The Autumn Duke (A Duke for All Seasons Book 4) Read online

  A passion that can’t be denied…

  “If a duke kisses a lady in the woods and no one is around to see it, has he really kissed her?” Kitty’s lips pursed. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. Best try it out and see, shall we?”

  Every muscle in Byron’s body tensed. “There’s only one problem with that.”

  “Oh?” She batted her lashes. “And what’s that?”

  “You’re no lady.” As he closed the distance between them in one powerful stride, Byron felt the last of his control slip away. Curling one arm around her waist, he yanked her against his chest as his other hand moved to her hair, fingers twisting with dark delight into all those thick, satiny curls.

  “Go ahead,” she coaxed softly when he suddenly hesitated. “You’ve come this far. It would be a shame to waste all this good build-up.”

  For once, they agreed on something...

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2019 by Jillian Eaton

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  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  Description

  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

  A Note From the Author

  About the Author

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  Other Titles by Jillian Eaton

  A Duke for All Seasons

  The Winter Duke

  The Spring Duke

  The Summer Duke

  The Autumn Duke

  A Duchess for All Seasons

  The Winter Duchess

  The Spring Duchess

  The Summer Duchess

  The Autumn Duchess

  Bow Street Brides

  A Dangerous Seduction

  A Dangerous Proposal

  A Dangerous Affair

  A Dangerous Passion

  A Dangerous Temptation

  London Ladies

  Runaway Duchess

  Spinster and the Duke

  Forgotten Fiancee

  Lady Harper

  Wedded Women

  A Brooding Beauty

  A Ravishing Redhead

  A Lascivious Lady

  A Gentle Grace

  Swan Sisters

  For the Love of Lynette

  Annabel’s Christmas Rake

  Taming Temperance

  Christmas Novellas

  The Winter Wish

  The Risque Resolution

  A Rake in Winter

  The Christmas Widow

  Description

  Lady Katherine “Kitty” Dower loves fun, fashion, and flirting with the dozens of suitors fighting over her hand. As the beautiful daughter of a marquess she’s accustomed to always getting what she wants. And what she wants is the strikingly handsome Duke of Wakefield. He checks every single box on her list for the perfect husband and his breath doesn’t smell. What more could a lady ask for?

  Unfortunately for Kitty, the duke has absolutely no interest in getting married. Suffering from a tragic past that has left him scarred both emotionally and physically, Byron has closed his heart off to everything and everyone. But Kitty has never backed down from a challenge before, and she’s not about to start now.

  In the fourth and final novella in A Duke for All Seasons, one fiery kiss will prove to be a duke’s undoing…but can he overcome his demons to give Kitty the love she deserves?

  Prologue

  “Do it again,” the Duke of Wakefield growled as he towered over his young son. A menacing man when he was on his very best behavior, the duke was positively terrifying when he was angry. But Byron wasn’t frightened. Or so he told himself when he lifted his head from the long row of figures he’d been tallying through the night and met his father’s icy gaze.

  “I’ve already done it over a thousand times,” he said, his voice – neither that of a boy or a man but caught somewhere in the middle where it was pitched high one moment and low the next – carrying a rare hint of defiance. “How many more - omph.”

  It was the only sound he made when the duke lashed out with the back of his hand. His signet ring caught his son square across his cheek, slicing through the flesh to the bone beneath. It was a mark (one of many) Byron would carry into adulthood, but of course he couldn’t have known that then. When he was a young lad of ten, destined to inherit a dukedom, determined to live up to his father’s impossibly high standards, and desperate to prove himself, the only thing he’d known was pain and anger and fear.

  “You’ll do it as many times as it takes,” his father snarled. “Now pick up your bloody pencil and do it again.”

  His fingers trembling, Byron hastened to obey. He didn’t know what had set the duke off this time. Perhaps his mother had stayed out late again. Or maybe one of his prized racehorses had finished second instead of first. Or maybe – maybe it was nothing at all. The cause didn’t matter; only the effect. And the effect of the duke’s fury and violence on his young, vulnerable son would be lifelong.

  “Here.” Yanking an embroidered handkerchief from the pocket of his satin waistcoat, the duke dropped it onto the floor. “You’re bleeding all over the desk. That’s French Cherrywood. Very difficult to find.”

  Clenching his teeth against the pain radiating through the entire left side of his face – he hoped his jaw wasn’t broken again – Byron picked up the handkerchief and pressed it to his cheek to stem the flow of blood. “I am sorry, Sir.”

  It hurt his belly that he should be the one to apologize, but he’d learned the hard way it was better to assuage his father’s temper than provoke it. The Duke of Wakefield was a dangerous man, and dangerous men did not obey the laws of reason and civility.

