The Wicked Ways of a Duke Chapter One Duke of St. Cyres sinks to new depths of depravity! Peeking beneath young ladies' skirts at charity balls? We are appalled. --Talk of the Town, 1894 Miss Prudence Bosworth's opinion of the incident in question would prove somewhat different from that of the society papers, but during the evening itself, she was unaware of what the scandal sheet scribblers would have to say and too busy to care. The goings-on of dukes, depraved or not, was of no concern to her. For weeks now, she and the seamstresses under her at Madame Marceau's had been frantically making up gowns for the fashionable young ladies coming to London for the season, and at the moment, one of those gowns had a hem in need of repair. If Lady Alberta Denville would only stand still. "Hurry up, Bosworth!" Lady Alberta jerked impatiently at her skirt, ripping the blond silk away from the seed pearl trim in Prudence's fingers, tearing the fabric in the process. "Must you be so slow?" Prudence sat back on her heels, staring in dismay at this new damage to the gown. And she'd been nearly finished. She pushed damp hair back from her forehead and reached into her sewing basket for her spool of gold thread and her scissors. "I shall try to sew faster, my lady," she murmured, striving to maintain the air of humble, apologetic deference so necessary to her position. "You had best do more than try! The Duke of St. Cyres has engaged me for the next dance, and it could be the most important event of my life. He's just returned from Italy, and he's looking to marry, you know." Prudence didn't know and didn't much care. This ball was the first significant social event of the season, and the preparations of the past few days had been grueling, with little time for either food or rest. Missing meals she didn't mind so much. As the lead seamstress for a fashionable London dressmaker, she was acutely conscious of her plump figure, and was always making attempts to reduce its proportions. Sleep, however, was a different matter. She longed to go home to her cozy flat in Little Russell Street and crawl into bed, but knew rest was a good twelve hours away at least. "Yes, my lady. Of course." These subservient murmurs did not seem to placate Lady Alberta. The young lady heaved an aggravated sigh, folded her arms, and tapped one satin-slippered foot on the floor, fuming. "I cannot believe this is happening to me. First, Sir George Laverton treads on my lovely dress and tears it, the clumsy oaf. And then I find myself saddled with the slowest seamstress in Madame Marceau's employ." The seamstress in question decided she was saddled with the most odious debutante. Such a pity she couldn't say so. Prudence set her jaw, reminded herself that self-restraint helped to build one's character, and sewed as fast as she could. "If your ineptness causes me to miss this waltz and lose my chance with Rhys," the girl went on, "Madame Marceau shall hear of it." A pang of alarm shot through Prudence at those words. It had taken her eleven years of hard work to be elevated to the position of lead seamstress, and with one unfavorable word from Lady Alberta, she could lose her post in an instant. Lord Denville was one of the few peers in Britain able to pay tradesmen's bills promptly, and his daughters were some of Madame Marceau's most valued clients. Without pausing in her work, Prudence took as deep and steadying a breath as she could manage in her tight stays. "Yes, my lady." Another silk skirt moved into Prudence's line of vision. "Planning your wedding to St. Cyres, are you, Alberta?" a laughing feminine voice inquired, a voice that to Prudence's ears was tinged with malice. "A bit precipitate, don't you think, to leap from acquaintanceship to matrimony because of one waltz?" "I've a better chance of securing him than most, Helen Munro, and you know it. Our families possess some adjoining lands and we've known each other all our lives." "All your life, you mean. Don't you think you're a bit young for St. Cyres? He's thirty-three, my dear, and you're barely twenty. To him, you are still a child." "I'm not! It's true I was only eight when he went away, but he certainly doesn't see me as a child any longer. Why, the moment he set eyes on me again, he engaged me for a waltz. It must mean something." "I daresay it does!" another woman said, joining the conversation with a laugh. "Home less than a week, and he's already ascertained the amount of your dowry and income!" "He'll need every penny of it, too," Helen Munro assured her companions. "St. Cyres likes to live well, and he's head over ears in debt, they say. The fact that he's inherited the title from his uncle won't save him from the creditors. The old duke's debts were ten times greater than his, and the estates are a shambles. Munro and I are in Derbyshire every summer to stay with Lord and Lady Tavistock, and I've seen for myself the sorry state of St. Cyres Castle. It's a deserted ruin. God only knows what condition the other ducal estates must be in." "Winter Park looks well enough," Lady Alberta answered. "We'd live there, of course, since those St. Cyres lands adjoin ours. As for his debts, most peers have those. Not my own papa, of course. He has heaps of money." "Yes, and London has heaps of pretty American heiresses who'd love to snare a duke and whose fathers have far more money than yours!" "Americans? They've no breeding at all. Rhys would never choose an American to be his duchess." "Those American girls have a great deal of charm." Lady Alberta seemed undaunted. "I am much more charming than any dreadful American." She gave Prudence's knee a none-too-gentle kick with her foot. "For heaven's sake, Bosworth, aren't you finished yet?" The Wicked Ways of a Duke . Copyright © by Laura Lee Guhrke. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
