Desire and Deceit [bxb]

5. Resemblance

The duke's POV, for a change.

...

Duke Vincent Presley, fifth duke of Doncaster was, without a single doubt, a man of honour.

He was not someone who throws out flowery promises like dust. He liked to keep his word. He did not dabble in gamble or bribery, and he considered himself to be a good, simple man. He respected everyone, below his station or not, a servant or a lord. Having no family in his huge empty castle, he considered his staff a close substitute.

He was also a widower of three years.

The fourth duke had been none other than his late husband. So, dukedom had not been his birthright, and he never took it for granted. He was a duke, not by choice, but by circumstances.

He had also never pursued anyone before.

Howard Presley, better known as the Fourth Duke of Doncaster, was the love of his life, and he always will be, even six feet deep under the ground. They had met when he was merely twenty and two, fresh out of Oxford and trying to keep up with his father who was the Marquis of Ampleforth. He was his father's heir, a lord in his own rights but for all his noble breeding and upbringing, he had lost his words when he laid eyes on the then recently made Duke of Doncaster.

A tall, broad, blond. That was the only three features he could make out on first sight, before the duke had caught his eye and he had looked away, ashamed. After that, he did not need to do anything.

They had married within two months of meeting each other. Vincent had become the Duke Consort, and he had thought that life was perfect. It could not possibly get any better than that. Howard ruled the dukedom, and Vincent reigned over the people, ever the crowd's favourite. It was pure bliss for them.

And then, after ten years of the happiest moments of his life, Vincent became a widower at the age of thirty and two, when Duke Howard led an army to war with Spain and never came back. Vincent had been at the age as what Howard had been when they had first met. Thirty and two.

It had taken him a whole month to venture out of his room to see the sunlight. It had taken him a whole year of mourning to leave the castle of his misery and greet the world. And when he had, he was crowned the Duke of Doncaster, a constant painful reminder that his lover was dead.

He had been a widower of two years when everyone around him started pestering him to remarry, to continue the bloodline, to continue the heritage, to continue the good that his husband had done, and not unravel the martyr's hard work in his piteous state.

And he ignored them all. The dukedom could go to hell, the title held no value to him if the person it rightfully belonged to was no more behind it. The duchy would die with him, miserable and empty with no heir, he had decided.

Until.

Until he went to that wretched Mayweather ball and laid eyes on Alvin Frazier.

If there were miracles that existed, they did in Mister Alvin Frazier, he was sure. The man was exact replica of Howard Presley and there was no mistake about it. Well, exact replica was an exaggeration but it was close enough. Alvin was only younger, narrower and shorter.

But those eyes. Those eyes that were the palest hue of blue. With hair so blond, Alvin looked like a younger, less kind version of his late lover. Because where Howard's eyes had always been soft with compassion for everyone around him, Alvin's eyes glowed with a spark of determination. It wasn't love at first sight, but rather desire that burned his body from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair.

A couple of hushed enquiries and sceptical looks and not-so-concerned warnings later, he knew what he had to do.

A dance with the young man had been enlightening, to say the least. He found the old saying 'appearances can be deceiving' to be truer than ever. Alvin was nothing like his Howard, as far as personality and character went. He was brash, he did not care about keeping good appearances, and he was sceptical of Vincent's advances to a fault. Vincent had never met a man like him before. But he had his late husband's face, and he would have to do.