The Broken Duke Read online

  The Broken Duke

  (The 1797 Club Book 3)

  By

  USA Today Bestseller

  Jess Michaels

  The Broken Duke

  The 1797 Club Book 3

  www.1797Club.com

  Copyright © Jesse Petersen, 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-1947770010

  ISBN-10: 1947770012

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For more information, contact Jess Michaels

  www.AuthorJessMichaels.com

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  Dedication

  Graham was one of my favorite heroes I've ever written. My hope is that you'll fall in love with him as deeply as Adelaide does.

  Thank you for all your support and love for the 1797 Club series.

  This book, as all my books, is for Michael. I don't shine if you don't shine. Thanks for always letting me put my back on you.

  Chapter One

  October 1810

  Graham Everly, Duke of Northfield, sat in the corner of a dingy tavern, a mug of ale souring in his fist. He’d been drinking, but he wasn’t drunk. Yet. He wanted to remedy that fact as quickly as possible.

  But before he could take another sip, two men moved through the crowd and steered toward him. Ewan Hoffstead, Duke of Donburrow, and his cousin Matthew Cornwallis, Duke of Tyndale, both carried their own drinks, and they exchanged a not-so-subtle look before they retook their seats at his table. Graham sighed, for he was hoping the two had left already. It seemed they had not.

  But then, neither of them had left his side very often in the past two months. He’d tried to avoid them, as he’d been avoiding all his friends since “the incident,” as he liked to call it. But Ewan and Tyndale were relentless.

  As if to demonstrate that point, Ewan dug into his overcoat pocket and drew out a small notebook and stubby charcoal pencil. He scribbled for a moment as Graham watched him. Ewan had been mute since birth, and writing was his main form of communication to friends and family.

  He pushed the notebook over and Graham read the neat, even line of words written there. “Don’t sit here all night. Don’t drink yourself stupid.”

  Graham shoved the notebook back and glared at him. “Thanks, mate. You know, it’s possible drinking won’t make me stupid. I may just be stupid without the help.”

  Ewan shook his head with a flash of a grin at the self-deprecation, but there was no mistaking the concern in his dark eyes.

  Tyndale seemed no less worried as he leaned in and said, “Come on, you can’t deny it even if you make light of it. You’ve been stalking London pubs for two months, avoiding everyone who loves you. I recognize the signs, you know.”

  Graham flinched. If anyone would, Tyndale did. After all, the woman he’d loved had died years ago, devastating Tyndale down to his core. A fact which made Graham’s problems seem very small. But he really didn’t want to discuss this topic. It was exactly why he’d been avoiding his entire group of friends all this time. He didn’t want to commiserate. He wanted to forget.

  “I’m with you two, aren’t I?” he growled, once again making light of the subject he could see the other two were determined to address.

  Ewan wrote something and shoved it over. “Well, we don’t love you.”

  Despite himself, Graham began to laugh and Matthew joined in. For a moment, his troubles faded, but then they settled back on his shoulders. And this time it didn’t seem like he could avoid the topic as easily as he had been able to before.

  “Look,” he said, pushing his drink aside. “I know I should get over this. But Crestwood was one of my best friends and he betrayed me with what happened with Margaret.”

  Matthew’s expression softened. “She was your fiancée, Northfield. And it’s a complicated situation given their feelings for each other, but no matter the circumstances, Simon shouldn’t have…taken her like he did. It was wrong.”

  “No one begrudges you the pain you must feel,” Ewan added. “We only worry about how you choose to express it.”

  Graham stared at the words on Ewan’s notebook and sighed. He had been engaged to Margaret Rylon, the sister of another of their group, for seven long years. He hadn’t ever loved her, even though he’d tried desperately to make that feeling come into his heart.

  But the idea that Simon would betray him…Simon, who had been like his brother since they were thirteen…well, that kept him up at night. “It isn’t about her, you know.”

  Matthew nodded and there was that flicker of sadness in his expression again. “I know.”

  “We need to get you back into the world. It’s time, don’t you think?” Ewan wrote, then clapped Graham on the shoulder.

  Graham shifted. They were right, of course. He’d been hiding long enough, sulking and stewing as the rest of the world went on without him. At some point, he had to get himself together. He had to face Society and the friends he had been avoiding and the future that now seemed wide open and utterly different than it had been in the years he was resigned to a loveless arranged marriage.

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked, slow and uncertain.

  Ewan and Matthew exchanged a grin before Ewan scribbled, “There’s a play tonight that you must see. Everyone is talking about it. Come out with us.”

  Graham let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. The theatre? That’s a big leap from hiding out in pubs.”

  “We’ll sneak in late,” Tyndale assured him. “No one will have to know you’re there unless you want them to. Come on. It’s better than passing out behind some tavern and making Ewan and me carry you home, isn’t it?”

  Graham shot Ewan a look. He was a massive man, well over six feet and built out of pure muscle. “You’ve never carried anything home in your life, Tyndale, not if your cousin is with you.”

