Duke of Misfortune Read online

  Duke of Misfortune

  Dukes of Destiny, Book Four

  Whitney Blake

  © Copyright 2020 by Whitney Blake

  Text by Whitney Blake

  Cover by Wicked Smart Designs

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  [email protected]

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition April 2020

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from the some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

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  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Whitney Blake

  Dukes of Destiny Series

  Duke of Havoc

  Duke of Sorrow

  Duke of Disgrace

  Duke of Misfortune

  *** Please visit Dragonblade’s website for a full list of books and authors. Sign up for Dragonblade’s blog for sneak peeks, interviews, and more: ***

  www.dragonbladepublishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Whitney Blake

  Author’s Note

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  As with Duke of Disgrace, I felt this one deserved a note, too. I did plan them together like companion books within the series, which is collectively an anthology built on a theme… you can read them in any order. If you haven’t read Duke of Disgrace, you should, though you don’t need to before reading this! Lee’s closest friend is the hero’s younger brother. I’m excited for you to read about Lee and Teddie, in any event, because I’m so very fond of them.

  When it comes to English theater and just local London theater, the histories are as colorful and expansive as one might expect. I encourage interested readers to do their own exploring, because there’s a wealth of fascinating stuff. The concept of this story was that a spare, not the heir, could feasibly have done what Lee does. I wrote with that fantasy in mind—I’m incredibly taken with popular melodramas of the day, so you’ll have to forgive me if it’s all terribly fanciful.

  And some other, very tiny points that may need clarification:

  • Using “Albany” and “the Albany” are both acceptable. Omitting the “the” is usually preferred amongst its actual residents and while speaking.

  • Men weren’t held to the same timelines of mourning as women, in general.

  • The Sans Pareil was actually a real venue. I’m only using it mostly in passing, but it did exist.

  Prologue

  Late 1811

  London, England

  “It will have to stop.”

  “Father, I—” Lord Emilian, “Lee” to his friends, cut himself off before he could say anything rash.

  Again.

  This conversation had been going on for an hour, the two of them going around and around about Lee’s distressing habit.

  They had an audience of one: Lee’s only sibling and older brother, Lord Thomas. He stood in the corner behind Father’s desk, endeavoring and failing to look as though none of this made him feel gleeful.

  He’d always been the golden one, the blessed boy. He’d always been the heir, Father’s favorite. For some reason only he knew, he was still dreadfully insecure despite his privileges. Lee had been on the receiving end of his taunts and criticisms for years. Little more than a year separated them, but Thomas acted as though he were vastly superior and more experienced.

  “Emilian, it’s going to stop. Even your silver tongue can’t keep you from suffering these consequences. You’re a grown man and it’s about time you started to comport yourself like a son of this family.”

  This family? thought Lee with an internal frown.

  The Valencourt family, with roots that went as deep as the Conquest. Lee had never felt particularly part of it, a feeling that grew as it became obvious that Thomas was preferred well over him. As a child, he’d assumed it was merely a matter of temperament. He was, after all, more interested in stories and telling them than he was in learning about the estate. Thankfully, that was more Thomas’ lot.

  Then, as he grew old enough to understand the subtleties of his father’s disapproval, he also understood that he’d been written off early, and Father was investing predominately in Thomas. He was still Lord Emilian Robert Valencourt but, until now, he was ignored so long as he didn’t make a nuisance of himself.

  Thomas blamed him for Mother’s death, which he supposed was at least partially his fault seeing as she’d died giving birth to him. Father rarely said much about it, but when he did, it was clear that he felt the same. There were, Lee knew from fiction and not lived experience, love stories and love matches. It was supremely difficult to imagine Father as the victim of a broken heart—Lee wasn’t convinced Lord Thomas Robert Valencourt, Duke of Welburn, had one—but broken hearts happened.

  Lee couldn’t help but blurt, “Are my age and family name interlinked? You do realize many of us who tread the boards do so until well into our dotage.”

  That got Thomas to turn around and face the room rather than gaze out the window. The look on his face was curious and, not for the first time, Lee wondered if he’d told Father simply to see what would happen. Lee wagered that very little would because, as far as he was concerned, Father seemed content to throw an allowance at him then veritably forget his existence.

