Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(3)

He lifted her hand to his lips and they brushed softly across her skin. As he did so, she looked again at Simon. He was looking at the floor now, seeming entirely bored by this exchange. When he looked up and caught her eye, he smiled at her.

“Congratulations, Margaret,” he said. “Graham.”

He moved forward and the three men began shaking hands and slapping backs. She stared in mute shock as they did so. Here she had always thought the attraction she felt toward Simon was returned, but he made no effort to protest this engagement. In fact, he didn’t look like the idea of it even meant anything to him in the slightest.

Could she have misread him so badly?

“Are you happy?” James asked as he leaned in to buss her cheek.

She looked up into her older brother’s eyes. He had just had so much placed on his shoulders as the new duke. This was the first time since their father’s illness that he’d looked happy in the slightest.

She glanced past him at Graham. No one could say he wasn’t handsome. And they had been friendly in the past. If Simon didn’t want her, she could do worse. And she’d have many years to grow accustomed to the engagement before they’d be wed.

She nodded and forced herself to smile. “Of course, James. I’m…I’m very happy.”

He seemed to accept that answer and hugged her before he rushed to the sideboard to pour drinks of celebration for them all. She swallowed and looked out into the garden behind the house.

She would forget Simon and her silly notion that he cared for her. She would forget. It seemed she would have to.





Chapter One





Seven Years Later

Simon Green, Duke of Crestwood, stood in the middle of the ballroom, staring at the couples dancing. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He was actually staring at just one couple dancing. Lady Margaret, sister to one of his closest friends, and her fiancé, Graham Everly, Duke of Northfield. It was a rare thing to see them together, for Graham always cried off the duty. He didn’t like to dance.

Meg did. She was good at it, too. Simon knew because she often came to him to dance when her fiancé would not. It was so easy to slip his arms around her and guide her around the floor as she stared up into his eyes and talked to him about everything and nothing. He could almost feel her in his arms right now. Warm and soft and his.

He blinked and shook his head. This needed to stop. But then, he’d been telling himself that same thing for years, and it never did. If anything, it only got worse and worse.

“I’m surprised you aren’t dancing, Crestwood.”

Simon turned, a smile turning up his lips at the approach of the Duke and Duchess of Abernathe and the Earl of Idlewood. James and Christopher, who many called Kit, were two of his dearest friends, and Emma was James’s new bride. The men all belonged to the 1797 Club, a small collection of their closest friends who had all become dukes sometime in the past decade. Well, except for Kit. He had not yet ascended to the title, not that he or anyone else was sad about that fact. His father was the greatest and best of men.

“I did not find a suitable partner for the quadrille,” he said.

Emma looked out at the crowd. “Yes, the room is bereft of partners, for sure,” she teased gently as she motioned toward the room half full of beautiful women.

Simon turned toward her slightly and winked. “I don’t suppose you would like to take a turn, Your Grace?”

Emma blushed and laughed at his playful flirtation, and James drew her a little closer with an equally teasing glare in Simon’s direction. “Careful now. We are newlyweds and I am wildly jealous. You need to find your own partner.”

Simon’s smile faded a fraction and he looked once more at Meg. She was laughing now at something Graham had said, her brown eyes lit up, her head tipped back so loose tendrils of dark chestnut hair danced along her shoulders.

She looked happy.

Simon sighed. He knew James was right in his assessment of the situation. At some point, Simon just had to forget the feelings he had for his friend’s fiancée and move on with his life.

“I shall endeavor to do as you say,” Simon said.

“It seems that since James and Her Grace have taken the plunge, it will likely be all of us who follow,” Kit said with a barely imperceptible sigh. “Our little group is of an age now.”

“Meg and Graham will be next, I’m certain,” James said, looking out at his sister and their friend with a beam of happiness.

Simon flinched away from it. It had been seven years since he stood in a room in this very house and listened to James declare that he had arranged for Margaret to marry Graham. How well Simon recalled that horrible moment when those words had come from his lips. How they had echoed in the room around them all. How his ears had begun to ring, making every word sound like it came from far away or under water.

How well he remembered Meg stepping toward Graham, away from him, and the way his chest had burned with anger and jealousy and loss. And then he’d looked at James’s face. James, who was his brother in every way but blood.

And James had looked so damned happy. So certain that he was doing the right thing. So pleased to do something for Meg. For Graham.

Simon hadn’t been able to destroy his friend’s plans in that moment. And later, after the engagement was happily announced in every paper and ballroom in the country, he couldn’t destroy those plans for fear of destroying Meg along with them.