A Duke's Decision (The Duke''s Club Book 4)

  A Duke’s Decision

  By

  G.L. Snodgrass

  Copyright 2020 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

  Shelley

  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)

  A Very British Lord (The Stafford Sisters 3)

  A Duke's Desire (The Duke’s Club 1)

  A Duke's Duty (The Duke's Club 2)

  A Duke’s Dilemma (The Duke’s Club 3)

  A Duke's Decision (The Duke's Club 4)

  Western Romance

  Lonely Valley Bride (High Sierra 1)

  High Desert Cowboy (High Sierra 2)

  Sweetwater Ridge (High Sierra 3)

  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)

  Our Secret (The Benson Brothers 1)

  Hidden Truth (The Benson Brothers 2)

  Deception (The Benson Brothers 3)

  A Duke’s Decision

  Chapter One

  The London Docks

  1808

  He could put it off no longer, Lord Greenville thought with a heavy sigh. A man’s word could not be ignored. Especially when given to a man on his deathbed.

  Turning, he took a deep breath as he watched his three friends depart. Each off into their own world and he into his.

  It had been a quite enjoyable meeting he thought as he tried to push aside the heavy depression threatening to return. The pub, more than adequate, Jack’s choice. The brandy and whiskey had flowed, and the conversation had been excellent. So different than Portugal. In addition, here no one was shooting at him, always an improvement.

  Lord Duncan Greenville, the second son of the Duke of Richmond, a Major in his Majesty’s Regiment, The Warwickshire Foote, folded his hands behind his back as he began the long walk back to his brother’s house and the carriage that would take him to Birmingham.

  His friends had offered him a ride, but he needed time … time to be alone. To just enjoy the night and try to hold onto this faint sense of peace.

  London, it seeped into a man’s soul. A steady rock in a world gone mad. The smell of the Thames hanging over everything. The brick buildings and yellow candlelight behind curtains. The creek of ship’s timbers at the wharf. Not his home, he had no home really, but London was perhaps the closest.

  Smiling to himself, he thought of his evening. Talking, joking. Yet, all the while in the back of his head were memories he couldn’t ignore and duties that could not be avoided. Yet, for a few hours, his friends had tried to lift his mood. The only men in the world he would allow close enough to do so.

  Would they ever meet again? he wondered. The four of them? Childhood friends. The Duke’s Club. Or, would the world destroy them? Deep in his gut, he wondered how it couldn’t. He was soon to return to the battlefields. Jack was off to fight the French at sea. Brock and Ian manning the benches of Parliament. Something deep in his gut told him it was doubtful that all four could survive without some loss. And if they did. Would they be the same?

  The cool night air was bracing. Refreshing. So different than Portugal. But then, everything was different. Here, he needn’t fear tomorrow’s battle. Here, he wasn’t plagued by a thousand questions and the need to make a thousand decisions. Each that might result in the death of men under his command. Men he was responsible for.

  No, here, life moved at a slower, more sedate pace.

  As he turned away from the dock area, two men stepped out from the shadows. Ruffians dressed in cheap clothes. Duncan’s heart jumped as he recognized the type. The same the world over. Brigands. Men who wanted to take, never build.

  A feeling of resigned sadness washed over him at the prospect of battle. Once again, he must destroy and kill. When would the world ever cease throwing such things at him? His hands clenched as he looked deep into their eyes. There would be no need for either sword nor pistol. No, these he would dispatch with his fists.

  The two men froze. Duncan almost laughed as he saw the understanding come into their eyes. They had perhaps chosen unwisely. They had made a grievous error for they had selected a warrior for their target. One who would not succumb meekly.

  He knew what they saw. A big man in the King’s uniform. A man who had seen too much of death and destruction to fear men such as these. But more, they saw it in his stare. The desire to hurt. He would enjoy disposing of them then walk away as if he had finished a meat pie and was going about his business.

  Without a word, the smaller of the two swallowed hard before he pulled at the arm of his bigger companion. Silently, both men slipped back into the shadows. Obviously, there were easier targets to attack. Duncan almost turned to follow them as a sense of frustration filled him.

  No. He couldn’t pursue. Not tonight. Tonight, he must do his duty. The guilt sitting at the bottom of his stomach demanded it.

  Sighing, he once again started for his brother’s house. The Duke’s home here in London. A house, not really a home. At least not his. Between school and the army, he had barely spent more than a week there at any given time.

  His brother John was more than willing to lend him his coach. Probably ecstatic at the thought of his younger brother and his constant sourness being gone for a few days.

