Gayle Wilson - His Secret Duchess

Cover Page

Excerpt All their vows, physical and verbal, had been made. Nothing important remained that needed to be given voice. Mary put her hand over Nick’s sleeve, the tips of her fingers still shaded with berry juice. The crested ring he wore was briefly touched with moonlight. Seeing the glint, he slipped it off his finger and onto her thumb. “Take it to my father if…” The sentence trailed off, unfinished. She nodded. “I love you, Mary Winters,” he whispered. “I will always love you. Dearer to me than my own soul.” Again she nodded. He felt the small tightening of her fingers over his forearm as she leaned to place her lips against the roughness of his unshaven cheek. “God keep you safe,” she whispered, a prayer, and stepped away, releasing him, freeing him to fulfill other vows, as compelling to his honor, she knew, as these they had made here together….

Dear Reader Dear Reader, His Secret Duchess is a heart-wrenching new Regency title from Gayle Wilson, a RITA Award finalist who is also making a name for herself with her spine-tingling mysteries for Harlequin’s Intrigue line. In this month’s title, a nobleman presumed dead returns home after seven years of war to discover his “secret wife” on trial for murder, and a son whom he must rescue from a vengeful merchant. Don’t miss this dark and extraordinary tale of love and redemption. Linda Castle’s new book, Temple’s Prize, features a hotshot young paleontologist who discovers that his challenge to his former professor will be taken up by his daughter instead. And popular author Suzanne Barclay returns to her bestselling series, THE SOMMERVILLE BROTHERS, with her newest medieval novel Knight’s Rebellion, the stirring tale of the leader of a band of outlaws who finds himself unable to resist the mysterious woman whom he has rescued. And when a homeless schoolteacher is taken in by the wealthy uncle of one of her students, falling in love is the last thing on their minds in Pat Tracy’s new Western, Cade’s Justice, the first book in her terrific series set in Denver, Colorado, called THE GUARDSMEN. Another great read from an author who always delivers a fast-paced and sexy story. Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all four books. Sincerely, Tracy Farrell Senior Editor Please address questions and book requests to: Harlequin Reader Service U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Title Page His Secret Duchess Gayle Wilson www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author GAYLE WILSON is the award-winning author of ten novels written for Harlequin. Gayle has lived in Alabama her entire life, except for the years she followed her army aviator husband to a variety of military posts. She holds a master’s degree and an additional certification in the education of the gifted from the University of Alabama. Before beginning her writing career she taught at a number of schools around the Birmingham, Alabama, area. Gayle writes historicals set in the Regency period of England for Harlequin Historicals and contemporary romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. She was a 1995 Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist for her first historical title, The Heart’s Desire. Her first contemporary novel, Echoes in the Dark, won the 1996 Award of Excellence presented by the. Colorado Romance Writers, and placed third in the Georgia Romance Writers’ prestigious Maggie Award competition. Gayle and her husband have been blessed with a wonderful son, who is also a teacher of gifted students, and with a warm and loving extended Southern family and an ever-growing menagerie of cats and dogs.

Dedication For my friend and mother-in-love, Emma Lou, who also creates heroes, and who gave me the best.

Prologue

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

Copyright

Nothing important remained that needed to be given voice.

Mary put her hand over Nick’s sleeve, the tips of her fingers still shaded with berry juice. The crested ring he wore was briefly touched with moonlight. Seeing the glint, he slipped it off his finger and onto her thumb.

“Take it to my father if…” The sentence trailed off, unfinished.

She nodded.

“I love you, Mary Winters,” he whispered. “I will always love you. Dearer to me than my own soul.”

Again she nodded.

He felt the small tightening of her fingers over his forearm as she leaned to place her lips against the roughness of his unshaven cheek.

“God keep you safe,” she whispered, a prayer, and stepped away, releasing him, freeing him to fulfill other vows, as compelling to his honor, she knew, as these they had made here together….

Dear Reader,

His Secret Duchess is a heart-wrenching new Regency title from Gayle Wilson, a RITA Award finalist who is also making a name for herself with her spine-tingling mysteries for Harlequin’s Intrigue line. In this month’s title, a nobleman presumed dead returns home after seven years of war to discover his “secret wife” on trial for murder, and a son whom he must rescue from a vengeful merchant. Don’t miss this dark and extraordinary tale of love and redemption.

