The Duke's Hidden Desire (Scandals of Scarcliffe Hall #2): Scandals of Scarcliffe Hall, #2

By Gemma Blackwood

 

A reckless duke meets his match in a determined young woman – and throws her future into jeopardy with one stolen kiss.

Miss Anna Hawkins, the daughter of a poor country doctor, knows the mysterious stranger who kissed her at the ball cannot really be the Duke of Beaumont. Dukes are virtuous and noble, and this man is arrogant, impudent… and dangerously seductive.

When she discovers he is telling the truth, it only makes matters worse. Anna has more important problems than romance – a handsome duke is the last thing she needs.

Beaumont cannot forget Anna Hawkins. It's not only her sharp mind and delicate features. It's not only the flame-red hair he longs to caress. It's not even that she is the only woman in England to say no to a duke.

Anna is not afraid to chastise Beaumont for his lack of virtue, and he has never wanted anyone more. Before long, he has only one desire: to make her his duchess.

But it takes more than a dukedom to win a woman's heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gemma Blackwood
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223526001

Book preview

Chapter 1

Scarcliffe Hall, England, 1820

Of all the houses Anna Hawkins had visited with her father, Scarcliffe Hall was the most impressive. Tonight, of all nights, it made a particular impression upon her as their carriage trundled up the long driveway. An enormous building of pale sandstone, fronted by four round buttresses and crested by crenellations more fit for a castle, it was arrayed with glass windows which all blazed with light. The cost of the candles alone made her shudder.

Theirs was not the only carriage to arrive that evening. The Marquess of Lilistone was throwing a ball, and everyone of any substance in the surrounding country was invited. As Anna’s father helped her from the carriage, she saw the feathered headdresses of the marquess’s guests bobbing as the fine ladies made their entrances. The doorway, when they reached it, opened on a blaze of colour and animation. Jewels sparkled in the candlelight; champagne fizzed in cut-crystal glasses; laughter bubbled through the air.

Anna took a moment to glance down at her own dress, a practical brown muslin, and wished that her father had found time to leave her at home before attending this urgent call.

The butler whisked them away upstairs, drawing not even a glance from the guests, and soon Anna found herself in the familiar half-darkness of a sickroom.

A visit to a patient followed a similar pattern wherever they went – even if this sickroom boasted a carved mahogany sofa, curtains made from the finest velvet, and a set of furnishings that looked as though they alone cost more than her father’s entire house.

Ah! Dr Hawkins! the marquess boomed from his seat. He was surrounded by a vast quantity of stuffed cushions, and his leg was propped up on a stool and swathed in bandages. It’s very good of you to come out at such short notice! I would not have troubled you myself, but my sons do like to fuss over me!

It’s always a pleasure to see you, my lord, said Anna’s father, bowing deeply. I will do all I can to get you back on your feet.

The marquess pushed himself up from his stack of pillows, craning his neck to get a better look at Anna. Have you brought Miss Hawkins with you? Come closer, girl. Let me get a look at you.

Good evening, my lord, said Anna, making her best curtsey. The marquess shook his head, tutting.

I’m sure she’s indispensable to you, Hawkins, but I must say I don’t think nursing is a suitable activity for a young lady of such delicacy.

Thank you, my lord, said Anna’s father. Only she could hear the smile in his voice. I can assure you that my daughter does not perform any medical duties. Anna and I were on our way back from a social call when your messenger found us, and I thought it best not to spare the time to drop her at home. Besides, I assure you that she is more than capable of tending to the sick.

Each to his own, sniffed the marquess. It is good for a young woman to learn a useful skill, I suppose.

Now, if you will permit me to examine you, my lord, said Anna’s father, unperturbed by the marquess’s grumbles. Then we will see what needs to be done. Is it a recurrence of the gout?

Yes, and a dratted nuisance, too. Lord Lilistone threw off his blankets and hiked up his trouser leg.

Step outside a moment, Anna, said the doctor, pulling up a chair to the marquess’s bedside.

Good gracious, man, it’s only a leg! said Lord Lilistone. Since the young lady takes an interest, let her stay. I trust you do not intend to make as great a fuss over me as my sons have done. I have a ball to attend, you know. All I need is a tincture or two to relieve the blasted pain in my leg, and I’ll be dancing as prettily as any of them! He fixed Anna with a steely stare. I seem to recall that you were invited to the ball, young lady. Whose evening entertainment was deemed more important than mine, pray tell?

