The Dangerous Duke

The Dangerous Duke Chapters 1-3

CHAPTER ONE

London, March 1818

Fenella Hawke stared at the newspaper. The pages shook slightly in her trembling hands. The advertisement seemed like a gift from heaven and the answer to all her prayers, but would she be suitable, she wondered.

'Read it out loud, dear.' Her aunt's voice was calm and reassuring.

'Wanted: refined and respectable Gentlewoman to act as Companion to a Lady. Must be educated with good speaking voice. Reply with references to the following address.'

Fenella looked up at her aunt, who was knitting placidly by the fire. 'It's an address in Surrey!' she exclaimed. Amber, her aunt's aging spaniel lifted her glossy russet head and wagged her tail as if in approval.

'How delightful,' cooed her aunt. 'You've always liked the country air.'

'But Aunt Preston,' Fenella declared in despairing tones, 'how can you even think that I will obtain the position? I have no formal education; I have no friends who can vouch for my character and-worst of all-what if they question me about ... my family?' Her lips quivered and her voice broke into a small sob, which she hastily stifled. 'The shame of what happened to Papa. I could not even tell them my real name.' She dropped the newspaper and buried her face in her hands.

'And you won't have to do anything of the sort,' came the determined reply.

Fenella looked up at her aunt and blinked in surprise through the tears that threatened to drown her huge, black-lashed violet eyes. 'What do you mean?'

'Come and sit here and I will explain.'

Hastily dabbing at her nose with a rather soggy, crumpled handkerchief, Fenella gave a few more sniffs and then sank down next to her aunt on a small, embroidered footstool. She fondled Amber's silky ears as she looked questioningly at her aunt. Aunt Preston rolled up her knitting and stabbed the needles through the ball of wool. Then she turned to her niece and, as she shook her head in mock disapprobation, the ribbons on her widow's cap waggled alarmingly.

Aunt Preston's round, cheery face rather resembled a red, wrinkled apple. She smiled at her forlorn niece, with her blue eyes sparkling as she announced, 'You'll certainly do and I shall tell you why.'

She put her finger under Fenella's chin and turned her niece's face from one side to the other. 'Have you ever taken a good look at yourself in the mirror, my dear?' She pursued her lips as she scrutinised Fenella's face.

'No, Ma'am, not really,' Fenella replied. 'Papa was very against what he called Vanity. I was not encouraged to admire myself although he did say once or twice that I am pretty.'

'I'm not surprised at your Papa's behaviour,' her aunt said grimly. 'Otherwise you might have noticed how many men admire you. Moreover, the word is beautiful, not just pretty. Your dear Papa, my brother, was a fool with money and made a foolish marriage, but he knew what a jewel he had as a daughter.'

She sighed, picked up her knitting again and shook out the wool. 'He never gave you the life befitting a well-bred young girl. You should have had a home and proper schooling, with friends your own age. It wasn't right, making you and your Mama lead a life of following the drum.' She clicked the needles as if to emphasise her point.

'Aunt!' Fenella exclaimed angrily. She jumped up in a flurry of petticoats and flounced over to the window, almost stumbling over a surprised Amber. 'Please don't speak a word against Papa.'

'Fenella, I am not a blind idiot when it comes to my brother.' Her aunt's voice was sharp. 'What sort of man goes off to the Wars, marries a foreign woman, and then doesn't even have the decency to set her up in a proper establishment safely back home in London? No, he had to drag her and a babe around on his Peninsula campaigns until your poor Mama died of fever.'