  That had actually worked out well for Lee.

  For
three years now, he had been conducting a rather splendid double-life. He was now two and twenty.

  It had started without any intention at all. He’d simply gone to one of the many theaters in London for an evening of lurid fun. With his closest friend, Lord Paul—a fellow youngest son from another family—at his side, they soon discovered a ritual they cared to repeat. There was something thrilling, liberating, about the energy and the anonymity. They did not always go to the licensed theaters, preferring the sometimes bawdier, often smaller venues that fed the voracious public appetite for performances of all genres. Their ubiquity helped enable Lee’s success when he wished to try his hand at being part of the productions rather than their spectator.

  This evening had been one of many nights when Mr. Gordon Judd—Lee’s persona—had commanded an audience’s attention, this time as a character loosely inspired by Moliére’s Monsieur Jourdain. Putting on anything so French could be slightly risky right now, but no one could deny his influence upon drama. Inspired characters who were heavily adapted were fine. Not all onlookers picked up on the Continental connections, but it all was great fun for those performing.

  “Do not be insolent with me, Emilian,” said Father, taking large steps from the great desk to where Lee was seated. “You know what I mean.”

  Unfortunately, Lee was starting to gather the seriousness of his predicament.

  At first, he expected little more than a charged reprimand. He really did expect that he could talk his way out of anything too serious. Of course, his entire upbringing taught him that what he’d been doing wasn’t done, and even the youngest sons of dukes could not really be actors or entertainers. Society adored its favorites on the stage, to be sure, but they weren’t normally from the highest families of the Empire.

  “I was merely trying to clarify. I did not intend to be insolent.”

  Father’s thunderous expression was beginning to unnerve him. But what can he possibly do? Lee thought. It is not as though I can be married off like a girl.

  “You could have greatly compromised our reputations. We have dignity to uphold.”

  “I was careful,” said Lee.

  He had also been careful not to divulge how long this had been going on. He didn’t know if Father knew the full extent of it, but he certainly did not want to incriminate himself overmuch. It would be better, if Father knew little, to pretend that was all that had actually happened. As it was, the man was entirely overreacting, behaving as though Lee had slaughtered a fellow aristocrat in broad daylight in the middle of Doctors’ Commons. Sadly, Lee knew which his father would have preferred.

  The preference did not do him credit.

  “You were careful? We’re speaking of your future prospects, not some woman you bedded!” Father’s eyes widened as his voice rose. “I am deeply concerned that someone might discover what, exactly, you have been doing with yourself! An actor? A Valencourt? Why, if you had not already killed your mother, she would be beside herself with the shame of it all.”

  “Well, Father, seeing as I never met the woman, I am in no position to say—I shall have to defer to your judgment of her character,” Lee said. He also knew that his mother had loved plays and the opera. Mr. Clyde, the steward, once referenced it in passing. Lee had always liked him.

  At the very least, if everyone who was anyone discovered what his father believed was an odious secret—akin to having committed a dreadful act of violence upon one’s fellow man—Lee was regarded as talented. An artful mimic, a player who could wrench heartstrings just as well as he could provoke delighted laughter. He saw nothing to be ashamed of and found further reassurance in his skill. Not all men were skilled at what they set out to do, much as not all men found their passions.

  Surely, he reasoned, even the ton would forgive him his slightly dastardly trespasses so long as he was good at them. He’d ensured full houses night after night, he’d performed things from a multitude of perspectives, he’d—

  “Such disrespect,” said Father, slashing across his introspection. Thomas did not move a muscle. “I demand an apology, Emilian.”

  “Were you in love?”

  “Pardon?”

  The question, admittedly, did not fit the tenor of the subject. Neither was it an apology. Lee cleared his throat.

  “You and Mother. I am sad I never got to meet her. I wonder if you and she were in love.”

  Father went pale before he went the shade of a sliced beet. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything at all.”

  “I should like to find it,” said Lee. “I can only imagine that you were, because of the state you have seemed to be in for my entire life. I would brave anything for—”

  “What nonsense,” said Father. He shook his head like a hound trying to catch a scent. “I can say that she would not look upon you kindly after hearing of your… escapade.”

