A Duchess in Name Read online

  A Duchess in Name

  By Amanda Weaver

  Victoria Carson never expected love. An American heiress and graduate of Lady Grantham’s finishing school, she’s been groomed since birth to marry an English title—the grander the better. So when the man chosen for her, the forbidding Earl of Dunnley, seems to hate her on sight, she understands that it can’t matter. Love can have no place in this arrangement.

  Andrew Hargrave has little use for his title and even less for his cold, disinterested parents. Determined to make his own way, he’s devoted to his life in Italy working as an archaeologist. Until the collapse of his family’s fortune drags him back to England to a marriage he never wanted and a woman he doesn’t care to know.

  Wild attraction is an unwanted complication for them both, though it forms the most fragile of bonds. Their marriage of convenience isn’t so intolerable after all—but it may not be enough when the deception that bound them is finally revealed.

  Book one of The Grantham Girls

  Dear Reader,

  It’s officially 2016! In the publishing world, we’ve been talking in terms of 2016 for over a year by the time it gets here, due to the amount of time some books are scheduled in advance. So for us, 2016 already feels like it’s been around for quite some time. And, of course, we absolutely already have 2017 and 2018 in our planners, and even though it messes with our brains to be thinking in terms of 2018, it’s great news for you since it means there will always be new books to read!

  This January, as always, we start our Carina Press release schedule as we mean to continue the year—with a mix of contemporary, science fiction, historical, male/male and suspense romance, as well as a romantic mystery and an urban fantasy thrown in.

  Shannon Stacey always brings a fantastic blend of humor, heroes and sigh-worthy romance, and her novella A Fighting Chance (which is kicking off 2016...no pun intended!) is no different. All work and no play makes Adeline Kendrick a dull girl, so when she heads to a casino resort for a friend’s bachelorette weekend, she’s ready to have a good time. Until she runs into Brendan Quinn, professional fighter and the one who got away—the one her family drove away—and things take a turn for the interesting. When the weekend is over, Adeline isn’t ready to give up her second chance that easily.

  A kidnapping forces an ex-CIA operative back into the violence of a Colombian cartel, where he finds the wife he believed dead to be very much alive—and hiding a dangerous secret in this romantic suspense novel by Edie Harris. Pick up Crazed: A Blood Money Novel this January, and then catch up on her other romantic suspense titles, Blamed and Ripped.

  The Carina Press acquisitions team bonded over our love of A Duchess in Name, a historical romance from Amanda Weaver that kicks off her Grantham Girls trilogy. A wild passion unexpectedly blossoms out of the arranged marriage of the Earl of Dunnley and American heiress Victoria Carson, but will the lies that bound them in marriage finally tear them apart?

  It’s time for another installment of the kick-ass and romantic male/male space opera series Chaos Station from Kelly Jensen and Jenn Burke. In Inversion Point, Zander and Felix have to find a way to face their doubts and preserve their love—while preventing another galaxy-wide war.

  Are you ready for a mystery with a side of romance? When Detroit criminal defender duo Issabella Bright and Darren Fletcher are summoned to the island estate of a retired judge, a deadly chain of events is set in motion—one involving murder, stolen World War II treasures and a conspiracy of revenge that stretches all the way to Chicago, where Darren’s brother Luther wields their family’s power with cold, ruthless precision. Buy Jonathan Watkins’s Isolated Judgment, or go back to where the Bright & Fletcher mystery series began with Motor City Shakedown and Dying in Detroit.

  Whoever said “violence is a last resort” never had a Minotaur for a best friend. We’re pleased to welcome back Joshua Roots with his newest urban fantasy, Paranormal Chaos. Warlock Marcus Shifter has been sent on the most dangerous mission of his career: travel to the remote Minotaur nation and convince them not to abandon the tenuous peace agreement between the humans and the paranormals.

  Coming in February 2016: A male/male new-adult romance from K.A. Mitchell, Nico Rosso begins a thrilling new romantic suspense series with a hero you will love, we introduce new author Anna del Mar with her sexy romantic suspense, Lauren Dane re-releases a fan favorite, and so much more!

  In the meantime, I wish you the very happiest of years as we travel into 2016. May your year be blessed with nothing but good books, memorable characters, and many, many happy-book-sigh moments as you read the last page.

  As always, until next month, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For my mother, who knew I was a writer before I did.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  London, 1891

  If the ground beneath her feet had opened up and swallowed her mother whole, Victoria was sure she wouldn’t shed a tear. She’d welcome anything—anything—that would make the woman stop talking and just leave. But the ground stayed stubbornly solid, as always, and Hyacinth Carson carried on without cease. As always.

  “You’ve got freckles developing, Victoria, just there, beside your nose. You’ve been out in the sun without a parasol again, haven’t you? Nothing is more important than preserving your skin, you know that. If you don’t take care, you’ll shrivel up like an old apple. You’re already too tall and your voice isn’t at all delicate. You must preserve whatever ladylike attributes you possess, girl.”

