A Duke's Desire (The Duke's Club Book 1) Read online

  A Duke’s Desire

  By

  G.L. Snodgrass

  Copyright 2019 G.L. Snodgrass

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means. This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Dedicated to

  Sarah Simmons

  Other Books by G. L. Snodgrass

  Regency Romance

  The Reluctant Duke (Love’s Pride 1)

  The Viscount's Bride (Love’s Pride 2)

  The Earl's Regret (Love’s Pride 3)

  Marrying the Marquess (Love’s Pride 4)

  Confronting A Rake (A Rake’s Redemption 1)

  Charming A Rake (A Rake’s Redemption 2)

  Catching A Rake (A Rake’s Redemption 3_

  Challenging A Rake (A Rake’s Redemption 4)

  Duke In Disguise (The Stafford Sisters 1)

  The American Duke (The Stafford Sisters 2)

  Western Romance

  Lonely Valley Bride

  High Desert Cowboy

  Young Adult Romance

  Certain Rules

  Unwritten Rules

  Unbreakable Rules

  My Favorite Love (Lakeland Boys 1)

  One Night (Lakeland Boys 2)

  My Brother’s Best Friend (Lakeland Boys 3)

  Worlds Apart (Lakeland Boys 4)

  My Brother's Bodyguard (Hometown Heroes 1)

  My Hidden Hero (Hometown Heroes 2)

  My Best Friend’s Brother (Hometown Heroes 3)

  My Sister’s Best Friend

  Our Secret (The Benson Brothers 1)

  Hidden Truth (The Benson Brothers 2)

  Deception (The Benson Brothers 3)

  Table of Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  A Duke’s Desire

  Chapter One

  Dursley, The Cotswold’s

  1794

  It was the brutal caning of Jack Hardy that led to the creation of the Duke’s Club. A young boy being savagely punished for something he hadn’t done. Even ten-year-old boys know injustice when they see it. Perhaps more than most.

  SIX! The line of boys yelled out with the count as the cane slashed down on Hardy’s legs.

  Young Brock Powell, the Fifth Duke of Bedford whispered to his friend, “This isn’t right. He may be a bastard. But he is a Duke’s bastard.” Even at ten years old, the boy had a strong sense of right and wrong.

  Lord Duncan Greenville, the second son of a Duke nodded in agreement then winced when once again the headmaster brought the cane down with all his might.

  SEVEN!

  The boy on the other side of Bedford, Ian Temple, the Marquess of Dorset, hissed under his breath, “Look at Bartley. Grinning like a cat with a bowl of milk. I bet he’s the one who stole the pie from the kitchen.”

  Brock leaned forward so he could look down the long line of boys. Ian was right. Bartley looked like a boy happy to have gotten away with something. In the meantime, Hardy was suffering his punishment in silence. There hadn’t been a peep out of him since the beating began.

  EIGHT!

  Brock’s stomach tightened up. This was wrong. And it wasn’t the first time Hardy had faced injustice alone, since his arrival at the small school. Quite a few of the boys had gone out of their way to make the new boy’s life miserable.

  These sons of the aristocracy had learned early that life was about status. No different than hens with their pecking order. The entire society of the upper crust depended upon it. And here was this boy, an illegitimate bastard attending the same school as the privileged sons and future lords of Britain.

  It didn’t matter that his father was one of the richest men in the country with one of the highest of titles and a great deal of power. All that mattered was the shame of his birth, his illegitimacy. In their view, he was at the bottom and beneath contempt.

  Hardy hadn’t made it any easier, Brock thought as he winced. The boy refused to bend to the ruling mob. Refused to scrape and bow.

  NINE!

  “We should do something,” Brock whispered to Ian and Duncan. Both boys nodded, then shot him a quick look of raised eyebrows as if asking, ‘What?’

  A deep sense of anger began to eat at Brock’s stomach as he watched the final blow fall.

  TEN!

  The headmaster stepped back, out of breath at his exertion.

  “Dismissed,” the headmaster yelled as he stared down at the boy bent over the punishment rail. Brock could see it in the man’s eyes. The headmaster was furious that he had been unable to make Hardy beg for mercy.

  The line of boys broke as they began to file out. There were whispers and shy looks at the boy who had been punished. More than one of them showed a hint of shame at what they had allowed to happen.

  “Come on,” Brock said to his friends as he stepped away from the mob at the door and walked back to Hardy. The headmaster frowned down at them, obviously upset at their actions. Any support for Hardy would be viewed as a personal afront and could lead to ramifications.

  Brock ignored the man as he bent to slip Hardy’s arm over his shoulders. Duncan took the other. Hardy groaned as they lifted him. He glanced left with a furrowed brow as he tried to understand what they were doing.

  Ian gave him a reassuring smile and a small dip of his head. Letting Hardy know that they approved of his performance.

  Hardy continued to frown then started to pull his arms off their shoulders.

