Page 1 of Her Wily Duke

Prologue

Early 1815

The Duke of Foxridge was dying.

There was no longer any question of it – it was just a matter of time, and that time would be short. He lay in his bed, his breathing laboured, and reached out to the man who sat on the edge of the bed, close to him.

“Adam… I would ask something of you, though really, I have no right to ask it.”

“Whatever you wish, Father, I will try to do it.”

The Duke coughed, and Adam handed him the mug of water which sat on the small table at the bedside. Once he had taken some water, the Duke passed the mug back.

“Thank you. You have always been kind, even as a small boy. And that is part of what I need to say to you. Your brother is not kind – he never has been, to my great shame. I have failed to teach him, despite great efforts. Yet he will, inevitably, be Duke, and soon, for we are bound by the law, and he is three years older than you, so there is no question – he will take on the title.”

“Yes…”

“And when he does, I fear for our people, for Foxridge, for everything that I, and my father before me, have tried so hard to build.”

Adam felt a twist of near physical pain within him at his father’s words, for they confirmed his own fears, completely.

“I also fear…”

“Then I ask that you try, by whatever means is available to you, to constrain your brother’s actions, to protect our lands and people, and to repair, somehow, whatever damage he does. And above all of that, I ask that you protect your sister. Caroline is young still, and my greatest regret, after the fact that you will not be Duke, is that I will no longer be here to teach her. Her musical skills are still raw, yet she is so very talented. She should continue to learn, for to waste such talent would be a crime. Do what you can for her, please, and in the end, find her a good man to marry, a man she cares for, who will care for her. I will die happy if I know that I am leaving things in your care, even though that care must be achieved in the face of Frederick’s most likely obstruction.”

“I promise you Father, that I will do the best I can, even if to do so requires using… unorthodox… methods.”

The old Duke nodded, his face filled with gratitude, his eyes misting with tears, and reached out to take Adam’s hand.

Chapter One

Mid 1816

“As much as I’m dreading the trip back to Foxridge Park,” said Adam Villiers, Marquess of Whitewell, “there’s one thing I dread even more.”

“What’s that, my Lord?” asked Walham, his valet.

“Actually getting there.”

Walham said nothing and a silence fell between them as the chaise rattled its way across the cobblestone streets. Both men were unusually gloomy, now that their long stay in London was coming to an end. Their friends and relations had warned them that the city was a stable of filth and corruption, and that no one who had any money would choose to stay there during the summer. Yet compared to life at Foxridge Park since Adam’s father had died, it had been positively idyllic. Adam had never expected to hate his own home so much, and to miss it so little.

He and his father, the previous Duke of Foxridge, had spent countless hours hunting for game in its woodlands when he was younger. Its orchards, and its lakes stocked with fish, were the envy of every well-to-do family in five counties. Each year at the annual midsummer’s eve Ball he was the envy of every young man, including his slightly older and considerably less handsome brother Frederick.

Then his father had died, Frederick had taken control of the estate, and everything had changed.

If the late Duke of Foxridge could have chosen his own successor, there was no question that he would have chosen Adam. At twenty-five, he was universally admired. His bright eyes and shy smile betrayed an air of profound kindness. The single stray lock of dark brown hair that was perpetually falling into his eyes, threatening to obscure his vision, was talked about, sighed over and fought over by half the women in London. Had the succession been put to a vote, every manservant and maidservant, ostler and herbalist at Foxridge Park would have voted to confer the Dukedom upon Adam Villiers.

But the title of Duke is not conferred by election, and upon their father’s death the title went to Frederick.

The moment Frederick became the Duke of Foxridge he began working to consolidate his rule over the vast estate. Old servants who had been with the family for decades were removed from their positions. One particularly aged and venerable butler named Bulstrode, who had retired some years before and been made honorary gardener, was thrown into the street, where he would soon have died of starvation and exposure had the local vicar not taken him in. Pretty young girls were given positions better suited to women twice their age and with twice their skill. Parties were thrown often – at least in the first few months, lavish parties which threatened to bankrupt Foxridge Park — curiously mirthless parties where scarcely anyone laughed, and few could be enjoined to dance. Parties which were, as well, utterly inappropriate, for they were still in the mourning period for the old Duke. Staff who questioned the wisdom of this excess were summarily dismissed, and those who remained dared not speak against the new Duke and his rule.

Faced with the choice between staying at Foxridge Park and being lorded over by his brother, or studying in London, making connections with men of science who were involved in the Board of Agriculture, and the establishment of the new schools for study of agricultural development which were being established in many parts of England, Adam had decided that perhaps now was the right time for an extended trip.

That extended time away from Foxridge Park was now at an end, whether Adam wished it, or not. He had hoped that his brother’s excesses would lessen, whilst he was away, but from the letters he had received from both his sister and from some of the staff at Foxridge Park, it was clear that, if anything, Frederick had become even more dissolute, rather than less.

Adam knew that the people of the Foxridge estates needed him, and to stay away any longer would be shirking his duty.

Walham regarded the serious look on Adam's countenance. He had become his manservant when Adam was twelve and Walham but eighteen. Through the years he had become a confidant, almost the older brother that Adam desired — in fact, they resembled brothers in every way — more so than Adam and his true brother, Frederick.