Anna knew that she had to speak carefully to avoid offending the marquess, but she was not frightened by his accusing tone. Her father had attended him many times over the years, and she knew that his bark was worse than his bite. We were only visiting the Widow Johnson, my lord. Of course, it was nothing compared to your ball. But you know, I am sure, that my father also attends the Duke of Loxwell –

Hmph! Lord Lilistone’s snort of disdain made his opinion of the duke perfectly clear. The two were old enemies, embroiled in a bitter family feud that had lasted for generations. "Yes, yes, you are right to remind me! No doubt you could not offend him by attending my ball. What nonsense! Is the man so thin-skinned? Oh!" This last exclamation was a sharp cry of pain. Anna’s father had lifted the marquess’s leg gently to move it into the light. The knee was badly swollen and had turned a painful-looking red.

There has been no injury to the area? Dr Hawkins asked, as the marquess shifted uncomfortably.

No, no. Only this inconvenient swelling.

And the pain has recently increased?

Haven’t been able to walk on it since this morning!

See, Anna, we have here the classic symptoms of gout –

Redness, swelling, and pain in the joints of the lower leg, she said immediately. Her father smiled.

And what treatments are preferred?

The affected limb must be bandaged and elevated. In addition, the patient should avoid eating red meat, and drinking port wine.

Just so, said her father. You see, my lord, Anna is in perfect agreement with me. A tincture will do you no good. You must rest the leg, keep it propped up, and avoid –

Avoid everything that brings me pleasure in my old age! grumbled the marquess. It’s too much, Dr Hawkins, too much entirely.

Nevertheless, my lord, the cause of gout is in the diet, said Anna. If you wish to cure it, you must adjust your dining habits accordingly.

Lord Lilistone pushed himself up from his stack of cushions, craning his neck to get a better look at her. You are very sure of yourself, Miss Hawkins.

I have studied hard to become so.

"Studied! You have a bluestocking on your hands here, Hawkins! Well, Miss, you were lucky to get yourself betrothed despite this penchant for study. I did hear, did I not, that you were recently engaged?"

I am, my lord.

Pleasant fellow, is he? Treats you well?

An image of Mr Gilbert Jackson, the man in question, flickered across Anna’s mind. She supposed he was pleasant enough, but that was not why she had agreed to marry him. He treats me very well, my lord.

Good. A bright young thing like yourself deserves a kind husband. Well, Hawkins, I am persuaded. I will take your daughter’s wise advice. Do excuse us a moment, Miss Hawkins. Your father will want to leech this blasted leg, and that is not a sight fit for a lady’s eyes.

Anna curtsied and left the room. She had accompanied her father often enough to know that when a patient wanted privacy, it was given without question – though she did smile at the thought that the sight of a few leeches might offend her.

She withdrew into the corridor, where the sounds of the party downstairs were just audible. Lively music was playing. Anna found her foot tapping a rhythm against the marquess’s thickly-carpeted floor.

A short way down the corridor, a door stood ajar. Anna struggled with her own curiosity for a few moments, weighing up the potential embarrassment of being caught snooping through Scarcliffe Hall against her desire to get a look at the richly-clad guests.

Curiosity won. Glancing around to check that no-one was watching, Anna crept into the open room and found, to her delight, that it had a large window overlooking the grounds.

It seemed to be some kind of private sitting room, with a few doors leading off to what were presumably the bedroom, the dressing room, and the water closet. Anna took a moment to look around and take in the wealth on display. The sitting room was larger than her father’s kitchen and contained much more open space. An intricately-pattered rug lay on the floor. Plasterwork fruits and vines twined in opulent patterns around the edges of the ceiling. A huge mirror hung over the fireplace, making the room seem even bigger than it was. Anna caught sight of her own reflection and immediately wished she had not. Her dress, serviceable as it was, hardly matched her surroundings. Even the long auburn hair which she considered the only really beautiful feature she possessed was pinned away beneath a plain white bonnet. She did not have even a ribbon or a piece of lace to soften it.

