Duke of Desire

  Elizabeth Hoyt is the New York Times bestselling author of more than seventeen lush historical romances including the Maiden Lane series. Publishers Weekly has called her writing ‘mesmerizing.’ She also pens deliciously fun contemporary romances under the name Julia Harper.

  Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with three untrained dogs, a garden in constant need of weeding, and the long-suffering Mr. Hoyt. The winters in Minnesota have been known to be long and cold and Elizabeth is always thrilled to receive reader mail.

  You can write to her at: PO Box 19495, Minneapolis, MN 55419 or email her at: [email protected].

  Visit Elizabeth Hoyt online:

  www.elizabethhoyt.com

  @ElizabethHoyt

  www.facebook.com/ElizabethHoytBooks

  By Elizabeth Hoyt

  Maiden Lane series:

  Wicked Intentions

  Notorious Pleasures

  Scandalous Desires

  Thief of Shadows

  Lord of Darkness

  Duke of Midnight

  Darling Beast

  Dearest Rogue

  Sweetest Scoundrel

  Duke of Sin

  Once Upon a Moonlit Night (novella)

  Duke of Pleasure

  Duke of Desire

  Copyright

  Published by Piatkus

  ISBN: 978-0-349-41238-2

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Nancy M. Finney

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Excerpt from Duke of Pleasure copyright © 2016 by Nancy M. Finney

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Piatkus

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  By Elizabeth Hoyt

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Publishing a book is a group project. It’s true that the ideas, the characters, and the first draft are all mine, but after that I have a lot of help. Thank you, then, to my editor Amy Pierpont, who has never flinched at one of my proposals—not even the one about the psychotic duke—and has been patient, kind, and perceptive all at the right times. Thank you to my beta reader, Susannah Taylor, who has both cheered me on and, perhaps more important, told me what really bugged her in the first draft. Thank you to my agent, Robin Rue, who sends me little emails when she hasn’t heard from me in a while just to see how I’m doing. Thank you to my assistant, Mel Jolly, who keeps me from going insane, OMG. Thank you to my copy editor S. B. Kleinman, for keeping me from embarrassment. Thank you to the art department team, who work hard on the covers of my books (particularly this one): Alan Ayers and Elizabeth Turner. Thank you to the editorial department and the sales department and all the people who work at Grand Central Publishing who I never see except at rushed cocktail parties in New York.

  You’ve all made this book not only readable but also far, far better than I could make it by myself.

  And a very special thanks to my Facebook friend Galia B., who helped me name Tansy!

  This book is for you.

  If you have read the eleven other books in the Maiden Lane series: Thank you for your faithfulness and for accompanying me on this odyssey through Georgian London. I hope you enjoyed the people, the sights and sounds, and above all, the passion.

  If you have never read one of my books:

  Oh, my dear. Sit back, have a cup of tea, and let me tell you a story.…

  Chapter One

  Once upon a time there lived a poor stonecutter.…

  —From The Rock King

  APRIL 1742

  Considering how extremely dull her life had been up until this point, Iris Daniels, Lady Jordan had discovered a quite colorful way to die.

  Torches flamed on tall stakes driven into the ground. Their flickering light in the moonless night made shadows jump and waver over the masked men grouped in a circle around her.

  The naked masked men.

  Their masks weren’t staid black half masks, either. No. They wore bizarre animal or bird shapes. She saw a crow, a badger, a mouse, and a bear with a hairy belly and a crooked red manhood.

  She knelt next to a great stone slab, a primitive fallen monolith brought here centuries ago by people long forgotten. Her trembling hands were bound in front of her, her hair was coming down about her face, her dress was in a shocking state, and she very much suspected that she might smell—a result of having been kidnapped over four days before.

  In front of her stood three men, the masters of this horrific farce.

  The first wore a fox mask. He was slim, pale, and, judging by his body hair, a redhead. His inner forearm was tattooed with a small dolphin.

  The second wore a mask in the likeness of a young man’s face with grapes in its hair—the god Dionysus if she wasn’t mistaken—which, oddly, was far more terrifying than any of the animal masks. He bore a dolphin tattoo on his upper right arm.

  The last wore a wolf mask and was taller by a head then the other two. His body hair was black, he stood with a calm air of power, and he, too, bore a dolphin tattoo—directly on the jut of his left hip bone. The placement rather drew the eye to the man’s … erm … masculine attributes.

  The man in the wolf mask had nothing to be ashamed of.

  Iris shuddered in disgust and glanced away, accidentally meeting the Wolf’s mocking gaze.

  She lifted her chin in defiance. She knew what this group of men was. This was the Lords of Chaos, an odious secret society composed of aristocrats who enjoyed two things: power and the rape and destruction of women and children.

