To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Belmont Hall, Gloucestershire, England

Present time

A s usual the eggs were overcooked, the sausages blackened, while the toast was soggy and barely browned. Eugenie viewed the table with resignation as she sipped her tea. Nothing had changed since she’d been away being finished at Miss Debenham’s. Breakfast was always the liveliest meal at Belmont Hall, and she could see the strain on her mother’s face as she sought to regain some control over the most boisterous of her brood while her father seemed to positively encourage them in more and more outrageous behavior.

To her cries of “Speak to them, dear Sir Peter, please!” he answered “Good morning, children.”

They loved it, as Eugenie well knew, but she pitied her mother. Now that she was home it would be expected of her to take over some of the burden of caring for the family. The Belmonts were not wealthy, they could not afford more than two house servants, and as she was the only girl, Eugenie sometimes felt that the extra work fell upon her more than was fair.

“Genie, are we going to see Erik today?” Jack asked for the tenth time.

“Yes, we are,” Eugenie answered patiently, while her insides were all aquiver as she considered the claims she’d made to her friends that last night at Miss Debenham’s. Olivia and Marissa had already written. Although Eugenie managed to forget about her foolish words sometimes for an hour at a time they always returned. Like Marie Antoinette at the guillotine, Eugenie saw no way out of her situation.

Her father’s chuckle brought her out of her gloomy thoughts. There was a suspiciously satisfied gleam in his eye. “I separated His Grace from ten guineas, thanks to that goat,” he said.

“What do you mean? Why would he pay you ten guineas?”

“Father went to visit the duke,” one of the twins piped up. “Tell her what you said, Father!”

“Tell her how you fleeced the duke!” the other twin added, bouncing up and down on his chair with excitement.

Sir Peter Belmont was nothing loath to share his triumph. “I explained to His Grace that I was giving up my finest billy goat, and that if he wanted to keep Erik then I’d need to be compensated.”

Eugenie set down her teacup with shaking hands; a sick feeling was growing in her stomach. “Father, how could you? You know he was only taking Erik to be kind. And after the wretched goat butted him! I hope he refused to pay.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” her father retorted, barely ruffled by her criticism. “I admit he could have said no, in which case we would have had to come to some other arrangement, but he agreed that ten guineas was cheap at the price.”

“Cheap at the price!” the twins echoed.

“Do sit still, boys!” their mother wailed.

Eugenie had the depressing feeling that she was the only member of this family who cared that a wrong had been done. How could she face the duke after her father’s scheming? How could the most eligible man in England look favorably upon a woman whose own background was so obviously and completely in eligible?

“I will have to apologize,” she said grimly.

“Oh, please don’t purse your mouth up like that, Eugenie,” her mother said in her long-suffering voice. “There was a time when you found your father’s little tricks amusing. My sister Beatrix may have paid for you to go to finishing school, but how do you think we afforded the extras? Evening gloves, for heaven’s sake. And the boys are always in need of new boots. They grow so quickly!”

“Speaking of which, Eugenie, my girl, I expect you to put to use some of those fine finishing school manners,” her father interrupted. “Next time I go to the Torringham horse market you can come with me and bedazzle the customers.”

“I’m sure I’ll be far too busy to go to the horse market.”

Eugenie’s father had a not undeserved reputation as a shyster and a rapscallion—a man not to be trusted. She wasn’t going to assist him in perpetuating one of his dishonest schemes.

Sir Peter found it easy to blur the lines between what was lawful and what was useful to him. After being thrown out of school he went on to gamble away most of his inheritance, apart from his title, and then marry a local heiress so that he could pay his debts—only now he was beholden to the heiress’s hardnosed sister. He was charming, however, and it was charm that had carried him through life so far—much as it carried his grandmother into the king’s bed. Terrence, the brother closest in age to Eugenie, was a great deal like their father when it came to that charm, and she worried that he would end up just the same.

She spent a lot of time worrying about her brothers.

When she wasn’t worrying about the mess her wretched tongue had gotten her into and how she was going to get out of it. Apart from doing as she’d said she would and pursuing the most eligible man in the county in an effort to make him her husband.

Breakfast over, she led the younger boys outside to the stables. The twins were tumbling around like puppies as she loaded them into the old coach. It was like something out of the ark, and Eugenie tried not to notice how desperately the vehicle needed a new coat of paint or the alarming crick in one of the wheels.

“It’s not as if we’ll even see the duke,” she comforted herself. “There’ll be a groom to direct us to Erik.”

