Wedded to the Scarred Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Novel, page 1
WEDDED TO THE SCARRED DUKE
A STEAMY HISTORICAL REGENCY ROMANCE NOVEL
DARING DUKES
BOOK FOUR
SALLY VIXEN
CONTENTS
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Before You Start Reading…
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
Preview: Wedded to the Ruthless Duke
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Also by Sally Vixen
About the Author
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ABOUT THE BOOK
“Do not tempt me, angel. It will be your undoing.”
Desperate to escape an unwanted wedding, Lady Diana does the unthinkable: she flees...Only to end up in the Scarred Duke's estate...and right into his arms.
Brooding Duke Aaron has recently returned from war. Still tormented by his past, he has vowed never to claim a bride. But he can't deny sweet Diana his protection...Or the fact that he burns for her.
So he marries her, on one condition: they must lead separate lives. It's the only way to protect her from the Beast within...For if he snaps, he just might devour her.
BEFORE YOU START READING…
Before you start reading...
I bet you’re curious about Aaron’s past, and how he re-entered society after war…Only for his friend to drag him to the opera where he first saw Diana. Here’s a Prequel Chapter that will help you picture my story and these two characters better in your mind.
Many of my readers requested it and that's why I am giving it away for free! I believe you will LOVE IT!
It’s not mandatory to read it, but it will be really helpful if it's your first time with this book.
Read the beginning of the their story here.
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CHAPTER 1
Fingers and lips sticky with marmalade, Diana Milton smiled as she ate her morning toast and hummed to herself. It was the same thing she ate every morning, but today it tasted particularly special, the preserved oranges perfectly balanced between sweet and bitter.
Her brother Benjamin looked at her strangely. “You seem very cheerful this morning.”
“Do I?” Diana blushed, but it couldn’t diminish the grin that had her cheeks aching.
“I don’t know whether to be worried or intrigued,” Benjamin replied. “What has you smiling like that?”
Diana took a sip of lukewarm tea in a vain attempt to gather herself and folded her napkin a few times to calm down, but excitement ran too rampant in her veins. If she didn’t let it out, she was fairly certain she would burst.
“I have just begun reading a new periodical,” she blurted out, wincing at the high pitch of her voice. She hadn’t meant to be so loud. “It is absolutely thrilling. I doubt I’ve ever read anything so daring and wonderful in all my life. It puts everything I have read before now to shame, and—”
“No one cares a fig about what you read, Diana,” her father cut in, bending down the corner of his newspaper so he could shoot her a cold look.
Marcus Milton, the Earl of Sorshire, rarely skipped a morning without reminding his daughter of her place.
It doesn’t matter to any of you that one of my dearest friends wrote it, and is earning more money, all by herself, than you could ever imagine.
Diana would never have said as much to her parents. She knew better than that. The only arguments and outbursts she ever had with them were in the safety of her own mind, where she would always be certain to win. In reality, however, she bowed her head and nodded and accepted their words without any argument.
Her mother, Sandra, gingerly nibbled on a raspberry pastry and nodded politely. She swallowed the tiny mouthful before adding, “Our sole interest is in your wedding, dear.”
“Wedding? What wedding?” Diana’s eyes went wide in alarm.
She squirmed in her seat, glancing over at Benjamin to see if he knew what their parents were talking about. He had returned to devouring his eggs with great enthusiasm, shoveling them into his mouth by the forkful.
At the tender age of three-and-ten, on the cusp of manhood, he likely had a thousand other things on his mind, and none were the struggles of his older sister.
“Exactly,” her mother said with a heavy sigh.
“Pardon?”
Sandra shook her head as if she were having to repeat herself to the town idiot. “Exactly. What wedding.” She brushed pastry crumbs from her slender fingers. “All of your wallflower friends are married, and to dukes no less. You are being left behind. You will become the wall if you continue the way you are, concentrating all of your efforts on reading and other such useless pastimes.”
“What your mother is trying to say,” Marcus interjected, “is what on earth are you waiting for? You are not getting any younger, Diana. How old are you now? Nine-and-ten?”
That stung. To hide her hurt, Diana held her teacup to her lips and pretended to sip, though there was nothing left in the cup.
“She is twenty,” Sandra corrected with a tight smile.
That stung twice as much. Her father made no secret of preferring Benjamin, being the heir to the earldom of Sorshire and all, but her mother should have known how old her only daughter was.
“I am one-and-twenty,” Diana said quietly. “Almost two-and-twenty.”
