The Last Duke (The 1797 Club Book 10) Read online

  The Last Duke

  (The 1797 Club Book 10)

  By

  USA Today Bestseller

  Jess Michaels

  The Broken Duke

  The 1797 Club Book 3

  www.1797Club.com

  Copyright © Jesse Petersen, 2018

  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

  To contact the author:

  Email: [email protected]

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  Dedication

  I do not know how it is possible that we have reached the end of The 1797 Club series. It seems like just yesterday that we met these men and their wonderful ladies. But here we are and there are so many people to thank.

  To Michael, for just being who you are. Thanks for keeping me...sane? Do we call it that?

  To Mackenzie Walton, editor extraordinaire, catcher of all plot holes and just a great friend. To Millie Bullock, copyeditor and my Mama. To Kelsey Strothmann, also copyeditor and keeper of scary red balloons.

  To Jenn LeBlanc, for shooting the cover and meme images for all these books. We have so much more sushi to eat and bestying to do. Also thanks for making me bite the hardest bullet in this particular book. It made it a lot stronger. Love you!!

  And finally to all of you who have come along for the ride with me on this life-changing series. You've laughed and cried with me, shared your favorite moments and kept me on the path to see this series through. I hope you have enjoyed my "dukes" as much as I have. And that you'll come along for the next ride and the one after that and the one after that for as long as I have finger strength to keep typing.

  Prologue

  Summer 1810

  Sarah Carlton stood at the edge of the ballroom, watching her dreams drift away as couples spun around the dancefloor. Her heart ached, and even the two glasses of punch she’d drunk in the last half an hour could not take the edge off her disappointment, fear and regret. They only made her mind cloudy.

  She’d had one task when she came out to this party at Abernathe with her mother, and that was to make herself attractive to the gentlemen in attendance. That had been her only obligation since her coming out two years before. She and her mother needed the security a good match could offer, and time was running out. After all, every Season she got older, and every year new Diamonds appeared in the crowd that made Sarah look uninteresting and even less attractive, with her unimportant name and miniscule dowry. At the rate she was going, even that small settlement would be nonexistent.

  She glanced across the room to find her mother in the crowd. Alice Carlton looked so tired. Even when her mother smiled, Sarah saw the dullness in the expression. The listless surrender to a dark future. Sarah could do nothing about it unless she wed.

  Her desperation had been at its peak, and then she’d come here and found a spark of new hope, new life. The Duke of Crestwood had actually shown her some interest. The Duke of Crestwood, with all his money and status! He had danced with her, chatted with her. It was all friendly, nothing particularly serious, but she’d allowed herself to feel optimism for the first time in months.

  And now that was gone. Stolen by a woman who had no need for such hope.

  Sarah glanced across the room. Lady Margaret, the sister of the Duke of Abernathe, stood with her brother and his wife. Looking stunning, of course. For a moment, a dark streak of jealousy and anger flared up in Sarah’s chest, and she shook her head.

  Margaret…Meg to her many friends…had always had the opposite life to Sarah’s, it seemed. She’d had money and privilege from the start. Her bright personality gave her popularity to boot. And she had support from her beloved brother. Abernathe had even arranged a marriage for her with the Duke of Northfield. What more could a person want than that handsome, rich, settled kind of man?

  Apparently, Meg could. Just days ago, scandal had erupted at the party. Margaret had been caught after spending a night unchaperoned with…Crestwood. And in a flash, the lady had not only blown up her own engagement, but any hopes Sarah had allowed herself to have of a future.

  Meg would marry Crestwood. Immediately, to reduce the scandal. And Sarah was back to desperation and despair as her time ticked away.

  Sarah huffed out a breath. Her life had never been an easy one, and when she was just a tiny bit in her cups, it felt so much more unfair.

  Abernathe and his wife Emma stepped away from Margaret, and Sarah jolted forward. She had no idea what she would say to Margaret, but she felt compelled to move at any rate. Pushed by drink and disappointment.

  She reached her side and folded her arms as she glared at her. “Good evening, Lady Margaret.”

  Oh dear. She could hear the slur in her words. Apparently Abernathe wasn’t watering down his drinks, and Sarah hadn’t had much to eat that day.

  But it was too late to go back now as her target stiffened and turned toward her. Meg had been frowning and now that expression grew deeper as she looked Sarah up and down. Dismissively, Sarah thought. Just like most everyone in the Upper Ten Thousand did.

  “Miss Carlton, isn’t it?” Meg asked, her tone strained.

  Sarah nodded once and then stepped up to stand beside her. For a moment, they observed the dancefloor together in silence. Sarah tried to figure out what it was she wanted to say to this woman who had crushed her dreams so effortlessly.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” Meg asked.

  Sarah glanced at her. Was she serious? As if she hadn’t been fully aware of the connection Sarah had been working to build with Crestwood? As if she hadn’t seen them talking and laughing and forming what Sarah had prayed could be a bond? All that just before Meg had swept in and…well, one couldn’t exactly steal a person…

  She shrugged. “I was.”

