The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)

The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)

Christi Caldwell





London, England

Winter 1810





Prologue


He’d been summoned.

And when the powerful, austere, unforgiving Duke of Somerset summoned one, one answered that call.

Particularly when that man controlled the proverbial strings of one’s finances and status.

Even more so when one was hours away from marrying and, as such, very much in need of those funds.

Lord Robert Dennington shrugged out of his cloak and turned it over to his grandfather’s butler, Carmichael, with a murmur of thanks. “My grandfather . . . ?”

The aging servant averted his gaze. “Is in his office, my lord.” Color filled the man’s cheeks.

Of course he was in his office. Robert pulled off his gloves and stuffed them inside his jacket. Was there another place for the powerful peer? The duke controlled every aspect of the Dennington family with the same grasping control he showed in every manner of business.

The butler shifted back and forth. “May I show you to H-His Grace’s office?” Carmichael gulped.

The unflinching, smooth-faced servant, who’d served the miserable duke since Robert had been a boy of five, had never so much as cracked a smile, frown, or laugh. And he certainly did not swallow in that loud, troubled manner.

Nervousness seized him. There had been the curt summons to come on this day of all days . . . the timing was too precise, and His Grace, cold and unfeeling, never had been, nor ever would be one of those devoted, loving patriarchs who actually desired his grandson’s company. No, the same man who’d used traitorous servants to uncover Robert’s love for the nursemaid, and then coldly called his grandson a “bloody fool,” didn’t have a spot of warmth in his heart.

He knows about the elopement.

“M-My lord?” Carmichael interrupted Robert’s panicky thoughts.

Robert tugged his lapels and forced a smile. “I will see myself to His Grace’s office.” After all, at one and twenty, he was hardly a boy to be cowed by anyone—including the equally feared and revered Duke of Somerset. “I’ve certainly been called before my grandfather enough to know the way,” he added in a desperate bid for levity.

Instead, Carmichael gave a juddering nod and then bolted in the opposite direction with a speed better reserved for a man two decades his junior.

That isn’t altogether true, a taunting voice whispered at the back of his mind. If you were unafraid of him, you’d not be planning to elope this very night and would instead give Lucy Whitman the very public ceremony she deserves.

Forcing his legs into motion, Robert started down the hall and beat a familiar path to his grandfather’s office. The truth was, everyone was more than a little afraid of the man. After all, he’d cut off his daughter, Robert’s aunt, for marrying a servant, as easily as if he’d yanked the thread dangling from his jacket.

No, such a man would never, ever tolerate Robert’s marriage to a nursemaid. A governess, who’d come from a respectable family, mayhap, but never a nursemaid. He dried his damp palms along the sides of his trousers. The duke was too emotionally dead to ever see a servant as an equal, or at the very least, as a human being. As such, he could not know the goodness of Lucy’s soul. Or the way she teased and blushed and smiled. Not in the way Robert did. Robert, who daily, through her dealings with his sister, Beatrice, saw more than a maid or servant. He saw the young woman who cared more for him than his title, and wanted to be his wife because she wished to share a life with him and not because she’d be a future duchess.

Now, to make his grandfather see reason. Because there could be no doubt that the Duke of Somerset, who saw all and knew even more, had called Robert here because of the elopement he’d planned for that evening.

Robert came to a stop outside the dreaded office.

Searching for the strength to face the mighty Dennington patriarch, he drew in a deep breath, and ran his hands over the front of his lapels once more. Before his courage deserted him, he raised his hand to knock . . . just as a low, agonized groan penetrated the wood-paneled door. He paused, his hand suspended.

Another tortured moan, one that iced Robert’s veins, filtered into the hall—the sound of death.

By God, he’d never loved the man, but neither would he ever wish him on to the hereafter. With swift movements, Robert pressed the handle and frantically opened the door to reach his aging grandfather. He jolted to a stop.

As he stood motionless, a dull humming filled Robert’s ears. He blinked several times but no matter how many times he blinked, the horror remained and through it Robert remained rooted to the floor: an outside observer in a sordid scene of sin and ugly. Sprawled on her back, with the duke pumping away between her legs, Lucy ran her fingers down the old man’s back, urging him on. “You are so good, Your Grace,” she panted, lifting to meet the duke’s quick thrusts. “I want more of you.”

Bile burned the back of Robert’s throat, and he shot out a hand and caught the edge of the doorway. Oh, God, no. Not Lucy. She’d been the only bloody woman to see him, and not a future duke. Surely he’d not been so very blind, so flawed in judgment, that he’d given his heart to a rapacious schemer? Except . . . how else to account for the licentious display before him now?