  “Good,” his father said coldly. “You should be. Now tally the figures again. I’ll be back in precisely two hours to check your answers. If they are not correct...” He trailed away, leaving the sentence uncompleted, but not really, for they both knew what would happen if Byron made a mistake.

  He waited until his father had closed the door to strike the flat of his palm against the desk, French Cherrywood be damned. For a moment he let himself gaze longingly at the window, and not for the first time he entertained the thought of lifting the heavy glass pane, slipping out beneath it, and running far away where his father’s fists couldn’t hurt him. But where would he go? What would he do? For who was he, if not the son and heir of the Duke of Wakefield? And if his own father hated him…if his own father hated him, then surely others would as well.

  At least at home he knew what horrors to expect. Which was why he ultimately forced himself to look away from the window and focus on his figures. But as his pencil scratched across the smooth cream parchment, he wasn’t calculating the math equations he’d been assigne
d on top of all his other studies, but rather how many years it would be until he was larger and stronger than the man who had sired him. How many years until he was no longer small and weak and defenseless. How many years until he could stand up for himself and meet his father’s fury with his own.

  But something else he couldn’t have known then, sitting in the study nursing another broken jaw (for it was broken), was that the Duke of Wakefield would be dead by the end of Byron’s fourteenth year. Killed from a snapped neck after he struck one of his racehorses too many times with the lash and the stallion, as unruly and unpredictable as its master, threw the duke headfirst into a tree.

  So Byron would never have the chance to give his father a taste of his own richly deserved medicine. But as he stood in the rain and the mud and watched the duke’s casket being lowered into the ground, he vowed to take away the one thing his father had prized above all else. More than his wife. More than his son. Even more than his horses.

  His legacy.

  A legacy that would die with him, for Byron swore then and there that he would never marry, never sire an heir, never give the madness and the meanness that coursed through his veins an opportunity to spread.

  “The bloodline will end with you, you miserable bastard.” With rain running down his face, Byron knelt and scooped up a handful of dirt. He wanted to fling it at his father. He wanted to rip the old man out of his casket and pummel his corpse. He wanted to scream and rage and say all the things he’d never had the opportunity to say. But if there was one thing a lifetime of beatings had taught him, it was self-restraint. It was control. It was coldness.

  Holding his hand over the wooden burial box, he watched without expression as the mud slowly trickled through his fingers. When his skin was washed clean he smiled grimly, tipped his hat, and walked away without once looking back.

  Chapter One

  “Lord Pennywhistle. What a large…horse you have.” Smirking suggestively, Kitty gave the horse in question a light pat on its neck. The man who sat astride it leaned down, the eagerness in his face reminding her of the family spaniel when it was begging for treats beneath the dinner table.

  “I am glad you think so,” said Lord Pennywhistle proudly. “It’s a new thoroughbred I just picked up from Tattershall’s. He’s set to race in the Berkshire Classic next week and I–”

  “Lovely,” Kitty interrupted, for while she enjoyed horses she had absolutely no interest in horse racing. Having attended the races with her parents as a little girl, she’d been aghast at the thick leather whips the jockeys had used to flay the horse’s hides in a cruel attempt to make them run faster. Surely if a horse wanted to run it should be allowed to do so on its own merit without such barbaric motivation. But when she’d brought her concerns to her father he’d simply smiled indulgently, patted her on the head, and returned to watching the race. “That’s positively lovely, Lord Pennywhistle. I wish you the best of luck.”

  The earl’s brown eyes – the same exact color as Lucy, the spaniel – took on a bright gleam. “Thank you, Lady Katherine. I am sure with your luck on our side Topper shall take the field. May I be so bold as to ask for a personal memento?”

  Kitty kept a tangle of ribbons in her reticule for this exact purpose, and she didn’t hesitate to pull one out and affix it to Topper’s shiny black mane. “There,” she said, nodding approvingly at the neat little bow. “Now he’s certain to finish first. If you would excuse me, I’ve an appointment I cannot be late for.”

  Before Lord Pennywhistle could object to her abrupt departure, she spun on her heel and darted down an adjoining path, leaving her chaperone (a dear aunt who much preferred a more wandering pace) scrambling to catch up.

  “That’s too bad,” Kitty sighed when Aunt Tabitha, panting and waving a fan in front of her ruddy cheeks, lurched abreast of her.

  “W-what is?” Aunt Tabitha gasped. With large eyes framed by long lashes, a petite nose, and a frizzy mess of black curls sticking every which way out of her bonnet, she often reminded Kitty of an ivory doll. With the exception of their eye color – Tabitha’s were soft brown, Kitty’s a smoky gray – the two women looked quite similar, although Kitty would rather soak her hands in lye than be caught with a frizzy curl.