  Iris swallowed hard and reminded herself that she was a lady—her family could trace its line nearly to the time of the Conqueror—and as such she had her name and honor to uphold.

  These … creatures might kill her—and worse—but they would not take her dignity.

  “My Lords!” the Dionysus called, raising his arms above his head in a theatrical gesture that showed very little taste—but then he was addressing an audience of nude, masked men. “My Lords, I welcome you to our spring revels. Tonight we make a special sacrifice—the new Duchess of Kyle!”

  The crowd roared like slavering beasts.

  Iris blinked. The Duchess of …

  She glanced quickly around.

  As far as she could see in the macabre flickering torchlight, she was the only sacrifice in evidence, and she was most certainly not the Duchess of Kyle.

  The commotio
n began to die down.

  Iris cleared her throat. “No, I’m not.”

  “Silence,” the Fox hissed.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. In the last four days she’d been kidnapped on her way home from the wedding of the true Duchess of Kyle, she’d been bound, hooded, and thrown on the floor of a carriage, where she’d remained as the carriage bumped over road after rutted road, and then, on arrival at this place, she’d been shoved into a tiny stone hut without any sort of fire. She had been starved and had only a few cups of water to drink. Last, but most definitely not least, she’d been forced to relieve herself in a bucket.

  All of which had given her far too much time to contemplate her own death and what torture would precede it.

  She might be terrified and alone, but she wasn’t about to surrender to the Lords’ plans without a fight. As far as she could see she had nothing to lose and quite possibly her life to gain.

  So she raised her voice and said clearly and loudly, “You have made a mistake. I am not the Duchess of Kyle.”

  The Wolf turned to the Dionysus and spoke for the first time. His voice was deep and smoky. “Your men kidnapped the wrong woman.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” the Dionysus snapped at him. “We captured her three days after her wedding to Kyle.”

  “Yes, returning home to London from the wedding,” Iris said. “The Duke of Kyle married a young woman named Alf, not me. Why would I leave the duke if I’d just married him?”

  The Dionysus rounded on the Fox, making the other man cringe. “You told me that you saw her marry Kyle.”

  The Wolf chuckled darkly.

  “She lies!” cried the Fox, and he leaped toward her, his arm raised.

  The Wolf lunged, seized the Fox’s right arm, twisted it up behind his back, and slammed the other man to his knees.

  Iris stared and felt a tremble shake her body. She’d never seen a man move so swiftly.

  Nor so brutally.

  The Wolf bent over his prey, both men panting, their naked bodies sweating. The snout of the Wolf mask pressed against the Fox’s vulnerable bent neck. “Don’t. Touch. What. Is. Mine.”

  “Let him go,” the Dionysus barked.

  The Wolf didn’t move.

  The Dionysus’s hands curled into fists. “Obey me.”

  The Wolf finally turned his mask from the Fox’s neck to look at the Dionysus. “You have the wrong woman—a corrupt sacrifice, one not worthy of the revel. I want her.”

  “Take care,” murmured the Dionysus. “You are new to our society.”

  The Wolf tilted his head. “Not so new as all that.”

  “Perhaps newly rejoined, then,” the Dionysus replied. “You still do not know our ways.”

  “I know that as the host, I have the right to claim her,” growled the Wolf. “She is forfeit to me.”

  The Dionysus tilted his head as if considering. “Only by my leave.”

  The Wolf abruptly threw wide his arms, releasing the Fox and gracefully standing again. “Then by your leave,” he said, his words holding an edge of mockery.

  The firelight gleamed off his muscled chest and strong arms. He stood with an easy air of command.

  What would make a man with such natural power join this gruesome society?

  The other members of the Lords of Chaos didn’t seem happy at the thought of having their principal entertainment for the evening snatched out from under their noses. The masked men around her muttered and shifted, a restless miasma of danger hovering in the night air.

  Any spark could set them off, Iris suddenly realized.

  “Well?” the Wolf asked the Dionysus.

  “You can’t let her go,” the Fox said to his leader, getting to his feet. There were red marks beginning to bruise on his pale skin. “Why the bloody hell are you listening to him? She’s ours. Let us take our fill of her and—”

  The Wolf struck him on the side of the head—a terrible blow that made the Fox fly backward.

  “Mine,” growled the Wolf. He looked at the Dionysus again. “Do you lead the Lords or not?”

  “I think it more than evident that I lead the Lords,” the Dionysus drawled, even as the muttering of the crowd grew louder. “And I think I need not prove my mettle by giving you this woman.”

  Iris swallowed. They were fighting over her like feral dogs over a scrap of meat. Was it better if the Wolf claimed her? She didn’t know.

  The Wolf stood between Iris and the Dionysus, and she saw the muscles in his legs and buttocks tense. She wondered if the Dionysus noticed that the other man was readying for battle.