That meant she probably wouldn’t have a chance to apologize for her father’s shameful behavior, but she could always write a letter, she told herself with relief. She should have written before, to thank him for agreeing to help with the billy goat, but she’d kept putting it off. What did one say to a duke who’d been butted by a billy goat?

The coach was just rolling past the front of the hall when Terrence came strolling up and forced them to halt. Eugenie narrowed her eyes at him through the open window, noting that his necktie was askew, his shirt and jacket were crumpled, and his eyes were shadowed from fatigue—at least she hoped it was fatigue. He was a handsome boy, a year younger than Eugenie, and took after their father in looks, but lately there was an air of dissatisfaction about him.

“Off somewhere interesting?” he asked, opening the door.

“Where have you been, Terry?”

“None of your business,” he said, sneering in a way he probably considered rakish, and then spoiled it all by adding in an anxious voice, “Can you lend me a guinea, Genie? I’ll pay you back.”

“Have you been gambling down at the Five Bells?”

“There’s little enough else to do around here.”

“I thought you wanted to join the army?”

“What’s the point? Father could never afford a decent regiment and I’d hardly want to go in as a foot soldier. I might as well resign myself to being trapped in this backwater until I die.”

He sounded so forlorn that Eugenie felt sorry for him. Terry wasn’t a bad boy, but with no way of achieving his dreams he’d begun to frequent places like the Five Bells and spend his time getting into scrapes with bad company. It wouldn’t be long before he was in debt by more than a guinea.

“Do you think Aunt Beatrix will pay for my commission?” he said, a spark of hope in his eyes. “Like she paid for you to go to Miss Debenham’s?”

“I don’t know, Terry. I hope so. As long as father doesn’t put her back up again.”

Aunt Beatrix was an irascible lady who loathed Peter Belmont and didn’t think too highly of his wife, her sister, who had been left a considerable amount of money by their father. But Beatrix had married well, a manufacturer of soaps and skin potions, and now she was a very wealthy widow. She was fond of Eugenie, probably because she reminded her of her sensible self, but Terry was another matter. Eugenie feared he looked too much like his father for Aunt Beatrix’s liking.

“We’re going to see Erik,” one of the twins said now, bouncing up and down on the old, cracked leather seat. “We’re going to Somerton.”

“Are you indeed?” Terry gave them a thoughtful look. “Mind if I tag along?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, climbing up into the coach and squeezing in beside Jack and Eugenie. She wondered why he should want to come on what he’d normally consider a childish outing, but she was so pleased to see him smiling for a change that she didn’t make a fuss.

“We’re going to see the duke, we’re going to see the duke!” the twins yelled as they set off.

“I wonder if I will be allowed in the stables again,” Jack said quietly, with a little shiver of excitement. “Last time I helped saddle one of the duke’s best stallions. Would you believe it, Genie? The stable boys were frightened of him.”

“You will all be good, won’t you?” Eugenie said, looking around at her brothers’ faces. “You will be on your best behavior. Do you promise?”

Of course they all did, even Terry, but although she wanted to trust them past experience warned Eugenie not to believe a word.

* * *

Sinclair St. John, the fifth Duke of Somerton, had business to attend to. Estate business. But business would have to wait until he’d dealt with the question of his sister. Annabelle was being difficult. At the end of last year she had become engaged to Lord Lucius Salturn but as the date for the wedding drew closer she’d become very restless and unhappy. Sinclair didn’t know where she got her ideas from, but he knew their mother was depending on him to make her see sense before she arrived in London to attend prenuptial balls and soirees with her fiancé.

“I will die if I marry Lucius,” she declared dramatically. “He does not believe women should read books. He told me so. How can I possibly marry a man who thinks such things, Sinclair?”

“It is up to you to change his mind,” Sinclair retorted. “I’m sure you’re more than capable of that, Annabelle. He thinks you are a goddess. He told me so.”

That gave her pause, but not for long.

“I don’t want to get married. I am too young. Just think of all the fun I am missing out on by being engaged to Lucius.” Her voice wavered. “It isn’t fair of you to make me do this. I hate you, Sinclair.”

He sighed. Part of being an elder brother and the head of his family meant playing the disciplinarian. Sinclair knew the marriage was a coup where Annabelle was concerned, and Lucius was the perfect addition to their family. His mother had explained the importance of marrying within one’s own sphere, of doing one’s duty by one’s family. Sinclair knew that his tough behavior was for Annabelle’s own good, and any niggling doubts or sympathies he felt must be firmly quashed. But even so it was not easy to feel he was making her miserable.

