Her Wicked Duke (Imperious Lords 3)

By Lisa Torquay

SHE MADE ONE MISTAKE: HIM
Four years ago, Philippa met Titus in a house-party. They had a fiery tryst that ended in disaster when he married his intended--and her now deceased second cousin--Lydia. Since then, Philippa lived her sorrow in private, avoiding the man at any cost. Travelling to London, she becomes stranded in his manor, and the past is coming back to haunt her even more than it had already. Convinced she must move on, she dives in the season determined to forget him. The only problem is that the blasted duke seems equally determined that she doesn't as he follows her to the city. She'll fight him and her feelings for him standing; and get over the past sooner rather than later.
HE MADE ONE MISTAKE: HER
Titus, the Duke of Brunswick, succumbed to Philippa's lips that summer knowing he'd soon be betrothed to a duke's daughter. After he and Philippa part, he accepts his fate to avoid scandal. Two years ago, he lost his wife and son in childbirth and took refuge in the country ever since. But the little termagant ends up stranded in his lands, shattering his hard-won peace. The problem is that, as she leaves, she takes with her the sparks that make him feel alive. That won't do. Unbidden, he takes a trip to town and down memory lane when their kisses prove as luscious as ever. He'll kill this passion even if he dies of it.
BUT COULD TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Torquay
• Release date: Mar 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463314890

Lisa Torquay

Lisa Torquay comes from a multi-cultural family. She graduated in History and earned a Master’s Degree in British Empire. She has worked as an English and History teacher at high schools. She married a Norwegian and moved to Norway, where she has lived for three years. Writing has been her passion since she was thirteen. When she’s not writing, she’s messing up in the kitchen because she loves cooking as much as she’s clumsy. She hopes you enjoy her books and would love to know your opinion about them. Just go to www.lisatorquay.wixsite/main

Book preview

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Copyright

Dedication

From the Back Cover

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PREVIEW OF HER WICKED MARQUESS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connect with Lisa Torquay

Other Books by Lisa Torquay

Copyright

Her Wicked Duke

Copyright 2020 Lisa Torquay

Published by Lisa Torquay

Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Editor

Vance Byrd

Cover Art

Jo Singleton

Dedication

To my father, a writer himself, who passed away while I was writing this book.

From the Back Cover

She made one mistake: him

Four years ago, Philippa met Titus in a house-party. They had a fiery tryst that ended in disaster when he married his intended--and her now deceased second cousin--Lydia. Since then, Philippa lived her sorrow in private, avoiding the man at any cost. Travelling to London, she becomes stranded in his manor, and the past is coming back to haunt her even more than it had already. Convinced she must move on, she dives in the season determined to forget him. The only problem is that the blasted duke seems equally determined that she doesn't as he follows her to the city. She'll fight him and her feelings for him notwithstanding; and get over the past sooner rather than later.

He made one mistake: her

Titus, the Duke of Brunswick, succumbed to Philippa's lips that summer knowing he'd soon be betrothed to another duke's daughter. After he and Philippa part, he accepts his fate to avoid scandal. Two years ago, he lost his wife and son in childbirth and took refuge in the country ever since. But the little termagant ends up stranded in his lands, shattering his hard-won peace. The problem is that, as she leaves, she takes with her the sparks that make him feel alive. That won't do. Unbidden, he takes a trip to town and down memory lane when their kisses prove as luscious as ever. He'll kill this passion even if he dies of it.

But could two wrongs make a right?

CHAPTER ONE

In the wilds of Hampshire, 1817

Philippa Whitman sat in the carriage with her maid as a veritable deluge raged outside. It’d not been this bad at sunrise when she bid good-bye to her grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Mandeville. She left Wiltshire towards London to visit her niece. The morning had dawned lovely with a promising early autumn sun appearing clean and shiny in the horizon.

While they crossed on to Hampshire, the weather had gone the polar opposite. Ominously leaden clouds gathered in the sky and a short time later the downpour began. The road became a stream of muddy water washing over the wheels. Too far from Wiltshire at that point, they ploughed on in the hopes of finding an inn. There were a few on the way, but Philippa didn’t remember their exact locations. She worried about the coachman, who was currently taking the brunt of the rain, and burrowed further in her thick redingote, the chilly air sneaking through the cracks of the wooden structure.

Are you all right, she asked Maggie. The girl looked at the window with an upset expression. The only thing the girl saw were sheets of water distorting everything outside in the late afternoon.

Yes, my lady, the maid answered turning to Philippa. Dreadful weather after a perfectly pleasant morning.

I agree, she replied. I only hope we can make it to an—

The carriage lurched to a stop with a jerk, the horses neighing. That storm pounded on the roof, the noise so loud she feared no conversation would be feasible. The door tore open to reveal the coachman soaked through his hat, cloak, and clothes.