  Later, in the early morning hours, Duncan scowled as he glanced out the carriage window into the dark. John would never understand. To John, the world revolved around his estates and the dozen other business interests. The war was far away and an inconvenience. Deep in his gut, Duncan believed that John blamed him for the war lasting so long. If he, John, had been involved, it would have been over long ago.

  Sighing, Duncan leaned back on the squabs and closed his eyes. Yes, he would sleep even though he knew what his dreams would bring. But he had learned that if he pushed it away too long, the dreams would be even worse.

  The crack of the coachman’s whip and the morning sun peaking around the carriage curtain pulled him up out of a restless sl
umber. The awareness that morning had arrived surprised him. He had made it through the night. Perhaps a rocking carriage was what he needed as a sense of freshness filled him.

  How long had it been since a full night’s rest? Months? Years? Taking a deep breath, he pulled back the curtain to find the carriage entering the outskirts of Birmingham. They had made excellent time, repeatedly changing horses at every stable for the last two days. Sitting back, he fought to hold off the nervousness pushing at his stomach. To hold back than sense of guilt that constantly resided deep in his heart.

  Instead, he tried to take in the city. People rushing to be somewhere fast. Barrows lining the cobbled streets, each filled with fruit and vegetables. A butcher lifting a squealing pig from the back of a wagon. A boy chasing another around a corner and into an alley.

  So typically, England. What he was fighting for, he reminded himself with a sad smile and a shake of his head.

  When the carriage reached the address, he had given the coachman, he balked as he squared his shoulders and prepared himself. He must face the consequences of his actions. Must deal with the results of his orders.

  A brown brick house. One of hundreds lining both sides of the street. Each flush against the next. Duncan glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand then up at the coachman. The man shrugged his shoulders. “I think this is it, M’lord.”

  Sighing to himself, Duncan forced himself to climb the steps and rap on the door.

  Nothing. No response. It was well past eight. Someone should be up and about.

  He rapped again, louder this time. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could get on with his life.

  “They ain’t being there,” a raspy voice called from the stoop next door. Duncan turned to find an ancient crone. One hand bent around a gnarled cane. “They tooken the girl when the missus died.”

  Duncan’s insides clenched tight. “Sergeant Winslow’s family?”

  The old woman nodded as she silently examined him from head to foot. A small sneer creasing her lips. “The King’s tax, they call it. This bloody war and what it takes.”

  He bit back a nasty retort. Instead he asked, “Mrs. Winslow has died I take it.”

  The woman coughed and spat a glob of flehm into the street. “They said it were the fever. But I think it were a broken heart. She weren’t the same when word came.”

  God, why was the world so damn cruel? he thought to himself as he again looked down at the piece of paper. “And Emily, the young daughter?”

  The woman scoffed. “Told you didn’t I, they done took her.”

  Biting his lip to stop from saying something he shouldn’t, he took a deep calming breath. “Who took her?”

  “Where they take all the orphans.” She said pointing up the street. “St. Mary’s and if she’s lucky they’ll find her work as a scullery maid. If not so lucky then it will be the factory floor for her. That or walking the streets.”

  His jaw clenched at the thought of Sergeant Winslow’s daughter becoming a harlot. No, that was never going to happen.

  It took a rather heated discussion with the orphanage vicar before he learned what had happened to the girl. The man had tried to convince him to come back after the young girl had returned from work. Duncan had lifted an eyebrow and informed the good pastor that British Lords waited for no man, so he wasn’t going to wait for a child. What is more, as a Major in His Majesty’s Army, he really had more important things to do.

  Finally, the vicar had informed him that he could find the girl at the Swindale textile factory only two streets over.

  Again, he thought he would be delayed by the factory’s manager, but the man was intelligent enough to know which battles to pick. Once he understood what was requested, the manager called in a young man and asked him to find Emily Winslow.

  “Take me to her,” Duncan instructed the young man. Something told him to inspect this situation personally.

  “What do you produce here?” he asked the young man.

  “Wool, Sir. For your lot,” the man replied. “They turn the cloth into pants for the army.”

  Duncan laughed to himself as he thought of the heavy wool trousers that seemed to captured every drop of sweat in the Portugal heat. How, by the end of the day, the pants felt like a man was walking around in a wet carpet.

  He and many of the officers had shifted to cotton soon after arriving in Portugal. But, the poor common soldier was stuck with the heavy wool.

  He was about to comment on it when the young man opened a door. Duncan was hit by a wave of noise and dust that tickled his nose. Pausing, he took it all in, a dozen machines rumbling so loudly it was hard to think. And this from a man who regularly stood next to a battery of his King’s cannons.

