The Duchess Read online

  Books by Jude Deveraux

  The Velvet Promise

  Highland Velvet

  Velvet Song

  Velvet Angel

  Sweetbriar

  Counterfeit Lady

  Lost Lady

  River Lady

  Twin of Fire

  Twin of Ice

  The Temptress

  The Raider

  The Princess

  The Awakening

  The Maiden

  The Taming

  The Conquest

  A Knight in Shining Armor

  Wishes

  Mountain Laurel

  The Duchess

  Eternity

  Sweet Liar

  The Invitation

  Remembrance

  The Heiress

  Legend

  An Angel for Emily

  The Blessing

  High Tide

  Temptation

  The Summerhouse

  The Mulberry Tree

  Forever…

  Wild Orchids

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Pocket Star Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1991 by Deveraux Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-5921-0

  POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Chapter One

  London

  1883

  Miss Claire Willoughby fell in love with Harry, the Eleventh Duke of MacArran, the first time she saw him—as did every other woman in the drawing room. But it wasn’t just the incredible beauty of the man that made Claire love him. It wasn’t his shoulders, which were the width of a garden-hoe handle, or his thick blond hair and brilliant blue eyes. Nor was it his legs, well muscled from years of riding unruly horses, and exposed to their best advantage beneath the brilliant green kilt. No, it wasn’t what she saw that made her sway on her feet: it was what she heard.

  At the sight of the kilt, with the silver-topped sporran hanging from his waist, the ivory-handled dirk in his heavy sock, the tartan thrown over one shoulder and pinned with the laird’s badge, she heard a lone man playing the bagpipes. She heard the wind across the fields of heather and the drone of the pipes. She heard the guns of Culloden and the cries of the widows as they grieved for their fallen men. She heard the shouts of joy at victory; the silence of misery at defeat. She heard the sound of hope at the rise of Bonnie Prince Charlie and heard the despair when he was defeated. She heard the treachery of the Campbells, and she heard the long, long wail of pain of the Scots in their centuries-old battle against the English.

  All the sounds echoed in her head as she watched Harry, this man descended from generations of MacArran lairds, walk across the room. The other women saw only an incredibly handsome, dashing young man, but Claire looked beyond that and saw what she heard. She could imagine this blond giant sitting at the head of a heavy oak table, a silver goblet in his hand, flickering firelight reflected on his face as he called on his men to follow him. Here was a leader of men.

  What Harry saw was a short, bosomy young American woman who was pretty, true, but what made her almost beautiful was the expression on her face. She had a look of eagerness, a look of interest in all things and everyone. When she looked at Harry he felt that he was the only one on earth worth listening to. There was curiosity and intelligence in her big brown eyes. Her small, trim body moved quickly, and she walked with a purposefulness that most women didn’t possess.

  Harry quickly came to like the fact that Claire was a girl of action. She couldn’t sit still even for a moment and always wanted to go places and see things. Claire suggested outings and ordered the lunch and all Harry and his friends had to do was show up. She made him laugh and she entertained him. Sometimes she talked too much about Scotland’s history, but he found it highly amusing that recounting some battle that had taken place over a hundred years ago could bring tears to her eyes. There seemed to be a hundred dead men whom she considered heroic figures, who she said had led lives of great bravery and importance. When she talked of these men, her eyes turned dreamy and unfocused—so Harry spent that time contemplating her lovely bosom.

  It was when she mentioned that Harry’s dead brother was one of her heroes that he sucked a cherry pit down his windpipe and nearly choked to death. Miss Claire Willoughby, never at a loss for action, pushed him over a chair so his belly slammed into the back of it, then she hit him between the shoulder blades so hard the pit flew across the drawing room to land with a splash in the punch bowl.

  It was that action that made Harry know Claire was right for the job. Bramley House needed a mistress who could think and react quickly. And all of Harry’s houses needed a mistress who had Claire’s money.

  As for Claire, she was stunned at having a Scottish duke pay attention to her. When she was in Harry’s presence, she could hardly breathe. She listened to him and looked at him and smiled at him. She said what she hoped he wanted to hear and did what she hoped he wanted her to do. And when she was out of his sight, she thought about him and sighed.

  Claire’s mother was beside herself with delight when she found out that her daughter was pining for a man who was a duke. “But he’s also the laird of Clan MacArran,” Claire said, but that meant nothing to her mother.

  Arva Willoughby had once been a great beauty and now she didn’t seem to notice that her flesh bulged above and below her corset. She wasn’t going to allow her daughter, who was much too studious for Arva’s taste, to miss an opportunity such as this. Arva did everything in her power to instruct her daughter in the art of winning a man.

  For one thing, Arva didn’t allow the young people to spend time alone together. Arva said that a man’s interest was piqued by absence, not by seeing him every day. She said that a woman saw enough of her husband after they were married, she didn’t need to see him before the marriage too.

  “Mother,” Claire said, exasperation in her voice. “The duke has not asked me to marry him and how do I know if I want to marry him if I don’t get to know him?”

  As usual, Arva had an answer for everything. “You may think you know about life because you’ve spent your few years with your nose in a book, but you know nothing whatever about men and women.”

  Claire was too happy to allow her mother’s pessimism to upset her. She smiled and thought of Harry and his ancestors striding across the Scottish Highlands.

  It was only after she’d known Harry for over a month that Claire began to have doubts. “Mother, Harry and I never seem to have anything to talk about. He listens to me and smiles at me, but he never comments on what I say. Sometimes I think His Grace doesn’t even know who Bonnie Prince Charlie is.”

  “My dear child, whatever are you complaining about? That young man is divine looking and he’s a duke. What more could you want?”

  “Someone to talk—”

  “Hah!” Arva snorted. “What does conversation matter in a marriage? After the first year you never so much as say more than pass the butter, and if you have good servants you don’t need to say that much. Your father and I haven’t spoken to each other in years and we love each other madly.”

  Claire looked down at her book.