One
May 1896
London, England
Will Margrave stared up at the imposing brick building and narrowed his eyes. Yet unlike with dogs, people, and even the occasional horse, his legendary glare made no impression whatsoever on the weathered edifice. It remained indifferent to his mood, which currently hovered somewhere between extreme irritation and reluctant curiosity. Around him, the pavement teamed with passersby, but everyone instinctively gave him a wide berth. They may not have known he was the Duke of Ellis, but Will always made sure his bearing radiated a certain amount of importance, wealth, and power. Such gravitas either provided an advantage or acted as a deterrent, depending on what the situation called for.
Given that he was currently standing in front of a police station, he needed all the outrageous privilege an aristocrat such as himself was bred to expect. He pulled the note that had upended his day from his pocket and read it again, though he had already memorized every word:
A Miss P. Atkinson has requested your assistance. She is currently in my custody at the Bow Street Police Station. Please come at your earliest convenience.
Regards,
Detective Inspector Holland
Phoebe Atkinson was the younger sister of his old friend Alex, who was away on a business trip in New York with their father until the end of the month. Given that, it was understandable why Phoebe had reached out to him. What remained to be seen was what kind of trouble aschoolteachercould have gotten into. Phoebe had always been rather impetuous as a girl, but that had been mere childhood mischief: stolen puddings and soiled shoes. Nothing that required the intervention of the police.
She’s a menace, Alex had once seethed after Phoebe snuck into her room. She had been looking for a book Alex insisted she didn’t have and accidentally knocked over an open bottle of ink in the process, ruining a treatise on whatever arcane subject Alex had been engrossed in that week and ensuring that Phoebe’s stained fingers marked her as the culprit.
A faint smile tugged at Will’s lips as he recalled the absolute melee that followed. Apparently age and wisdom had not dampened Phoebe’s riotous spirit. He then rolled his shoulders back and ascended the steps. Time for the duke to get to work.
When he gave his name to the gangly young officer manning the front desk, the lad’s jaw went slack for a moment.
“We were sure she was mad, asking for a duke.”
Will paused for a moment and raised an eyebrow. “No. Not mad.”
The lad then sprung from his seat and gave a quick bow. “Right this way, sir. I mean, my lord.”
“Actually, it’s Your Grace,” Will drawled.
“Of course,” the lad said with a blush. “Your Grace.”
Will would always be grateful for the many ways his title made it easier to pass through the world, but that didn’t make the gross unfairness of it all easier to swallow. However, he had learned long ago it was best to keep such complaints to himself, as those who weren’t at the top of the social ladder were often the most invested in it. Instead, he followed the young officer at a leisurely pace, as dukes did not rush for anyone—save the queen. Though the station was bustling with activity, he could still feel every eye in the room fix upon him as he passed by. They continued down a dingy hallway that smelled of damp and stopped in front of a closed door.
“The jail’s nearly full and Inspector Holland said it didn’t feel right, putting her in with the rest of the rabble. He’s familiar with the school she works at, you know. Does a lot of good for the neighborhood girls, so she’s in his office,” the young man explained as he unlocked the door. “I’ll go and fetch him for you.”
“My thanks.”
The lad gave another awkward bow and scurried off.
Now thankfully alone, Will glowered at the closed door. He was hesitating, though he couldn’t account forwhy. It was only Phoebe Atkinson on the other side, not some man-eating lion. And yet, Will couldn’t ignore the distinct sense of unease buzzing under his skin. He had worked very hard over the years to remove the element of surprise from his life and thus rarely found himself in unfamiliar situations he couldn’t completely control. This, however, was the closest he had come to facing the unknown in quite some time. Will did not much care for it.
He let out a huff of irritation and had just reached for the doorknob when the memory suddenly came to him, unbidden and unwelcome. It had been an afternoon in late June and the air was thick with the heady scent of Mrs. Atkinson’s prized roses. Alex and Phoebe had been busy making paper fans for a picnic they had organized for later in the week. A picnic Will could no longer attend. Alex had gone inside to fetch some lemonade, leaving the two of them in the back garden of her parents’ country estate, which bordered his own family’s property. Will spent so much time at their house as a boy that it felt like a second home, and the three Atkinson girls almost like sisters. But Phoebe had grown up while he completed his first year at Oxford, and Will had spent the last month or so trying to navigate this bewildering new development.
Even Alex had reluctantly acknowledged that her sister had becomeinteresting. Whereas Phoebe used to beg to be included in whatever they were doing, now Alex invited her to join. Phoebe was quick-witted and full of energy and, as Will was finding it increasingly difficultnotto notice, quite pretty. Cal, his younger brother, had also proved to be interesting and they became a quartet of sorts that summer. If Alex was holed up in the library or Cal was busy with his painting, Will and Phoebe would often take walks by the river together to pass the time. But as those hazy days crawled by, he found himself seeking out her company more and more. Or idly wondering what would happen when he returned to Oxford. Would she allow him to write to her? And, perhaps not quite so idly, would she write him back?
Until all that wondering came to a grinding halt.
Will had come that afternoon to break the news of his unexpected elevation from young country gentleman to duke’s heir after his father’s cousin, a man he had never even met, lost his onlysurviving son from injuries sustained in a bar brawl with a Sicilian sailor on the Continent—or so the story went. From what Will gathered, the recently deceased had been a roguish sort of fellow who never took his duties seriously after the death of his elder brother some years before.Thatbrother had died of typhoid. It was hard not to think the title was cursed. Will certainly felt that way. He wanted to be a barrister like his late father—not a damned bloody duke.
But Will’s opinions on primogeniture were irrelevant. Thanks to an above average number of girl children in his generation as well as a tendency for his more promiscuous relatives to only have boys out of wedlock, not mention plain old bad luck, it appeared that Will was to have a dukedom, whether he wanted it or not. Now instead of whiling away the rest of summer in this very spot like he had planned—had been lookingforwardto—Will had to go to Derbyshire and meet with some crusty old man.
Phoebe had been awfully quiet since he arrived and her sole focus was on twisting the paper fan in her hands. That made Will feel even more out of sorts than he already did, so to fill this unnatural silence, he began to speak—ramble, really—about all the various properties he would one day inherit, which included an obscene chunk of Derbyshire. It was a bit daunting to list them all aloud but he hardly wanted to sound out of his depth in front of her. Bad enough to be taken by surprise by a blasted dukedom. So instead Will spoke with his usual irreverent tone. As if this were just another one of his silly larks.
I mean, really. Him aduke?
It was laughable—if it had happened to anyone else.