My lady, Jack bellowed over the storm, as he tried uselessly to wipe his face with a sodden cloth. The river right ahead has gone out of its bed. The rush of water crashed the bridge.

Rain pelted, threatening to invade the interior of the carriage and he narrowed the space between the door and the inside, shielding it with his body. Maggie gasped, a hand covering her mouth. Raindrops continued sluicing down the poor coachman as a fretting Philippa tried to think of a solution for this unexpected development.

Driving ahead was clearly impossible. Even when the rain stopped, it’d take days to be able to proceed as the men from the surrounding area would gather to fix the bridge. The three of them might go back to Wiltshire, but they’d been journeying for the better part of the day. In this weather, it’d impossible to return.

If she returned now, her grandmother wouldn’t allow another foray on the roads so soon. The elderly lady was reluctant to yield this time and only did so after lengthy insistence on her grand-daughter’s part. Philippa had been feeling restive as she returned to the country after her sister Edwina’s marriage to Harris Darroch. Besides visiting her niece, Philippa also wished to enjoy London’s season with her sister and the Countess and Thornton, their dear friend.

But she had to keep her mind on the issue at hand. There hadn’t been an inn for hours. In fact, they saw one soon before the rain started. There was one place they might seek refuge though. The one place she didn’t imagine putting her feet in ever. They were in the Duke of Brunswick’s lands. His country house must lie not half an hour from this road.

The mere thought of him made her body rattle with countless emotions. As it had for three years. Three long, bitter years. During which they avoided each other like the plague. Years that her mind tormented her with the image of him and his wife, her own second cousin, Lydia. And then their child. Every single dark emotion pooled in her, those she could name and those she couldn’t, or wouldn’t dare. Bitterness, jealousy, regret, to label a few. For her own dear, sweet cousin, for starters.

If Philippa were to speak bluntly, she’d prefer to drown in the flood than to ask for the duke’s help. He hated the guts of her. She hated the guts of him. Well, mostly. Seeing him at Edwina’s wedding last year clambered at her heart with all the conflicting reactions he eternally extricated from her. Not merely since that fateful house-party three summers ago. But since she was a naïve debutante gawking at him from the other side of whatever ballroom they’d been stuffed in. Ballroom, soiree, tea-party, garden-party.

Then came that twistingly unforgettable house-party.

It ended badly. Really badly. With her revelation and his subsequent betrothal to Lydia. Which led him to hate her; and led her to endless tears and regrets. Worse, to the consuming jealousy when she imagined him and her beloved cousin together. So she kept away from them all this time. Pleaded indisposition whenever the duke and duchess invited the Whitmans to a function. She didn’t want to witness their happiness. Least of all lay eyes on the lean, tall and dark duke, so handsome he made her melt into a humiliating puddle with the mere thought of him.

Yes, indeed, she preferred to drown than to be face to face with the wretched duke.

But she wasn’t an immature debutante any longer. She had to consider Maggie’s and Jack’s welfare. The duke might not be in residence after all, though he rarely left it these days. One could only hope.

I think I know where we can seek shelter, she said. At least, she hoped he helped the servants if not her.

After giving Jack the instructions, she sat upright on her seat, her spine turned stiff with apprehension. Her heart had gone into frenzied beating, seeming as a drum in her chest as her breath didn’t surface properly; her lungs might be wrapped in a chain mail for all the air she managed to feed them.

Her brain flooded with memories of him, of them and that summer. Philippa had insisted in attending the house-party of the Marquess of Worcester organised by his mother the Dowager Marchioness.. The old lady’s presence lent respectability to the occasion, the key element to convince Philippa’s parents to allow her to attend with a chaperone in tow. Neither they nor her grandmother could accompany her because of a previously accepted engagement. Philippa had spent all the carriage trip excited with the gathering. She’d known the duke would be there. The prospect of staying in close quarters with him for days had heightened her enthusiasm to a frothing state. There’d been no expectation of having anything to do with the duke. She’d just wished to look at him during the meals, games, and picnics that would surely take place.

She’d been aware of talks of a match between her second cousin Lydia and Titus, though not yet formalised at the time of the house-party. Soon before their wedding, she’d come into the fact that the arrangement had stood for years between the two families. After all, Lydia was the Duke of Bentley’s daughter, the perfect match for the Duke of Brunswick. Philippa had had no intention of being less than ten feet close to Titus; she only wanted to look her fill before he became her second cousin by marriage. As they said, Hell was full of good intentions.

And she’d lived in her own kind of torment ever since.

