The Perks of Being a Beauty (12 page)

Georgie, realizing that she had a clear shot at last, slipped out her pistol and took aim. The shot hit the duke in the shoulder.

At almost the same time, the knife, which had been held between Perdita’s body and Ormonde’s hand, fell to the floor, followed close behind by the duke, who had been thrown off balance by Isabella’s death grip.

Thus it was that the sixth Duke of Ormonde, husband of Perdita, brother-in-law of Lady Isabella Wharton, and of no particular relation to Mrs. Georgina Mowbray, came to be both stabbed and shot.

Though a duke, he was but human. No one was ever quite sure which wound was the fatal one.

But he was dead, nonetheless.

Chapter One

One year later

“You cannot simply insist I travel to the wilds of Yorkshire to fetch your errant grandson, Godmama,” Lady Isabella Wharton said with a nervous laugh. “It is the height of the Season. I have social obligations.”

“Yes,” the dowager Duchess of Ormonde said acerbically, “you are no doubt expected at one of Lucifer Dinsmore’s gatherings where the ladies dampen their petticoats and the gentlemen wear Roman togas.”

“That was one party, Godmama,” Isabella protested. “And the gentlemen wore robes like the Hellfire Club. Not togas.”

With her dark auburn hair, her voluptuous figure, and an exquisite sense of style, Isabella was in demand among the more liberal-minded hostesses of the
ton
. She was always to be counted upon to add intrigue to an evening’s entertainment. The fact that she was a widow whose husband had died famously in a duel only added to her mystique.

“That is beside the point, Bella,” the dowager huffed, “and you well know it. Your social schedule is filled with frivolity and scandal and little else. It will do you good to get away from the scoundrels and rakes who buzz around you like so many bees. Yorkshire is lovely this time of year.”

If the old woman had been there at all, Isabella would eat her hat.

“Then why do you not go there to persuade the new duke yourself?” Isabella asked peevishly. It was just like her godmother to pawn off such an unpleasant task on her. She’d always disapproved of Isabella and her popularity.

“Because the boy will refuse to see me!” the duchess said, thumping her ebony walking stick on the floor for emphasis. “He must be made to see his duty to the family. And as he will not see me, then he will need to be persuaded by someone else. Someone with the ability to wrap young men about her little finger.”

Isabella choked on her tea. “You mean me to seduce him into coming to London?” It was true that she had a way with gentlemen, but as her marriage had proved, she was not a miracle worker. If the duke wished to remain in Yorkshire rather than come to London and take up his role as head of the family, then she had no great faith in her power to persuade him otherwise. Besides, as her sister and Georgina Mowbray could attest, Isabella had a poor record when it came to persuading Dukes of Ormonde to do what she wished.

“Don’t be absurd,” the old woman said, waving a beringed hand in dismissal. “I mean for you to cast a few lures. That hardly constitutes seduction. He must be bored silly with the provincial women of York.”

Isabella bit back a sigh. Since receiving the heavily embossed notecard earlier in the week, she’d been dreading this encounter with her godmother. It wasn’t that she was not fond of the old girl. The duchess had served as a surrogate parent to Isabella and her sister Perdita when their own parents had died in a carriage accident when they were in their teens.

And when the dowager’s own grandson, the duke, had fallen in love with Perdita on sight, and their subsequent marriage made both sisters true members of the Ormonde family, they’d all been pleased as punch. The duke’s bad treatment of Perdita, which the dowager still denied even after his death during an attack on his wife, had soured Isabella’s relationship with the matriarch. And she hardly needed to take orders from her anymore. She was a grown woman, and had endured her own abusive marriage for long enough to appreciate her freedom to such a degree that she resented anyone—especially someone who called her sister a liar—who tried to curb it.

“Perhaps the new duke has his reasons for refusing to come to London,” Isabella said mildly. She had said her piece about the late duke to the dowager. She knew there was nothing she could say to sway the old woman’s opinion, and she’d decided to stop trying. She had come here today as a courtesy, but the dowager’s attempt to manipulate her was tiresome. “You did, after all, cut off his father without a cent. That has a way of dampening one’s familial feelings.”

As did accusations of murder, she thought to herself. The dowager had kept the circumstances of Gervase’s death secret solely because she did not wish the family to be wreathed in scandal along with the funeral crepe. That did not stop her from haranguing Perdita in private. Which was ironic considering that Isabella and Georgina, if one were technical about the matter, were the ones responsible for the duke’s death.

“My late husband cut Phillip off,” the duchess said crossly, referring to the present, reluctant duke’s father. “And I spent a great deal of time attempting to dissuade him from doing so. For the little good it did me.”

Isabella looked up from picking at a thread on her primrose morning gown. “You did?” she asked, surprised despite herself. “I never knew that.”

The dowager’s cheeks turned pink beneath the old-fashioned powder she insisted on wearing. “He was my son, Isabella. I hardly wished for him to be thrust out into the world without two pennies to rub together. Much less to never see my first grandchild. Ormonde was as stubborn as they come, however. And when he made his decision, I could do little more than go along with it.”

