How To Seduce A Duke

his assurance that someday the babes he rescued would meet their destiny.” Anne lifted the hem of her dressing gown and, appearing more than a little annoyed, dusted Mary’s white powder prints from the leather box with her swollen, red fingers.

Mary pinned her sister with a hard gaze. “For the sake of argument, let us say that we are the girls mentioned in these letters…and let us further assume that every letter inside that box is true-do you think those who worked so hard to erase our existence would simply allow us to suddenly appear in London society with diamond tiaras on our heads?”

“Do not be daft, Mary.” Elizabeth shook her head at the ridiculousness of her sister’s words. “We would not wear tiaras. What a silly thought. One must be married to wear a tiara. Isn’t that so, Anne?”

Mary growled her frustration. “You missed my point entirely. This endeavor of yours could be very dangerous if the letters are genuine. Very dangerous. If not, uncovering the truth of our births will be naught but a colossal waste of time and coin.”

Anne raised her delicate chin, and, with an all-knowing smirk curving her lips, she addressed Elizabeth. “Now here it is, Lizzie. The truth of Mary’s resistance.”

Elizabeth peered blankly back at her sister.

“Do you not see it?” Anne expelled a deep breath. “Our penny-pinching, ever-frugal Mary doesn’t wish to spend a single farthing on investigating the circumstances of our birth.”

Elizabeth lowered her gaze to her laced fingers, which were twisted as surely as the twigs of a nest. “’Tis a Herculean task to be sure, Mary.” She turned her wide green eyes upward again. “But we owe it to Papa…and to ourselves to try.”

“Very well, so be it.” Mary tossed her hands into the air, then let them fall firmly to her sides, coaxing twin clouds of powder from her gown. “The two of you can do as you wish, but I plan to use my resources logically.”

Anne scoffed. “We are rich, Mary.”

“No we are not rich, not even close to it. It only seems that way to you because we lived so simply in Cornwall.” Mary shook her head. “I do not know how Papa managed it, likely by doing without and saving his pennies for years, but he bequeathed us each with great gifts-adequate portions to live on-and dowries large enough to allow us to attract gentlemen of standing and consequence. If we are careful with our spending, and practical in the matches we make, we have the means to assure comfortable lives for ourselves, instead of scraping together every halfpenny to buy flour for bread. But only if we are not wasteful and set aside this fanciful notion of our supposed lineage.”

Mary started for the doorway but, realizing that her sisters had not replied and were likely ignoring her pragmatic advice, turned back. “We must be realistic. We are just three sisters from Cornwall who happen to have been left large dowries. That is all.”

“No, Mary.” Elizabeth lifted the box and held it with reverence before her. “We are the hidden daughters of the Prince Regent and his Catholic wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert.”

“We’ll never prove it.” Mary gestured to the old leather box. “Don’t you understand? This notion is but a faery tale, and we’d be mad to believe otherwise.”

“Deny it all you like, Mary,” Anne countered, “but you know as well as I that it’s true-by blood at least we are…princesses.”

The next afternoon, as Mary sat curled in the window seat, immersed in the pages of a thick book, there came a solid rap at the front door. Her gaze shot to Aunt Prudence, who had fallen asleep in the wing-backed chair beside the hearth with an empty cordial goblet in her withered hand. Prudence snorted once but did not awaken.

Instead of rising to answer, Mary pinched the curtain between her thumb and index finger, parting the two panels no more than a nose’s width, then peeked through.

Aunt Prudence’s advanced age had curtailed social calls many years before. Mary and her sisters had not yet made any formal acquaintances in London, so she knew that a friend coming to call was not a reasonable possibility.

Her only thought that moment was one of dread.

What if she had not escaped the garden last evening as cleanly as she believed? And now someone had come to discuss the serious matter of her trespassing.

Oh God. She didn’t have the faintest idea what to do.

Mary centered her eye on the gap in the curtains, but the angle was too sharp, and no matter how she positioned herself, she simply could not see who stood before the door.

There was a second knock.

Mary jerked her head back from the window. Good heavens. What if he was the caller? Her viscount…or worse, the giant ogre of a man he called his brother?

Mary’s heart drummed against her ribs.

Suddenly, there were footsteps in the passage, and Mary turned in time to see MacTavish, the lean, elderly butler recently engaged to manage the household pass the parlor doorway.

“No, please, do not open it!” Mary leapt from the window seat and hurried across the parlor toward the passage.

Thankfully, he heard her. MacTavish reappeared in the doorway riding a backward step.

“Might I ask why not, Miss Royle?”

Mary gave her head a frustrated shake. Was it not obvious? “Because…we do not know who it is.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, but I can remedy that problem by simply openin’ the door.”

Mary steepled her fingers and turned her gaze downward as she tapped her thumbs together.

There was a third succession of knocks.

“Miss Royle? I should open the door.”

Mary looked up and replied in the softest whisper she could manage. “All right. But if anyone should inquire, my sisters and I are not at home.”

“Verra weel, Miss Royle. I understand…a bit.”

As MacTavish headed for the entry, Mary raced on her toes down the passage and slipped into the library, where she found her sisters taking tea.

Flattening herself against the wall of books nearest the door, she strained her ear to discern exactly who had come to call.

“Drat! Can’t hear a word they are saying,” Mary mumbled to herself. Still, the voices were both low, indicating at least that the caller was male. This, however, did not bode well for her.

Elizabeth, whose red hair gleamed in the ribbons of dust-mote-speckled sunlight streaming through the back window, narrowed her eyes at Mary. She slammed closed the red leather-spined book balanced on her lap. “I know that look. What have you done now?”

Mary shoved an errant lock of dark hair from her eye and scowled back. “Hush! Do you wish for someone to hear you? We are not supposed to be at home, you know. Read…whatever it is that you have there, Lizzie.”

“It is a book on maladies and remedies. I found it in Papa’s document box.”

Anne twisted around in her chair. The redness and swelling on her hands and face had subsided, leaving her skin as light and luminous as her flaxen hair. “Why must we be quiet? You’re not making any sense.” Her eyes widened then. “Good God, Mary. Is something amiss? Why, you’re as white as a-”

“Marble statue,” Elizabeth interjected, then both she and Anne exchanged a shoulder-bobbing chuckle at Mary’s expense.

Mary opened her mouth to reply when she heard the metallic click of the front door being pressed closed.

A moment later, MacTavish was standing in the doorway of the library with a square of wax-sealed vellum centered on his sterling salver.

“’Tis for you, Miss Royle.” He raised the tray before Mary.

“For me?” She blinked at it but did not reach for it. “Why, I can’t imagine-”

Both of her sisters were on their feet in an instant.

“Who is it from, Mary?” Elizabeth’s emerald eyes sparkled with excitement.

“I am sure I don’t know.” Mary glanced up at the butler.

“’Twas left by a liveried footman.” MacTavish cleared his throat. “If I may, Miss Royle. Much as openin’ the door will reveal the identity of a caller…the sender may be divulged by simply…openin’ the bloody letter.”