  “However,” the Dionysus continued, “I can grant her to you as an act of … charity. Enjoy her in whatever way you see fit, but take care that her heart no longer beats when next the sun rises.”

  Iris sucked in a breath at the sudden death sentence. The Dionysus had ordered her murder as casually as he would step on a beetle.

  “My word,” the Wolf bit out, and Iris’s fearful glance flew to him.

  Dear God, these men were monsters.

  The Dionysus tilted his head. “Your word—heard by all.”

  A low growl came from behind the wolf mask. He bent and gripped Iris’s bound wrists and hauled her to her feet. She stumbled after him as he strode through the mass of angry masked men. The crowd jostled against her, shoving her from all sides with bare arms and elbows until the Wolf finally pulled her free.

  She had been brought to this place hooded, and for the first time she saw that it was a ruined church or cathedral. Stones and broken arches loomed in the dark, and she tripped more than once over weed-covered rubble. The spring night was chilly away from the fires, but the man in the wolf mask, striding naked in the gloom, seemed unaffected by the elements. He continued his pace until they reached a dirt road and several waiting carriages.

  He walked up to one and without preamble opened the door and shoved her inside. “Wait here. Don’t scream or try to escape. You won’t like my response.”

  And with that ominous statement the door closed. Iris was left panting in terror in the dark, empty carriage.

  Immediately she tried the carriage door, but he’d locked or jammed it somehow. It wouldn’t open.

  She could hear men’s voices in the distance. Shouts and cries. Dear God. They sounded like a pack of rabid dogs. What would the Wolf do to her?

  She needed a weapon. Something—anything—with which to defend herself.

  Hurriedly she felt the door—a handle, but she couldn’t wrench it off—a small window, no curtains—the walls of the carriage—nothing. The seats were plush velvet. Expensive. Sometimes in better-made carriages the seats …

  She yanked at one.

  It lifted up.

  Inside was a small space.

  She reached in and felt a fur blanket. Nothing else.

  Damn.

  She could hear the Wolf’s growling voice just outside the carriage.

  Desperately she flung herself at the opposite seat and tugged it up. Thrust her hand in.

  A pistol.

  She cocked it, praying that it was loaded.

  She turned and aimed it at the door to the carriage just as the door swung open.

  The Wolf loomed in the doorway—still nude—a lantern in one hand. She saw the eyes behind the mask flick to the pistol she held between her bound hands. He turned his head and said something in an incomprehensible language to someone outside.

  Iris felt her breath sawing in and out of her chest.

  He climbed into the carriage and closed the door, completely ignoring her and the pistol pointed at him. The Wolf hung the lantern on a hook and sat on the seat across from her.

  Finally he glanced at her. “Put that down.”

  His voice was calm. Quiet.

  With just a hint of menace.

  She backed into the opposite corner, as far away from him as possible, holding the pistol up. Level with his chest. Her heart was pounding so hard it nearly deafened her. “No.”

>   The carriage jolted into motion, making her stumble before she caught herself.

  “T-tell them to stop the carriage,” she said, stuttering with terror despite her resolve. “Let me go now.”

  “So that they can rape you to death out there?” He tilted his head to indicate the Lords. “No.”

  “At the next village, then.”

  “I think not.”

  He reached for her and she knew she had no choice.

  She shot him.

  The blast blew him into the seat and threw her hands up and back, the pistol narrowly missing her nose.

  Iris scrambled to her feet. The bullet was gone, but she could still use the pistol as a bludgeon.

  The Wolf was sprawled across the seat, blood streaming from a gaping hole in his right shoulder. His mask had been knocked askew on his face.

  She reached forward and snatched it off.

  And then gasped.

  The face that was revealed had once been as beautiful as an angel’s but was now horribly mutilated. A livid red scar ran from just below his hairline on the right side of his face, bisecting the eyebrow, somehow skipping the eye itself but gouging a furrow into the lean cheek and catching the edge of his upper lip, making it twist. The scar ended in a missing divot of flesh in the line of the man’s severe jaw. He had inky black hair and, though they were closed now, Iris knew he had emotionless crystal-gray eyes.

  She knew because she recognized him.

  He was Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore, and when she’d danced with him—once—three months ago at a ball, she’d thought he’d looked like Hades.

  God of the underworld.

  God of the dead.

  She had no reason to change her opinion now.

  Then he gasped, those frozen crystal eyes opened, and he glared at her. “You idiot woman. I’m trying to save you.”

  Raphael grimaced in pain, feeling the scar tissue on the right side of his face pull his upper lip. No doubt the movement turned his mouth into a grotesque sneer.

  The woman who’d shot him had eyes the color of the sky above the moors just after a storm: blue-gray sky after black clouds. That particular shade of blue had been one of the few things his mother had found beautiful in England.