Dunsaney's Desire (Historical Romance) Read online

  Dunsaney’s Desire

  By Brianna York

  To Chelsea,

  without whom this story would have remained only in my heart.

  Copyright © 2017 by Brianna York

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, Oct 2017

  Kindle Direct Publishing Amazon

  ASIN B076WVHB3H

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The heady and cloying scent of roses filled the room. The white rose tucked into the breast pocket of Matthew’s black coat matched the lush bouquets of flowers scattered around the room. He felt as clean and untouched by trouble as the pure white petals of the flawless blooms.

  The sudden crescendo of music filling the room sent guests scattering to their seats. Feeling a bubble of joy lodge itself in his throat, Matthew took his place by the altar. He exchanged a brief smile with his gathered family.

  He felt no real alarm at first when his bride did not appear at the head of the aisle. He smiled slightly at the vanity of women, presuming her to be rearranging an errant curl or perhaps having a torn dress hem hastily repaired. He glanced briefly at his pocket watch, feeling a qualm when he saw the time. A small frown marred his brow.

  “Cold feet, perhaps,” he murmured to himself. “I shall be back in a trice,” he announced as he shrugged deeper into the shoulders of his jacket, hurrying down the aisle and ignoring the sudden susurrus of whispers all around the room.

  He planned the words that would reassure his young bride as he hurried down the hallway toward the small room set aside for the bride to dress. He was grinning at his own cleverness as he reached out and rapped on the wooden door. He sighed and shook his head when there was no reply. He rapped once more, louder this time. Frowning now, he pushed open the door and felt his heart freeze in his chest mid-beat.

  She saw him first and gasped. The blood drained from her face as the man she was twined intimately around turned to glance over his shoulder. The moment stretched out painfully, the silence echoing with her gasp and Matthew’s stillness. He stared at her lovely face, then looked at the white rose in his coat pocket. Lovely and pure white roses. Flowers he had chosen because they reminded him of her ivory skin and untainted goodness. He thought that the roses were the only thing left of the day that wasn’t sullied and made dark and dirty with deceit.

  He felt he should say something. What to say to such duplicity? Finally, he simply removed the single rose from his lapel, his long fingers gentle as he regarded it in solemn, painful silence. With sudden violence totally at odds with the stony blankness of his features, he crushed the fragile blossom in his fingers. He did not feel the thorns pricking his palm before he threw the mangled blossom onto the stone floor. He took no notice of her crying his name as he whirled and fled. He couldn’t feel or hear anything other than the shattering of his heart.

  One

  "E

  asy there, Zeus," Matthew Hargreve, Duke Dunsenay told his left header in quieting tones. The little stockinged chestnut that matched his harness partner almost exactly, nodded his pretty head and settled into an easier trot. "Don’t leave Jupiter too far behind, now," Matthew continued in the smooth, mellow tones that hallmarked his deep voice.

  Matthew turned down Bond Street, idly wondering where he should stop in order to best accomplish his mission. He had just passed the milliner's when he caught sight of a black and white curricle coming down the street toward him. He halted his horses, and, grinning, waited for the driver of the black and white carriage to follow suit.

  "I say!" He called loudly as the grays drawing the carriage drew to a far more mannerly halt than his chestnuts. "Lovely day for a drive, is it not?”

  The tall, slender man holding the reins to the grays glanced up at the sky that was, for once, a shade rather akin to blue, then said, “Perhaps lovely is a bit of an overestimate, Matthew, old chap, but it will suit.” The man’s slate-blue eyes almost perfectly matched the color of the London sky, and there was a glint of subtle humor in them.

  Matthew scanned the sky a moment, then met his friend’s gaze with the smile that he was famous for in London. Some thought of it as a rakish smile, others thought of it as the sun breaking through clouds after a storm. No one who witnessed it could help but see that such a smile was the direct result of Matthew’s complete and total comfort in his own skin, his own purpose and his own happiness. One always felt lucky to have lived to witness such a glorious thing after seeing Matthew’s joy. “If you must be a pessimist, Forrest, then yes, it will suit.”

  Forrest, who was also Baron Tyndale, chuckled softly. “It is not pessimism and you know it, you scoundrel. I just can’t argue with truths as blatant as the fact that the day in London is rarely, if ever, lovely.”

  Matthew laughed at that and nodded. “You have ever been honest to a fault, old man. This is a fact which I would not change for the world.”

  Forrest was smiling gently, almost serenely. He almost never grinned outright. His smile snuck up on those around him and one often found that they were smiling in reply long before they had realized that Forrest himself had smiled. “If honesty is a fault, then I will gladly be flawed,” he said.

  Matthew nodded. “Agreed. Might I assume that you are here on Bond Street for the same reason as myself?”

  One of Forrest’s black brows arched inquisitively and he said, “A gift for Rosalind Fenton?”