Linda Castle’s new book, Temple’s Prize, features a hotshot young paleontologist who discovers that his challenge to his former professor will be taken up by his daughter instead. And popular author Suzanne Barclay returns to her bestselling series, THE SOMMERVILLE BROTHERS, with her newest medieval novel Knight’s Rebellion, the stirring tale of the leader of a band of outlaws who finds himself unable to resist the mysterious woman whom he has rescued.

And when a homeless schoolteacher is taken in by the wealthy uncle of one of her students, falling in love is the last thing on their minds in Pat Tracy’s new Western, Cade’s Justice, the first book in her terrific series set in Denver, Colorado, called THE GUARDSMEN. Another great read from an author who always delivers a fast-paced and sexy story.

Whatever your tastes in reading, we hope you enjoy all four books.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is the award-winning author of ten novels written for Harlequin. Gayle has lived in Alabama her entire life, except for the years she followed her army aviator husband to a variety of military posts. She holds a master’s degree and an additional certification in the education of the gifted from the University of Alabama. Before beginning her writing career she taught at a number of schools around the Birmingham, Alabama, area.

Gayle writes historicals set in the Regency period of England for Harlequin Historicals and contemporary romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. She was a 1995 Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist for her first historical title, The Heart’s Desire. Her first contemporary novel, Echoes in the Dark, won the 1996 Award of Excellence presented by the. Colorado Romance Writers, and placed third in the Georgia Romance Writers’ prestigious Maggie Award competition.

Gayle and her husband have been blessed with a wonderful son, who is also a teacher of gifted students, and with a warm and loving extended Southern family and an ever-growing menagerie of cats and dogs.

For my friend and mother-in-love, Emma Lou, who also creates heroes, and who gave me the best.

April 1815

The chestnut gelding, fresh and eager for the promised run, resented the sedate pace to which his rider was relentlessly holding him. That resentment had been subtly demonstrated to the man who competently, and without conscious thought, controlled the horse’s brief rebellion. To an outside observer, of course, it would have seemed that a flawless connection existed between the horseman’s hands and the magnificent animal they guided.

It was not until Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton finally sighted the slender figure moving through the dappling shade the ancient oaks provided that he allowed his mount his head, and then only until they had closed the distance. The gelding was pulled up once again, and horse and rider sedately followed the strolling girl until, apparently hearing them behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder.

Her blue eyes, shaded by the wide brim of a style of straw bonnet that would certainly not have been seen in the fashionable city from which the Duke of Vail’s younger son had just returned, openly considered the rider a moment. Her gaze then returned to concentrate on the path she had been following along the edge of the shadowed country lane.

The horseman’s well-shaped lips tilted upward. Nick Stanton was unaccustomed to being snubbed. Especially by women. Indeed, the adulation of the marriageable ladies of the ton during his recent visit to London would have been enough to turn the head of many a man. Not only was he nobly born and extremely well-fixed, but he was an acknowledged military hero, as well, his exploits in Iberia having been remarked upon in dispatches by Wellington himself.

It didn’t hurt his standing with the fairer sex that his profile had, on more than one occasion, been compared to Adonis and his tailor was never forced to resort to buckram padding in the making of the well-cut uniforms Nick wore to perfection. The calm dismissal in the eyes of the girl in the outmoded straw bonnet was certainly not the reception Lord Stanton had recently been accorded by the London ton.

Perhaps in response to that obvious disdain, Nick touched his heels to the chestnut and guided him alongside the strolling figure. Again, blue eyes rose to his, their gaze far too direct for fashionable flirtation.

“Good afternoon,” Stanton said, holding his mount to the pace the girl had set. A finger of sun reaching through the overarching branches touched briefly on his hair, turning it gold. The fair hair was darkened now with perspiration, and slightly curling. What others of his set achieved with heated irons, nature had bestowed upon him quite naturally, another of her generous gifts for this favored son. His uniform jacket set off broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the tight pantaloons emphasizing the muscled strength of his long legs.

At his greeting, the girl’s eyes lifted again, slowly appraising both horse and rider. Her upturned face was classically heart-shaped, but her mouth was too wide for the current fashion and her nose straight rather than retroussé, and there was nothing the least bit simpering in her manner. Her assessment was unflinching.

The sprigged muslin she wore was at least two years old, its skirt rucked up in the country style to protect the fragile material from briars, revealing underneath a plain white petticoat. She carried over her arm a wicker basket almost half-full of red currants.