“That’s as may be,” he said, steeling himself for her tears, “but you will be leaving for London on the first day of July and I expect you to be packed and ready. Do I make myself clear?”

His sister promptly fled the room, her steps ringing up the staircase and her sobs echoing up into the domed seventeenth-century gallery.

“Blast it,” Sinclair muttered, and flung out of the French windows and onto the terrace, where he glowered at a gardener’s boy who was staking lilies, frightening him badly. It was in Annabelle’s best interests to marry Lucius. A year ago their mother announced that Annabelle was growing far too wild and willful, and behaving in a manner that was quite unladylike. She needed curbing; she needed to be married.

“Marriage will sober her,” said the dowager duchess. “She must learn that people like us have a position to maintain. We cannot do what we wish. We must conform to our breeding.”

It was only what Sinclair knew to be the truth, for such pronouncements had been drummed into him all his life. He no longer questioned them. He no longer hungered for what he could not have. Or so he told himself.

“We cannot have Annabelle turning into a hoyden,” he muttered to himself. “Like . . . like

. . .”

The name rang in his head.

Miss Eugenie Belmont of Belmont Hall.

His lip curled. It was his trademark expression and others saw it as a sign of his disdain for those less fortunate than himself. It was an affectation he’d learned as a boy and now it came so automatically to him he didn’t even know he was doing it.

But was Miss Belmont a hoyden? Surely it was her family who were the hoydens! It still stung him when he remembered the father trying to ingratiate himself with Sinclair and then making that outrageous offer. Sinclair didn’t entirely understand why he’d paid for the privilege of keeping an animal on his estate that he hadn’t wanted in the first place. He supposed it was partly because of the boy, Jack, and the tears in his eyes. And partly because he had seen in Jack a remarkable talent for taming animals—in particular horses. According to Sinclair’s groom the boy was a marvel. Within moments he’d had the wildest stallion eating from his hand.

Sinclair was very fond of his horses, and he told himself that by allowing himself to be fleeced by the father he was gaining the trust of the son.

As for Eugenie Belmont . . . her brother had artlessly told him that when his sister came home from finishing school her parents hoped she’d marry someone rich as a consequence. “Father is very proud of Eugenie. He says that when she comes home she’ll be a lady and we need her to marry someone who can put money into Belmont Hall before it falls down,” he went on, clearly too na?ve to realize he was saying things he ought not.

“And has your sister a particular suitor in mind?” Sinclair inquired calmly, while a tingle of warning sharpened his senses.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”

The tingle faded. Sinclair breathed a sigh of relief. Just for a moment he’d thought he might be the unlucky object of her desires! But surely Eugenie Belmont—royal blood or not—would be too canny to think she could ever be in the same class as the Duke of Somerton!

He wondered now whether it would be in his interest—in Jack’s interest—if he found someone for Miss Belmont. A wealthy gentleman of lesser birth? Or even a businessman, a manufacturer, with money to burn on a rundown hovel like Belmont Hall? It was something to consider. Miss Belmont would be grateful to him, he was sure, and therefore Jack would look upon him favorably. The entire Belmont family would be in his debt and would not mind him borrowing their son for the sake of his horses.

And yet it was odd how often he had found himself remembering Eugenie Belmont during the past three months. The smile in her green eyes, for instance, and the way they sparkled. And how, despite her lack of stature, she had stood up to him in the lane, so straight, for all that she was barely up to his shoulder. As if she meant to protect her brothers at all costs. That pink flush in her cheeks and on her soft lips, her wild curls, and those endearing freckles scattered across her nose, as she stood in the doorway of her home. The sensation that he knew exactly what had attracted a king to make her commoner ancestress his mistress. Surely in normal circumstances her features should have faded from his memory? Instead they seemed to become clearer, more distinct. . .

“Your Grace?”

He almost jumped—as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. When he turned he found one of his servants hesitating behind him, loath to interrupt his cogitations.

“What is it?” Not Annabelle again, he hoped. He would be relieved when the girl was on her way to London and the welcoming arms of her fiancé.

“A Miss Eugenie Belmont has arrived, with her brothers, to visit Erik the, eh, goat.”

The servant looked startled when smiled; he had expected the lip curl for which his master was so famous.

Well, this was providential, thought Sinclair. He didn’t even consider avoiding them; the idea simply didn’t even enter his head. He told himself he was keen to observe Jack with the stallion, and of course there was the question of whether finishing school had made any changes in Miss Eugenie Belmont. He hoped she hadn’t become too conventional.

Is she still a hoyden?

He set off across the terrace with long strides which were undeniably eager.