The Duchess's Secret (HQR Historical) Read online

  The man she once loved...

  ...is back—to claim her?

  Rosalind is surprised to find Ash Hartfield—the man she eloped with seven years ago—on her doorstep! She’d felt betrayed by his abrupt departure to India following the revelations of their wedding night. Seeing him again still gives her butterflies—but a lot has changed...not least that he’s a duke now! What will he do when he discovers her secret—that he has an heir?

  “Is this the way to Livesey Village?” Ash asked, and Rosalind felt the earth shift under her feet as his deep voice echoed around in her reeling head and she looked up at him like a simpleton.

  Had her silly dreams conjured him up, then?

  Idiot! she accused herself as she stood staring at him as if turned to stone. You could have said no and hidden your face.

  “Ah, I see it is. Well met, wife,” said the sixth Duke of Cherwell, with a harsh parody of his old smile that made her heart ache.

  She had to peer up at him through the black spots dancing in front of her eyes and she could hardly hear his mocking words past the thunder of her frantically pounding heart.

  Author Note

  When a woman married during the British Regency period, she took a huge risk. In the eyes of the law she became her husband’s chattel and divorce was nearly impossible. She could be setting out on a loving and lifelong partnership or end up locked inside a marriage neither of them wanted to live with anymore. So what would happen to a couple who began their marriage convinced they loved one another for life, then bitter misunderstanding left them still married but oceans apart?

  Thinking about that question led me to Rosalind and Ash and their tale of young love, elopement, marriage, headlong desire, then a furious parting. The Duchess’s Secret pushes them back together in a marriage of convenience as they both agree to try again. I hope you enjoy reading about Rosalind and Ash’s struggle to untangle the mess they made of their great romance, and at least they have a second chance at living together, now they are older and maybe a little bit wiser. I would also like to thank you for being my wonderful, tolerant and loyal readers.

  ELIZABETH BEACON

  The Duchess’s Secret

  Elizabeth Beacon has a passion for history and storytelling and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, never lacks a glorious setting for her books. Elizabeth tried horticulture, higher education as a mature student, briefly taught English and worked in an office before finally turning her daydreams about dashing piratical heroes and their stubborn and independent heroines into her dream job: writing Regency romances for Harlequin Historical.

  Books by Elizabeth Beacon

  Harlequin Historical

  A Rake to the Rescue

  The Duchess’s Secret

  The Alstone Family

  A Less Than Perfect Lady

  Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess

  One Final Season

  A Most Unladylike Adventure

  A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

  A Year of Scandal

  The Viscount’s Frozen Heart

  The Marquis’s Awakening

  Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise

  Redemption of the Rake

  The Winterley Scandal

  The Governess Heiress

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Lord’s Highland Temptation by Diane Gaston

  Prologue

  1811

  ‘I love you so much, Ash,’ Rosalind told her new husband, with such joy in her heart she wanted to say it over and over again. ‘My husband,’ she whispered to herself. ‘My one and only love.’

  ‘And I love you, Mrs Hartfield,’ Asher Hartfield said, with such love looking back from smoky grey eyes it was better than any love poem.

  ‘Enough to come all the way to Gretna to marry me when my stepfather said no,’ she agreed happily as the hired carriage headed back to England.

  Travelling by mail coach had been an adventure, but Rosalind was looking forward to a leisurely trip home now they were man and wife and nobody could ever part them again.

  ‘I would go to the ends of the earth to marry you,’ Ash told her and when their eyes met the fire under all that smoke was plain to see.

  Rosalind felt warmed and cherished and eager for the first intimate inn along the way Ash had promised her as they travelled relentlessly, snatching sleep when the roads were smooth enough, never daring to nap in warm taprooms for fear they would be left behind. It had been an odd combination of restless haste, anxiety her stepfather, the Earl of Lackbourne, would catch up and stop them and the boredom and discomfort of travelling at such a pace, but she would do it again a hundred times over in order to marry Ash.

  ‘Husband,’ she whispered and slipped off a soft tan glove to stare down at the gold band he had placed on her finger less than an hour ago.

  ‘Wife,’ he said, as if she was a fantasy he had been promising himself since they first laid eyes on one another as well. It had only taken his long, hot stare to send her spinning out of a Mayfair ballroom into this new world made only for them. Rosalind had tumbled fathoms deep in love and Ash had blinded her to other men. The wonder was he felt the same when their two worlds met and they became us two, Ros and Ash, lovers until the end of time.

  Rosalind imagined she would be wary of wild young men after her experience of the man who lied to her when she was younger and a lot more naïve, but apparently she could not resist a rogue. But this one was different and Ash Hartfield really was the true love of her life.

  ‘How far must we travel today?’ she asked breathlessly, thinking even waiting until early nightfall at this wintry time of year would feel like riding a knife-edge when she wanted him so urgently she had no idea how they had managed to keep their hands off each other all the way to Gretna Green.

