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The Shy Duchess
Amanda McCabe
The blushing bride’s awakening… With her golden hair and dazzling emerald eyes, Lady Emily Carroll should have her pick of suitors. Instead, her crippling shyness has earned her the nickname ‘Ice Princess’.Nicholas, Duke of Manning, isn’t looking for a bride, but he won’t pass up a stolen kiss at a masked ball. With her blushes hidden, Emily lets her inhibitions go. Only to find herself betrothed!Now it’s her wedding night, and her new husband seems determined to thaw his Ice Princess and reveal her every secret…
Emily pressed herself even closer to him, wanting to be ever nearer and nearer. Wanting she knew not what. But her sudden movement sent him off-balance, and he stumbled backwards into the bank of potted palms.
She landed hard on top of him, and the impact, along with the crash of plants to the floor, shocked her awake. It was like a cold rain suddenly falling over her head.
‘Your Grace?’ someone said in a hushed, shocked voice.
Emily, still lying prone on Nicholas’s chest, peered up through the loosened skein of her hair. At least ten people stared back.
This was a nightmare. It simply had to be. It couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening to her. Not to the Ice Princess, the most proper lady in all London.
Nicholas lifted her off and rose to his feet in one smooth movement. He held onto her hand and kept her firmly by his side.
‘I am sorry to disrupt the ball. Lady Emily and I were going to announce our betrothal at a small family dinner, but I see we should do so now. Lady Emily has made me the happiest man in England by agreeing to be my wife.’
There would be no escape for either of them. Not now.
Praise for
Amanda McCabe
A NOTORIOUS WOMAN ‘Court intrigue, poison and murders fill this Renaissance romance. The setting is beautiful …’ —RT Book Reviews
A SINFUL ALLIANCE ‘Scandal, seduction, spies, counter-spies, murder, love and loyalty are skilfully woven into the tapestry of the Tudor court. Richly detailed and brimming with historical events and personages, McCabe’s tale weaves together history and passion perfectly.’ —RT Book Reviews
HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY ‘Smell the salt spray, feel the deck beneath your feet and hoist the Jolly Roger as McCabe takes you on an entertaining romantic ride.’ —RT Book Reviews
About the Author
AMANDA MCCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.com and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com
Previous novels by the same author:
TO CATCH A ROGUE
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) TO DECEIVE A DUKE
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) TO KISS A COUNT
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) CHARLOTTE AND THE WICKED LORD (in Regency Summer Scandals) A NOTORIOUS WOMAN
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) A SINFUL ALLIANCE
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) THE WINTER QUEEN (in Christmas Betrothals)
And in eBook Mills & Boon HistoricalUndone!
SHIPWRECKED AND SEDUCED
(#ulink_1c0c5150-5b6c-5d12-b3c8-6ae21c7e7749) TO BED A LIBERTINE THE MAID’S LOVER
(#ulink_0bebf4a8-6cd9-51e2-9583-4ff30ded3bbd)The Chase Muses trilogy
(#ulink_0bebf4a8-6cd9-51e2-9583-4ff30ded3bbd)linked by character
THE SHY DUCHESS
features characters you will have met in
CHARLOTTE AND THE WICKED LORD
THE SHY DUCHESS
Amanda McCabe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Many thanks to two of my best ‘writing friends’
Deb Marlowe and Diane Gaston, for creating the
Fitzmanning family with me!
It’s been such a wonderful, fun journey.
Chapter One
Lady Emily Carroll wished with all her might that the polished parquet floor beneath her satin slippers would open up and pull her down into the fiery pits of hell.
It would be far preferable to Lady Orman’s ball.
Emily hid behind a bank of towering potted palms, the silk-papered wall at her back as she peered between the green fronds at the crowd. Lady Orman’s rout was the invitation of the Season. Everyone who was anyone at all—and a few nobodies who managed to slip by the footmen—was gathered in the sparkling ballroom. Thousands of candles cast their light over the sheen of fine silk, the glitter of sapphires and rubies, and the snap of lace fans.
It was quite the “dreadful crush” that every London hostess longed for. The dance floor was swirling with the patterns of a country dance, while thickets of people packed around its edges to laugh and chatter and stare. Their voices blurred into a high-pitched, echoing cacophony where no words could be made out at all.
Not that it mattered, Emily thought. No one came to such a gathering for rational conversation. They came to be seen, to have everyone know they were important enough to be invited to Lady Orman’s ball. They paid a great deal of money to the modiste and the hairdresser in order to pack themselves into a ballroom like a tight row of salted fish. To have their hems trod on, their ringlets wilted in the heat, their throats made raw from shouting at one another.
And for what? For the dubious pleasure of having their names in the papers? “Mr and Mrs Whos-it were seen attending Lady Orman’s ball …”
Emily sighed. There were surely many more useful, not to say more pleasant, things to do with one’s time. But her parents and her brother Robert seemed to enjoy it.