  As Ewan grinned, Matthew elbowed him and shot Graham a look. “Does that mean you’ll go, bad company as you are?”

  Graham nodded. “Yes. I’ll do it.” He sighed again. “At least it will distract me.”

  The other two men looked happy at his decision as they all rose to leave the tavern, but Graham didn’t feel the same. The last thing he wanted was to drag himself off to a public event where everyone could judge him. Not to mention waste a few hours watching some play that would probably be terrible.

  But after all they’d done to support him, he owed it to his friends to try. And it was, after all, only one night.

  Graham sat in a box overlooking the dark stage. Though he, Ewan and Tyndale had come into the theatre just before the rise of the curtain, it had not diminished the interest in his being there. Even now he felt the eyes of the crowd below on him, he’d heard the whispers of his name when he took his seat.

  His cheeks and chest burned with humiliation and renewed anger. Thanks to Simon, his friend, the world pitied and judged and talked about him. He’d spent a lifetime trying to avoid anything that would make others do those very things and here he was. Exactly where he didn’t want to be, and he glanced at the exit behind him.

  “Don’t run,” Ewan wrote, nudging him with an elbow to force him to read it in the dim light.

  Graham folded his arms. Apparently he was becoming predictable. “I’m not going anywhere,” he grunted as the lights on the stage rose and the
curtain along with it.

  He settled back to watch what would surely be a terrible performance, as many of these plays were. The theatre was more a place for those who wished to be seen, rather than for anything worth watching. But to his surprise, the usual din of noise of people chatting faded and everyone seemed to truly pay attention as a woman entered the stage.

  He leaned forward as she began to speak. She was beautiful, with honey blonde hair that fell around her shoulders in waves. She had a fine, clear voice that carried even to the rafters. But what stood out most was her confidence. As she strode across the stage, it was impossible not to watch her every move.

  “I pray for death,” she said, her voice trembling with what felt like true emotion. “To free me from this pain. Strike me down, won’t you? End this farce of a life.”

  Graham stared. She was good.

  He watched for a while, enthralled as another actor came on stage and the woman turned toward him, her face twisted with emotion. The man was overshadowed by the light of her star. Eventually, Graham leaned in to Ewan and whispered, “Who is she?”

  Ewan sent him a side glance and then wrote on his pad for a moment. When he turned it over to Graham, it read, “Lydia Ford. She’s the toast of London theatre at present. The reason why everyone wants to see this play.”

  “Lydia,” he repeated as he turned the notebook back to his friend. He stared at the lady again. She had turned her face and was looking up at the box, at him, though that was just a trick of the light. He knew she couldn’t truly see him in the shadows.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  Next to him, he was aware that Ewan and Tyndale exchanged a look, but he didn’t care. For the first time in what felt like forever, a heated interest had lit in his chest. A need for a woman. This woman. Lydia Ford.

  And he wanted to meet her, to see if that desire would last longer than the duration of a play.

  Lydia Ford sat on the settee in the dressing room behind the stage, mending a hole in one of her costumes and laughing with her understudy, Melinda Cross.

  “I swear, Robin has to stop stabbing me so hard in that death scene,” Lydia said as she shook her head. “Even a wooden sword hurts like a bugger and he keeps tearing the gown. Does he do the same to you on the nights when you play the role?”

  “He’s a clod but no, he’s never put a hole in my gown.” Melinda rolled her eyes. “I think he’s just jealous that everyone comes to see you perform, not him.”

  Pride swelled in Lydia’s chest at her friend’s compliments, for she was gratified by her nights in the theatre. More to the point, she recognized how lucky she was to be able to do the work, given where she’d come from. Her two worlds couldn’t be more different.

  There was a light knock on the door and they both turned to see their stage manager, Toby Westin, open it. He was a tall, thin man with a nervous disposition and a sheet of paper covered with a never-ending list of things to do. “Lydia, you have someone who wishes to meet you.”

  Lydia shook out the gown she’d been repairing before she got to her feet. “Oh?” she asked as she hung the garment. She tried to sound nonchalant, but dread rose in her chest.

  One thing she had learned in her few short months as a star of the stage was that men flocked to actresses. Oh, none of them would dare go out in public with one, since any lady who walked the boards was considered hardly better than a whore, but in private they were drawn like moths to a flame.

  Even during her short time as an actress she’d had several impertinent offers from merchant and gentleman alike and had turned them all down as kindly as she could manage when her stomach was turning.

  “Please tell us it’s not that awful Sir Archibald,” Melinda interjected with a shudder. “He refuses to leave me alone no matter how often I turn down his disgusting advances.”

  Lydia gave her friend a supportive glance. No one liked the nasty Sir Archibald. He was a fixture at the theatre and pushed himself where he didn’t belong whenever possible. He also grabbed the behinds of any actress he got within arm’s length of and made himself a general nuisance whenever he came backstage after a show.

  “No,” Toby said with a concerned glance for Melinda. “It’s most certainly not Sir Archibald. You have caught the attention of a duke, Lydia.”

