A Duke's Temptation Read Free

Chloe, Viscountess Stratfield, a fabulous grotto had been built to honor popular fiction’s latest darling, the author known only as Lord Anonymous. He had written several volumes of dark-hearted fairy tales and a half dozen or so novels about strapping warriors set in medieval Scotland.
    Lily had devoured every word. She could recite certain pages by heart. But it wasn’t until he published the first book in the series entitled The Wickbury Tales that he was denounced as immoral and became an immediate bestseller.
    His stories seethed with swashbuckling adventures that drew the breathless reader to the last page—once in a runaway carriage, another time to a cliff edge on a galloping steed. The series always followed the same basic plot—the hero, a Cavalier earl in exile, battled an evil wizard, who also happened to be the hero’s half brother. They fought not only for opposing politics, but for the same lady’s heart.
    What intrigued Lily the most, though, was that after six books, the lady still couldn’t make up her mind whether to choose the noble Lord Wickbury or the thoroughly wicked Sir Renwick Hexworthy. Heated arguments broke out in circulating libraries to debate the issue upon publication of each new edition.
    Gentlemen tended to favor the exiled earl because he fought fairly and represented the right order of things. Sir Renwick was a villain through and through, an unpredictable malefactor, in their view, who would stop at nothing to win his beloved lady. In Lily’s opinion, she was an unworthy, lukewarm wench who did not deserve either man.
    Unfortunately, Lily wasn’t the only lady at the party enamored of Lord Anonymous. Footmen stood guard at the French doors to the garden to keep the curious from spoiling Lord Philbert’s surprise. Lily contemplated resorting to shameless flirtation to be one of the first to view the gardens. If there was any chance at all to meet the author . . . Oh, she was a goose.
    She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know what he looked like. Or discover whether the author was a male at all. She would probably be disappointed if she met him. She’d be crushed to find he was a conceited popinjay.
    Nothing could ruin tonight for her.
    A respectable captain intended to marry her. She had never made an enemy or taken a misstep in her whole life. True, she was spoiled rotten, and sometimes she took advantage of her position. Not to do anything unlawful or spiteful. She simply liked to have her way. But what of it? It wasn’t her fault she had been born to privilege. Or that the worst decision she had ever made was to disguise herself as the Brothers Grimm’s Goose-Girl. It had seemed like a tantalizing idea three weeks ago when Chloe had thought of it.
    Tonight Lily regretted the choice. How was anyone to know that she was wearing a shimmering gold silk gown underneath her unattractive plumage? She felt nothing like a fairy-tale character at all. In fact, it would take a genius to realize that she was meant to be a princess before she shed her disguise.
    And that genius, unfortunately, was not her soon-to-be betrothed, Captain Jonathan Grace, polite escort that he had always been. He did not seem to appreciate her costume. She caught sight of him shouldering a path to reach the line into which she had drifted. She guessed that it led into one of the supper rooms. At the front of the queue she spotted her cousin Chloe, who motioned distractedly at her to come forward while she carried on an animated conversation with her friends.
    Jonathan, tall and shaggy haired, battled for a place beside her. “Why are you standing here by yourself?”
    “Because I’m unable to move. I’ve been bumped enough for one night. My feathers are bent and falling off like leaves. And I can’t keep up with Chloe. She disappears every time I turn around.”
    “She’s a dreadful chaperone,” Jonathan said, planting his legs apart in such a way as to shield her.
    Still, for all his bluff, he was