  “No,” Brock whispered to him. “Let us show the devil that we are with you.”

  Hardy’s frown deepened. Then, he nodded as he allowed his weight to hang on the other boys’ shoulders.

  Brock shot the headmaster an evil glare then helped Hardy from the headmaster’s room. When they exited, several of the other boys stood about the hall, waiting to see what happened. Brock bit back a nasty comment and focused on getting Hardy back to his bed.

  After they gently lowered him face-first onto his bed, the three boys stepped back. Brock took a deep breath as he slowly examined their room. Sixteen bunks. Eight per side lined up against each wall. A small chest at the foot of each. Home for Britain’s future, his mother had said.

  ‘It would help him form connections,’ she had said. ‘It would make him a man,' his Uncle Thomas had added. All it had shown him was how cruel and evil the world could be. />
  Brock shook his head as a burning anger built inside of him. The anger burst forward when the rest of the students filed into the room. Bartley at the lead like a conquering horde. Smiling and joking as if nothing important had occurred.

  The young Duke could contain his anger no longer. He lowered his head and charged the older boy. His shoulder caught Bartley in the stomach and both went down in a tangle of arms and legs, each trying desperately to land that finishing blow.

  Hands pulled him up and off of Bartley. The boy’s friends, Everett, and Tunstall, pinned Brock’s arms, holding him in place. The big boy smiled through bloody lips and punched him in the stomach like a blacksmith hammering at an iron ingot.

  Again, the room erupted in swinging fists and kicks as Ian and Duncan joined the fight. Boys yelled as they swung and grabbed.

  There was no telling how things would have turned out. Brock thought that perhaps he and his friends might have held their own, but instead, a heavy voice yelled out, “What is the meaning of this?”

  Every boy froze in place. Mr. Starkey was the only man each boy in that school admired. Tough, but fair. His Latin lectures were filled with wonderful stories about war and adventure mixed with humor and wonder. The one good thing about this place.

  To upset Mr. Starkey was to risk being ostracized. No boy would be admired for upsetting their favorite teacher.

  Mr. Starkey was a tall, broad-shouldered teacher, with a hank of black hair that often fell across his forehead, making him different, almost wild. He stood there staring at each of them. Daring them to dispute his authority.

  The teacher shook his head and said, “The next boy I see creating a disturbance will be called on first when we conjugate verbs, and heaven help him if he fails.” Here, he turned, and purposely stared at young Lord Bartley.

  Brock almost laughed at the fear in Bartley’s eyes. The boy’s face turned white. He had just been threatened with his worst nightmare.

  Mr. Sharkey shook his head then pushed his way through the crowd to the bedside of young Hardy.

  “Here,” he said gently as he removed a small brown bottle and a white cloth from his coat pocket. “Witch Hazel, it will help with the cuts,” he added as he placed the bottle and cloth on the table next to the bed.

  Hardy grunted as he turned to his side so he could look up. Mr. Starkey’s forehead softened as he smiled encouragingly. Brock could only stare as he realized that Mr. Starkey had known the punishment was wrong and unfair. Yet had not stopped it.

  It was as if the world had shifted on its axis as Brock came to realize that even the good adults were not perfect. That even they could not stop bad things happening to innocent people.

  The realization sent a cold chill through his entire body as he realized that it was up to him and his friends to care for themselves. That, at the bottom of everything, a man was responsible for his own wellbeing.

  A new determination filled him as the teacher left the room. Brock nodded to Ian and Duncan, silently thanking them for coming to his aid.

  The three boys gathered around Hardy’s bed. “Gentleman,” Brock said as he wiped the blood trickling down his cheek from a cut under his eye. “I propose we add a fourth. That we become a Quartet. I give you Jack Hardy. He might be a bastard. But he is our bastard.”

  Both Ian and Duncan nodded.

  Brock continued, more for the boy laying injured in the bed than for themselves. “Like us, he is the son of a Duke. And I fear that in the words of that rebellious Mr. Franklin, “If we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately.”

  Ian used his shirtsleeve to wipe at his bloody nose then said, “It will be called, ‘The Duke’s Club.’ An exclusive group pledged to the mutual protection and advancement of its members.”

  Brock laughed. Leave it to Ian to use three big words when one small one would have done just fine.

  Duncan nodded. “Yes, and I would add. If we are going to take a beating for stealing a pie. Might I suggest that we actually take a pie. At least that way we get something for our troubles.”

  Each of them laughed at the same moment. Even the beaten, broken boy laying face first on his bed.

  A sense of well-being washed over Brock as he looked at each boy. A bond had been formed. A bond that could never be broken. He knew deep in his soul that it would be tested and strained, but it would remain strong.

  “The Duke’s Club,” he said as he held out his hand. Both Ian and Duncan covered his hand. Even Hardy reached up from the bed to put his hand with theirs.