  Thick leather straps ran from machine to machine at a dizzy rate. The master belt ran through the wall to a waterwheel. Beneath the belts, a dozen different metal beasts draped in strings of wool clicked and clacked at unbelievable speed.

  “There she is,” the young man said as he pointed to the girl behind the third machine.

  Duncan held his breath as he watched the young girl’s fingers dance in and out of the loom. a wrong move and she’d lose more than one finger. Or worse, be pulled into the machine and lose an arm, if not her life.

  A cold shiver ran down his back as he forced himself to study the girl.

  Perhaps thirteen. Yes, if what he had been told was correct. Her hair and face were covered by a fine white dust. Rather plain. A thirteen-year-old girl on her own. Sergeant Winslow’s daughter, he reminded himself.

  He took a deep breath. This had not been in his plans. No, he had simply intended to ensure Mrs. Winslow was well taken care of. To perhaps provide some money. Most of all, to apologize for allowing her husband to be killed. But really, to try and lessen the guilt eating at him for still living while her husband was not.

  Now, after seeing this. The girl’s mother and father dead. No, this would never be allowed.

  “Get her,” he barked to the man next to him. The sooner the young girl was out from behind that machine the sooner he could begin to relax.

  “Sir,” the man stammered. “I … we can’t just …”

  “Be quiet,” Duncan said as he handed the man a gold coin. “And get her.”

  The young man frowned then shrugged before leaving to do as he was tasked.

  Duncan watched as the girl frowned at being interrupted then looked up to see him there. Her eyes grew very big as her face blanched. Even under all the white dust, he could see the shock she was going through.

  He took a deep breath as he waited for her. He had given Sergeant Winslow his word. The man had died saving his life, his entire command in fact. It was the least he could do. But how?

  The girl couldn’t stay here, no, that was an impossibility.

  As she approached, she kept looking up at him with a deep frown. Tall for her age he thought. With dull brown hair, but large eyes that seemed to capture everything around her. Like a frightened fawn on the lookout for new dangers.

  When she arrived, she dropped into a curtsy. He almost smiled. Even in her drab gray dress and cap, both covered in dust and grit, the girl performed a crisp dip that would have been admired by more than one fine lady.

  “Miss Winslow,” he said with a slight dip of his head. “I am Major Greenville.” He had to almost yell to be heard over the pounding machines.

  She gasped as her eyes grew even bigger. “My Papa’s commander? Was there a mistake? Is he still alive?”

  Duncan winced inside. “No, I am sorry. That unfortunately is not the case.”

  The girl seemed to slump in on herself. Oh, how she must have hoped and prayed that these last six months had been but a nightmare and he was here to tell her it was all untrue. Instead, he had again destroyed her hopes.

  “You are to come with me,” he said.

  Her brow furrowed as she studied him for a long moment then nodded, “Yes Sir.”

  Chapter Two
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br />   Emily Winslow’s heart pounded in her chest as she watched the tall officer turn and march off the factory floor. Mr. Sanders shrugged his shoulders then pointed that she should follow. Could this really be happening? Was she to be excused from the floor? Who would do her work? Would they be mad at her for leaving?

  No, they couldn’t. Major Greenville had said she was to go with him. Papa had always said how people just naturally did what the Major told them to do.

  Lifting her hem, she hurried after the man before he became upset with her. After they had passed through the offices and out onto the street, she gasped to see a fine carriage with a family crest on its door.

  He opened the carriage door, then held out a hand to help her up. Her breath stopped. When he had said she was to go with him, she had assumed he had wanted to talk away from the noisy floor. But no. He intended to take her somewhere.

  Pulling back, she paused and looked up at him. Tall, dashing, everything a British Officer should be. Young for his rank according to Papa. But as he had explained in his letters the man was a born soldier. And had been forced into command too young.

  Could this really be the Major Greenville her Papa had talked about? How was she to know?

  “Come, girl,” he said, “I don’t have all day.”

  She continued to frown as she frantically tried to understand what she should do. She was old enough to know what strange men did to girls. Yet, this was her father’s commander. His letters had been filled with admiration and pride in the man. It was impossible to imagine her father’s Major ever hurting her. Still, she balked until she thought of her future life. What was laid out before her? Drudgery in the factory until she became too injured to work. She’d be denied the orphanage next year and be out on her own.

  It would either be the streets, or if she was lucky, married to some old man in need of a free cook and bed partner.

  This might be a mistake, but her tummy told her it wasn’t. Taking a deep breath, she took his hand and stepped up into the carriage. The plush velvet cushions. The polished wood. The comforting smell of pipe tobacco. It was as if she had stepped into Cinderella’s carriage. She bit her lip as she slid into the far corner.