  “Lord Pennywhistle’s affinity for horseracing.” Kitty pursed her lips. “It puts him out of the running, of course. Any man who condones the beating of an animal surely wouldn’t hesitate to raise his hand to his wife if given the right provocation, and we both know how provocative I can be.”

  “This is true,” Aunt Tabitha acknowledged.

  Kitty sighed again. “I really thought he might be it. He was titled, wealthy–”

  “Handsome. Dear girl, do you think we might sit down a moment? I’m feeling rather flush.”

  “Of course.” After glancing back down the trail to ensure Lord Pennywhistle and Topper hadn’t followed them, Kitty guided her aunt to a nearby bench. Frowning, she pressed the back of her hand to her aunt’s temple. “You’re very warm. Are you feeling all right?”

  “It’s the wine,” Aunt Tabitha confessed. “I drank a pinch too much of it last night after the ball, I fear.”

  “And by a pinch you mean…”

  “The entire bottle.”

  Kitty clucked her tongue. “I thought we talked about this.”

  A widow whose husband had passed last year, Tabitha enjoyed watching after her niece, feeding the pigeons in the park…and drinking wine. Kitty had tried time and again to cure her beloved aunt of the last habit, but all of her attempts had failed.

  Miserably.

  She dearly loved Tabitha, and would have done anything to help her. But until her aunt decided to help herself (by not helping herself to every bottle of wine that crossed her path) there was little she could do except be there when she was needed.

  Loosening the ties on her bonnet, Aunt Tabitha covered her eyes from the bright rays of sun trickling down through the leafy branches of a large tree and slumped in her seat. “Ah,” she said. “That’s much better.”

  Kitty slanted a sideways glance at her, but decided to bite her tongue. At least for now. She knew Tabitha had only turned to drinking after Uncle Henry died. At first it had just been one glass of wine with dinner, then two. Then one before, two during, and one after. Eventually it became too difficult to keep count, which was why everyone had stopped trying. Everyone except for Kitty. But when she brought the matter up with her mother she’d been told it was none of their concern.

  ‘Your aunt is not embarrassing herself and she isn’t hurting anyone. Let it be, Katherine. The poor woman has lost her husband and has absolutely no chance of marrying again. Truth be told she’s lucky someone married her the first time. If anyone should be allowed to wallow in self-pity, it’s Aunt Tabitha’.

  Suffice it to say, Lady Dower had never been very fond of her husband’s sister. A jealous creature by nature, she’d never liked anyone who competed for the marquess’ attention.

  Including her own daughter.

  Family relationships were a tricky business. Which was just one of the reasons Kitty was being so selective with whom she wanted to marry. Lord Pennywhistle was definitely out. A shame, as he’d checked more boxes on her Perfect Husband List than any man before him. But he hadn’t checked all of them.

  Her suitors never did.

  If they were wealthy enough to support her spending habits they didn’t have a title. If they did have a title they weren’t pleasing to look at. If they were pleasing to look at they talked about themselves too much, or not enough, or they weren’t amusing, or they were too amusing.

  It was always something.

  Kitty knew some – if not most – of the ton considered her vain. And she was. She’d admit that openly. But she was also a woman who knew exactly what she wanted, which tended to intimidate her peers. Particularly since she refused to settle for anything less than absolute perfection. And why shouldn’t she? After all, she was perfect.

  Well, most
of the time.

  “It’s too bad about Lord Pennywhistle.” Wincing ever-so-slightly, Aunt Tabitha opened her eyes and offered her niece a sympathetic smile. “He seemed like a nice enough chap. But you’re right to be wary of someone who enjoys horse racing with such vigor. It’s all he is ever going to talk about.”

  “Oh well,” Kitty said with her usual dose of cheerful optimism. “Tomorrow is another day and another ball. I shall strive to find my husband then. Do you think he’s going to have brown hair or blond? I prefer blond, but a dark glossy brown would be lovely. Even black would do. As long as it isn’t red.” Her narrow shoulders shuddered. “Can you imagine the horror? What if our children had red hair? I’d never be able to look at them.”

  “You would,” Aunt Tabitha said matter-of-factly. “They would be your children and you would love them, no matter what they looked like. Just like when you find the right man you will love him no matter what he looks like.”

  “What if he has a bulbous nose?”

  “It won’t matter.” Retrieving her fan from inside her reticule, Aunt Tabitha popped it open and began to wave it rigorously in front of her face. Excess drink had begun to add a semi-permanent ruddiness to her cheeks, and the unseasonably warm day had deepened the color to a dark red. “You’ll love him for who he is rather than what he looks like.”

  “Do you know,” Kitty mused thoughtfully, “that is the one requirement I did not put on my list.”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “Love.”

  From the other side of the park, Byron addressed his three sisters as they rode in an open carriage with the exasperated disdain of a brother who was tired of hearing about feminine complaints. Particularly complaints that involved men.