Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(68)

“I will be yours forever, Simon,” she whispered, laughing as he positioned her differently and slid his hard cock back into her body. “And I can’t wait to see our future unfold.”

“Neither can I,” he promised as he took her once more.





Enjoy an exciting excerpt from

The Broken Duke,

out September 2017





October 1810

Graham Everly, Duke of Northfield, sat in the corner of a dingy tavern, a mug of ale souring in his fist. He’d been drinking, but he wasn’t drunk. Yet. He wanted to remedy that fact as quickly as possible.

But before he could take another sip, two men moved through the crowd and steered toward him. Ewan Hoffstead, Duke of Donburrow, and his cousin Matthew Cornwallis, Duke of Tyndale, both carried their own drinks, and they exchanged a not-so-subtle look before they retook their seats at his table. Graham sighed, for he was hoping the two had left already. It seemed they had not.

But then, neither of them had left his side very often in the past two months. He’d tried to avoid them, as he’d been avoiding all his friends since “the incident”, as he liked to call it. But Ewan and Tyndale were relentless.

As if to demonstrate that point, Ewan dug into his overcoat pocket and drew out a small notebook and stubby charcoal pencil. He scribbled for a moment as Graham watched him. Ewan had been mute since birth, and writing was his main form of communication to friends and family.

He pushed the notebook over and Graham read the neat, even line of words written there. “Don’t sit here all night. Don’t drink yourself stupid.”

Graham shoved the notebook back and glared at him. “Thanks, mate. You know, it’s possible drinking won’t make me stupid. I may just be stupid without the help.”

Ewan shook his head with a flash of a grin at the self-deprecation, but there was no mistaking the concern in his dark eyes.

Tyndale seemed no less worried as he leaned in and said, “Come on, you can’t deny it even if you make light of it. You’ve been stalking London pubs for two months, avoiding everyone who loves you. I recognize the signs, you know.”

Graham flinched. If anyone would, Tyndale did. After all, the woman he’d loved had died years ago, devastating Tyndale down to his core. A fact which made Graham’s problems seem very small. But he really didn’t want to discuss this topic. It was exactly why he’d been avoiding his entire group of friends all this time. He didn’t want to commiserate. He wanted to forget.

“I’m with you two, aren’t I?” he growled, once again making light of the subject he could see the other two were determined to address.

Ewan wrote something and shoved it over. “Well, we don’t love you.”

Despite himself, Graham began to laugh and Matthew joined in. For a moment, his troubles faded, but then they settled back on his shoulders. And this time it didn’t seem like he could avoid the topic as easily as he had been able to before.

“Look,” he said, pushing his drink aside. “I know I should get over this. But Crestwood was one of my best friends and he betrayed me with what happened with Margaret.”

Matthew’s expression softened. “She was your fiancée, Northfield. And it’s a complicated situation given their feelings for each other, but no matter the circumstances, Simon shouldn’t have…taken her like he did. It was wrong.”

“No one begrudges you the pain you must feel,” Ewan added. “We only worry about how you choose to express it.”

Graham stared at the words on Ewan’s notebook and sighed. He had been engaged to Margaret Rylon, the sister of another of their group, for seven long years. He hadn’t ever loved her, even though he’d tried desperately to make that feeling come into his heart.

But the idea that Simon would betray him…Simon, who had been like his brother since they were thirteen…well, that kept him up at night. “It isn’t about her, you know.”

Matthew nodded and there was that flicker of sadness in his expression again. “I know.”

“We need to get you back into the world,” Ewan wrote, then clapped Graham on the shoulder. “It’s time, don’t you think?”

Graham shifted. They were right, of course. He’d been hiding long enough, sulking and stewing as the rest of the world went on without him. At some point, he had to get himself together. He had to face Society and the friends he had been avoiding and the future that now seemed wide open and utterly different than it had been in the years he was resigned to a loveless arranged marriage.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked, slow and uncertain.

Ewan and Matthew exchanged a grin before Ewan scribbled, “There’s a play tonight that you must see. Everyone is talking about it. Come out with us.”

Graham let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. The theatre? That’s a big leap from hiding out in pubs.”

“We’ll sneak in late,” Tyndale assured him. “No one will have to know you’re there unless you want them to. Come on. It’s better than passing out behind some tavern and making Ewan and me carry you home, isn’t it?”

Graham shot Ewan a look. He was a massive man, well over six feet and built out of pure muscle. “You’ve never carried anything home in your life, Tyndale, not if your cousin is with you.”