Never Desire a Duke

His blue eyes brightened.

“Yes, dear.” He winked and gestured for her to come closer. When she complied, he lowered his voice. “With a dash of my favorite maraschino added, if you please, in honor of the occasion. Only don’t tell your mother. You know just as well as I that she and my physician are in collusion to deprive me of all the joys of life.”

Sophia knew he didn’t believe any such thing, but still, it was great fun to continue the conspiratorial banter between them. Each moment with him, she knew, was precious. His joy this evening would be a memory she would always treasure.

“I’d be honored to keep your secret, my lord,” Sophia said, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“What secret?” Lady Harwick, Sophia’s dark-haired mother, approached from behind.

A picture of well-bred elegance, Margaretta conveyed warmth and good humor in every glance and gesture. Tonight she wore violet silk, one of the few colors she had allowed into her wardrobe since the tragic loss of her son, Vinson, at sea four years ago—followed all too soon by the death of Sophia’s father, the direct heir to the Wolverton title.

“If we told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Sophia answered jovially, sidestepping her. “His lordship has requested a glass of punch, and since I’m his undisputed favorite, at least for this evening, I will fetch it for him.”

Wolverton winked at Sophia.

“I shall have the secret pried out of him before you return.” With that, Margaretta bent to straighten the same portion of Lord Wolverton’s blanket her daughter had straightened only moments before.

Still a beautiful, vibrant woman, Margaretta drew the gazes of a number of the more mature gentlemen in the room. Not for the first time, Sophia wondered if her mother might entertain the idea of marrying again.

Sophia crossed the floor to the punch bowl, pausing several times to speak to friends and acquaintances along the way. Though most of the guests were older friends of Lord Wolverton, the presence of Sophia’s pretty younger sisters, Daphne and Clarissa, had assured the attendance of numerous ladies and gentlemen from the younger set. Her fair-haired siblings, born just a year apart and assumed by many to be twins, would make their debut in the upcoming season. That is, if favored suitors did not snatch them off the market before Easter.

At the punch bowl, Sophia dipped the ladle and filled a crystal cup. With the ladle’s return to the bowl, another hand retrieved it—a gloved hand upon which glimmered an enormous sapphire ring.

“Your Grace?” a woman’s voice inquired.

Sophia looked up into a beautiful, heart-shaped face, framed by stylish blonde curls, one she instantly recognized but did not recall greeting in the reception line. The gown worn by the young woman, fashioned of luxurious peacock-blue silk and trimmed with gold and scarlet cording, displayed her generous decolletage to a degree one would not normally choose for the occasion of an off-season birthday party for an eighty-seven-year- old lord.

“Good evening, Lady…”

“Meltenbourne,” the young woman supplied, with a delicate laugh. “You might recall me as Annabelle Ellesmere? We debuted the same season.”

Yes, of course. Annabelle, Lady Meltenbourne, nee Ellesmere. Voluptuous, lush, and ambitious, she had once carried quite the flaming torch for Claxton, and upon learning of the duke’s betrothal to Sophia, she had not been shy about expressing her displeasure to the entire ton over not being chosen as his duchess. Not long after, Annabelle had married a very rich but very old earl.

“Such a lovely party.” The countess sidled around the table to stand beside her, so close Sophia could smell her exotic perfume, a distinctive fragrance of ripe fruit and oriental spice. “Your grandfather must be a wonderful man to be so resoundingly adored.”

“Thank you, Lady Meltenbourne. Indeed, he is.”

Good breeding prevented Sophia from asking Annabelle why she was present at the party at all. She had addressed each invitation herself, and without a doubt, Lord and Lady Meltenbourne had not been on the guest list.

“I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to Lord Meltenbourne.” Sophia perused the room, but saw no more unfamiliar faces.

“Perhaps another time,” the countess answered vaguely, offering nothing more but a shrug. Plucking a red sugar drop from a candy dish, she gazed adoringly upon the confection and giggled. “I shouldn’t give in to such temptations, but I admit to being a shamefully impulsive woman.” She pushed the sweet into her mouth and reacted with an almost sensual ecstasy, closing her eyes and smiling. “Mmmmm.”

Meanwhile, a gentleman had approached to refill his punch glass and gaped at the countess as she savored the sugar drop, and in doing so, he missed his cup altogether. Punch splashed over his hand and onto the table. Lady Meltenbourne selected another sweet from the dish, oblivious to his response. Or perhaps not. Within moments, servants appeared to tidy the mess and the red-faced fellow rushed away.

Sophia let out a slow, calming breath and smothered her first instinct, which was to order the countess to spit out the sugar drop and immediately quit the party. After all, time had passed. They had all matured. Christmas was a time for forgiveness. For bygones to be bygones.

Besides, London in winter could be rather dreary. This one in particular had been uncommonly foggy and cold. Perhaps Annabelle simply sought human companionship and had come along with another guest. Sophia certainly understood loneliness. Whatever the reason for the woman’s attendance, her presence was of no real concern. Lady Meltenbourne and her now candy-sugared lips were just as welcome tonight as anyone else. The party would be over soon, and Sophia wished to spend the remainder with her grandfather.

“Well, it was lovely seeing you again, but I’ve promised this glass of punch to our guest of honor. Enjoy your evening.”

Sophia turned, but a sudden hand to her arm stayed her.

“What of Claxton?” the countess blurted.

The punch sloshed. Instinctively Sophia extended the glass far from her body, to prevent the liquid from spilling down her skirts, but inside her head, the intimate familiarity with which Lady Annabelle spoke her husband’s name tolled like an inharmonious bell.

“Pardon me?” She glanced sharply at the hand on her arm. “What did you say?”

Annabelle, wide-eyed and smiling, snatched her hand away, clasping it against the pale globe of her breast. “Will his Grace make an appearance here tonight?”

Sophia had suffered much during her marriage, but this affront—at her grandfather’s party—was too much.

Good breeding tempered her response. She’d been raised a lady. As a girl, she’d learned her lessons and conducted herself with perfect grace and honor. As a young woman, she’d maneuvered the dangerous waters of her first season, where a single misstep could ruin her prospects of a respectable future. She had made her family and herself proud.

Sophia refused to succumb to the impulse of rage. Instead she summoned every bit of her self-control, and with the greatest of efforts, forbade herself from flinging the glass and its scarlet contents against the front of the woman’s gown.

With her gaze fixed directly on Lady Meltenbourne, she answered calmly. “I would assume not.”

The countess’s smile transformed into what was most certainly a false moue of sympathy. “Oh, dear. You do know he’s in town, don’t you, your Grace?”

Sophia’s vision went black. Claxton in London? Could that be true? If he had returned without even the courtesy of sending word—

A tremor of anger shot down her spine, but with great effort she maintained her outward calm. However, that calm withered in the face of Lady Meltenbourne’s blatant satisfaction. Her bright eyes and parted, half-smiling lips proclaimed the malicious intent behind her words, negating any obligation by Sophia for a decorous response. Yet before she could present the countess with a dismissive view of her train, the woman, in a hiss of silk, flounced into the crowd.

Only to be replaced by Sophia’s sisters, who fell upon her like street thieves, spiriting her into the deeper shadows of a nearby corner. Unlike Sophia, who could wear the more dramatically hued Geneva velvet as a married woman, Daphne and Clarissa wore diaphanous, long-sleeved white muslin trimmed with lace and ribbon.