  She swallowed as the room began to spin and her ears started to ring. Using every bit of talent she had, she fought to keep her reaction from her face and gave Toby the smile she knew was expected of her.

  “A duke, really? How…interesting.”

  “Interesting?” Melinda crowed. “You mean lucrative.”

  “Depending on the duke,” Lydia corrected her softly. “Who is this man?”

  “Northfield,” Toby said, raising both eyebrows.

  Melinda spun on her, her pretty face lit up with nothing short of glee. “The Duke of Northfield, Lydia, my goodness! You know who he is, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for the answer before she continued, “He’s devilishly handsome for one, and young. And rich. He was engaged to some chit and his best friend stole the woman right out from under him. Since then he’s been locked away.”

  Lydia swallowed hard. She knew all those things. Though from very different sources than Melinda had heard them. “Where do you get these rumors?” she asked, forcing a laugh past her dry throat.

  Melinda grinned. “I, unlike you, care about Society, Lydia. A woman in my position ought to. There are many paths one can take to financial security.”

  Toby snorted and Lydia paced away as the two began the same argument they had at least once a week about actresses who became mistresses. Despite her aversion to Sir Archibald, Melinda wasn’t opposed to becoming an important man’s lover. She was always encouraging Lydia to consider the same option.

  But Melinda only did that because she didn’t know the truth. The truth that Lydia protected jealously and went to great lengths to hide. But now that the Duke of Northfield desired to meet Lydia all her work seemed poised on the edge of a precipice. He could destroy not only this world, but the other one she inhabited on a regular basis because if he was in a room with her he might see her. It was one thing to see her on stage, from far away, with bright lights making her seem like something she wasn’t.

  But closer up, Northfield might see the secret she struggled to keep every time she left the stage.

  That secret was that she was not Lydia Ford. Lydia Ford had no address, no family, no past and no future. Lydia Ford did not exist. She had never existed, not for more than a few hours a week at the theatre. She had been made up of whole cloth, a necessity to allow her to do what she liked without fear of recrimination for the real her.

  The real her. She shut her eyes. Oh, the real her was someone wildly different than the confident, popular actress seen on stage. A woman no one noticed, not even enough to realize she snuck out three times a week to become the city’s most celebrated performer.

  That person was Lady Adelaide, the wallflower daughter of the long-dead Earl of Longford.

  “Are you well?” Melinda asked, cocking her head.

  Adelaide jumped. She was slipping if her friend could see her worry. She brightened her smile. “Of course.”

  “So are you going to meet him?” Toby pressed.

  Adelaide stared down at the hands she’d clenched before herself. They shook. How could she get out of this? “I’m not certain it’s wise. Why not let him meet Melinda?”

  Toby shook his head immediately and his frown deepened. “He was clear about what he wanted and he doesn’t seem the kind of man one refuses. He wants to meet you, Lydia, and that’s all that will satisfy him. I’m not certain he wouldn’t just barge in here if I told him no.”

  Adelaide sighed. Of course, Toby was probably right. She’d been in Society all her life, she’d known many a man of power and privilege. And she’d had plenty of time to observe Northfield, as well, for he was hard to ignore. In a room full of men who were average, he was…not. Perhaps it was his
piercing blue eyes or the hard edge to his expression or that he rarely danced, even with the lady who had once been his fiancé.

  Whatever it was, Toby was correct in his assessment that Northfield wasn’t the kind who took no for an answer.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. She had changed into a plain gown, but she had not yet removed her stage makeup, and her hair was down. She still looked like Lydia rather than plain, mousy Adelaide. Perhaps Northfield wouldn’t recognize her.

  It wasn’t as if he ever talked to her in Society anyway. There, she was a gnat and he was a god.

  “It’s a good thing I still look presentable,” she said with a sigh. “Yes, of course, allow him to come in.”

  Toby left to fetch the man and Melinda jumped up. “Oh, Lydia! What a night. Just think, you could advance your fortunes with just a few well-placed words.”

  Adelaide pursed her lips. “I’m perfectly content with my fortunes as they are, Melinda,” she said. “I’m not trying to advance myself.”

  Melinda stared at her like she’d spoken Latin or grown a second head. “Not advance yourself?”

  Adelaide laughed at her friend’s confusion. “Gracious, Melinda, did it never occur to you that perhaps I just like walking the boards? That I’m not trying to do anything but enjoy the time I have to do so?”

  “Well, to each his own.” Melinda shook her head. “But I still say if you don’t try to at least flirt with the man, you’re wasting your time and a golden opportunity.”

  Adelaide sighed. “How about this? The moment he realizes I’m nothing but a boring mouse, I’ll send him to you.”

  “Oh, do!” Melinda said on a laugh as there was a second knock on the door. This time it was harder, more confident, and Adelaide’s heart sank. It was him.

  Melinda shot her a final look and then opened the door, revealing the Duke of Northfield. And as she stared at him, trying not to reveal too much, trying not to fall over from nervousness, Adelaide’s heart all but stopped.