How To Seduce A Duke

“Oh, yes. He told us all-my husband, sadly, he departed some years ago, and his fellow members of the Old Rakes of Marylebone.”

Anne’s eyebrows drew close in her apparent confusion. “Father was a member of a gentlemen’s club? I cannot imagine such a thing.”

“Indeed he was. As was…is Lord Lotharian.” Lady Upperton gave herself a mental shake, then withdrew her hand from Anne’s. “In fact, I think it is time you gels should meet him.”

Lady Upperton spun around on her teetering heels and shuffled her way to the bookcase situated to the left of the cold hearth.

She flashed the sisters a mischievous smile, then positioned the flat of her hand over the face of a goddess column and pushed. The masterful carving of the goddess’s nose depressed beneath her hand, and suddenly, from somewhere behind the bookcase, came a loud metallic click.

Lady Upperton turned back to the young ladies and raised her brows nonchalantly. “Are you ready?”

The Royle sisters exchanged nervous glances, then, as if cued, they nodded their heads as one.

All except Mary.

“Very well then, in you go.” Lady Upperton gave the bookcase a firm nudge, and at once the lowermost six feet of the shelves opened like a door to reveal a dark passage.

Anne started forward without hesitation, with Elizabeth at her heels. When they reached the opening, they stopped and looked back at Mary, who had not taken even a single step.

Good heavens.

Suddenly, Mary felt rather light in the head. When she had agreed to call on Lord Lotharian with her sisters, she had been fairly certain that nothing more would come to pass than her sisters coming home with another useless packet of letters or the like.

This turn of events, however, was unimaginable. She could not have prepared for this.

Not for a grand lady prepared to install them in to London society.

Not for a secret membership of old rakes.

Certainly not for doorways hidden within walls of old books.

“Hurry now, Mary.” The old woman beckoned her forward. “The gentlemen will be waiting.”

“G-gentlemen?” Mary swallowed deeply. “I thought we were to meet Lord Lotharian?”

“Oh yes, dear, but there are two others who heard the story of your birth that night. You will wish to make their acquaintance as well. Come now. Do not tarry.”

Mary moved her feet slowly toward the open bookcase. At that very moment, Anne and Elizabeth disappeared into the darkness beyond.

A cool draft from the secret passage lifted the fine loose tendrils of Mary’s hair, making her shiver. Still, she stepped forward.

The moment the thick darkness of the secret passage enveloped her, Mary heard the bookcase begin to move closed again. She whirled around.

In the waning light of the library, she could just see Lady Upperton’s smiling face. “You are not joining us, Lady Upperton?” she asked.

Lady Upperton grinned at that. “Oh goodness no, child. It is a gentlemen’s club, after all. I am but the gatekeeper. It would not do for you three to be seen entering the club, so Lotharian sent you to my house. Go on with your sisters, gel. Follow the small circle of light you will see in a moment. Follow it until you reach the passage. Then knock twice. Hard. I daresay Lotharian’s hearing is not what it once was.” Without another word, Lady Upperton closed the bookcase behind Mary.

“Are you coming, Mary?” came Elizabeth’s whisper a short distance down the passage.

Mary dragged a breath of musty air through her nose. “I am.”

No more than a clutch of moments had passed before Mary felt the presence of her sisters beside her. As Lady Upperton had said, a thin wand of candlelight sliced through an eye-shaped hole at the end of the passage. The sisters, hands instinctively clasped, moved together toward the end of the passage.

Mary released Anne’s hand and made to rap twice upon the wall, as Lady Upperton had instructed. But her sister stopped her.

“Look through the peephole first and tell us what you can see.”

Mary tilted her head and gazed up at the oval. “I am not nearly tall enough,” she whispered.

“I will do it.” Elizabeth began moving about in the darkness. “Come now, Mary, give me your knee and help me onto Anne’s shoulders-like we used to do in Mr. Smythe’s orchard.”

“This is madness.” Mary braced a leg behind her, then bent her forward knee for Elizabeth.

A great wheezing sound burst from Anne’s lips as Elizabeth’s legs came down upon her shoulders and her feet pressed at the sides of her sister’s back for balance.

Anne took a shaky step forward. “Go on, look through. What do you see?”

Elizabeth bent a bit at the waist and peered through the peephole. “It’s…a library. Why, it appears to be Lady Upperton’s library-except in reverse…it is like viewing her library in a mirror’s reflection! I’d swear to it.”

In that instant, Mary heard the sound of metal moving against metal. Suddenly, the wall moved, depositing Anne and Elizabeth in a tumbled heap onto a Turkish carpet, leaving Mary standing alone in the shadowy passage.

A rail-thin man with a full head of thick gray hair looked amusedly from Mary’s sisters to two men who stood near the tea table. “What did I tell you, gents?”

He leaned forward to settle his pipe in a burled wood tray, then raised his quizzing glass to his eye and peered down at the two young women sprawled near the hearth. He lifted one wayward eyebrow and chuckled softly. “Are the gels not the epitome of grace and royalty?”

Mary swallowed deeply. She ought to have revealed her presence and spoken for her headstrong sisters, who, embarrassingly, had not yet even attempted to right themselves. Instead, they lay there in a tangle of skirts, legs, and arms and stared dumbly at the three men.

In truth, Mary could scarcely blame them. Though the gentlemen were at least as deep in their years as their father had been when he passed away, there was something different about these fellows. They had a quality about them, a vitality. Whatever it was, Mary couldn’t quite identify it. But even standing here in the darkness, she could feel it.

“Darling, please come in from the passage. You’ve naught to fear.” The thin gentleman rose from the settee and beckoned, though Mary was certain he could not see her.

Blast. Her momentary reprieve had evaporated. And so, Mary fashioned the most confident smile she could manage and stepped out from behind the bookcase and into the candlelight.

At once her sisters scrambled to their feet and came to stand beside her near the glowing hearth.

“I am Earl of Lotharian.” Then, with an agility Mary could not have believed a man of his advanced years could possess, the lord eased his fine coat from one hip, swept back his leg, raised one arm to his side, and honored her with the most rakish of bows.

Mary and her sisters dropped serviceable, if not elegant, curtsies in return.

But Lord Lotharian held his bow.

Confused, the Royle sisters exchanged glances. Then, not knowing what else to do, they obligingly curtsied again.

Still, the old man didn’t move and surprisingly continued to honor them.

Elizabeth stepped slightly behind Mary and whispered in her ear. “I believe he means for us to curtsy lower, as must be proper in London society. Do try harder this time, Mary, or we may be curtsying all afternoon.”

“Very well.” Mary nodded to her sisters, and the three lowered their heads and dropped the deepest curtsies of their lives.

When they rose, Lord Lotharian still had not moved, but he was snapping his fingers madly now. “Good heavens, Lilywhite, a hand-a hand, if you will!”

“Do apologize, old man. Hadn’t realized your situation.” Lilywhite, a good head shorter than Lotharian, hurried to the lord’s side and bent to heave his shoulder into his friend’s armpit. He helped him straighten and stand. “Good bow though, Lotharian. Best you’ve achieved in years.”

Lord Lotharian grinned. “Do you really think so?”

“Oh, without question.”