  Ash would be a caring and passionate lover—the fire in his eyes when he met hers said how difficult it was for him to wait—but he had done so all the way from London. Her heart ached with the hugeness of love and she would not even think of the rogue who had lied about how impossible it was for a man to control his base passions in the presence of true beauty right now. Or remember how she had cursed her looks until she met Ash’s eyes across that ballroom. Nothing about Ash’s need for her at the heart of his life felt base or wrong. He was warmth and care and strength. Other men only wanted to possess her body and never mind the contents of her head, or her hopes and dreams—but this man was so different she wanted to pinch herself until she could believe this was really happening and he really loved her.

  ‘Carlisle,’ he murmured as if even the word was temptation enough for a man so close to the end o
f his tether.

  ‘Good,’ she said just as sparsely because she felt as if this lovely fire was eating her from the inside out as well.

  * * *

  By the time they got to the border between Scotland and England, crossed into that fortified and often fought-over city and found a cosy inn off the main coaching routes, it was getting dark and the fire and frustration inside her were almost out of control. Rosalind went into her husband’s arms with a hunger and sweetness only Ash could arouse in her and knew she was home. This was where she belonged, she decided foggily, as he planted a delicate mesh of kisses down her exposed throat. He filled her senses and thoughts until she had no idea when he undid her laces. As well they had got this far, though, a sane part of her cautioned, because the rest of her did not really care if they were in this private and fire-lit chamber or out in the marketplace and the freezing cold January air. Ash was all that mattered to her, all she wanted to know about in the whole wide world, and wanting this and him felt like everything to her.

  ‘Rosalind,’ he gasped softly and, on a long sigh, ‘My Ros...a...lind...’ He stretched out her name between gentle nips at her earlobe as he worked his way around to a place she never knew was so responsive until now. He had been saving that revelation until they were like this together, she decided, as heat shot through her and she moaned out his name in an echo of his huskier tones.

  Would there was more of it, she decided as breathily she whispered, ‘Asher...’ It felt brief and insufficient ‘Asher Hart...’

  ‘Enough,’ he murmured as if it would be a command if he had the strictness left to make it so.

  ‘Yes, it is. Asher, my Heart. That’s enough for me,’ she whispered as that busy mouth of his went back to trailing urgent kisses down her throat and settled on the racing pulse at the base of her neck. So close to her that he must have felt the lurch and race of her heartbeat when he moved from one pulse to the other as if he had to reassure himself both marched to the same beat.

  ‘Love me, Ash,’ she boldly encouraged him as she wound her arms about his neck and tugged him further down to whisper kisses over the bared slopes of her breasts. It only took a little wriggle to slide the unlaced gown and lacy shift off her shoulders, then he did the rest. She might have found it a little too much intimacy, a little too hasty but for the tremble in his caressing hands. He had felt it, too then, the novelty and bravery of total intimacy. Knowing that, she could let go of her doubts and leap headlong into Mr and Mrs Hartfield. She left him to take the lead and know how to make this fine and good. She trusted him; she knew him. This was right.

  * * *

  The next morning she still thought so. Ash knew her inside and out now and they had made love so many times last night she could not recall whether it was three or four trips up that lovely road to ecstasy they had travelled before sleep finally overcame them. Now she wasn’t afraid of any thought in his head or touch of his hands, because this was love and he was her first, last and forever. Rosalind loved being his wife so much she could hardly believe it was possible to be so happy, so completely content when she woke up to see Ash watching her with such warmth and tenderness in his intent gaze her heart raced with longing for him all over again.

  ‘We still have to face our families,’ she reminded them both, feeling some of her blissful joy tumble back to earth. ‘Your grandfather the Duke and my stepfather the Earl will not be very pleased about our elopement. They are sure to look down their long noses and threaten to cut us out of their lives,’ she added and shivered against Ash’s bare shoulder at the thought of those two arrogant old men making their displeasure plain to them and then the rest of the world.

  ‘My grandfather threatens to do so at regular intervals, but he never does it. They will pretend it was their idea all along and inform the world what a fine match it is when they see I am a reformed man. I don’t know why your stepfather was so against our marriage when I did promise him I would settle down and help Grandfather manage the estates during Charlie’s minority. Now we are wed they will admit we are a well-matched pair and not to be put asunder by a couple of jealous old fools,’ Ash drawled lazily, as if he could not see any need to worry now the deed was well and truly done.

  Rosalind felt a superstitious shiver run through her like ice. A wicked old god might be listening and blight this glorious love of theirs if they were too bold and rash with it. ‘It seems like tempting fate to take anything for granted,’ she told him carefully, turning to look up at him and very ready to be distracted if he was not quite done with being her new husband yet.

