The Duke Identity (Game of Dukes #1)
Grace Callaway
Prologue
West Midlands, England, 1838
* * *
“Bennett, we ’ave to talk,” feminine tones said from the bed.
Harry Kent—or Sam Bennett as he was known in the railway camp—stilled in the act of dressing. In the three months since Roxanne Taggart had first approached him, she’d never made this request. In fact, conversation had not featured highly in their interactions…unless one counted her rather profuse utterances in bed. He, himself, preferred quiet during the act.
He finished pulling on his shirt, shoved his spectacles on his nose, and went over to the bed. They were in his rented room at the boarding house not far from where he worked as a navvy or laborer of the railway. Roxy reclined against the pillows, her dark blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders, her large breasts on full display.
“What about?” he asked politely.
“You and me, lover.”
Her serious manner was new and unexpected. With an unpleasant jolt, he wondered if she was the merry widow he’d believed her to be. History had taught him that his judgement when it came to females wasn’t exactly sterling.
His gut knotted as he thought of Miss Celeste De Witt, the woman he’d once loved. The woman whose betrayal had destroyed his good name and career, his lifelong ambition to be a scientist. Because of her, he’d been ejected from The Royal Society, leaving Cambridge under a cloud of scandal and disgrace. For the last two years, he’d built a new life for himself as Sam Bennett, rock blaster with the Grand Midlands Railway.
At least he’d been able to put his experience in the laboratory to good use. Blasting rock had been a practical application of his academic study of explosives, not to mention damned cathartic. It wasn’t intellectually stimulating work, but the grinding physical labor had brought him, if not a measure of peace, then at least a degree of numbness.
He’d always been a private man, not the sort who enjoyed strong sentiment. It had taken months to calm the turbulence caused by his foolish entanglement with Celeste, and he’d vowed to never again let his emotions override his rationality. His brain was far more trustworthy than his heart, and now it was warning him to beware of the glint in Roxy’s eyes.
“I wasn’t aware there was a problem between us,” he said.
“It ain’t a problem, lover.” Naked, she crawled over to the edge of the bed where he stood. Kneeling on the mattress, she placed a hand on the exposed part of his chest, her fingers trailing coyly over the tensed slabs of muscle. “We’ve been ’aving our fun for some time, and I got to thinking that we should make the arrangement more…permanent.”
He froze. Devil take it, did she mean…marriage? The idea had never occurred to him.
“I believe we discussed this at the outset,” he said carefully. “I made it clear what I was looking for, and you agreed that you wanted the same thing. We had an understanding.”
“Maybe we did,” she said with a pout. “But things change, don’t they? Our understanding then ain’t the same as our understanding now.”
This was precisely the sort of feminine reasoning that he found confusing. He liked women, had sisters whom he adored, but that didn’t mean he understood them.
Still, he didn’t want to hurt Roxanne.
“My understanding hasn’t changed,” he said quietly. “Nor will it.”
Something in his tone must have told her it was futile to continue the discussion. She dropped her hand from his chest and got out of bed. Marching over to her pile of discarded clothing, she began yanking on garments.
“If you don’t want me, Tom Wilkins does,” she snapped. “’E asked me to marry ’im last week.”
Harry hadn’t known she was seeing anyone else. Another surprise…not that it mattered. He didn’t know how she expected him to respond, so he remained silent as she finished dressing and stormed up to him.
“Don’t you got nothing to say?” she demanded. “I just told you I’m marrying another man!”
I don’t like being manipulated. He didn’t think that was what she wanted to hear.
He said, “I wish you the best.”
* * *
“Find yeself on the losing end o’ an argument, did ye, guv?” Emerging from the tunnel with several others, Johnson, a fellow navvy, set down his pick-axe, his dirt-streaked face split into a grin.
“Something like that,” Harry muttered as he packed up his satchel.
His jaw still throbbed from Roxanne’s right hook.
“Should’ve asked me for pointers. I could’ve made a living as a prizefighter, if I wanted,” Johnson boasted. “Ne’er been in a brawl I didn’t win.”
In the past, boxing had been Harry’s favorite form of exercise. He’d practiced at Gentleman Jackson’s and knew damned well how to fight. But he would never hit a woman.
Which was more than he’d say for some of the present company. To be fair, the womenfolk were no more peaceable than their men, Roxy being a prime example. As the men downed ale in the sweltering afternoon sun, belching and telling bawdy tales, a dark mood set upon Harry like a London fog.
He couldn’t shake off the recognition: he wasn’t where he wanted to be.