  There was no mistaking the peppery accusation in her tone. Sarah hadn’t quite meant to put it there, but between her desperation and the alcohol, it was undeniable.

  “Oh,” Meg said, and Sarah felt her watching from the corner of her eye. “Is there something I can do for you, since our hosts are currently dancing?”

  Sarah turned to her, and her gaze narrowed. Something she could do? Something she could do? As if she hadn’t done enough. As if she hadn’t ruined enough, for her own family and for anyone else in her periphery.

  “You had a fiancé,” Sarah hissed, trying to meter her tone and finding it difficult in her slightly inebriated state. “A perfectly good fiancé who was a duke. I think an even richer duke than Crestwood, if my mother is to be believed.”

  Meg clenched her fists at her sides and her frown turned deeper. She looked at Sarah with what felt like pure disdain. “You and I do not know one another well enough to be having this incredibly impertinent conversation.”

  Sarah’s eyes went wide. Of course, the conversation was impertinent. She was far beneath Meg in station, and it wasn’t as if she had a real claim on Crestwood. Only the hopes she’d had for a future. Her last hopes.

  That spurred her on where she normally wouldn’t go. “I don’t care if it’s impertinent. Great God, is any man safe? Will you bore of the Duke of Crestwood soon enough and move on to another? Will you suck up all the eli
gible men in the countryside and leave none for anyone else?”

  The moment she said the words, Sarah wished she could take them back. This was why she rarely drank. It loosened lips. And yet she didn’t do the prudent thing and walk away.

  “You have no idea what you are talking about,” Meg snapped, and she had the audacity to look annoyed. “Crestwood and I have been friends a very long time and—”

  “Friends, my lady? Only friends?” Sarah whispered, her voice cracking as frustrated and desperate tears filled her eyes. In the end, she knew there was no point to this display. She had no power, no money, no prospect.

  No future. She had no future. And that had probably been true long before Crestwood and Meg had gone and gotten trapped in a cottage overnight together. The weight of that truth sank in and nearly buckled her.

  “You are overwrought,” Meg said firmly. “And perhaps you’ve had too much punch.”

  “I am not overwrought,” Sarah muttered. “I just don’t like to see someone grab for everything in the world because she thinks she can just take, take, take. My only consolation is that this scandal is so desperate that you may never recover. And when they whisper about you, I shall be the first one to tell them what I observed with my own two eyes.”

  “That is enough.”

  Both women turned, and Sarah’s breath departed her lungs entirely. The Earl of Idlewood was now standing just at Meg’s side, and he was glaring down at Sarah.

  She’d been a keen observer of Society for a long time. In her position, she had to be. Almost everyone made her nervous, for most were far higher than she in station, but no one gave her stomach as many flutters as this very man. Unlike his friends, the men of their duke club, he was very serious. Almost wiser than his years. He was always watching, always present in whatever situation he encountered. He rarely talked to her, but when he did it was…mesmerizing.

  And God’s teeth, but he was handsome. Even when he was staring at her like she was a bug to be crushed, his lean face and intelligent brown eyes were impossible not to note.

  “L-Lord Idlewood,” Sarah said, forcing her gaze away from both his judgment and his distraction. “I did not see you there.”

  “I would wager not, or you would not have said such wretched things,” Idlewood said softly. “Walk away now and go back to your mother. I’d also suggest you start planning on how you’re to tell her.”

  Sarah shivered at the quiet command of his tone. At the horrors his words implied. “Tell her?”

  Idlewood arched a brow. “When the Duke of Abernathe finds out you were attacking his sister, your invitations to many events are going to disappear. I assume you’ll need to tell your mother why.”

  Sarah’s heart felt like it stopped in her chest as she stared at him. He almost looked bored, despite the fact that he was saying words that were world destroyers. Would he truly speak of her indiscreet behavior to Abernathe?

  Everyone knew the duke was protective of his sister. He was a golden child, untouchable in even the deepest scandal. If he wished, he could bring down all the final, delicate threads of hope that remained for Sarah.

  Idlewood held her stare as he said, “Now run along.”

  Sarah couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything except purse her lips together as she turned on her heel and slowly walked away. As she did so, the tears she had been fighting filled her eyes and she blinked to keep them at bay.

  She’d spent her adult life trying to do the right thing. The proper thing. The ladylike thing. She did all that because she knew it was her only chance at any kind of future.

  And now with one tipsy moment of foolishness, it seemed she had collapsed all her prospects and fantasies. She would have to face those consequences, because she had no doubt that the Earl of Idlewood would make good on his threats.

  And her world would come crumbling down at last.

  Chapter One

  June 1813

  Christopher Collins, Earl of Idlewood, sat at his father’s bedside, watching the old man’s breaths become more and more labored. The Duke of Kingsacre had been failing for such a long time, his illness taking pieces of him year by year, month by month, day by day. But it had progressed so slowly Kit had somehow allowed himself to feel that this day would never come.