  Biting the inside of his cheek, Lee counted to three and remained quiet even after that. He really had no idea how he’d slipped up. He’d been doing it for years, after all, the savvy sneaking from his rooms in the London townhouse to theaters. More recently, he was in residence at the Albany. It was where some of them went, the rich and sometimes unwanted lesser sons like him. Someone could have sold him out, he thought, but he didn’t think that was the case.

  Hoped it wasn’t.

  Somebody might have seen him and remarked to his father, or to Thomas. That was more likely, though if it had happened that way, he had certainly overestimated his abilities of stealth. As well as underestimated his peers’ abilities to be observant.

  He smirked, and he thought he did so as covertly as one could humanly smirk. But Father said, “Is something humorous to you? Perhaps you would deign to let us know what?”

  “Nothing at all is funny to me in this moment,” said Lee.

  He wasn’t telling the full truth. But he was in a room with two men who greatly respected their peers. They would not take kindly at all to anyone, especially him, having a chuckle at their expense.

  “I daresay you won’t think anything is funny for quite some time, moving forward.” The remark seemed cold and harsh even for Father. Lee tried to make sense of it. His allowance would probably go. That was all right. He might dislike not having the means, but he could scrape by on his own earnings and the sympathy of friends.

  Belle might be able to put me up if Father cuts me off. It wouldn’t be the done thing, staying in a brothel. Belle was his lover, even if he paid her, and a friend. I don’t think I’ve ever done the done thing. There was a small beam of hope in all of this. If he were lucky, he might get barred from entering the townhouse, the country houses, or Whitwell, Father’s estate. Conceivably, it might be like there’d never been a Lord Emilian at all.

  It would be a treat never to deal with Father again. Yes, the thought of being effectively disowned was, actually, immensely pleasing. Perhaps even being legally disowned would be nice. He didn’t like Father, and he didn’t like Thomas. The only people in the family he did like were distant cousins, none of whom he saw regularly. He supposed he would miss the servants, who doted upon him.

  Most likely because I don’t treat them like shite.

  “May I ask why?”

  “You may, although you shall get your answer soon enough, my lad.”

  The only thing that made him feel true foreboding was the smug look on Thomas’ face. He was handsome in a bland manner, which was to say he had an academically attractive face and no personality to make it mobile and interesting. Thomas was not dull. He didn’t look it, either. But there was no pleasing fire to his eyes, and he had a bitter turn to his expressions.

  He did not speak. As though he were waiting for something to be said. Lee shifted his eyes from Thomas to Father. “Well? If I’m to leave the family, I don’t see why I’ll be expected to endure your theatrics.”

  Father was prone to making shows of status. Power plays. And what were they but societal theater?

  “Haven’t you been listening
?”

  “For an hour, now.”

  “Then you have not been comprehending. You are never leaving this family. I am not such a cruel man as that.”

  Lee didn’t know if he would say his father was not cruel. If the duke wanted his errant youngest son around, it was for the sake of one thing: appearances. It was not for love. It was probably not even for the sake of his dead lady wife.

  “I must say that there’s not much to comprehend when one is simply being shouted at. You have used every insult under the sun, and yet I still have no idea what my punishment is to be.” Lee paused. “Are you quite certain you have never had a stint writing for the stage?”

  Father clasped his hands together so hard that they went nearly white. Lee noted with satisfaction that, whatever was to happen or to be, he was able to unsettle the man who was normally so calm and collected. “Your punishment is quite dire.”

  “I suspected it might be. It has been several days since I have been found out and I have heard nothing until this morning. Then, suddenly, you summon me here to the townhouse.”

  They were in London for the season, and Lee was starting to strain under the pressure of his family’s immediate presence. Thomas still had yet to marry. Lee couldn’t see why someone with all the charm of an overturned coffin lid hadn’t yet found a mate. It was truly impressive that not even Thomas’ considerable fortune had swayed any ladies in his favor.

  Yes, several days had gone since Lee’s secret became known to his father and brother. Who were, miserably, his only immediate blood relations. The denouement of it all had been fittingly dramatic.

  He was backstage, face covered in thick cosmetics, sweating from the heat in the house and the exertion of moving about. He’d finished for the evening and was just about to change into his normal clothes. One of the stagehands he knew, Jack, came to him with a frightened air and passed him a folded note.