  Matthew nodded. “That’s the reason I had in mind, yes.” Rosalind’s father was Duke Norwood. The Fentons were a rather pompous and hoity-toity lot, but they traveled in the highest circles of the ton and one could not ignore an invitation to one of their balls, or musicales, or other entertainment without being frowned upon by good society for a good long while. Their daughter Rosalind, was turning eighteen, and her doting parents had decided to throw her a ball to celebrate the fact that she was now old enough to be “out” in polite society. Because Rosalind had every worldly possession that could be conceived of, it would likely prove very difficult and also expensive to purchase an original gift for the girl.

  “Decided what you are going to purchase?” Forrest inquired, looking away from Matthew to settle his grays when they became a bit flustered by a passing carriage.

  Matthew shook his head regretfully. “Not yet. If the chit had not been so thoroughly spoiled all her life, it would
be substantially easier to think of a gift that she would actually want.”

  Forrest nodded, looking thoughtful. “Well, I have something in mind that I hope will meet with her approval.”

  Matthew leaned back a bit on the narrow seat of his curricle. “Really now! Well, that’s one that you have over me, old man.” He sighed, then shortened the reins he held easily in his long-fingered hands. “You know how I feel about Rosy,” he said then, referring to the Norwood’s daughter by her childhood name. “She is bound to be as hard to shop for as she is to be around.”

  "I know that you and Rosy often rub each other the wrong way, but do try to be patient with her tonight, Matthew. It is her eighteenth birthday."

  "You know, I don't think I really remember being eighteen," Matthew observed from the lofty peak of his twenty-four years, making Forrest laugh yet again.

  "I do,” he admitted, “and that year is long past, in my case, unlike you." His gray eyes were laughing loudly now beneath his black brows.

  Matthew had to laugh at that. “Bosh! The year that separates us does not make you a doddery old gentleman when compared to myself.” He slipped an ornate gold pocket watch out of his vest pocket and flipped open its cover. He nodded, then snapped the cover back over the face of the watch with a well-oiled click. “I have just enough time left to make some sort of purchase, for better or worse. We will decide in a few hours who selected the better gift.” He winked at his friend, his sherry-colored eyes alight with good humor.

  Forrest grinned. “Agreed, Matthew. Until tonight.” He threw his friend a mock salute with two fingers of his left hand, then clucked to his grays and drew away down the street.

  Matthew watched his friend’s departure for another moment, then sighed. He sat for a moment, the reins firm in one of his large hands, trying to decide just what the privileged daughter with everything could want. Or, better yet, what she deserved. Matthew's roving eye finally fell on the tiny jeweler's shop at the end of the street. It was little patronized due to its steep prices, but the quality was without equal.

  Sighing, Matthew clucked to his horses, steering them around an oncoming carriage before drawing them to a tidy halt on the side of the street. He flipped a coin to one of the children hovering on the sidewalk, pausing to be certain that the boy had the horses well in hand before he hurried into the store.

  The door opened silently, much to Matthew’s appreciation. He detested little dinging bells as they drew unwarranted attention upon one’s entrance. He already drew attention easily enough. However, he needn’t have worried. The shop was deserted except for the jeweler himself.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” the genteel little man said smoothly, remembering Matthew’s rank aptly and faultlessly. “How might I be of service today?”

  Matthew began to pace with measured, elastic steps down the length of the glassed counters, his expression thoughtful. He glanced at the rows of rings and cringed. He ruthlessly shook off the memory of slender white hands wearing his ring, dully surprised that he could still be hurt by such thoughts. He scanned the lovely baubles a moment longer before shaking his head and leaving the shop. Jewelry was more rightfully the gift a man gave to a wife or paramour. It would not do to give Rosalind, or more importantly her mother, the wrong idea about his intentions.

  “Thank you, my good lad,” he praised the young boy still obediently holding his impatient hot-blooded horses without any apparent trouble.

  “They be prime-goers, milord,” he told Matthew with the ease of small children, “And not a bit o’ trouble. They be saddle horses of the Godolphin ‘imself, en’t they?”

  Matthew’s mouth quirked in a smile and knelt on the sidewalk, heedless of his buff breeches and the berating that was sure to come from his valet, Dobbs. “You know quite a lot about horses, lad.” He ruffled the dull hair beneath with casual fingers. “You should be proud of yourself. I must admit that I am impressed. That is why I’m giving you this extra crown.”

  The boy’s blue eyes sparkled at the unexpected gift and he grinned, showing two missing teeth. “You be as prime a goer as your ‘orses milord,” he declared, staring at what must have been a vast fortune to him. It was mere pocket change to Matthew. “Thank ye ever so much! Me ma will be right pleased!”

  Matthew congratulated the boy again for being a horse scholar, then swung up onto the seat of his carriage and sent the relieved chestnuts into a spanking trot. Sighing, he turned his thoughts back to the item that he thought that Rosalind Fenton would want most. Above all things, Rosalind was horse mad. She often coerced him into borrowing one of his horses and going for rides in the Park. He knew that she had quite outgrown her childhood pony and had begged her father for a new horse for the past few years to no avail. He thought he knew what type of gift Rosalind might want most.

