Never Doubt a Duke
The Never Series
Book One
By Maggi Andersen
© Copyright 2020 by Maggi Andersen
Text by Maggi Andersen
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
La Verne CA 91750
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition May 2020
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Maggi Andersen
The Never Series
Never Doubt a Duke
Never Dance with a Marquess
Never Trust and Earl
Dangerous Lords Series
The Baron’s Betrothal
Seducing the Earl
The Viscount’s Widowed Lady
Governess to the Duke’s Heir
Eleanor Fitzherbert’s Christmas Miracle (A Novella)
Once a Wallflower Series
Presenting Miss Letitia
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
The Scandalous Lyon
Also from Maggi Andersen
The Marquess Meets His Match
Beth
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Maggi Andersen
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
Dountry Park, Keswick Cumbria
Late February 1815.
“Nellie, you must see this article!” Nellie’s sister, Marian, her green eyes wide, rushed into Nellie’s bedchamber, clutching a newspaper. “It’s about the duke!”
“I don’t know why you have those scandal broths sent to you. Let me see.” Nellie almost snatched it. Thirsting for any information on the man she was to marry and had yet to meet, she quickly perused the item concerning the Duke of Shewsbury. “Oh, dear Lord!” She thrust the paper back into her sister’s hands as if it burned her.
“It shows Shewsbury is human.” A gleam of amusement and affection lit Marian’s eyes. She plopped down onto the sofa, waking Peter, Nellie’s beloved King Charles spaniel. He sleepily licked her hand.
“Does it? A brute and a rake, more likely.” Nellie picked it up from the table where her sister had cast it. “A certain duke whose estate is in Leicestershire, but shall remain nameless…”
“It may not be Shewsbury,” Marian interrupted as she fondled the dog’s silky ears.
“It’s hardly the Duke of Rutland, he has a brood of children and breeds racehorses.” Nellie continued to read, “…seems to have had some trouble with his French mistress. This writer was passing a certain elegant establishment in Mayfair when he sighted said duke, descending the steps to the road with a comely lady over his shoulder, one hand on an unmentionable part of her anatomy, the other holding a canary’s cage. Smoke could be seen wafting from an upstairs window. As I watched, captivated, the duke was addressed in voluble French as she pounded her fists on his back. He set her down none too gently to hail a passing hackney. Placing her and the canary’s cage in the carriage, he then gave the jarvy directions, and slammed the door, running back, apparently, to stifle the flames. Might their affair be at an end?
“This…” Nellie’s voice hitched, “…coming right on top of that other newspaper article describing how he took a member of the press outside Parliament by the scruff of the neck and savagely shook him.”
“Not a dull man by all accounts,” Marian observed.
She glared at her sister. Marian refused to take this seriously. Perhaps because her own husband could be relied on to behave badly on occasion. Nellie suspected Marian enjoyed it.
“Surely, Papa doesn’t expect me to marry a brute!”
“Papa needs an injection of funds after that stock exchange debacle, but I doubt he’d sacrifice you. He and the old duke were friends, so he must know the family well.”
“I must speak to Papa. Mama is talking of purchasing new liveries for the footman, hiring more staff, and having the drawing room and the guest bedchambers repainted. I can’t let them spend a fortune to make us look prosperous for the duke’s visit if I don’t intend to marry him.”
The newssheet clutched in her hand, she went downstairs and knocked on her father’s study door.
Papa hunched over a stack of letters on his desk, a glass of brandy beside him, while the smoke from his cigar drifted around the room.
He glanced up from a letter he held and smiled. “What do you have there, Nellie?”
She approached the desk and held the paper out. “This can only refer to Shewsbury.” He took it from her and read it while Nellie leaned against his desk and fidgeted with his silver pounce pot. “It must be the duke. He’s a rake, Papa. Surely you don’t wish me