She stood on tiptoe, peering through the palms to see her brother dancing with his new wife, Amy. They were laughing as they spun around, their faces alight with pleasure. Well, Amy did love society; she was good at being sociable, and that was all the better for Rob’s fledgling political career. They were surely well matched, even if Amy’s ancient-named family had not much money.
That was what Emily’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Moreby, said anyway. Amy’s family name, as old as their own, and her outgoing personality were fine assets, and a good excuse for letting Rob marry where he chose.
Besides, they would add, with sidelong glances at Emily herself, Emily will make our fortune. She is bound to marry very well!
Except that Emily had been a terrible disappointment to them thus far. She had not come close to marrying a title or a fortune. Or marrying anyone at all. And now the Season was almost over.
She instinctively raised her hand to nervously chew at her thumbnail, before she remembered she wore silk gloves. Her hand fell back to her side, tucked into the folds of her silver-embroidered white silk skirts. When, oh, when would that floor open up already?
The whole evening, the noise, the heat, the smell of melting candles and a hundred perfumes, bore down on her like an anvil. Soon, she would have to leave her little palmy sanctuary and join her parents. They would want to find her a partner for the next dance. That was what she did at every ball, let them match her up with rich lords—both young, spotty ones and old, portly ones—let them extol her beauty and goodness while she stood there with her cheeks on fire.
It was the least she could do, after she disappointed them so greatly last summer. They had gone to the house party at the notorious Welbourne Manor with the intention of matching up Emily with the new Duke of Manning, Nicholas.
Oh, they did not say so explicitly, of course, but it was obvious in their nervous preparations for the party. In all their words to her about how handsome Nicholas was, how great a friend his father had been to the Carrolls.
And she not only had been unable to attach the duke, she had scarcely been able to talk to him. She was always shy around men, of course, but there was something about him that terrified her. He was always most kind and polite, yet every time she looked into his beautiful sky-blue eyes her throat closed, and she felt that ridiculous burning blush spread over her whole body.
And then she saw his affable smile turn puzzled, and felt him withdraw from her. That was a relief of sorts. He and his family were so very exuberant, so full of fun and frivolity, while she was so quiet and serious. They would not be a good match at all, if only her parents could see that! Such a mouse as her would never fit into such a dashing family, and it was better not to even try.
Since that house party and Rob’s marriage that autumn, her parents’ matchmaking efforts had taken on a desperate edge, even as paintings and ornaments began disappearing from their house.
“She is so very beautiful!” Emily overheard her mother wail one day. “Quite ten times prettier than any other young lady this Season. Why can she not bring us a single suitable offer?”
“There was Mr Browning,” her father tentatively suggested.
“A merchant.” Her mother sniffed. “With seven children.”
“He is a wealthy man,” her father said.
“Surely we are not in such straitened circumstances that we must bestow our daughter on a tradesman.”
“Not yet,” her father muttered, as Emily fled in order to not hear any more. The fact that Mr Browning was in trade did not bother her, but the seven children rather did. Plus he was twenty years older than her, and had such sweaty, grasping hands.
Unlike Nicholas, whose long, elegant fingers had clasped hers once to help her into a carriage. Yet they were both such unsuitable men for her, in their own ways. And surely her parents would not force her to marry someone she didn’t care for, if they knew what had happened with Mr Lofton that time….
“I don’t mean to be a disappointment,” she whispered. If not for her wretched shyness, the way her mind went all blank and her throat closed up whenever she met a stranger.
“I say, the quality of the gatherings this Season have been very poor indeed,” a man said, close enough to her hiding place that she could hear the actual words and not just an indistinct hum.
“I agree,” his companion said in a bored drawl. “Lady Orman could once be relied upon to host only the cream of the ton. Now she seems to let in anyone at all.”
Emily peered past the green fronds again to see Lord Barrington and Mr Fraser, two thoroughly useless dandies. She had once endured a dance with Lord Barrington, as he prattled on to her about a new way to tie a cravat or some such thing. She had no desire to listen to his gossip now, but she could see no way to slip past them. She was trapped.
“If this continues, I shall have to go see if there are more quality amusements to be had in Brighton,” said Mr Fraser. “Or even abroad. Even the wine tonight is most insipid.”
“I stood over there and watched the ladies pass by for an hour,” Lord Barrington said, gesturing toward one of the walls with his quizzing glass. “I counted only ten that were tolerable, and only two who were truly pretty.”
“Oh? Who were they, then?”
“Mrs Featherstone and Viscountess Granton,” said Lord Barrington, mentioning Amy.
“True, none can match Lady Granton for beauty. She is quite the Toast. But what of her sister-in-law, Lady Emily Carroll? She is reckoned to be mightily pretty at my club.”
