Ice Cold Duke (Frigid Dukes #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“ I know I ought to feel bad, but I don’t. If I can’t get drunk the night before a wedding I do not want, when can I?” Emery smiled mischievously across at her best friend, Georgina, whose face had been slowly and steadily turning pink over the last half hour that the two of them had been drinking sherry.

Georgina surprised her by giggling. “I don’t remember sherry being this strong,” she said, setting down her glass on the nightstand next to her. “But perhaps they water down the portions they give to young ladies at dinner parties and balls.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Emery said drily, “although I also wouldn’t know for sure, having never been able to taste the delights of a London Season as you have.”

“The delights?” Georgina shook her head. “I would hardly call it a delight: passive aggressive insults and sabotage from all the other debutantes and their mamas, feeling constantly like a horse on parade at auction, and all the while having to smile and nod as gentlemen bore you to death talking about themselves. Believe me, Emery, you’re lucky you never had a London Season.”

Emery sighed. She had heard all this before from Georgina, who, like her, was two-and-twenty, and almost considered on the shelf. It wasn’t easy for a young lady to have to repeat several Seasons in London without receiving a proposal, and Emery knew her friend’s disillusionment with the ton was well-earned.

Still, from her vantage point, Emery wished she could have had the kind of Season Georgina had now experienced three of. Emery had been engaged since she could walk and talk to a man who was like a brother to her, and therefore forbidden from attending a London Season because it had been deemed “a waste of money” for her parents to pay for new gowns. “Why should we pay for you to go frolicking about in ballrooms making a spectacle of yourself?” They had always asked, much to Emery’s disappointment.

“I don’t know,” she said, stretching out on her four-poster bed. “I should have liked to have experienced it. The romance of it! Getting dressed up, going to balls, having gentlemen ask me to dance… Never knowing if tonight is the night you meet the man who is going to fall madly in love with you and ask you to be his wife.”

“It’s not that wonderful, I assure you,” Georgina said, laughing and shaking her head. “Most gentlemen are very tedious, some even downright insulting! Believe me, you are much luckier to have someone like Henry, who is handsome, kind, and wealthy. And, best of all, who is already your friend! You know you get on, so you know your marriage won’t end up full of bitterness and dislike. There are far too many of those kinds of marriages amongst the ton .”

“Yes, I am very lucky with Henry, I suppose.” Emery fidgeted in her nightshift. “He is everything a woman would want for her husband. If, of course, he didn’t feel more like my brother than my fiancé. Marrying Henry feels all wrong, almost incestuous!”

“You have said this before, but I don’t think it will always feel that way,” Georgina said, but she was looking at Emery with more sympathy now, a small, sad smile on her lips. “But I am sorry, Em. I can imagine that doesn’t make for the most romantic feelings on the night before your wedding.”

The two friends grew quiet for a moment.

The night before your wedding. The words felt harsh against Emery’s ears. She couldn’t quite believe it was all happening. For years, she had been waiting for this wedding, and now, at last, here it was. It had been planned for so long that she’d started to think that maybe it wouldn’t ever take place.

When Henry had been off on his Grand Tour of the continent, she’d even wondered if he might never come back. But he had, and now, they were about to be married, despite the fact they never thought of one another in a romantic way.

“Henry is kind,” Georgina repeated, smiling softly. “That is what really matters in the long run of a marriage, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.” Emery swallowed, then reached for her glass of sherry and took a swig. “But I had so much hoped that I might have a love match, Georgie.”

“I know,” Georgina said sadly, handing her head. “But I fear we are both doomed to not have love matches.”

“You still could,” Emery pointed out.

“I suppose, but it is unlikely, for a spinster like me. I know you are unhappy about this marriage, Em, but imagine how you would feel if you were me: unmarried and not even engaged, at twenty-two! No man will even bother to court me now.”

Emery pictured it for a moment, but she didn’t see what her friend did. What she saw was freedom: the chance to find someone who actually cherished her, instead of being forced into a loveless, passionless marriage with an old friend.

“At least it isn’t his older brother you were engaged to since birth,” Georgina said, smiling suddenly. “Now that would be a terrible fate.”

“He is handsome, at least,” Emery pointed out. “Henry still looks like a little boy.”

“Henry is young, but he will grow into his looks,” Georgina said, and there was a strange look in her eyes that Emery had never seen before. Her friend shook her head and giggled, the momentary defensiveness for their friend evaporating. “But the Duke of Dredford! That man has a heart of ice! Imagine being married to an icicle!”

Emery let out a snort of laughter, which she quickly stifled.

“You really shouldn’t be so loud,” Georgina teased. “You might wake your fiancé.”

