A Wicked Duke's Prize: A Historical Regency Romance Book Read online

  Owen stirred with rage. Every possible remark – that he, perhaps, didn’t long to be his father’s son any longer, anyway – swarmed behind his eyes. His lips parted, but he hadn’t the energy to produce such words. Instead, he stood, still shaking, and turned toward the door.

  “You cannot leave like this,” his father blurted. “Not without agreement. You will marry this woman, Owen.”

  Owen paused at the door, gripped the side of the doorway. He felt he might teeter to his knees if he didn’t have something to hold onto. How dreadful that would be, to fall on his face in remorse. It was a sadness that stretched beyond his own life and descended to his father’s. Throughout Owen’s recent streak with gambling, he hadn’t once assumed that he could ever ruin his, nor another’s, life with his wild-eyed take to the night.

  “Don’t you wish to know her name?” his father demanded, now screaming the words to Owen’s back.

  Owen didn’t move.

  “Rebecca. Rebecca Frampton. The youngest daughter of Kenneth Frampton. Word has it that she’s quite beautiful. Intelligent. Witty. I think you’ll find that…”

  But Owen didn’t remain in the doorway a moment more. He’d never heard of the Frampton girl and hadn’t a care in the world to hear more. He bucked down the hallway, surging toward the front door. He smashed it closed behind him and cut back toward the stables, seething. With every step that he took, he reminded himself that he wouldn’t, couldn’t in good conscience marry this woman.

  Rather, he would do what he did best. He would ruin it, ensure that the girl couldn’t look at him more than once without demanding that her father alter the contract. Owen was nothing if not disagreeable. The women he’d previously courted, during his playboy days, had affirmed this to him, over and over again.

  “You’re difficult, Owen Crauford. No woman will ever find herself pleased with you as her husband,” one had blurted, in the midst of his decision that he no longer wished to court her. Of this, he’d been pleased.

  Chapter 2

  The Frampton estate was located approximately a twenty-minute ride from the Crauford estate, although the families had had very little to do with one another throughout the years. The chance encounter of Neil Crauford and Kenneth Frampton had been, perhaps, written in the stars – although it wasn’t seen this way by either of the potentially (and very unhappily) future-married parties.

  As Rebecca was called into Kenneth Frampton’s study on that fateful afternoon, she guessed that the conversation would dwell on the typical topics. When would she settle? When would she stop trusting every instinct her tongue had, thus falling into endless amounts of trouble with her suitors?

  When would she, in a single, simplistic phrase, grow up? When she appeared in the doorway, Kenneth Frampton bucked his head up from a letter he had scribed with a long quill. He gave a fatigued smile to her, his youngest daughter, and beckoned her to sit as he lent his signature to the bottom of the page.

  Rebecca, the red-headed spitfire, well-read and eager to speak endlessly about her ideas, sat in the chair across from him. This very seat was a place she’d frequented as a teenager, when she’d yearned to learn more about her father’s business. At the time, she’d considered herself more of a business-minded woman, a person with tremendous intellect, thusly ill-suited to sit at home as someone’s wife. This, of course, had been an idiotic thought. She didn’t live in such a society.

  When she was seventeen, her father had sat her in this very chair and described to her, in tremendous detail, why she would never be suited to such business. He then sent her off to some sort of society ball, purchasing a fine – if ridiculous – gown for her to wear. He’d expected her to find a husband rather soon after that. The fact that she hadn’t, she knew, had felt spiteful to her father. As she’d watched her two eldest sisters court and then marry, she knew that she’d become an enormous weight on her father’s mind.

  “When will Rebecca marry?” was the question upon everyone’s lips, from the servants to the butler to the people they passed in town.

  Rebecca wore this, strangely, as a badge of honour. To her, it was a game, in fact, to learn how to dodge the system of marriage as long as she could. At least it was a way to pass the time.

  Now, at twenty-three years old, she knew that she’d kept the game going long past its humour, for many others. Still, she felt too proud to give it up just yet.

  “Rebecca,” her father said, dropping his quill to the side and curling his fingers beneath his bearded chin.

  “You’re looking a bit fatigued, Father,” Rebecca said, arching a brow. And indeed, he did. His eyes had their own little caves beneath them, shadowed and strange. “I don’t suppose you made it home very early last evening.”

  Her father’s lips curved downward. She knew he detested when she recognised anything about his exterior life, his time at the inns, his hours of gambling. He’d described to her only once that these hours, to him, were necessary, as he spent so much of his life in endless stress and despair. “It is difficult to be the man of the house,” he’d spat. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever know this truth, Rebecca. I pray that one day you’ll find a man who will take on the burden of your reckless soul. You’ve made it entirely too difficult.”

  Her father scolded her, “Rebecca, we’ve discussed how inappropriate this is,” and his eyes cinched together.