It was all very well to dress sensibly when she was accompanying her father around Loxton town. Anna wished for a moment that there had been time to stop at home and change into something fit for the eyes of a marquess and his guests… but of course, if there had been any time, her father would simply have left her at home.

Anna moved to the window and was immediately disappointed. The largeness of the house had confused her sense of direction. The window did not look out over the part of the gardens where guests mingled under bright candlelight at all, but over a dark and empty topiary garden.

If Anna had been hosting the ball, she would have opened up that maze of mysterious dark trees to her guests. It looked the perfect place for all manner of intrigues and secret liaisons…

Perhaps that was the precise reason the marquess had chosen not to use it. Reputation and honour meant everything to the peerage, after all. A masked ball was already ripe for mischief – better not to invite it further.

As far as Anna was concerned, the sheer cost of the masquerade was already scandal enough. The expense of all those silk and lace dresses! The endless flow of French wine! The musicians, the liveried footmen, the food, the decorations! She was glad she had not accepted her own invitation.

Anna often felt caught between two worlds, spending most of her time among the very poor, but being a gentleman’s daughter. Her father’s profession gave her the opportunity to peer beyond the gilded curtain which the gentry used to obscure that which they didn’t care to see. She was as much disgusted by the extravagance of the masquerade as she was, despite herself, intrigued.

A flicker of movement among the bushes below interrupted her chain of thought. Anna was just leaning closer to the window to get a better look when she heard the part-open door slam closed behind her.

Anna whirled around to find herself confronted by a masked man wearing the costume of a Venetian gondolier. He looked her up and down with undisguised amazement.

Well, well, he said softly. It seems we have an intruder.

Chapter 2

Benjamin Colborne, Duke of Beaumont, attended balls only on sufferance.

It was not that he did not enjoy dancing. Beaumont had been given the finest education money could buy, which had included an Italian dancing master whose tongue was as sharp as his footwork. In fact, Beaumont flattered himself that he was among the most graceful denizens of any given dancefloor.

Champagne was one of his favourite beverages. Witty conversation was his pastime of choice. Late nights, pretty women, and a lively atmosphere were very much all right by him.

For lesser men, Beaumont knew, there was nothing so delightful as a ball, for all the reasons he had just listed. But, sadly, it was not a pleasure in which he could indulge.

He was a duke. Not only a duke, but a young, unmarried duke with a face he judged reasonably attractive and a temperament designed to please. His life was replete with blessings and, as a result, he was the chief object of every matchmaking mama in England.

Who, after all, was more eligible, more popular, more desirable among the ladies, than the Duke of Beaumont?

Beaumont rarely passed an evening in society without having at least three pretty young girls thrust to his attention. It was an experience that he found as mortifying as the girls found exciting. Even supposing one of them happened to catch his eye, what was he supposed to do with her? Marry? Marry, and relinquish every pleasure of his happily unattached lifestyle? Anchor himself once and forever to a duchess who would police his late nights and languid mornings, demanding more of his attention than his dogs, his horses, his tenants and parliament itself?

The thought was enough to make a man shudder in his boots. No, Beaumont was not for marriage. He had a very extensive family of male relations, all of whom seemed to be eminently qualified to marry, produce heirs, and take over the dukedom when he was gone. While he remained on this earth, he intended to pass time as he desired it. In all his thirty years, no man – more to the point, no woman – had been able to convince him otherwise.

It was, therefore, only as a favour to his particular friend Robert, the Earl of Scarcliffe, son of the Marquess of Lilistone, that he had agreed to attend the ball at Scarcliffe Hall.

The fact that it was a masquerade made his decision much easier. Beaumont had a connoisseur’s appreciation for intrigue which his well-known face rendered difficult to indulge. To lose himself in a crowd of lavishly-dressed social butterflies, masked and disguised and entirely unrecognised, was a rare pleasure.

"Well, signor, said the young lady he had recently whisked about the dancefloor, a little breathless. I must thank you for a most exhilarating dance!"

The pleasure was entirely mine, Miss Somerville, he answered, bending low to kiss her hand. Somerville, of course, was not her real name. The girl laughed prettily, sending the blue feathers she wore in her peacock mask bobbing. Allow me to fetch you some refreshment?

