Heiress in Red Silk, page 1
PRAISE FOR MADELINE HUNTER
Praise for HEIRESS FOR HIRE
“[A] smart, satisfying Regency romance . . . Hunter gives the well-matched pair plenty of ground to cover with a wide cast of memorable suspects, and their clever detective work is a consistent pleasure. The plot moves apace, but Chase and Minerva’s relationship is treated patiently, with their attraction simmering alongside mutual respect, and their eventual love scenes are sensitively rendered. Romance readers craving substantive mystery and intelligent leads will savor this pitch-perfect love story.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“An unexpected heiress finds love with the nephew of her benefactor as they both investigate the death that brought them together . . . Their banter is sharp and exciting.”
—Kirkus
“It’s no mystery why RITA Award–winning Hunter (Never Deny a Duke, 2019) continues to be a favorite of discerning historical-romance readers. And the literary proof in the pudding is this launch of her new Duke’s Heiress series, which delivers a superbly sexy love story deftly dovetailed with a well-crafted, mystery-spiked plot, and graced with a cast of endlessly amusing characters.”
—Booklist
Praise for NEVER DENY A DUKE
“Hunter’s final Decadent Dukes Society Regency entices with a strong heroine who refuses to be impressed by the hero’s stuffy manners . . . Readers who like slow-simmering romance will find much to love about these intelligent, forthright characters and their cautious journey towards love.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The originality of Hunter’s plotting and the skill with which she executes it are exemplary. These, combined with her usual superb flair for crafting compelling characters, make this a must-read for fans of sexy Regency-set historicals.”
—Booklist
Praise for A DEVIL OF A DUKE
“Scintillating love scenes are plentiful in this page-turning tale, which is enhanced by a cast of memorable characters and smart, witty protagonists.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“With a delectable blend of clever ripostes, scorching sensuality, and masterly plotting, Hunter’s latest sees the most infamous of the Decadent Dukes fall head over heels in a satisfying romantic adventure.”
—Library Journal
Zebra Books by Madeline Hunter
Decadent Dukes Society series:
The Most Dangerous Duke in London
A Devil of a Duke
Never Deny a Duke
A Duke’s Heiress Romance series:
Heiress for Hire
Heiress in Red Silk
Heiress in Red Silk
MADELINE HUNTER.
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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
Teaser chapter
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2021 by Madeline Hunter
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-4999-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-5000-1 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 1-4201-5000-6 (eBook)
For my sons Thomas and Joseph
Chapter One
Eccentricity ran through the Radnor family much like an orange thread weaving in and out of a tapestry. Some members showed none of the color, while others were ablaze with it. Kevin Radnor was still a young man, so it remained to be seen how much the orange would dominate his section of the tapestry.
He already displayed some evidence of the trait that so marked his father and his uncle. When a subject captured his attention, he investigated it thoroughly with a notable singlemindedness. Thus, at not yet thirty years of age, he had acquired an extraordinary expertise in fencing, mechanics, engineering, moths, ancient Greek, chemistry, and carnal sensuality.
It was the last of those investigations that brought him in late March to a brothel in the neighborhood of Portman Square. His attention had been distracted of late by a business problem he faced, and only pleasure might relieve his brooding. The house he visited was known for women who had joined their profession out of enthusiasm, not desperation. That absolved his conscience of furthering the ruin of some poor female, and also appealed to him because with enthusiasm came both invention and joy.
He sat stripped to the waist in the chamber of a prostitute who used the name Beatrice while the pretty, red-haired woman slowly removed her own garments. Already his concerns had receded, especially because Beatrice turned disrobing into an art. At the moment, down to her chemise and hose, she was bending over to roll down one stocking. Her pose revealed her round, plump bottom which, Kevin noticed, had been rouged along the cleft.
A scratch at the door caught Beatrice just after she pulled off the stocking.
“I’ve a gentleman here,” Beatrice called out.
“I only wanted you to know that it has come. The new bonnet,” a muffled woman’s voice said. “It is so lovely.”
Beatrice began on the other stocking, but Kevin could see that the news of the bonnet had most of her attention now.
“Go and see it,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
She skipped over to him and gave him a kiss. Then she hurried to the door and opened it halfway.
“See?” the other woman said.