Emery stifled her laughter. Georgina was right. Emery’s family’s country estate was temporarily hosting her fiancé and his family, as she and Henry would marry the next morning in the chapel on her family estate. It wasn’t usual for a bride to spend the night before her wedding in the same house as her fiancé, but since their families were old friends, and it was going to be a small, private affair, her parents the Earl and Countess of Hillsborough has invited the Duke of Dredford and his younger brother Lord Henry Grove, to stay with them, along with a few close friends--including Georgina.

“It’s strange to think of them all asleep just down the hallway,” Georgina said, looking sideways at the door of the room. “I’ve never spent the night in a house full of men that weren’t related to me.”

“Henry has spent many nights here over the years,” Emery said. “Back when Henry and I were children and could spend lots of time together without everyone acting as if we were going to do something scandalous together--which we still wouldn’t, considering we are more like brother and sister!--he and his sisters used to come here for visits with their mother, though I haven't seen them since he left for his Grand Tour.”

Emery stared at the walls of her room, how everything remained surprisingly unchanged since then.

“Mama always put him in the same guestroom.”

Georgina frowned at her. “What? Why should that matter?”

“Well, I suppose it shouldn’t…” Emery bit her lip. She didn’t know if it was the sherry she was imbibing, or perhaps the urgency that the night before her wedding had created, but something in her felt as if it were stirring: as if an idea were being unlocked from deep within the recesses of her mind, where she had hidden it away a long time ago.

“...unless I wanted to try and convince him to call off the wedding with me.”

It took several seconds for Georgina to react. She stared at Emery, her mouth open, her eyes wide, incomprehension on her face.

“W-what are you t-talking about?” she stammered at last, and Emery smiled. A calm, strange energy seemed to have come over her. Even though she felt slightly mad, she also knew that what she was about to say was the truest thing she had ever said.

“I can’t marry Henry,” she said simply.

“But… you have to!” Georgina touched her neck nervously. “The wedding is tomorrow!”

“I know that, but I can’t do it. I have to stop it.”

“You can’t,” Georgina said again. “It would cause the greatest scandal the ton has ever seen!”

“I don’t care about the scandal it creates,” Emery said, resolution building in her every second. “Anyway, why should I care what the ton thinks? I’ve never even met most of its members! I’ve spent all my eligible years locked away in my parents’ London townhouse because they couldn’t be bothered to chaperone me to dances or buy me any new gowns or even introduce me at court. The ton owes me nothing, and I owe it nothing as well!”

She declared this last part rather loudly, and Georgina made a shushing gesture.

“Be reasonable,” she said weakly, a truly sick look beginning to appear on her face, “this is just cold feet. Everyone gets it! You can’t call off the engagement now, it would harm your reputation forever.”

“I’d rather have a harmed reputation than be married to a man I don’t love for the rest of my life.”

Georgina paused, and Emery could tell that this had made an impression on her. For all her friend’s protestations that she would never find love, Emery knew that she still held out hope for a love match. There were many men she could have settled for over the last few years--older gentlemen in need of an heir before they dropped dead--but Georgina had never pursued these more practical paths. So, on some level, she must have known why Emery so desperately didn’t want this marriage to happen.

“I need to talk to Henry,” Emery declared. “I know he doesn’t want this wedding, either. I could see it on his face at the engagement party, not to mention at church when they read the banns. He’s just too much of a gentleman to say so, and far too much of a gentleman to call anything off and leave me in ruin.”

Georgina’s eyes were wide again. “But you think he might agree to call it off if you speak to him?”

“I can tell him we will say it was my decision,” Emery declared. “It will cause less of a scandal that way. People will think I’m flighty, but I don’t care. We can remain friends, and no one needs to come across as ruined.”

“But…” Georgina still didn’t look entirely convinced. “Your parents will be furious.”

“They will be,” Emery agreed, “but I no longer care.”

“How much sherry have you had?” Georgina asked, picking up the bottle to check. She then started and gasped. “Oh Lord! No wonder you’re acting mad! This isn’t sherry--it’s brandy!”

Emery began to laugh, shaking her head at the same time. “It’s not the liquor,” she said between giggled, “even though it is much stronger than I realized.”

She was thinking of the feeling she’d had just a minute ago, of the door unlocking inside her head, of the hidden away feelings that were finally finding space to breathe and roam.

“I think I just can’t bear to let others decide my fate anymore.” She looked deep into Georgina’s eyes and blinked slowly. “All my life, my parents have made my choices for me: what to wear, what to say, with whom to be acquainted, who to marry, whether or not I will get a London Season or stay cooped up at home. No choice has ever been mine to make. But the choice of who to marry might be the most important decision a woman ever makes, and it ought to be mine, not my parents’.”

