To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

They all leaned closer.

Soon they were under her spell. Eugenie told a good story—her father, the baronet, said she was a chip off the old block, although she preferred to use her story telling for the pleasure of others rather than to swindle numbskulls out of their blunt, as her father often boasted. Now she did her best to amuse her friends, causing them to gasp and laugh by turns, and embellishing the scene to the point that even she began to believe that it really was possible for her to marry a man like Somerton.

“ . . . and then he took my hand and said I was the most unusual girl he’d ever met . . .” It was mostly tosh, but her friends weren’t to know that.

When her story finally ended, Olivia clapped her hands and Marissa giggled. Even serious Averil was smiling, while Tina gave an unladylike snort of amusement.

“So now you know why I want to marry the Duke of Somerton,” Eugenie finished gamely, too flushed with her success to stem her flow of words. “Wait and see if I do not win him over.”

“In fact by this time next year I believe you will be his duchess!” Olivia declared.

Eugenie believed nothing of the sort but they were all watching her and she was forced to give a nod and a weak smile.

“How amazing,” Marissa said, her eyes widening. “I think I will have to come and call upon you, Eugenie, and see this unfold for myself.”

The others agreed, eagerly making plans, checking dates.

Eugenie’s nimble brain sought a way out. She hadn’t planned it, exactly, but she probably would have to wait a month or two and then pretend her romance with Somerton didn’t work out. She would send each of her friends a sad little letter and hope they didn’t arrive with the intention of reuniting her with her duke. She shuddered at the thought of them learning the truth. Bad enough that she didn’t have a husband-to-be, but to have told them such lies! If they discovered the truth they would never speak to her again. For a moment she considered whether it would be simpler to persuade Somerton to marry her.

She pictured his handsome, aristocratic face, his black eyes resting on her in amazed disgust. Marry you?

The young ladies were raising their champagne glasses and she had no option but to raise her own and join in the toast.

“To Eugenie!”

“To the Duchess of Somerton!”

The champagne went down the wrong way. Eugenie began to choke. Again.

Chapter 1

Eugenie’s first meeting with the Duke of Somerton

Three months earlier

Eugenie tugged at the rope. On the other end of it Erik, until recently the family billy goat, shook his head and gave her a pleading look from his pale blue eyes. At least, it appeared pleading to her, and that was because Erik knew he had gone too far this time when he’d broken through the wooden fence into the drying yard, and eaten an item of the family’s clothing.

If he’d eaten the boys’ underwear or even Eugenie’s shift and petticoat, it wouldn’t have mattered so much—they would have forgiven him. But instead Erik had chosen to munch on Mrs. Belmont’s Parisian cap with cerise ribbons, a garment she treasured above all others. When she discovered the few remaining scraps Erik had discarded as unpalatable—a ribbon flower or what was left of it—she promptly threw hysterics.

“Take that animal back to Farmer Bartholomew,” she’d ordered, her voice husky from shrieking. “I won’t have it here any longer. The—the beast. I don’t want to set eyes on it ever again.”

Eugenie, whose task it was to put the weeping twins and ten-year-old Jack to bed, had hoped that the morning might bring a reprieve for Erik. But no amount of pleading would change her mother’s mind and suggestions that Erik should be congratulated for his good taste in choosing that particular item were greeted with strangled sobs. In fact it seemed that a night without her beloved cap had only hardened her resolve.

The goat would have to go.

“Genie! Help!”

Eugenie looked around. Her twin brothers, Benjamin and Bertie, had been clambering in the hedgerow and were now caught fast in the prickly brambles.

“We can’t get out, Genie!”

“Don’t pull so, or you’ll tear your clothing. What will Mama say then?”

The boys stopped struggling and Eugenie handed Erik’s rope to Jack, who was trying not to cry. Erik was his special pet, and although the twins were fond of the goat, they’d soon move on to something new. It was Jack who was truly heartbroken and would need Eugenie’s special care. The boy had always had an affinity with animals, something Eugenie tried to encourage. Jack’s menagerie was famous—currently he was caring for a magpie with a broken wing and a mouse with one ear that the cat had brought home.

“Genie!” the twins wailed impatiently, as she set about untangling them from their predicament. Eugenie pretended to scold, as she finally set them free from the brambles. Eight years old and full of mischief, they ran ahead down the lane.

What next? Eugenie sighed. It was as if she lurched from one disaster to another, soothing her mother, untangling her brothers, dreading her father’s next scheme.