Lord Barrington gave a contemptuous snort. “She is undoubtedly pretty, with that pale hair and white skin. But a veritable icicle. She can’t seem to bring herself to say three words to anyone, just stares at you with those cold, dismissive green eyes. At my club, she is called the Ice Princess, and we wager on which poor, desperate fool will marry her by the end of the Season. The winner thus far is Mr Rayburn. Undoubtedly, the marriage bed will mean the freezing off of his …”
Whatever crude word he was going to say dissolved into their snickers. Emily pressed her hands to her face, wishing more than ever that the floor would swallow her and she could vanish! She didn’t feel like an “ice princess” in the least. Indeed, she felt as if her whole body was on fire with shame.
She longed to cry, to curl up and disappear, never to come to a hateful ball again.
But she was not a Carroll for nothing. Her family might not be wealthy any longer, but they certainly had a long, proud history. They had faced the Tower under Henry VIII, poverty during the Civil War, riotous parties with Charles II, and her own grandfather, a terrible gambler who had to flee to France twice to avoid creditors and angry husbands. Two giggling fops could not best her, even as she ached with embarrassment.
Emily smoothed her skirts, tucked her silvery hair back into its beaded bandeau, and stiffened her shoulders. There was nothing she could do about the hot colour in her cheeks, but she held her head high as she swept out from her hiding place and past the two men.
She might have laughed about the astonished looks on their faces, if she hadn’t been so determined to get away.
Through that sheer determination, she made her way through the press of the crowd, avoiding her mother as she hurried out the double doors into the anteroom. There were still people there, drinking the “insipid” wine, but they paid her no attention as she hurried into the corridor.
Emily drew in a shaky breath, rubbing hard at her hot cheeks. Now that it was a bit quieter, her nerves not so jangled, she knew she had to get away, even if only for a moment. She needed to be alone, to breathe some fresh air.
Not sure where exactly she was going, she dashed down the curving staircase. When they arrived at the ball, that sweep of marble and gilt was packed tightly with revellers, waiting their turn to enter the ballroom, calling out greetings to each other and loudly admiring one another’s attire. Now, it was blessedly deserted; the candles sputtered low to cast dim, shifting shadows on the walls.
Gradually, the cacophony of the party faded, and Emily could hear only the whisper of her slippers on marble as she ran down the stairs. The swish of her skirt. The pounding of her heart.
So intent was she on escape that she didn’t see the man at the foot of the stairs until his silhouette suddenly shifted on the white wall. Startled by the movement, Emily lost her footing on the bottom step. Her stomach lurched as her feet slid out from under her, ripping her hem and pitching her towards the cold stone floor.
She cried out, flinging her hands in front of her to catch herself. But she didn’t collide with painful, unyielding stone.
She fell against a warm, well-muscled chest, arms wrapping around her to lift her up safely into the air. Shocked, Emily clung to her rescuer’s shoulders, her heart racing.
“Lady Emily!” he said, his voice deep, roughly out of breath. “Are you hurt?”
She stared down at him in the fading light, the redorange glow playing over his golden hair, the lean, elegant angles of his sharp cheekbones and knife-blade nose. His blue eyes, those eyes she remembered so well from last summer, were narrowed with concern.
Nicholas, the Duke of Manning. Of course. He did always seem to see her at her worst.
And being pressed so very close to him, alone in that half-light, had her far more flustered and frightened than any mean-spirited gossip. He smelled so delightful, of lemony cologne and clean starch, a faint tang of sweet smoke, as if he had sneaked away for a cigar. And how strong he was, she thought irrationally. He held her up as if she weighed no more than a snowflake—or an icicle.
Did he think her an icicle, too? A cold, unfeeling princess? That seemed to be the general consensus, and surely in his voluble family she would seem so even more.
That shouldn’t make her feel sad, yet it did.
“I am quite unhurt,” she managed to murmur. “Thanks to you, your Grace.”
He smiled up at her, a bright, merry grin that reminded her of that house party. Of his laughing, teasing, romping family, and how she so wanted to be a part of all that fun. She just didn’t know how, and she probably never would.
“Well, that’s my duty at these routs, you know,” he said. “To stand about waiting to rescue fair damsels in distress.”
“You’re very good at it, I’m sure,” Emily said. What damsel wouldn’t dream of being rescued by him? If she was a different sort of female, she surely would. He was handsome and charming and Very Ducal. And such a man would never be interested in an awkward lady like herself.
“You can put me down now, your Grace,” she whispered.
Nicholas glanced down, seeming surprised to find that he still held her close to him, suspended in his arms as if he held her above the mundane, everyday world. Slowly, he lowered her to her feet, her body sliding along his. The sensation of that strange, delicious friction of silk against wool made her sway dizzily, her head spinning.
