Settlesworth sputtered his confusion. “Your . . . Your Grace?”

A long bout of laughter came at the honorific. “I’ve no interest in an English title. And I certainly have no interest in being anyone’s grace.”

With that, the twenty-first Duke of Warnick, last of a venerable line and rich as a king, disappeared.

Bernard waited another hour in the stone keep and a full three days at the only inn in the nearby town, but the duke had no interest in speaking with him again.

And so it was that for the next five years, the duke rarely showed face in London and, when he did, he eschewed all things aristocratic. Within months, London society had discerned his disdain and decided that it was they, in fact, who disdained him, and not the other way around.

The Diluted Duke, they contended, was worth neither time, nor energy. After all, seventeenth in line for a dukedom was virtually no duke at all.

Such a view suited Alec Stuart, proud Scotsman, more than well, and he resumed his life without a second thought for the trappings of his title. As he was no monster, he managed his now vast estates with meticulous care, ensuring that those who relied upon Warnick lands were well and prosperous, but he avoided London, believing that as long as England ignored him, he could ignore England.

And England did ignore him, right up until it didn’t.

Right up until a missive arrived, revealing that alongside the estates and servants and paintings and carpets he had inherited, alongside the title he had no interest in using, the Duke of Warnick had inherited something else entirely.

A woman.



Chapter 1



LOVELY LILY TURNED MISS MUSE!

April 1834

Royal Academy Exhibition

Somerset House, London

Miss Lillian Hargrove was the most beautiful woman in England.

It was an empirical fact, requiring absolutely no confirmation from experts on the subject. One had only to set eyes upon her, noting her porcelain skin, precisely symmetrical features, high cheekbones, full lips, curving ears, and a pretty, straight nose that evoked the very best of classical sculpture, and one simply knew.

Add to it her red hair, somehow not at all brash but a rich, golden hue that evoked the most heavenly of sunsets, and her grey eyes like a summer storm, and there was no question at all.

Lillian Hargrove was perfect.

So perfect, that the fact she had come from nothing—that she lacked title, social standing, and dowry, that she had been plucked from Lord knew where by London’s finest artist, to whom she was not married—was somehow rendered irrelevant when she entered a room. After all, nothing blinded gentlemen (titled or otherwise) quite like beauty, a fact that was enough to set any matchmaking mama with an invitation to Almack’s on edge.

Which was why the female half of the aristocracy took exceeding pleasure in the events of the twenty-fourth of April, 1834, the opening day of the Royal Academy Exhibition of Contemporary Art, and the day Lillian Hargrove—current favored beauty of the scandal sheets—was made a proper scandal.

And ruined. Thoroughly.

Later, when that same subsection of the ton whispered fervently about the events of the day, white gloves hiding fingertips stained black with ink from the gossip rags they swore they never read, the conversation would always end with a horrified, gleeful “The poor thing never saw it coming.”

And she hadn’t.

Indeed, Lily had thought it would be the best day of her life.

It was the day she had been waiting for her entire life—all twenty-three years, forty-eight weeks. It was the day Derek Hawkins was to propose.

Not that she had known Derek for her entire life. She hadn’t. She’d known him for six months, three weeks, and five days—since he’d approached her on the afternoon of Michaelmas as she lingered in the Hyde Park sun on one of the last warm days of the year, and told her, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to marry her.

“You are a revelation,” he’d said in his cool, crisp voice, surprising her from her book.

Another might have considered his unexpected arrival the reason for her breathlessness, but Lily had known better. He had taken her breath away because he had found her, ignored in her place in the margins. Despite her beauty, she was alone and unnoticed by the world, thrice-orphaned—first by her land steward father; then by a string of ducal guardians, each meeting a quick end; and, finally, in full, by the neglect of the current duke.

In her loneliness, she’d become very adept at being unseen, so, when Derek Hawkins noticed her—when he saw her with the full, blinding force of his gaze—she’d fallen quite in love. Quite instantly.

Lily had done her best to seem unaffected by his words. After all, she had not read every London ladies’ magazine published in the last five years for nothing. Looking up at him, she tried her best, softest smile and said, “We have not met, sir.”

He’d crouched next to her at that, removing the book from her lap—charming her with his blinding white teeth and even more blinding impertinence. “A beauty such as you should not have time for books.”

She blinked, drawn to his cool blue eyes, trained upon her as though they were the only two people in all London. In all the world. “But I like books.”

He’d shaken his head. “Not as much as you shall like me.”

She’d laughed at the boast. “You seem very certain of yourself.”

“I am very certain of you,” he’d said, lifting her hand from her lap and pressing a warm kiss to her gloved knuckles. “I am Derek Hawkins. And you are the muse for which I have been searching. I intend to keep you. For all eternity.”

She’d caught her breath at the vow. At the way it evoked other, more formal ones.

Certainly, meeting Derek Hawkins was a shock. She’d been reading about him for years—he was a legend, an artist and star of the stage, renowned throughout London and beyond as one of the most skilled theatrical minds of a generation. News of his talent and good looks preceded him—and while Lily could not in the moment confirm the former, the latter appeared quite accurate.

But it was not his celebrity that won Lily over. She had more than fluff between her ears, after all. She did not dream of a famous suitor.

She dreamed of a suitor who would ensure she was never alone again.

After all, Lily had been alone for her entire life.

In the days and weeks that followed, Derek had courted her, playing the part of the perfect gentleman, escorting her to autumn festivals and winter events, even hiring an older female servant to chaperone them on public outings.

And then, on a cold, snowy afternoon in January, he’d sent a carriage for her, and she’d been ferreted to his studio—the inner sanctum of his artist’s world.

Alone.

There, in the sun-soaked room, surrounded by dozens of canvases, he’d honored her with his words and promises, worshipped her beauty and her perfection and vowed to keep her with him. Forever.

The words—so pretty and tempting and precisely what she’d always dreamed of hearing from a man so handsome and skilled and valued beyond measure—had filled her with more happiness and hope than she’d ever imagined possible.

For two months and five days, she’d returned to the studio again and again, sitting with more than a little pride in the room, warm with winter sunlight and Derek’s gaze. She’d given him everything he asked. Because that was what one did when one was in love.

And they were in love—a fact that was proven by this moment, as they stood in the great hall of the Royal Exhibition, surrounded by the brightest and most renowned of London’s populace. Lily was a half step behind Derek’s right shoulder (where he preferred her), wearing a pale yellow frock (slightly lower than Lily would have liked, but which he’d selected himself), her hair up in a tight, unyielding twist (precisely the way he liked).

As they’d ridden to the exhibition, the rain forcing them inside his carriage, where it tapped its rhythm on the roof and shut out the world beyond, he’d taken her hand in his and whispered, “Today is the day that changes everything. For all time. After today, all will be different. My name will be whispered throughout the world. And yours, as well.”

She’d blinked up at him, heart bursting, knowing that he could mean only one thing. Marriage. She’d smiled and whispered back, “Together.”

The carriage had slowed in that moment, and they’d arrived at the exhibition, but she’d heard his agreement in the thunder of the rainstorm beyond.

Together.

And now they were here, and she was feeling prouder than she’d ever been in her life, for this man who would soon be her husband, and for herself as well. After all, it was not every day that the orphaned daughter of a land steward was so privileged to stand before all of London with the man she loved.

The room was massive, the walls reaching twenty feet high and every inch of them covered in artwork. Every inch, that was, but one central spot behind a dais on the far end of the space, this one covered instead with a curtain of sorts, as though what was there was due a magnificent reveal.