Rather than accepting his offer, the peacock-feathered girl drew him aside with a finger pressed to her lips. "I rather fear you may wish to disappear, Signor Gondoliere. With a subtle nod, she indicated the group of giggling girls watching them from a distance. I am afraid the identity of the noble waterman of Venice has been discovered."

Beaumont recognised the look those women wore. It was the same expression that might be found on his own face when he approached the unlucky fox out on the hunt. Blast! What gave me away?

The peacock girl smirked beneath her mask. Nobody dances like the Duke of Beaumont, Your Grace… ah, I mean, Signor Antonio.

Beaumont kissed her hand again. Then my dancing is done for the evening, I fear. May I press upon you to join me out on the balcony for a glass of champagne? Once we are out of the light, you know, we may speak to each other quite freely.

The peacock girl tilted her head to one side. "Pray excuse me, signore. I find my own dancing is not quite done."

A slightly shrill voice interrupted Miss Somerville the moment she turned him down. "I myself am simply dying for a glass of champagne and a little…intimate conversation!"

Beaumont turned reluctantly to greet the owner of the voice, whom he recognised immediately as Miss Susan Clayton. Not content with being the heiress to a particularly large fortune, Miss Clayton had set her heart on bagging a title along with a worthy marriage. She seemed to think that the title of duchess would suit her most particularly.

"Mi scusi, signora," said Beaumont hastily, flashing the red silk lining of his cloak as he bowed. He left her to be comforted by the level-headed girl in the peacock mask.

Beaumont had a keen sense for when he was being pursued. He pushed his way quickly through the crowds of guests, ducking behind one group and dodging between the next, until the girls who had rumbled him were left far behind. Once he had turned a corner into an unoccupied corridor of Scarcliffe Hall, he tugged at the red gondolier’s scarf he wore in place of a cravat and let out a sigh of relief.

It had been fun while it lasted. Robert could not fault him for trying. News would soon spread that the Duke of Beaumont had been spotted at the masked ball, and its status would be elevated in the eyes of all the ton.

But Beaumont’s enjoyment of the evening was over.

As a whispering couple entered the corridor behind him, Beaumont decided to give them a little privacy. He made off upstairs in the direction of his suite of rooms. Robert had invited his closest friends to Scarcliffe Hall for the start of the hunting season, and the group of four gentlemen intended to make a bachelor’s paradise of the rambling old mansion for the rest of the summer – as soon as the elderly marquess could be persuaded to leave them in peace.

Naturally, as a duke, Beaumont outranked Lord Lilistone, but he had no desire to pull rank in a man’s own home. The four gentlemen – the Earl of Scarcliffe, his brother, Lord Jonathan Hartley, the Baron Northmere and Beaumont himself – had happily obliged the old man’s desire for a ball. It was a dreadful shame that the marquess himself was not well enough to attend it!

The health of his host occupied Beaumont’s thoughts so effectively that he had actually entered his private sitting room without any notion that it was already occupied. A rustle of clothing as the interloper turned to face him brought his attention to her immediately – and there it lingered.

At first, he was simply surprised by her choice of attire. While most of the woman at the ball had decked themselves out lavishly in silks, feathers and coloured turbans, she had chosen to dress as…

Beaumont wrinkled his nose, trying to decide whether her plain brown gown signified flower girl or milkmaid. If he did not already know all the servants, he would have taken her for one of the lower classes. He had never seen such a poorly thought-out costume!

But his eyes quickly abandoned her peculiar dress for the fine-boned face above it. This party-goer had removed her mask, and Beaumont had rarely been gladder of anything. She had high cheekbones, a narrow, straight nose, a proud mouth in an attractive shade of coral, and a face overall that was a little too thin to be fashionable, but which happened to appeal directly to Beaumont’s tastes. Her eyes, a charming, clear hazel, were wide with shock. It was obvious that she had no legitimate reason for being in his chambers.

Well, well, said Beaumont, too enchanted by his unintended guest to be stern. It seems we have an intruder.

Chapter 3

The man standing before Anna was wearing a Venetian mask striped in red and black, tied behind his ears with a ribbon. The only clues she could gather as to his identity were that he was tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired, and, presumably, a guest of the marquess.

A guest who had just discovered her