Marcus let his newspaper fall onto the table, his expression horrified. “Impossible.”
“It is the truth.”
Benjamin paused in his decimation of the coddled eggs. “She’s right, Father. She’ll be two-and-twenty in a few months.”
“How could you have allowed this to happen?” Marcus looked to his wife for answers. “Nearly two-and-twenty and not yet married? I shall be the laughingstock of the club! Why, all six of Lord Bexford’s daughters are married, and the eldest is not yet five-and-twenty!”
Flushing with the heat of her shame, Diana dropped her gaze to her lap and held onto the teacup as if it could somehow transport her to another place. She’d once read a story about a magical lamp in a treasured French collection called Les Mille et Une Nuits, but no genie seemed inclined to appear to grant her wish to be anywhere else.
“Lord Bexford’s daughters are plain,” Benjamin interrupted, snorting a laugh. “None of them are married to peers either. Even I know that Diana cannot marry someone ordinary. It’s either a prince or nothing. Isn’t that right, Sister?”
Despite his youthful preoccupations, Diana wished she could appreciate her brother’s leaping to her defense, but she had a feeling he was just making things worse. Her parents would accuse her of being a silly dreamer, and she would agree, and they would all finish breakfast in an awkward mood.
“As lovely as your sister is,” Sandra replied, “she is hardly a jewel in the crown of Society either. She was when she debuted, but the years are not kind to unmarried women. The sooner a lady is wed, the longer her beauty lasts—everyone knows that.”
Everyone knows that to be the most ridiculous of lies, you mean.
Diana held her tongue, the heat of her embarrassment reaching her eyes. Tears threatened, but she couldn’t allow herself to cry and risk her face swelling up and pinkening. It was unbecoming of a lady, even in her own home.
“You have until the end of the Season,” Marcus said firmly, shuffling his paper.
Diana lifted her gaze, her flesh hot and prickly beneath her gown. “For what?”
“Don’t be obtuse.” The newspaper quivered as Marcus shook his head. “You have until the end of the Season to choose someone. If you don’t, I shall choose for you.”
Sandra tore off another corner of her raspberry pastry and smiled. “This will be for your own good, dear.” She popped the delicacy into her mouth as though brooking no response or argument.
Frowning, Benjamin looked at Diana, and she looked back. Perhaps he saw a glimpse of his future. Of course, he would be granted more leniency when it came to marriage, merely because he was born a male.
“She just needs more time,” he said shyly.
Marcus sniffed. “There is no more time. She has run out of it.”
Not wanting her brother’s defense of her to go to waste, Diana sat up straighter in her chair and set her teacup down. Her heart thundered wildly in her chest, her eyes pulsing with the strain of holding back her tears. But she had begun the morning uncharacteristically, she planned to end it the same way.
“So, you know what is best for me and I don’t? You would truly force my hand in this when, not a moment ago, you proved you know nothing about me, not even my age?” she asked sharply, in a voice far louder than one to which she was accustomed.
Her father lowered his paper. His fierce glare struck her from across the top of the publication, though it was her mother who spoke.
“If you cannot be sensible, Diana, I suggest you retire to your room and remain there until it is time for the opera.”
Her father returned to reading his paper. Benjamin returned to his eggs with an apologetic shrug, while her mother stared at her coldly, in anticipation of her departure.
It appeared as though any argument was over before it had even begun.
Diana pushed back her chair and left, waiting until she was out of the breakfast room before she burst into tears.
“Outrageous!” Celia cried, clicking her tongue. “I am rarely speechless, but, my goodness, I would turn the air blue if I really said what I wish to say. If you are considered to be on the shelf at one-and-twenty, what does that make me? I must be a decrepit husk in their eyes, though I can assure you that the gentlemen don’t think that in the slightest.”
There were four souls in Violet and Xander’s carriage, all headed toward the opera. Violet and Xander themselves, her sister Celia, and Diana. Violet had immediately noticed that there was something amiss with Diana, demanding an explanation. After some coaxing, Diana had finally told her woeful tale to her small audience.
Violet snatched Xander’s handkerchief from his tailcoat pocket, ignoring his disapproving frown, and passed it to Diana. “Are you certain they mean it, or does it feel like an empty threat?”
“Oh, they mean it,” Diana replied bitterly.
She dabbed at her eyes, wishing she wasn’t so prone to tears when she felt downtrodden. Her friends had once teased her that she was like Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, after they had gone to see the play together at Drury Lane. Quoting the line, “How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears: If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers,” Diana had not been able to deny the similarity. Celia, of course, was more like Hermia—a fiery, bold beauty who could have any gentleman she desired.