“I agree,” Georgina said faintly, “I just think it’s a little late to be realizing this.”

Emery flashed her friend a grin. “No, tomorrow afternoon would be too late. Right now, I would say it is just in the nick of time. Come!” She jumped down from the bed, set her empty glass of sherry on the nightstand, and grabbed her dressing gown from the back of the chair at her vanity. “We are going to wake Henry up and tell him the good news!”

And with that, she flung the door to her room open and stepped out into the hallway.

“Emery--wait!” Georgina hissed behind her. Emery turned to see Georgina grabbing her own dressing gown from the end of the bed and slipping it over her night rail. “I’m coming with you!”

“Just don’t try to stop me,” Emery whispered as they stepped out into the cold, dark corridor. Once the door was closed behind them, it was almost too dark to see anything, and they both paused for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the dark.

“I don’t know if I could stop you even if I tried,” Georgina whispered, “but I’m coming with you anyway. At least that way it will look less scandalous if you are caught in Henry’s room.”

“You’re my chaperone now?” Emery snorted. Without waiting for a response, she set off down the corridor, Georgina following her wake. Her eyes hadn’t fully adjusted, but Emery didn’t care. She knew these hallways well, and she could find her way to Henry’s room even with her eyes closed.

Right?

Except when she rounded the corner to the next corridor, she paused. Her brain felt fuzzy and memory was coming in waves. It’s the spirits! It’s making it difficult for me to remember which corridor Henry’s room is on!

But she didn’t say this out loud to Georgina, who would use it as fuel to dissuade her from her mission. And nothing was going to dissuade her from her mission.

Meanwhile, her friend continued to whisper-hiss reasons why she really ought to return to bed and not attempt this.

“Be reasonable!” Georgina pleaded, as Emery set off again down the corridor. “If someone should find us, we will be in deep trouble! It’s unladylike to be traipsing around corridors in the middle of the night like a common thief! And what are you going to say to Henry to persuade him? He is a man of honor, he will not allow you to call off your wedding the night before! I know him, he wouldn’t let his family down like that.”

But Emery was on a mission, and she barely heard Georgina’s words. She was too busy counting doors from the suit of armor under the tapestry of the unicorn. Four doors down… that was Henry’s room.

“This is it,” she said, stopping in front of the right door. Putting a finger to her lips to quiet Georgina, she placed her ear against the door. It was silent inside. He is asleep.

“Don’t do this,” Georgina breathed, but Emery shook her head.

“I’m doing this,” she murmured. “And you’re coming with me.”

And she pushed open the door and held it open for her friend. Georgina, however, hesitated.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s too risky.”

“I can’t wait any longer,” Emery whispered back. “I’m going inside. Come when you’re ready.” And she slipped inside the bedchamber.

If she had thought it was dark in the corridor outside, it was nothing to the darkness that greeted her inside Henry’s bedchamber. Heavy curtains had been drawn over the windows, so that no light could enter, and she left the door ajar, so that Georgina could follow.

I should feel weird about being inside a man’s bedroom , she thought, as she crept toward where she knew the bed was. In the dark, she could only make out a large, dark shape, which she assumed was the bed. But Henry isn't really a man, is he? He’s just Henry.

Stifling a giggle, she reached out and touched the end of the bed. Using touch alone, she made her way around to the edge of the bed to where she could now, very faintly, see the outline of a man sleeping. Now that she was closer, she could also hear his soft, deep breathing, which told her he was fast asleep. And as she leaned over him, she could also feel the warmth of his body radiating from him.

For a moment, she shivered. It had never occurred to her how enticingly warm a man might be. Her heart leapt in her throat, and at the same time a rush of drunken clumsiness came over her, and she fell forward onto the man.

“Oh!” she let out a little cry of surprise just as Henry grunted, as if startled out of sleep, and tried to sit up. As he did, he knocked her off balance, and she fell fully into the bed, landing around where she assumed his lap must be.

Henry inhaled sharply, perhaps in fear, perhaps in surprise. “What’s going on?” he asked, his tone muddled and his voice low and scratchy with sleep. “Who’s there?”

“Henry, don’t worry, it’s just me!” she half-whispered, half-cried, anxious not to wake the entire corridor of sleeping wedding guests. “Calm down, I just wanted to talk! There’s no need to panic!”

But Henry clearly didn’t agree with her, because he thrust her away from him, then leapt out of the bed. She faintly saw him move to the windows and rip back the heavy drapes that covered him.

Moonlight flooded the room at once, and she blinked up into his coldly handsome and furious face.

It was a face she knew well, but it was not Henry’s.

It was his brother’s, the Duke of Dredford.