A Duke Never Yields Read Free Page B

prime minister in the last half century. And the Queen herself had been known to change one or two of her notoriously firm opinions after an hour of private conversation with His Grace.
    And there was that time he had traveled to Russia aboard his private steam yacht and told the Tsar in no uncertain terms . . .
    Good God.
    Wallingford leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and covered his face with his hands.
    There had to be a way out.
    He spread his fingers and peered through them. The scent of last night’s tossed champagne still hung in his hair, pressing against his nostrils, making him feel slightly queasy. Champagne. Orchids. His brain sloshed about with the memories of last night: the impulsive coupling, banal and sordid, the work of a mere minute or two, and then the sour distaste as he had wiped himself with his handkerchief and looked at the lady’s flushed face and perspiring bosom and tried to recall her name.
    He needed more coffee. He needed . . .
    Something caught his eye, in the stack of books atop his bedside table, next to the coffee tray. Something that was not a book at all.
    A tickle began at the base of Wallingford’s brain, as if a pair of fingers were nudging him. It felt . . . it felt . . . almost like . . .
    An idea.
    He rose, paced to the table, and lifted the three topmost volumes.
    There it was, beneath the Dickens, atop the Carlyle. A folded newspaper, given to him a month ago, the edges already beginning to yellow under the inexorable poison of oxygen.
    Wallingford picked it up and smoothed the page. There, circled in thick black ink, the print as crisp as it had been when Phineas Burke had handed it to him in the breakfast room downstairs, read an advertisement:
English lords and ladies, and gentlemen of discerning taste, may take note of a singular opportunity to lease a most magnificent Castle and Surrounding Estate in the idyllic hills of Tuscany, the Land of Unending Sunshine. The Owner, a man of impeccable lineage, whose ancestors have kept the Castle safe against intrusion since the days of the Medici princes, is called away by urgent business, and offers a year’s lease of this unmatched Property at rates extremely favorable for the discerning traveler. Applicants should enquire through the Owner’s London agent . . .
    A year, Burke had proposed. A year of study and contemplation, free from the distractions of modern life and the female sex. Four weeks ago, Wallingford had laughed at the idea, once he had overcome his initial shock that such a notion should even occur to a sane and able-bodied man, in full possession of his youthful animal spirits.
    A year, free of the interference of the Duke of Olympia, and his brides and his June weddings. A year—it must be said—free of recriminations from Cecile de la Fontaine and her vindictive French temper.
    A year free of temptation, free of ducal trappings. In a remote Italian castle, where nobody knew him, where nobody had even heard of the Duke of Wallingford.
    Wallingford slapped the newspaper back down on the books, causing the topmost volumes to tumble to the floor in surprise. He poured himself a cup of coffee, drank it in a single burning gulp, and stretched his arms to the ceiling.
    Why, it was just the thing. A change of scene from gray and changeless London. He could use a change. He’d been dogged with a sense of dissatisfaction, of restlessness, long before his outrageous indiscretion last night, long before Olympia’s unwelcome visit this morning.
    A year with his brother and his closest friend, both decent chaps who minded their own business. Tuscany, the land of unending sunshine. Wine in abundance, and decent food, and surely a discreet village girl or two if absolutely necessary.
    What could possibly go wrong?

ONE
    Thirty miles southeast of Florence
    March 1890
    A t the age of fifteen, Miss Abigail Harewood had buried her mother and gone to live in London with her older sister, the dazzling