Perhaps if I was more like her…
“I am tired of following orders. My tongue must be chewed to bits for all the years I have bitten it,” Diana said, twisting the handkerchief in her hands. “Celia, I think… I think it is time for me to do my dare.”
Celia clapped her gloved palms together, delighted. “Do you remember what it was?”
“I brought it with me.” With her heart in her throat, Diana drew the little piece of paper out of her reticule. “But I would know it without the prompt.”
Violet reached out, covering Diana’s hand with her own. “Do you think this is wise? I don’t even know what it says, but my sister’s dares are—”
“The greatest thing that ever happened to you, sweet wallflowers?” Celia interrupted with a sly grin.
Violet raised an eyebrow. “Grace’s dare very nearly ended in her ruination.”
“Nearly, but it didn’t. Kissing Philip was the best decision Grace had ever made, though not my first choice or my last either, and she likely wouldn’t be married or have been kissed if not for my supposed wickedness.” Celia seemed pleased with herself, her chest puffed out with pride.
Chuckling wryly, Violet rolled her eyes.
“What?” Celia said, feigning offense. “It’s true. Are they not sickeningly happy now?”
Violet shrugged in agreement and leaned into her husband, who would deny her nothing, not even his handkerchief.
“Exactly. There’s a method to the madness, so I suggest you put faith in it,” Celia said, grinning.
Clearing her dry throat, Diana managed a smile. “I was anxious because of Grace, but my dare is far less likely to throw me into a scandal. And if I am to reclaim some sense of autonomy, I must be bold. So, I won’t shy away from this dare.”
“Which is?” Violet prompted, determined to believe in Celia’s madness, after all.
Diana gulped. “Show off your talent to as many people as possible.”
“Luckily, I didn’t give myself a dare like that,” Celia said with a wink. “I’d be chased out of the country if I had received that one.”
Diana blushed furiously, just able to imagine what Celia was referring to. Violet, on the other hand, wasted no time giving Celia a light smack on the arm, muttering, “That you have not been chased out of the country already will always be a mystery to me.”
“And shall remain so,” Celia teased.
Diana waited until their banter had ceased before attempting to speak again, the dare crumpled tightly in her hand as her resolve cracked a little. “I… um… thought I could play the pianoforte for you all at the next ball we attend. Bold enough but easily done.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Celia cried, the emerald-green feathers in her hair shaking along with her head and forefinger. “That doesn’t even remotely count as showing off, nor would that be in front of many people.”
Diana stiffened. Perhaps she didn’t want to be a lady who defied orders and propriety, after all. She could see the mischievous cogs turning in Celia’s head, and her mind began to race in tandem, conjuring up the worst possible scenarios.
I should have let the feeling pass!
Diana cursed herself, fumbling for an excuse to refuse the instructions that Celia hadn’t yet given.
“I have just the idea,” Celia declared a moment later. “Yes, I know exactly what you must do… and it shall be sooner than you think. Tonight, in fact.”
CHAPTER 2
“Icannot do this,” Diana wheezed, pressing her hand to her abdomen. “Mercy, I cannot do it.”
The tight blue-silk bodice, tighter corset and ruffled petticoats and voluminous skirts of the extravagant gown did nothing to ease her nerves as she paced back and forth in the darkness of the wings. The rustle of the unforgiving fabric was like a horde of birds flapping around her, heralding an omen.
In the warren of the opera house’s secret realm, behind the stage to preserve the mystery of the place, she could hear the chatter of the audience. They grew restless, but none could have been as restless as her. Truly, she didn’t know whether to flee while she still had the chance or huddle in a corner where no one would be able to find her.
“Diana? Are you here?” a voice whispered.
Diana hesitated before answering, “Against all sense and reason, I am.”
“I thought you might’ve darted out of the stage doors while I wasn’t looking.”
The voice belonged to a radiant young lady named Miriam who was, by all accounts, a dear friend of Celia. She had hair the color of spun gold and the sort of beauty that could make gentlemen challenge one another like rutting stags or knights at a medieval tourney. Countless men of power would have launched a thousand ships to claim her, while Diana doubted that any man would launch so much as a broken skiff for her.
“I considered it,” Diana admitted, wringing her sweaty hands.
Miriam laughed and approached, wearing nothing but a long, thin shift, though there was a multitude of stagehands and male performers wandering around.