  Victoria blushed and began to raise a hand to her cheeks, then forced herself to stop. “We had a picnic last week and I forgot for a moment...”

  Her mother began tugging her gloves on and Victoria sighed in relief. This week’s visit was nearly over.

  “And what’s this Lady Grantham is telling me, that you and the Godwyn girl want to attend some political discussion?”

  “It sounds interesting—”

  “No man wants a rabble-rouser for a wife, Victoria. You leave the politics to the men. Your job will be the house and the entertaining.”

  “Yes, Mother.” Oh, how well she knew it. Her sole purpose on earth was to unite her large fortune to a title, the grander the better. All of her fifteen years had been spent preparing her for that and nothing more.

  Her mother leaned down to retrieve her handbag and scowled at the book left lying open, facedown on the settee. “Are you reading this nonsense?” she snapped, picking up the
book and waving it under Victoria’s nose. She hadn’t been, but protesting her innocence was pointless.

  “Romantic claptrap.” Hyacinth tossed the book on the settee again. “You keep your mind on studying your Debrett’s Peerage. That’s all the reading you’ll need.”

  She’d already memorized Debrett’s, of course. But it was pointless to tell that to Mother.

  “Of course, Mother.” Long ago, she’d learned it was best to just nod and agree and wait for it to be over.

  Hyacinth finished arranging her hat and stopped to look her daughter over one more time from head to toe. “Your figure is filling out nicely at last. Plenty of men will find you appealing with a bosom like that.”

  “Mother!” Shame scalded her cheeks. She hunched forward, folding her arms over her chest.

  “Oh, don’t be a ninny. Any man marrying you will be doing it for the money, you know that. But with a pretty face and a good figure, he might not see you entirely as a burden. Be grateful.”

  Victoria was too mortified to reply, but Hyacinth didn’t need one. “See you stay out of the sun. And for heaven’s sake, do stand up straight, girl. We’re spending a fortune to have you properly finished here. I’d like to see the results of it.”

  Biting the inside of her lip and ignoring the sting of tears, Victoria stood up straight, so straight she could balance a book on her head while she poured tea. All the training had taught her to look flawless, no matter how she felt on the inside.

  Her mother smiled in satisfaction, not noticing her daughter’s hands, curled into fists so tightly that her nails left marks on her palms. “That’s better, although I despair over your height.” She shook her head sadly. “I should have limited the milk when you were small, to keep you petite, but it’s too late now. We’ll just have to work with what we’ve got. I’ll see you next week.”

  Without a hug or a word of affection, she left, and Victoria let her shoulders slump out of spite.

  A whisper came from the doorway. “Is she gone?”

  Pressing her palms to her cheeks, she willed the tears away before she turned to face Amelia and Grace. The only thing worse than enduring one of her mother’s visits was for her friends to witness her humiliation. “Yes, for now.”

  The girls came the rest of the way in, settling on the settee. As much as Victoria hated the principle behind being finished and groomed for marriage by Lady Grantham, she didn’t at all hate living with Genevieve Grantham. Gen was wonderful, everything her own mother wasn’t. Amelia and Grace were here for finishing, too, and they’d become her dearest friends. She dreaded the day her time here was done and she’d have to move back home.

  “I’m sorry she railed at you about the novel,” Grace said. “That was mine. I shouldn’t have left it out.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. She’d have just found something else to complain about.”

  “Would you like to read it? I’m nearly done.”

  Victoria took it and scowled at the title. “Silly romances. They’re no better than fairy tales.”

  Amelia sighed. “Oh, but this one is deliciously racy. And the hero—”

  “That’s just it.” Victoria cut her off. “He’s only some man in a book. We’ll never meet him, and if we do, we won’t be allowed to marry him. No, for us it’s a bunch of arrogant, broke old men with titles. Did you see the way Lord Sturridge was looking at me at the park yesterday? I haven’t even put my hair up yet. It’s disgusting. His poor sick wife is at home and he’s already casting about for her replacement. I don’t doubt he knows how much I’ve got, down to the penny.”

  “Surely you’ll get a better offer than Sturridge.”

  “He’s an earl. Mother would jump at it.”

  “You’ll have better options than him, I’m sure of it,” Grace assured her.

  “Perhaps, but I can’t think my life will be some fairy tale when it certainly won’t be. I’ll be married for my fortune, not for love. It’s not as if any of us will be marrying for love.”

  “Some people do,” Amelia protested. “My parents—”

  “Your parents are paying a fortune to finish you with Genevieve.” Grace said it gently. “They may have married for love, but that was before the money. You know what’s expected of you. Just like Vic, just like me, we’ll marry with our heads, not our hearts.”

  Amelia looked as if she wanted to argue it, but that was just her headstrong nature. She knew the reality of her circumstances as well as Victoria and Grace.

