Then his chest weakly inflated, and Royal felt a sweep of relief. Releasing his father’s cold hand, he slipped it beneath the covers and eased away from the bed. He paused long enough to build up the fire, then left the suite.
As he stepped outside, he spotted Rule pacing the hallway. His brother jerked to a halt as Royal quietly closed the door.
“Is he …?”
“He is as he was.” He released a breath. “He has arranged a marriage. The woman comes with an enormous dowry, enough to begin rebuilding the family lands and holdings. I have agreed to the match.”
Rule frowned, drawing his black eyebrows together. “Are you certain that is what you wish to do?”
Royal’s mouth barely curved. “I am not sure of anything, brother, except that I have made a vow and now I must keep it.”
The burial of the Duke of Bransford took place on a windy, overcast, frigid morning in January. The proceedings had actually begun several days earlier, with a lengthy funeral service given by the Archbishop at Westminster Abbey. It was attended by a score of nobles and dozens of London’s elite.
Afterward, the coffin was transported to the village of Bransford via an extravagant black carriage and four matching black horses for a graveside service and the final interment of the late duke’s body in the family’s private plot adjacent to the village church.
A number of family members were in attendance, including the duke’s aging aunt, Agatha Edgewood, Dowager Countess of Tavistock, as well as numerous other aunts and cousins, some Royal hadn’t known existed. Some, like vultures, had come to discover if they might receive a bequest in the late duke’s will. Those few had a surprise in store for them since little unentailed property or monies remained in the family coffers.
Royal stared down at the gleaming bronze casket that held his father’s remains and a thick lump swelled in his throat. He should have come home sooner, should have spent more time with the man who had sired him. He should have helped him manage his vast affairs. Perhaps if he had, the dukedom wouldn’t have fallen into ruin. Perhaps his father wouldn’t have worried himself into an early grave.
Royal gazed at the coffin, which blurred for an instant behind a film of tears. His father was gone. The sixth Duke of Bransford had passed away peacefully two hours after the arrival of his middle son.
Reese and the duke had been cosseted together briefly, and another vow was made. By no later than the date his twelve-year enlistment was up, Reese would leave the military and return to Wiltshire. He would take over the lands and manor at Briarwood, a nearby property Reese had inherited from their maternal grandfather. He would rebuild those lands and make them and his life productive.
Reese, the most stubborn of the duke’s three offspring, enjoyed his freedom, his military life and his travels. He wanted nothing less than being bound to a chunk of land he saw as a place that would hold him prisoner. But in the end, as his father’s life drained away before his very eyes, Reese had agreed.
Rule, the wildest and least responsible, had made his pledge before Royal arrived. The duke believed an alliance with the Americans was in the family’s best interest. His youngest son had pledged to do whatever it took to make that alliance a fact.
The vicar’s words cut into Royal’s thoughts, turning them away from events of the past few weeks and returning him to the words being said over his father’s coffin.
A sharp wind tossed his long woolen cloak and cut through his heavy black tailcoat and dark gray trousers as he stood at the graveside. Next to him, Reese wore the scarlet-and-white dress uniform of a major in the British cavalry, the breeze slashing at his thick, wavy black hair. He was the most sober of the brothers, his features harder, reflecting the life he lived.
Royal’s gaze moved to his youngest brother. Rule had been an unexpected addition to the family, born almost six years after Reese to a mother in ill health who had been warned against having more children. Amanda Dewar had died in childbirth, leaving Rule in the dubious care of a nanny, his two older brothers and a father who often drank to bury his grief or hid himself away in his study.
Rule had survived to become the most reckless of the three. He had a reputation as an incorrigible rake and he wore it proudly. He loved the ladies and seemed to make it a personal challenge to bed as many beautiful women as he possibly could.
Royal almost smiled. His own future had already been decided. He would marry a woman named Jocelyn Caulfield. A woman he had yet to meet. She was out of the country at present, enjoying a European tour with her mother. Royal was glad.
The period of mourning for his father would last a year. There would be time enough to arrange a marriage after that.
Meanwhile, he had money of his own, income from Sugar Reef, funds sufficient to keep the dukedom afloat, if not enough to rebuild the fortune his father had lost.
In time it would happen, Royal vowed. He would not rest until he saw it done.
In the meantime, he would learn what he could of his duties as duke, investigate his holdings, see how best to resurrect his father’s flagging investments and try to make them profitable again.
As his father had said, it wouldn’t be easy.
Royal vowed that by the time he was wed, he would know how to best use the money gained from the marriage his father had arranged.
Two
London, England One Year Later
Jocelyn Caulfield stood in front of the cheval glass in her bedroom overlooking the gardens at Meadowbrook, her family’s mansion at the edge of Mayfair in a district of larger, newer homes. Dressed in a corset, chemise and drawers, the garments as ruffled as the white silk counterpane on her four-poster bed and the crisscross curtains at the windows, she surveyed her curvaceous figure in the mirror.
“I hope I am not putting on weight.” She clamped her hands on the bone stays that trimmed her waist to a scant eighteen inches and frowned, pulling her sleek, dark eyebrows together over a pair of violet eyes. “What do you think, Lily?”
Her third cousin and companion of the past six years, Lily Moran, laughed from a few feet away. “You have a perfect figure and you know it.”
Jocelyn smiled mischievously. “Do you think the duke will notice?”
Lily just shook her head. “Every man who sees you notices, Jo.” Though the women were both average in height, unlike Jocelyn, Lily was blond and slender, with pale sea-green eyes and lips she considered a little too full. She was pretty in a more subtle, less vibrant way, not at all like Jo, who was the sort to stop a man where he stood and leave him simply staring.
“Have you finished packing for the trip?” Jocelyn asked. Which meant, Lily, have you also finished mine? Jo didn’t trust Elsie, her ladies’ maid, to choose exactly the right wardrobe for a trip to meet her soon-to-be betrothed, the Duke of Bransford. It was Lily she trusted, Lily, one year older, whom she had come to depend on over the years.
“I am nearly finished,” Lily said. “I have everything but your undergarments laid out for you in your dressing room. All you have to do is have Phoebe pack the gowns away in your trunks before you leave.”
Jocelyn turned to survey her figure from a different