“Oh my, she outdid herself this time,” Beatrice said. “Look at that ribbon and how intricate she wove it.”
“Rosamund is the best,” her friend said.
Rosamund. The name might have been shouted, it garnered Kevin’s attention so thoroughly. He stood and joined the women at the door. “I have a fancy for pretty bonnets,” he said. “Let me see it.”
The bonnet was indeed handsome, with blues and pinks appropriate for the coming spring. Some cream cloth had been neatly sewn to cover the high crown, and the ribbons around its base showed painstaking effort to create little rosettes.
He admired the bonnet, but it was the hat box on the floor of the corridor that interested him much more. He lifted it, so the bonnet might return to its home. A label pasted to its side carried the words Jameson’s Millinery, Richmond.
He kept his expression impassive, but as soon as the door closed, he strode to the chair and picked up his shirt.
“What?” Beatrice exclaimed. “I thought—”
“I suddenly remember I must attend to something this evening. Do not worry, I will pay Mrs. Darling all the same.”
Beatrice pouted. “I was expecting some fun. You are one of my favorites.”
“As you are one of mine. Another night, however.”
Fifteen minutes later, Kevin pulled up his cantering horse in front of a house on Brook Street in Mayfair. He tied his mount to a post, then bounded to the door. When it opened, he pushed past the servant and ran up the stairs, ignoring the bleating objections sounding behind him.
He barged through an apartment, throwing open doors until he entered the dimly lit bedchamber.
A woman cried out in shock.
“Hell, Kevin,” a man yelled.
That brought him up short. Two pairs of eyes glared at him from the bed. The woman’s peered over the edge of a sheet pulled up to her nose. “Honestly, Chase, sometimes your family is not to be borne,” she said furiously.
“My sincere apologies, Minerva. Chase. Truly. Only I have found her. I have finally found Rosamund Jameson.”
* * *
Rosamund hoped the lady hovering outside the window of her shop would enter. She looked to be of quality, judging by the blue, woolen pelisse that fit her as only the best-made clothes did. Her bonnet had cost a good penny too, alt
But unfortunately the lady walked away, and Rosamund returned her attention to Mrs. Grimley, who had decided to purchase one of Jameson’s Millinery’s last remaining winter hats. Mrs. Grimley had demanded a lower price because the season was over, and Rosamund had agreed. The hat sported some fur, an indulgence she regretted. That fur had been admired by her patrons, but it made the cost too high for her clientele. That meant her own money had sat in that hat all winter.
“Can I interest you in commissioning a bonnet for the spring garden parties?” she asked while she placed the hat into one of her special boxes. They cost more than she liked, but all the good milliners used them, and her ambitions required she swallow the expense. She had enjoyed choosing the pasteboard with its purple hue that contrasted nicely with her cream, printed label.
“I will think on it,” Mrs. Grimley said. “I am traveling up to London and will be visiting shops there with my sister, but I may still have need of something when I return.”
Rosamund smiled, but her heart sank. She would have never been able to open this shop in London and was grateful that Richmond afforded her the opportunity to start her business. Richmond was very close to London, however, and her best patrons gave her one commission to every five they left in London. One day she would have a fine shop in Mayfair that could charge double what she did in Richmond, but she needed to take matters one step at a time.
“I will look forward to creating a masterpiece for you, should you have that need.” She tied the cord over the top of the box and handed it to Mrs. Grimley. “I’ll have them caps you wanted in a day or so and will send them to your home. They be almost finished.”
She did not find much artistic fun in caps, but she sewed a great many of them. Even her wealthiest patrons felt there was no need to pay London prices for such utilitarian items. Caps kept her shop alive, in fact. That and the commissions that came from London, from old friends like Beatrice.
She thought about the bonnet she had sent there two weeks ago, and pictured Beatrice wearing it in the park. She had invented a new way to make grosgrain rosettes for it, a method she would not share with anyone else. Perhaps one day fine ladies would seek her out in London because of those rosettes.
Mrs. Grimley took her leave. Rosamund tidied up the counter, then turned to rearrange some trim on a shelf. She always let the ends fall out of their boxes and baskets, reflecting the light to show off their color. She used them as lures, hanging down to catch the eye of wealthy fish swimming by.