Which perhaps explained why the dowager had clung so tightly to the notion that Gervase could do no wrong. Deprived of her first grandson, the dowager had taken the one she had access to and tried to mold him into the sort of man her husband would not dare cast off. Unfortunately, she’d also molded him into a selfish, haughty brute of a man who had beaten his young wife black and blue on more than one occasion. And because he’d been told by the grandmother who all but raised him that he was always right, he’d been unable to see what he did as wrong.

“I didn’t know,” she said, feeling a bit sorry for the old woman despite herself. “It must have been dreadful for you.”

“It was,” the dowager said. “But I endured it. And I refuse to endure another separation in the family. Trevor needs to come to London to take up the business of the dukedom. He cannot simply ignore his family obligations by remaining in some provincial Yorkshire hamlet to play at being a gentleman farmer. He is the Duke of Ormonde and must be made to behave as such.”

The old woman pounded her walking stick on the floor for emphasis.

“I am hardly the best person to preach proper behavior, Godmama,” Isabella said, still not ready to accept the dowager’s orders. She was in no mood for travel. Besides, there was the matter of her reputation. “Indeed, I am perhaps the worst person to fetch him if you wish your grandson to arrive in London scandal-free.”

“I care not what his reputation will be,” the duchess said firmly. “I simply want him to be
here
.”

She glanced up at the portrait of her husband and sons that hung above the fireplace in her sitting room. “I am getting no younger, Isabella,” she said, her sharp eyes softening as she turned them back toward her goddaughter. “But I hope that before I go to join my dear boys, that I am able to meet the grandson who was kept from me. Please, Isabella. Say that you will go get him for me.”

Isabella was moved in spite of herself. The dowager was a difficult woman. But she’d truly loved the despicable Gervase. And despite that love, she’d done what she could to ensure that the true story of how he’d died never got out. She might have seen to it that all three women present that day were prosecuted for his death. Instead she’d hidden the truth. That in and of itself was enough to make Isabella grateful to her.

But the dowager’s next words destroyed any goodwill Isabella had harbored for her.

“If you do not go,” she said, her eyes narrowed, “I will see to it that your sister’s match with Coniston comes to nothing.”

Damn her.

She might have known that the old woman would find it impossible to simply let Isabella make the decision herself. Unable to wait, she’d decided to use the one bit of good to come out of Gervase’s death—Perdita’s proposed match with the Earl of Coniston—as leverage against her sister.

“You almost had me,” she said shaking her head. “Really, Duchess, it was quite splendidly done. If only you’d waited.”

The dowager did Isabella the courtesy of not misunderstanding her. “I had to make sure you would do as I asked.”

“I was almost ready to capitulate,” Isabella said coldly. “But you couldn’t resist threatening Perdita, could you?”

“It was not a matter of threatening your sister,” the dowager said. “It was a matter of using the right tool to make you do what I wished. And you have always been ready to do whatever it takes to protect your sister, have you not?”

Indeed, Isabella had always been protective of her sister. Not only because they’d lost their parents at an early age, but because Perdita’s sweet nature made her more vulnerable than most to the darker elements of the world. Like Gervase. And his grandmother.

“I suppose this means you still refuse to go to Yorkshire on my behalf?”

“On the contrary,” Isabella said. “Now I have no choice. Just as you wished.”

The Earl of Coniston was not, perhaps, as handsome or as polished as the Duke of Ormonde had been, but he’d managed to woo Perdita with his affable good nature and even temper. And Isabella would do nothing that would endanger her sister’s engagement. Even if it meant leaving London in the middle of the Season, and persuading a man with no intention of taking up his position as duke to return to town with her. And the dowager knew it.

“Sadly, it is blackmail,” the duchess said without a trace of remorse, “but needs must when the devil drives. Besides, as I told you before, it will do you good to get up to Yorkshire this time of year.”

“I’ll be taking one of the Ormonde traveling carriages,” Isabella said curtly. If the duchess were going to force her upon this fool’s errand, then she may as well be comfortable on the journey. “And I wish you to set up an account for me at Madame Celeste’s for when I return.”

The duchess, knowing she’d won, inclined her head to indicate her assent.“I do apologize for having gone about the business in such a havey-cavey manner, Isabella,” she said. “But you know how important family is to me. Especially now that Gervase is gone.”

Still cursing her own naiveté, Isabella rose. “If I’m to make an early start, I suppose I’d better be off.”

Not bothering to say her good-byes, she stormed out of the dowager’s sitting room and hurried downstairs to retrieve her hat and pelisse.

Also by Manda Collins

How to Dance with a Duke

How to Romance a Rake

How to Entice an Earl

Manda Collins spent her teen years wishing she’d been born a couple of centuries earlier, preferably in the English countryside. Time travel being what it is, she resigned herself to life with electricity and indoor plumbing, and read lots of books. When she’s not writing, she’s helping other people use books, as an academic librarian.

Visit her website at:
www.mandacollins.com

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

“The Perks of Being a Beauty” copyright © 2013 by Manda Collins.

Excerpt from
Why Dukes Say I Do
copyright © 2013 by Manda Collins.

All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Author photo © One Six Photography

Cover art © Steve Gardener

eISBN 9781466834903

First eBook Edition: June 2013