Through the sheet of water, she discerned wrought-iron gates being opened by servants to allow their carriage through the road leading to the manor. Sided by centenary oaks and their feast of autumnal leaves bright with the downpour, the road seemed to welcome them. This close to a place she’d never been, to the man she never imagined seeing again, an iron fist squeezed her already unsteady heart. She fervently hoped he wasn’t in residence.

The carriage stopped by the main entrance, and she looked through the window with a tense glint in her eyes. There wasn’t a carriage driveway, which meant she must walk to the door in the rain. Not a big deal for someone travelling for hours in it. Skirts gathered in her fists, she waited for the driver to open the carriage and then rushed to the huge oak door widening for her. Vaguely, she registered the Elizabethan architecture of the enormous building and its elegant glass windows.

As she stepped in the sprawling foyer, her clothes and hair had become a mess. But she got no time to do anything about it before she realised the butler eyeing her inquisitively. Jack and Maggie surely found their way through the servants’ door to a fire-lit kitchen and hopefully a warm meal. They’d be fine even if she wouldn’t.

Good afternoon, she started, trampling over her tension. I’m Lady Philippa Whitman. I wonder if I can take shelter until the rain subsides.

The butler bowed. Certainly, my lady. His Grace has been informed of visitors and awaits you in the library.

So the man was unluckily in residence, she concluded dispirited. Better to expect the worst in this case. In vain, she tried to brace herself for what would come and followed the servant. He’d have no way of predicting who arrived. She was the niece of a Marquess, not entitled to a crested carriage that would identify her. An element of surprise might be to her advantage. A flimsy one anyway.

The butler led her through long hallways of impeccable architecture and luxurious decoration. Oak panelling, marble flooring, crystal chandeliers, velvet drapes and rare collectors’ vases passed her by. The sumptuousness of her surroundings drove home the importance and standing of their owner. It hit her for the first time that Titus was not the man she met those years ago. His standing and title made him one of the most refined noblemen in the realm. It’d become easy to forget that in the house party. It’d been him divested of the symbols of his status apart from his clothing and bearing. The realisation brought a sense of intimidation to her. How on earth had she been involved with a man like that? Extremely naïve of her! Being younger constituted no excuse. She should have run from the party, not to it.

At last, the butler halted before a door and rasped on it before gyrating the knob. It opened to the view of a tall figure clad in black sitting casually on an armchair with a book in hand. At the movement, his eyes rose to the butler.

Lady Philippa Whitman, Your Grace. He gave way to her as the duke stood.

Mere feet inside, the door clicked shut, but Philippa didn’t hear it, her whole attention on the man standing in the middle of the vast room. Her eyes bulged on seeing him properly for the first time in years.

He’d attended her sister Edwina’s wedding because he was a friend of Harris Darroch’s, the groom. But as soon as she registered his presence, she avoided glancing at him even once. Resisted bravely the urge to peek at the duke though her senses clamoured for it. He’d not come to say good morning to her either. They’d kept their distance, physical and otherwise.

Now, however, she had no choice but look. And look she did. Six feet plus of lean male with broad shoulders, long legs and haughty stance. Her heart somersaulted as her eyes landed on the perfection of him. Titus Spencer Godfrey Haughton, thirty-five, devastatingly attractive, onyx-black hair matching obdurate onyx eyes, hard jaw; and the most delicious mouth to disgrace the planet; she would know. The flawless nose was a sculptor’s dream, but then there was the moustache. Not those long, waxed ones. No, Titus bore too much elegance for it. His was trimmed, strictly symmetrical with his lips, it stamped harshness to an already stark, arresting face.

Her caramel eyes met his while a rush of cold followed by heat washed over her. With single-minded effort, she remembered herself. A pleasant smile, though forced, pulled her lips as she thanked the decades of practise that allowed her a gracious curtsy.

Your Grace. Her courteous voice complemented the mask of genteel breeding she’d make sure to stay in place.

When she straightened, though, the forbidding expression on his eyes didn’t invite polite conversation. The look on him was so loathsome not even the worst enemy of the realm deserved it. But she did, in his viewpoint at least. From the moment he made the connection between her and Lydia, she’d been on the receiving end of his contempt. Undisguised and unrepressed. And the worst was she believed she deserved it, all of it.

An utterly pleasant surprise, he said, the metallic edge to his voice left no doubt of his real opinion.

She didn’t think she’d ever forget the low, deep timbre even beyond the grave. It had rasped her name in her ear when they were… She tamped down on the flood of memories. It wouldn’t do to give in to them when their object stood before her, hands behind his back and scorn on his forefront.

No use dragging out this conversation. I apologise for the inconvenience. She started unwilling to be the target of his gust of masculinity and disdain. My driver, lady’s maid and I were caught in the rain on our way to London. She strived to give him a frosty look. "I’d appreciate if