it a shake. The structure barely moved.

Tata grunted her reluctant approval and looked around. “I suppose it will make a good hunting lodge once this madness of yours is gone.”

“So it will. I’ll have some of my men begin work on it at once. I’ll wish it cleaned and stocked with firewood.”

She shot him an amused glance. “You’ll still let your men do the work?”

“I will help, of course, but I’ve no experience with thatching. I’d be foolish to try now when the rainy season is about to begin.”

“At least you are keeping some good sense about you.”

“I’m keeping all of it.” He held out his arm. “Come, Tata. I’ll take you home for tea.”

“Not the English kind. It’s so weak as to taste like hot water.”

He chuckled. “No, no. I will get you good tea from our homeland. We brought enough for a year, though we will only be here a month or so.”

Tata paused before she walked out of the doorway. “Wulf, do you not think a month is too short a time to persuade a woman to marry you? One who thinks that an empty title and this”—Tata waved at the cottage again—“is all you possess?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are as arrogant as you are foolish.”

His smile faded, his green eyes darkening. “Tata, I told you of my dream. That is why we are here.”

“Yes, yes. You dreamed of Scotland, of a woman with hair of red—”

“Red and gold, with eyes the color of a summer sky.”

She paused thoughtfully. “The dreams of our family have always had meaning.”

“This one especially. I’ve had it four times now—the exact same dream. And every time, it is the same woman who—”

A scream rended the air.

Wulf spun toward the door. “Stay here.”

“But—”

But he was gone, shouting at his guards to remain until he needed them.

•  •  •

Lily slowly awoke, her numbed mind creeping to consciousness. She shifted and then moaned as every bone in her body groaned in protest.

A warm hand cupped her face. “Easy, Moya,” came a deep, heavily accented voice. “The brush broke your fall, but you will still be bruised.”

I must still be unconscious to hear such a delicious voice. And what is he talking about? Did I— Oh yes. I remember now.
She’d been riding through the forest by Floors Castle, where she’d been staying as a guest of her godmother, the Duchess of Roxburghe, when a fox had leapt from the bushes and caused her horse to rear. Lily had been caught unawares because she’d been admiring the flowers growing alongside the path. She was glad her sister Rose hadn’t been nearby, or she would have gotten a scolding for the lack of attention to her riding.

Lily cautiously opened her eyes to find herself staring into the deep green eyes of the most handsome man she’d ever seen.
He’s not a dream.

The man was beyond large; he was huge, with wide, broad shoulders that blocked the light and hands so large that the one now cupping her face practically covered one side of it.

She gulped a bit and tried to sit up, but was instantly pressed back to the ground.

“Nyet,” the giant said, his voice rumbling over her like waves over a rocky beach. “You will not rise.”

She blinked. “Nyet?”

He grimaced. “I should not say ‘nyet’ but ‘no.’ ”

“I understood you perfectly. I am just astonished that you are trying to tell me what to do. I don’t know where you are from or who you are, but I am perfectly fine and well able to handle this situation myself.”

His expression darkened, and she had the distinct
impression that he wasn’t used to being chastised. She stirred restlessly, suddenly uneasy. “Please, Mr.— I’m sorry. What’s your name?”

“It matters not. What matters is that you are injured and refuse assistance. That is foolish.”

She glared at him and pushed herself up on one elbow. As she did so, her hat, which had been pinned upon her neatly braided hair, came loose and dropped to the ground behind her.

The man’s gaze locked upon her hair, his eyes widening as he muttered something in a foreign tongue.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Your hair. It is red.”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “No, it’s not. It’s blond with a touch of red when the sun— Oh, why am I even talking to you about this? You still haven’t told me your name or why you’re here or—” She eyed him with suspicion. “I don’t know who you are.”

“You will.”

He said the words as if it were a fact.

“What do you mean?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “It is nothing, Moya. Nothing and everything.”

“Look, Mr. Whatever Your Name Is, this is
not
amusing. I’m going to get up and leave, and you are going to stay here.”