  “It makes me wish I didn’t have to marry at all,” Amelia groused. “If I’m going to have to marry some titled prat who despises me because of my background.”

  “Oh, I want to marry.” Victoria’s friends looked at her as if she were mad, so she rushed to explain. “Living with Gen and you has been the only time in my life I’ve been happy, but when it ends, I’ll move back home with my parents. I won’t escape again until I marry. I don’t have to love my husband, or even like him, so long as marrying him means I can live my own life, and begin my own family. That’s all I want.”

  “And the rest of it?” Amelia ventured. “The business between men and women?”

  “I’ll manage it as best I can. As long as I don’t go into it expecting some fairy-tale love story, I’ll be all right.”

  Grace reached for her hand and grasped Amelia’s with her other. “None of us will be getting a fairy-tale love story. But we shall always have each other.”

  Soon the unpleasant reality of life would descend on her. But not yet. For this brief time, she was still among friends and that faceless stranger with a title was still off in her future. She could only pray that when he finally appeared, she could bear him. She didn’t need a dream, she only hoped to avoid a nightmare.

  Chapter One

  Four years later

  Trying to find anything in the crush of the Burlington Arcade at the height of the Season was impossible. Victoria wanted a new pair of spring gloves, but it was packed to the gills, and she’d had enough of being jostled by a bunch of pushy society matrons. She was about to suggest to Grace and Amelia that they give up and go for a quick walk in the park, but they were deep in conversation about a terribly weighty matter.

  “I think the color looks rather good on me.” Amelia held up a sheer silk wrap, draping it over one shoulder and examining herself in the shop mirror. A dowager in a wide-brimmed hat shoved past, but Amelia simply shoved her back. Amelia was good at shoving. Grace glanced up from a box of glass buttons and scowled at Amelia’s reflection. “Amelia, it’s salmon pink.”

  “It is not. It’s carnation pink.”

  “Salmon,” Grace said flatly. “Like the inside of a fish.”

  “Carnation,” Amelia argued. “Like that tremendous bouquet from Tony Batchelder sitting in Victoria’s front parlor this morning.”

  “You must be blind.”

  Their good-natured argument continued for a few minutes more until Amelia appealed to her. “Vic, which is it? Salmon or carnation?”

  “If you like it, what does it matter? It looks pretty on you with either name.”

  “I’d rather not carry a shawl that reminds people of dead fish.”

  “Since when have you started caring what people think?”

  Amelia sighed, refolding the shawl. “I don’t, to the eternal despair of my parents. All the same, I think the shawl is a ‘no.’ What about you? Did you find any gloves?”

  “Perhaps these. What do you think?”

  “Pretty.” Grace peered over Amelia’s shoulder.

  “There are two pair...” Victoria ventured, sliding one toward Grace.

  “Pretty for you,” Grace said, and turned away. Amelia met Victoria’s eyes over the tray of gloves and raised one dark eyebrow. Of course Grace refused the gloves—and anything else skirtin
g too close to charity. Victoria and Amelia were the heiresses groomed to marry titles. Grace’s problem was the opposite, orphaned and without a penny to her name. She’d only been sent to Lady Grantham because of a misguided bequest from a deceased great-aunt.

  Over the course of several generations, the Grantham townhouse had seen countless young ladies pass through its doors as they were finished for Society. The best noble families in Britain sent their daughters to the legendary Lady Grantham for that “certain something” only she could provide.

  As the years wore on, inevitably a new generation of middle class manufacturing magnates, like Victoria and Amelia’s fathers, wanted that same polish for their daughters, hoping to secure them entry into the bastions of British society traditionally closed to them. The business began to change, until Lady Grantham was better known for cleaning up working class heiresses and finding them titled, but cash-strapped, husbands, than she was for teaching them how to curtsy before the queen. And when the first Lady Grantham finally died, her great-niece, Genevieve, had stepped in to take over the role of Lady Grantham, matching girls with money to noblemen without it. These days, Genevieve Grantham was hardly the only one. A veritable small industry had developed in Europe to facilitate just such pairings.

  Grace didn’t have a fortune to attract Gen’s impoverished nobility, but Gen adored her, so she’d kept her on, even when the aunt’s bequest ran out. But it couldn’t last forever. If Grace couldn’t find some decent man to marry soon, she’d be forced to go to work as a governess. Or worse.

  Victoria laid the gloves back in the tray. They’d lost their appeal.

  The bell over the door tinkled, announcing another shopper, but it was only Gen coming back from a quick trip to the new milliner two doors down. Victoria and Amelia had left Gen’s house the year before when they’d made their debut, but they still saw her often. Victoria missed those days, when it had been the four of them. A full year of her mother’s relentless pressure to marry well had driven her half-mad. She was willing to say yes to anyone, just to bring the hunt to a close.