  The four of them against this world.

  Chapter Two

  The London Docks

  1808

  Miss Ann Parker peaked around the tinker's barrow. They were still there. Two men waiting outside of her basement flat. Were they the landlord’s men? Or worse, Grainger’s men? The former could be dealt with. Perhaps postponed. The latter was too terrible to think about.

  Her insides curled in on themselves at the thought of Grainger getting ahold of her. He’d been rather explicit the last time. Repay her father’s debt or he would sell her to a Manchester brothel. Either way, he got his money.

  Her father’s opium habit continued to ruin her life a year after he had been buried six feet down.

  Ann took a deep breath and stepped back into the alley. As she leaned against the red brick wall, she tried to think of a way out. Perhaps a Manchester brothel might be her best option. Even if she were able to pay Grainger his money. It wouldn’t solve the fact that she was destitute and alone.

  A woman of eighteen shouldn’t be in this position, she thought. Almost every girl she knew was married by this point. If they were lucky, to a man who respected them. If not, at least they weren’t starving in the street or hiding from the worst of brigands.

  No, there were worse things than a brothel. Such as starving to death in some hidden shadow. Or, working the street for example. She had seen the women walking through the London night searching for customers. Desperate to sell themselves just to survive.

  For a year, she had done everything in her power to avoid such a fate. Selling her father’s few possessions, stealing the occasional item. A purse unattended, anything to stop from falling into that world. But perhaps she should stop fighting and accept the inevitable.

  In many ways. Life would be easier. Or at least warmer, she thought as she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  A shudder passed through her at the thought of surrender. No, somehow she would find a way through. As long as she remained out of Grainger’s grip, she had a chance.

  Pushing herself off the wall, she ducked down the alley away from her home. That meager hole beneath a dilapidated building filled with people only slightly better off than herself. It was lost to her, she realized. She could never return. But then, there was no need. There was nothing left of any import.

  She would find a quiet place to hide until she discovered a solution, she resolved to herself. Her stomach rumbling reminded her that it must be soon. Two days without food, focused the mind, to say the least.

  There was a grocer two streets over who was less than attentive. If she was careful, she might be able to grab an apple without being seen. If she was lucky, maybe two. If she was seen, they would pursue her and she feared she no longer had the strength to escape.

  When she reached the end of the alley, she stopped to examine the path forward. A dusty gray street with the stink of coal fires hanging in the air. Warm, wonderful coal fires, she thought with a shiver.

  People, rushing to be somewhere else. Mostly men dressed in workman’s clothes. Dockworkers on their way home. Sailors off the ships. A few women in drab gray dresses minding barrows or rushing to finish their shopping.

  Who would inform on her? How many would rush to Grainger for the hope of some favor or goodwill? Many, she realized with sadness. These were not her people. She and her father had moved here just before he died. The last of many such moves. Each the next step down the lad
der.

  No one here cared one way or the other what happened to her. While they cared very much that Grainger not find them at fault. That could result in them meeting a rather messy death.

  She would find no safe harbor here. No helping hand. The thought made her pull back into the shadows and watch the street. As she watched, the sun began to drop, casting the street in dark shadows. The ship’s masts in the distance reminded her of how different things were here by the docks.

  The dregs of society floated through these streets. Men from all over the world and the people determined to lighten the sailor’s pocket by any means possible. It was a tough area. With little forgiveness. And men like Grainger only made it worse. It took the evilest of men to rise to the top of such a world.

  Sighing heavily, she felt a need to move. It would be full dark soon and the grocer would have moved his wares. She was torn between hunger and fear. Both driving her emotions.

  Ann took a deep breath, the pungent smells of the river mixed with coal smoke and too many horses making her cough. What was she to do? There was an empty warehouse two streets over with a broken window. A place that would hide her. She need only find food to keep herself nourished.

  Safety won out. A person could survive a night without food. They could not survive under Grainger’s control.

  She remained in the shadows until the night had gotten dark enough to make her escape. The only light from the occasional lamplight shining out of a front window or the opening of a pub door.

  Her heart had only just begun to relax when a shadow appeared before her. A tall menacing shadow. She turned to run and found herself in the tight grip of a man behind her. Everything fell away as she realized she had lost.

  “You can’t say Grainger didn’t warn you,” the tall assailant said with a sneer.

  .o0o.

  The Fifth Duke of Bedford, Brock Powell smiled as he stepped into the pub. Leave it to Captain Jack Hardy to propose such a disreputable establishment. A sailor’s haunt just off the London docks.

  As he removed his hat and gloves, he realized with surprise that there was no one to hand them to. No place to hold his cane. He laughed to himself and smiled at the publican behind the tap. The short round man in a dirty apron nodded to the back, obviously aware that a person dressed such as himself belonged with the other Lords in the private booth. As always, an Englishman could spot class distinctions at a dozen paces.