She was dusting the looking glass set near the window, the one on the table where she fitted hats and bonnets to patrons, when she noticed the lady in the blue pelisse was peering once more through the shop’s window. Rosamund smiled while she dusted, to encourage her to enter.
Enter she did. She paused inside the door, her gaze taking in the shop, moving from the bonnets to the shelves and counter, and finally resting on Rosamund. She looked Rosamund up and down, then stepped closer. “Are you Rosamund Jameson? Did you of late live on Warwick Street in London?”
“Yes. That be me.”
The lady fished a card out of her reticule. “My name is Minerva Radnor. I have been looking for you.”
Rosamund read the card. Hepplewhite’s Office of Discreet Inquiries. “It says here your name is Minerva Hepplewhite.”
“I married, but the office remains in my given name.”
“I think you did not come here because you want a new hat.”
Mrs. Radnor smiled. Her dark eyes brightened. “No, although yours look to be very nice. I have been trying for many months to find you and tell you about a legacy you have received. A substantial legacy.”
* * *
“You do not need to close your shop,” Mrs. Radnor said. “I will wait if someone enters and needs attention.”
“As if I could talk to a patron now.” Rosamund drew the curtains over the window and locked the door. “I can barely breathe.”
“Perhaps some medicinal spirits . . . ?”
Rosamund looked over her shoulder at her guest. “I don’t be needing spirits. Just an explanation . . .”
“Of course.” Mrs. Radnor moved a second chair to the table with the looking glass, so that they could both sit.
“Who would leave me this . . . legacy?”
“The Duke of Hollinburgh.” Mrs. Radnor looked intently at Rosamund. “Did you know him?”
Rosamund took a moment to absorb this astonishing news while she collected her wits. “I was acquainted with him. We had but one conversation.” She realized why Mrs. Radnor was looking at her so closely. “We were not lovers. It was nothing like that, if you be thinking that way.”
“I am not thinking any way. You see, he also left me a legacy. We were not lovers either. In fact, we had never met. I am fascinated that you and he spoke at least once.”
“It wasn’t a long talk, but he learned something about me.” She had confided too much, perhaps, but that conversation had occurred when she was weary and only because he had shown kindness to a friend of hers that he hardly knew. Rosamund had known who he was, and was surprised how easy it was to chat with him. “He was so very kind. He gave me a purse that held ten guineas. That was how I was able to open this shop.”
Mrs. Radnor looked around the shop again. “When did this happen? The only address given in the will was the street in London, but no one there knew of you.”
“I lived there for a mite bit over a year. I took it over from a woman I knew, and I confess we did not inform the owner because he might have increased the rent if we did. I kept to myself as a result. I lived there while I worked at a millinery shop in the City, learning what I could about accounts and finding sources for fabrics, notions, and such. It takes more than a dream to make a go of something like this.”
“And you figured out what it took and set about obtaining it.”
“Something like that. Then I moved here, because letting a place in Richmond would be much less, and there weren’t so much competition.”
“Where were you when you met the duke?”
Rosamund’s back stiffened. “Is it a requirement of receiving the legacy for me to give my whole history?” She regretted how snappish she sounded.
Mrs. Radnor seemed not to notice. “Goodness no. I, for one, was most grateful for that. I did not mean to pry.” She removed two more cards from her reticule. “Here is the solicitor you must see to obtain the inheritance. This is my personal card. We are sisters of a sort, aren’t we, as two women to whom the late duke gave unexpected gifts? When you come up to Town, please call on me if I can aid you in any way. In fact, if you write to me when you are coming, I will invite you to stay with me.”
Rosamund took the cards with unsteady fingers.
“Are you in such shock that you are not even curious about the amount of the legacy?” her guest asked gently.
“Whatever it be will be more than I’ve got now.” Maybe it would be enough to open that London shop she dreamed of, though. Or even to help with her sister’s future. Those ideas gave her thinking firmer legs. “It would be nice to know if it comes close to a hundred. That would go far with some plans I have.”
“It is a good deal more than that, Miss Jameson. You have inherited many thousands of pounds.”
Thousands of pounds. Rosamund had to concentrate on breathing in order to get any air inside her body.
“Furthermore, there is a business in which the duke was a half owner. He left his half to you.”
