My Fake Engagement To A Duke Put A Target On My Back — And Saved My Life
Part 1
The crystal chandeliers of the Stanton estate cast a fractured light over the swirling mass of London’s elite.
I preferred the shadows.
As the paid companion to the vivacious Heather Brooks, my role at the mid-season masquerade ball was strictly observational.
I was to blend into the gilded wallpaper and ensure my young charge behaved herself.
At twenty-four, society considered me practically a spinster.
I was entirely at peace with my invisibility.
It afforded me the luxury of seeing everything.
Shortly before midnight, the ballroom grew suffocatingly warm.
Seeking a breath of fresh air, I slipped into the dimly lit antechamber bridging the ballroom and the sprawling gardens.
A man stood backed against the heavy damask curtains.
He wore a finely tailored midnight blue coat and a black mask.
He gripped his left side.
An unnatural dark stain spread across his pale waistcoat.
He was bleeding.
Four men dressed as footmen surrounded him.
They bore the rough posture of hired thugs.
Leading them was Gary Walsh.
Walsh served as Lord Craig Stanton’s notorious fixer.
His reputation for quiet violence was an open secret among the city’s underclass.
A long, thin blade glinted in Walsh’s hand.
Its tip pointed directly at the stranger’s ribs.
Walsh hissed a demand for a ledger.
The stranger offered a dark, blood-stained smile and promised to take three of them to hell before he fell.
I froze.
I knew I should run back to the safety of the ballroom.
People who interfered in Lord Stanton’s illicit affairs often ended up floating in the Thames.
Walsh shifted his weight to lunge.
A sudden influx of loud, giggling voices echoed from the hallway.
Lady Pamela Collins approached the antechamber with a flock of debutantes.
The thugs tensed.
They prepared to drag the bleeding man behind the velvet curtains to finish the job in silence.
The stranger braced himself.
His right hand slipped into his coat to draw a hidden weapon.
It would be a blood bath right there.
The wounded stranger would undoubtedly die.
I did not think.
Driven by an irrational surge of adrenaline, I stepped out of the shadows.
My voice rang out, shockingly loud and breathless, cutting through the tense silence.
I scolded him for abandoning me for the card tables.
The thugs whipped their heads toward me.
The stranger blinked in visible stun as I marched directly into the center of the hostile circle.
I ignored the glint of Walsh’s blade.
I grabbed the lapels of the stranger’s coat.
Before anyone could react, I went up on my tiptoes.
I pulled the tall man down and crushed my mouth against his.
He stiffened violently.
A gasp of pure shock stifled against my lips.
My hands dug into the fine wool of his coat.
My heart hammered frantically against my ribs.
I tasted salt, copper, and the sharp bite of fine brandy.
For a terrifying second, I thought he might push me away.
Instead, his large warm hand cupped the back of my neck.
He pulled me closer.
He deepened the kiss with a sudden overwhelming intensity that made my knees tremble.
He angled his body to shield me from Walsh.
He played the part of a man entirely consumed by passion perfectly.
Lady Pamela shrieked from the doorway.
I broke the kiss, panting, my cheeks burning with genuine fire.
I turned my head and feigned a gasp of horror.
Walsh and his men realized they stood in the middle of a massive public scandal.
They sheathed their weapons and melted back into the shadows of the garden doors.
The stranger leaned down.
His lips brushed my ear.
He murmured that I was either a madwoman or an angel.
With a mocking bow to the gasping Lady Pamela, he disappeared through the terrace doors.
I adjusted my silver mask and fled the antechamber without a word.
I remained entirely unaware that the man whose life I had just saved was Brian Hartford, the Duke of Aylesbury.
By ten o’clock the following morning, the Brooks townhouse was practically under siege by calling cards.
I sat in the sunlit morning room attempting to focus on my embroidery.
My needle kept missing its mark.
I felt the phantom pressure of the stranger’s mouth on mine.
Heather paced the length of the rug with a society broadsheet.
She read aloud about the unidentified lady of mystery caught in a compromising embrace.
I choked on my tea.
I assured her I was perfectly fine.
I intended to keep my identity a ghost.
If Lord Stanton discovered I had thwarted his men, my life would not be worth a farthing.
A sharp knock interrupted my anxious thoughts.
The stern butler stepped into the room looking visibly unsettled.
He announced a gentleman calling for me privately.
My heart plummeted to my stomach.
The Duke of Aylesbury awaited in the library.
Heather leaped up, her mouth falling open.
A cold dread spread through my veins.
The Duke was a legend in London.
He was incredibly wealthy, fiercely private, and exceptionally dangerous.
With trembling fingers, I smoothed my skirts and walked to the library.
I found him standing by the fireplace.
He turned, revealing aristocratic angles and piercing steel-gray eyes.
He moved with the lethal grace of a predator.
He produced a small embroidered silk handkerchief with my initials.
He explained that Walsh was already tracing my gown.
It was only a matter of time before Stanton’s men found me.
He had stolen a ledger proving Stanton was smuggling French spies.
Stanton’s men were watching his every move.
He needed cover to decode the ledger and present it to the crown.
He told me that if Stanton believed we were truly having a passionate secret affair, it would give him the freedom to finish his investigation.
I stared at him in horror.
He leaned in so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest, and whispered that if I wanted to survive the week, our scandalous fake romance had to begin immediately.