  And yet here it was. It felt like someone was tearing out his heart. Kit bent his neck, pressing his forehead against his father’s arm.

  The old duke coughed and his fingers flexed against Kit’s hand gently. “You…have been…a good son,” he whispered, his voice raspy and heavy with strain.

  Tears stung Kit’s eyes and he lifted his gaze to his father’s face. “I can only hope I will be half as good a duke as you are,” he said. “I am certain I will fail at it.”

  His father’s expression softened and he smiled gently. “Never. You could…never…fail. Where…is…Phoebe?”

  Kit straightened and looked toward his father’s chamber door. As if on cue, it opened and his younger sister, just five years old, stepped inside. She clung to the hand of her governess. Kit frowned. His father had hired Sarah Carlton to fill that position after her final fall from grace. She’d joined the household just two months before. The duke had not asked Kit’s opinion on the subject.

  He did have one, of course. He always had opinions when it came to Sarah. But right now he shoved them away, just as he had been since her recent arrival to the estate. He did not have the energy or time to deal with her.

  Not when his father deserved all his attention.

  “Papa?” Phoebe whispered, her voice breaking as she turned into Sarah’s skirt.

  Sarah reached down to stroke her hand along Phoebe’s red hair. “It’s all right, poppin,” she said softly. “Go see your papa.”

  “Phoebe…love,” his father called out gently.

  The little girl did not turn away from her hiding place against Sarah’s legs. If anything, she clung harder to the fabric.

  Kit shoved to his feet. He understood his sister’s fear, and yet he wanted to force her to go to her father. To say her goodbyes for both their sakes.

  Sarah shook her head slightly and lifted a hand to stay him. He pursed his lips at her nerve, but remained where he was as she dropped down to her knees so she was the same height as his sister.

  He moved forward, but could not understand what Sarah murmured to her charge. Phoebe drew back, looking her governess in the eyes before she slowly nodded. Sarah turned her toward the duke and gently tapped her forward.

  Phoebe moved to the bed and Kit stepped away to allow his sister a moment of privacy with her beloved Papa. He looked at her as she spoke to him softly, tears beginning to form in her brown eyes. The eyes so like his own and their father’s.

  She was not his full-blood sister. She was not legitimate, but the result of an ill-chosen affair. And yet Kit adored her. His father adored her. Kit knew what it was like to lose a parent so young, and he wished he could keep her from that pain.

  “Is there anything I can do, my lord?”

  He jolted and turned his face to find that Sarah had moved to stand beside him. He caught a whiff of the warm lilac scent of her bright honey-blonde hair. She always smelled good. She always had.

  Not that it mattered. He paid attention to her because she’d been in Society, linked to his friends by a moment of bad behavior. Once she’d fallen from grace, he’d watched her because she worked for his father.

  There was no other reason to be interested in her.

  “No,” he said softly.

  Phoebe had her arms around their father’s neck now. She had buried her face into his slender shoulder, and Kit could see that sobs wracked her little body. His own eyes burned with tears and he caught his breath.

  “I’m so very sorry,” Sarah whispered.

  He nodded, using all his focus not to show his reaction to her pity. “Thank you, Miss Carlton. Will you take Phoebe now? She shouldn’t be here w
hen he…when he goes.”

  Sarah stepped forward. She moved to his sister’s side and touched her shoulder gently. “Come along, dearest. Let us leave your papa and your brother now.”

  Phoebe looked up at Sarah, her face streaked with tears. Then she nodded and took Sarah’s hand. As they turned, the duke reached up and touched Sarah’s arm. Kit stiffened as she turned back.

  “Yes, Your Grace?” she whispered, her voice shaking.

  “Thank you for your kindness, my dear,” he said. “I know you will take good care of my daughter…after. And my son.”

  Sarah jerked and Kit took a step forward at the surprising statement. He waited for her to respond, and finally she covered his father’s hand with her own. “Of course, Your Grace. I will do everything in my power to see that they are well. Good…goodbye.”

  “Goodbye,” he responded, and closed his eyes.

  She cast Kit a quick look, then slipped away, his sister in tow. Which left Kit alone with his father again. He sat down by his side, smoothing a few thin locks of hair from his forehead.

  “I swear, Father, I have no idea why you hired Sarah Carlton of all the governesses in the world,” he muttered, uncertain if his father was sleeping and could even hear him.

  The older man’s eyes came open at the statement and a ghost of a smile fluttered over his lips. “Don’t you? I…hired that girl…because…you’ll need her.”

  Kit pressed his lips together. “If you say so.”

  “Let her…help you,” he said. “Don’t let the past…destroy…the future.”

  Kit shook his head. He’d spoken to his father about Sarah before, of course. Mentioned her bad behavior with Meg years before. Talked to him when he saw her at balls. He’d probably pointed out her position when her mother died and left her destitute. But certainly his father couldn’t think there was some kind of bond between them.