  “Fine, then, Father. How are you?” Rebecca said, arching her brow.

  “I’m very well, in fact, Rebecca,” her father said. He righted his smile once more, altogether too quickly. Rebecca marvelled at this. There was a far different air to him, in this moment – as though something had shifted externally.

  At this, her heart began to pump a bit too loudly. The sound of it burned past her eardrums. She hated when her father looked like this, as it usually had a very serious cause. Ordinarily, he approached her with such a manner when he discovered a suitor for her. Of course, since those first few times, he’d approached with only half-hope, knowing full well that she was apt at finding a path out of such locked-in agreements.

  “Tell me, then, Father. What have you got for me this time?” Rebecca returned. Her voice simmered with vitriol.

  Her father, as usual, attempted to mask his surprise at her guess. After all these years, it was clear that her father still hadn’t picked up on her intelligence levels – that she could always sense what he was up to. It was an unbridled distaste in the minds of women.

  “Rebecca, I’ve found him,” her father responded.

  “You’ve found … a replacement for the butler? A man to finally teach you French? Please, a bit of clarity would be much appreciated at this time,” she replied.

  Her father shook his head disdainfully. “No, Rebecca. I’ve found the man that you’re to wed. It’s been a long, chaotic journey, but I finally believe that this – this is the man –”

  “Oh. And what makes you so certain?” Rebecca said. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to force her mood to remain stable. Her nose began to crinkle up with distaste.

  “His name is Owen Crauford,” her father said. “He’s a remarkable man. Incredibly clever. I know you like the clever ones. His father is Neil Crauford, a man I met last evening –”

  “Oh. Are you saying that the decision for my future was made over a card game?” Rebecca asked. She leaned forward, arching her brow.

  But her father seemed, more than any other time, to be sure of himself. He perked up in his chair, seemingly grateful that he’d already delivered the news, and nodded his head. “Owen Crauford. He will be your husband, Rebecca. I’ve only just written out a letter to Neil Crauford, affirming the decision. You will meet Owen in a few days’ time.”

  Rebecca parted her lips, trying to drum up another argument. But her father clicked his head back and forth, giving no room for such complaints. She rose to her feet, inhaled slowly and attempted to steady herself.

  “Well then, Father. I’m so grateful that you’ve taken such
time out of your busy lifestyle to arrange for my future,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet. She turned swiftly and stalked out of the room, smashing the door closed behind her. She paused for a moment, recognising that the slam of the door ordinarily enraged her father. But she heard no yelp from the other room. Perhaps he would allow it, if only because he was so pleased about the match.

  It turned her stomach.

  Rebecca swept down the hallway, past the kitchen. The cook, Molly, called after her, from the midst of the steam and smoke, her lunchtime process. Rebecca paused, feeling tears creep down her cheeks. She turned to find Molly before her, a little less than five feet tall, with chubby red cheeks. She held a spatula and swung it around a bit, her eyebrows furrowing.

  “Darling, what is it?”

  Molly had been the cook at the Frampton estate for the previous fifteen years, since Rebecca had been eight years old. At the time, Molly had taken it upon herself to craft a safe and cosy environment in the kitchen – a place for Rebecca to read and draw and giggle, outside the reach of the bird-like eyes of her sisters or her mother or her father, all of whom didn’t seem to understand her. Molly had baked her some little cakes and told her that just because she was a bit different didn’t mean that she needed to fix herself.

  “He’s found someone for me,” Rebecca murmured. She dropped her chin to her chest and inhaled sharply. The smoke from the kitchen rolled in through her teeth and tucked down into her throat. Immediately, she started coughing. Molly beckoned her into the kitchen and poured her a cup of tea. She stroked her red curls and said that surely, surely if Rebecca didn’t come to love the stranger, she could convince her father otherwise.

  “But darling, you knew this would happen soon,” Molly tried, her eyes misting with sadness. “You knew that he would find a way around your stubbornness. You struggled through this game for many years. Your sisters have been gone for ages. Perhaps –”

  “I can’t marry someone I’ve never met, Molly,” Rebecca whispered. She let a tear escape. It embarrassed her and she stretched her fingers over her cheeks and willed herself to stop.

  But Molly gripped her hand and removed it. Although her own hands were rough from years of housework, the hand was endlessly comforting. Rebecca gazed down at it, the contrast between Molly’s and her own.

  “Besides, Miss Rebecca,” Molly said, giving her a light smile, “If there’s anyone on this earth who knows how to get out of something she doesn’t wish to do, it’s you. We both know that to be true.”

  Rebecca couldn’t suppress her grin. “Nobody knows me better than you, Molly.”

  “It’s a dreadful burden,” Molly said, teasing her. “But I must tell you. I was a bit like you as a girl. Always resistant to the plans others had for me. But I never did anything that didn’t please me. Perhaps that caused tremendous trouble, at times. But it always allowed me to have the most wonderful fun.”