  ‘Nothing can part us now, my love,’ he told her and ran a soothing hand down her bare back as if he had felt that shiver of apprehension run down it and was fascinated by where that shiver could take them.

  ‘Truly? Nothing I could tell you would stop you loving me?’

  ‘What could? I love you; you love me. There’s nothing a couple of bitter old men and a pack of gawping fools can do about it now.’

  Rosalind thought about the nasty little secret her stepfather had held over her for the last two years to keep her obedient and half-heartedly attracting the best offer her looks could draw in while a shadow loomed over her happiness. What would the Earl do now his hopes of arranging a profitable marriage for his penniless stepdaughter were ruined? She ought to tell Ash in order to draw the sting out of the story Lord Lackbourne would tell him with relish when he found out what they had done. His lordship’s price for housing her since her mother had died could not be paid by the second son of a second son, even if Ash was the grandson of a duke. Ash had warned her from the start that his father had gambled and caroused most of his fortune away before breaking his neck on the hunting field. Ash had gone on to admit his own misdeeds and his wild ways, but he did not gamble and that seemed a very good thing to his future wife. But the fact remained Lord Lackbourne would not squeeze much in the way of settlements out of Rosalind’s husband. The thought of his frustrated fury when he had been expecting the golden good looks she had inherited from her famously beautiful late mother to attract fortune and influence instead of a rackety young man made her shiver again.

  ‘What is it? Why are you so worried about admitting we are married?’ Ash said, pushing himself further up in the bed so he could look down at her face in a shaft of midwinter sunshine peeking nosily in through a gap in the innkeeper’s best bed hangings.

  It wasn’t a tale Rosalind wanted to tell, but did she dare keep it to herself? What if the Earl and Ash’s military brother caught up with them today? Any chance she might have to explain her folly two years ago would fly out of the window under their critical eyes and her stepfather had never loved her, so what was to stop him telling Ash about her youthful stupidity? Even the thought of Ash looking at her with horror instead of love made her flinch from saying anything, though. Maybe the Earl would be struck by lightning and so changed he became her kind and gentle protector instead of the impatient and penny-pinching autocrat she knew him to be.

  ‘Are you really sure nothing could part us?’ she asked, sitting up in bed as well and turning her face up to meet his gaze again with every ounce of sincerity she had in her while she tried to gauge his inner thoughts.

  ‘Do you mean to be faithful to me?’ he demanded with a hard note under his usually flexible deep voice and in his smoke-grey eyes.

  ‘Of course I do, to my dying day,’ she swore as ardently as if they were in front of an archbishop, because anything less than total fidelity to this fine and brilliant young man felt unthinkable.

  ‘Then we have nothing to worry about,’ he told her with an only-for-her smile on his slightly stubbly face and a gleam in his eyes she simply had to resist until she had confided her silly story and got the last obstacle to their happiness out of the way.

  * * *

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I should have told you before, but—’

  ‘N
o,’ Ash roared and leapt out of bed, ‘there is no “but” in the world important enough to stop you telling me until you had my ring on your finger. You lied; you used me,’ he added and the revulsion in his voice was straight out of her worst nightmares, but at the same time too real to hope she would wake up and find she had dreamt it.

  Rosalind watched her husband throw on his clothes as if it felt wrong to be naked with her now and shock held her frozen, like an abandoned houri after a night of unimaginable sin. Her mother had been right then; she should never have told her husband what a fool she was at sixteen. She should have kept it to herself that young and silly Rosalind Feldon had let a handsome young rogue convince her she was the love of his life before she found the touchstone of true love the moment she saw Ash. She had been so blinded by the grown-up glow and glamour of her first love affair she had let that rogue convince her the punch at her first grown-up party was made with spices and lemon juice and honey and wouldn’t harm a baby. Later he told her a man like him couldn’t help himself in the company of such a beautiful girl. Rosalind had been so intoxicated with rum and dreams he had managed to seduce her while she was so dazed and loose-limbed she had hardly known her own name and thought it a strange and oddly uncomfortable dream. Waking to an appalling headache and the terrible realisation it had truly happened, Rosalind had discovered the furtive rogue had left at daybreak for his new posting at the Russian court without even a note to say sorry.

  ‘No, I never actually lied and I do love you. I was a fool to believe a word that man said, but I refuse to let a careless rake ruin my life, then or now. It cost a great deal of heartache to put my life back together, but I know the difference between real love and pretend—I know you love me as he never could. He was too selfish to ever love like you do, with every bit of your heart and soul. My mother was dying when he did what he did,’ Rosalind added and paused for a moment to find enough strength to carry on talking with the memory of that terrible, precious time clogging her throat with tears. Mama had urged her to be strong and not tell anyone else, ever, and she was so right. ‘She made me promise not to let him ruin my life,’ she whispered sadly now.