  Matthew cast a fond eye over the muscular backs of the horses pulling his carriage. "What say the two of you get a bath and a good rub down before tonight? Maybe I'll even get William to shine your harness." The horses didn't answer, just followed Matthew's expert hands as he turned them into his own drive where the stables were located. William, Matthew’s coachman, was just emerging from the stables leading Matthew’s large, steel gray hunter, Apollo.

  “Something wrong?" Matthew called as he leapt from the carriage seat and tossed the reins to a stable boy who caught them handily.

  William glanced up briefly and smiled at his employer. "Whoa Apollo." He patted the horse on the neck and shook his head. “Probably nothing, but he must have gotten stall cast last night because he managed to tear off one of his shoes and gash his leg.”

  Frowning, Matthew walked over to his horse and examined the hind leg that was without a shoe. He glanced down at his clothes, noted the small mark on his knee from when he had knelt to talk to the boy, sighed and picked up Apollo’s foot. "Don't tell Dobbs that I'm doing this in these clothes," he said conspiratorially to William as he set the stallion’s foot back down and proceeded to determine if the gash on his cannon bone was deep enough to need stitches.

  "Dobbs will know even if I stay mum, and you know it," William said practically.

  "The man does have the most amazing nose," Matthew said on a sigh. "It seems especially attuned to the scent of horse. Well, let’s trot him off so I can be certain that he is not lame."

  "Yes, Your Grace," William replied, clucking to the horse and jogging with him down the alley. “Back again?” he called to his employer as he turned the horse around.

  “Yes please,” Matthew called in return and William clucked to the horse once again, cuing him to trot. Matthew eyed the stallion critically as the horse trotted up to him, but he saw nothing at all wrong in the horse’s gait.

  “I believe that he is fine,” Matthew told William. “Just get that shoe put back on.”

  “I will go take care of that as soon as I have brushed him down,” William assured Matthew, turning Apollo around. Matthew patted the horse on the rump as William led him past. "I need the chestnuts tonight, and I need them sparkling. The same goes for their tack," he told the man that had been his father’s coachman first and was now his most trusted employee. William was more like a surrogate father to Matthew than a servant. William had helped to supervise Matthew’s first years in the saddle and he had an unparalleled eye for a horse. Matthew the child had been a bit in awe of the man, and Matthew the adult knew had a profound respect for the most irreplaceable member of his staff.

  "Yes, Your Grace," William replied, his formal address returning without a horse between employer and employee. "What time shall I have them ready for?"

  "Around seven o'clock or so. Their Graces like to dine early enough to assure attendance. I don't want to be too early, however." Matthew began to make his way to the house, then turned back.

  “Is there something else, Your Grace?” William asked.

  “I almost forgot,” Matthew said, gesturing for William to follow him into the darker interior of the stables. He made his way down t
he aisle way, stroking velvety noses when they reached out at him. Toward the end of the row, he drew to a halt and stared contemplatively into one of the stalls.

  “Hello my love,” he said softly to the petite black mare in the stall. She pricked her ears and walked to the front of the stall to lip at his fingers.

  “I think I can guess what you might be thinking,” William said quietly as he approached.

  Matthew glanced at the other man and nodded. “I had meant to breed her this year but honestly I worry that she is too small to foal successfully if I were to breed her to the size horse that I would prefer. I have not been able to ride her much lately either.”

  “She has always been more of a size to be a lady’s mount,” William agreed.

  “Well Nyx,” Matthew said to the little black horse, “Would you like to belong to a totally horse-mad young woman?” The mare wuffled at his hand a last time and returned to her hay.

  “I will make sure that she is ready at seven o ‘clock as well,” William said with a smile.

  “Thank you, William,” Matthew said warmly. He turned to exit the stable, then paused to survey himself, looking for damages to his clothing. Spotting the dust on his highly-glossed boots that marred their mirror finish in a rather dramatic way, he straightened and opened his mouth to ask for a cloth. William was faster, however, tossing him a clean duplicate of the rag he was rubbing Nyx down with. "Thank you," Matthew said with a boyish grin, working his boots over quickly. "Remember," he called over his shoulder as he walked toward his magnificent townhouse, "mum's the word. I was never here."

  Matthew slipped in the servant's entrance that led on to the kitchen without incident and gestured for the cook and to keep her silence with a finger to his lips. She, being fairly used to her young employer’s queer starts, just smiled and returned to her work.

  Matthew strode around the corner into the huge green-marbled entrance hall with its soaring glass dome overhead and sparkling crystal chandelier. No sign of his valet, Dobbs or the butler. His eye was drawn by sudden movement across the foyer which turned out to be the arrival of his great dane, Sampson, and his whippet, Charles. He whispered a command to them to prevent them from barking in welcome. He stroked both dogs, then snapped his fingers and set his course for the long flight of gracefully winding stairs that curved into the upstairs hallway. He was bounding up them two at a time on practiced, silent feet, when a sudden noise to his right caught his attention. His hand automatically went to his left side and the silver-handled pistol that commonly frequented his person as he spun about.