  Chapter 3

  Tabitha Lock had been Rebecca’s best friend since the two were six or seven years old. Their memories were a bit foggy. Had they met that afternoon at the pond, when the sunlight had drifted in from between the clouds and they’d splashed themselves silly whilst their mothers had looked on?

  Or had it been another evening in the gardens, when they’d got into some sort of tiff over who would keep the little frog they’d discovered – a frog that, ultimately, escaped their grips and left them alone with only one another. Their decision to become the best of friends hadn’t seemed like a decision at all. Rather, the girls seemed organically connected, two beings that hadn’t a clue what they would do without the other.

  Tabitha arrived at the Frampton estate a few mornings later. In the wake of her father’s decision, Rebecca had locked herself in her bedroom, pondering what to do and waiting for the axe to fall. As she hadn’t heard from her friend, Tabitha had taken it upon herself to check on her. Now, she appeared at Rebecca’s door, her knuckles rapping a panicked tune across the wood.

  “Oh, Tabitha,” Rebecca sighed, upon first appearance of the beautiful raven-haired girl. She poured her face upon Tabitha’s shoulder and staggered into tears. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Tabitha splayed her hands across Rebecca’s back and held her for a moment. When Rebecca ripped her face away, tending to her blotched cheeks with a handkerchief, Tabitha sighed and said, “What is it, Rebecca? What’s happened?”

  Rebecca blinked several times. As she returned to consciousness, she fell into the dark pools of Tabitha’s eyes and said, “It probably sounds foolish to you. Something we’ve been through over and over again.”

  Tabitha nodded, drawing her fingers through Rebecca’s curls. “He’s found you another suitor, hasn’t he?”

  “Of course he has,” Rebecca said. Her shoulders sagged. “It feels like a sort of mockery of my existence. My life passed over the gambling table. He’s never regarded me with an ounce of respect, and this is something I’ve dealt with, time and again. But something about this feels different. He seems far surer of himself than before. I fear I won’t be able to get out of it…”

  Tabitha sighed. “And perhaps this time you shouldn’t?” she tried. “When I first met Anthony, I thought surely I would detest him. After all, throughout our girlhood, we regarded ourselves as so much more than just wives, just mothers. But although I didn’t know Anthony prior to our engagement, he’s become a remarkable husband. He –”

  “But Tabitha, you don’t love him,” Rebecca interjected, reciting something that Tabitha had informed her of, over and over.

  Tabitha’s smile faltered. She swallowed and tipped her head back and forth. “It’s not that I don’t love him, Rebecca. Perhaps it was never a romantic union. It wasn’t the sort of thing that people write about in books. But darling, you know that it’s high time we all gave up on old girlhood pursuits.”

  “Tabitha! The thought of giving up on old dreams is akin to death for me,” Rebecca blurted. She stuttered for a moment, not wishing to fully point to her friend’s marriage as something she didn’t wish for.

  Already, a shadow formed across Tabitha’s face. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “It’s been a marvellous union. Anthony respects me, and I can’t envision a better man for me. Perhaps you’ll find this in your new suitor as well. Perhaps it will be enough for you, Rebecca. Why already dismiss it when it’s clear you know so little thus far?”

  “It’s the principle of the thing, Tabitha,” Rebecca replied. She lifted from her bed and paced the bedroom, her hands clasped behind her back. “All my life, I’ve longed for something more than my station. I recognise that that isn’t a possibility. That I can’t operate outside the bounds of my family. And further, it’s not as though I wish to drag my family’s name through muck. But Tabitha, I swim in endless annoyance at this situation. It seems that my father is willing to pair me up with whomever, so long as he can be rid of me. It feels as though I’m only a pawn, something he’s willing to trade in for something else.”

  “And don’t you think all women feel this way, at least to some extent?” Tabitha asked. Her eyebrows surged toward her eyes. “Your sisters must have felt this way prior to their engagements.”

  “No. They seemed altogether thrilled with whoever would have them,” Rebecca said. She stopped her manic pacing for a moment, recognising the wild haze of her own thoughts. Turning swiftly back to her friend, she set her jaw and said, “Today, my newfound fiancé and his father are meant to join us for lunch.”

  Tabitha drew a strange smile between her cheeks, clearly unsure if the smile was allowed, given the state of things. Rebecca continued.

  “Would you consider joining us? I imagine that I’ll be endlessly bored. And you know when I’m bored. I’m apt to say ridiculous things. Things that could get me into all kinds of trouble with my father. Perhaps – perhaps if you’re there…”

  Tabitha clapped her hands, her smile broadening. “I’d love to meet him!”

  “Tabitha, it’s nothin
g to be celebrated,” Rebecca insisted.