A Lady’s Accidental Duke (Preview)

Chapter One

The chandeliers of the Fairfax ballroom glittered like a thousand captive stars, scattering gold across polished floors and silk gowns. Arabella Tempest had always enjoyed such evenings. She liked music, and dancing, and laughing with friends, but on that particular night, all she could think was how insufferably long the waltz felt.

Lord Reginald White was attempting to lead her across the floor with all the grace of a man steering a carriage he had never driven.

“You must admit, Lady Arabella,” he drawled, chest puffed as though he were affording her a great privilege, “we make a striking pair. The ton is positively whispering about us.”

“I hear the ton whispers about many things, Lord White,” she said lightly. “Very few of them are worth listening to.”

He laughed—the sort of laugh meant to seem charming but regrettably, was not. “You are witty tonight. Delightfully so. I find your spirit most refreshing.”

She did not bother correcting him. He admired her beauty, her fortune, her prospects—her spirit least of all. The man had spent the last three minutes extolling the virtues of their potential union as though reciting a list of the Duke of Wellington’s military achievements.

“I believe,” he continued smugly, “that we would suit perfectly. Society already considers us a natural match. You… the incomparable debutante. And I—”

“The most eligible gentleman of the Season,” Arabella finished for him, smiling sweetly.

He looked pleased, which was unfortunate, because she had meant it as a subtle jab.

The music swelled, violins sweeping into the final phrase. Thank heavens, she thought, resisting the urge to yank her hand from his grasp. Her slippers glided through the closing turn, and when the dance ended, she released Lord White with practiced politeness.

“Lady Arabella,” he said, bowing over her hand, “I shall call on you first thing tomorrow.”

“Oh, that may not be necessary,” she said quickly.

His brows rose. “Nonsense. A gentleman must court his future wi—”

“Mother!” Arabella interrupted, though Lady Brentwood was on the opposite side of the ballroom and very much not within hearing distance. “I really must speak with her at once. Excuse me.”

She sank into a graceful curtsey and walked away before he could stop her.

Relief washed through her the instant she slipped free of his orbit. The ballroom was stifling—crowded bodies, warm air, endless expectations pressing upon her shoulders like an invisible shawl. Everyone wanted something from her: a smile, a dance, a match. She wanted something else entirely.

Love, whispered the quietest part of her heart. Something real, something gentle. Something not chosen by the ton for its convenience.

Arabella moved toward the refreshment table where two familiar figures stood laughing with their heads close together. Her brother, Lord Edmund Tempest, tall and composed in his dark coat, and Miss Eliza Rainier, her dearest friend since childhood.

Eliza spotted her first. “For heaven’s sake, Arabella, come rescue me from your brother. He is scolding me again for scandalizing the matrons.”

“I am doing no such thing,” Edmund said, though he looked exasperatingly fond of her. “I merely suggested that standing in the center of the ballroom announcing you shall never marry is not the most subtle approach.”

Eliza lifted her chin. “I refuse to pretend to be interested in the parade of men who think themselves irresistible merely because they possess a title.”

Arabella laughed. “I have just escaped one such man.”

“Lord White?” Edmund guessed.

“How did you know?”

Her brother’s grin widened. “You looked like a trapped kitten.”

She nudged him with her elbow. “He is not even dreadful. He is simply… boring.”

“And boastful,” Eliza added with a dramatic shudder. “He is the sort who will spend marriage congratulating himself for having secured a wife.”

Arabella sighed. “He believes we are perfectly matched.”

“Because you are both admired?” Edmund scoffed. “Then he belongs with himself.”

Arabella smiled, warmed by their teasing—but beneath it pulse her familiar, uneasy truth. She did not want the match her mother desired for her. She did not want a polite arrangement. She wanted the sort of passion she had read about in books, written in letters between star-crossed lovers.

Eliza leaned closer. “Speaking of men with titles, have you heard? He is here tonight.”

“Who?”

“The Duke of Balfour.”

Arabella blinked. “Here? You must be mistaken. He has not attended a London ball in years.”

“Exactly why it is news. He arrived scarcely an hour ago. And rumor has it,” Eliza’s eyes sparkled mischievously, “that he is looking for his next duchess.”

Edmund’s expression sobered. “He loved his wife very dearly.”

Arabella frowned. “I thought they said she died suddenly.”

“She did,” Edmund said carefully. “But before that, he adored her. Everyone knew it. And she—” He hesitated. “She was… difficult. Cold to many. Yet he worshipped her. When she died, he withdrew from nearly everyone, including me.”

Arabella’s heart tugged. Tragedy never sat lightly on her. “You’d been friends a long time,” she recalled aloud.

“Since Eton,” Edmund said. “Years. But grief changed him.”

“And now he seeks a bride?” Eliza asked. “Does that not strike you as suspicious timing?”

“He is a duke,” Edmund said. “His estate requires an heir, regardless of his feelings.”

Arabella wrinkled her nose. “Then I want nothing to do with him.”

Eliza nudged her. “He is handsome.”

“That is hardly a reason.”

“A duke,” Eliza tried again.

Arabella pretended to consider. “Still no.”

Edmund chuckled. “Mother will have other intentions.”

As if summoned by prophecy, Lady Brentwood appeared beside them, sweeping into the circle with the practiced grace of a woman who had navigated twenty Seasons and survived all of them.

“There you are, Arabella.” Her mother’s fan fluttered like the wings of an impatient bird. “Have you heard? The Duke of Balfour is present. Imagine! After so many years away from society.”

“Yes, we have heard,” Arabella said dryly.

“He will be looking for a duchess, I am sure of it,” Lady Brentwood said. “And you, my dear, could hardly be more—”

“Uninterested,” Arabella supplied.

Lady Brentwood’s fan snapped shut. “Do not jest. This is precisely the sort of opportunity we have been hoping for.”

“I have not been hoping for it,” Arabella said, but her mother waved this aside as though it were of no consequence.

“Come. He was near the north alcove not long ago. We shall seek him out.”

Edmund winced in sympathy as Lady Brentwood seized Arabella’s arm, and Eliza attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to smother a grin.

“I would prefer to breathe,” Arabella whispered as she was tugged forward.

“You may breathe on the way back,” Eliza murmured encouragingly.

Arabella sent her a desperate look over her shoulder before her mother swept her across the ballroom. Lady Brentwood was in the midst of an enthusiastic lecture on the virtues of remote Scottish estates when Arabella caught sight of cream-colored trousers and a very familiar, very determined smirk cutting straight toward her through the crowd.

Lord White.

No. Absolutely not.

Even from a distance the man displayed all the subtlety of a marching band. He was beaming as though she had been placed on this earth solely for his enjoyment, waving far too eagerly as he prepared to intercept her for another dance—or worse, a declaration of intent.

Arabella froze.

Her mother paused mid-step. “What is it?”

Reginald White’s grin grew larger, if such a thing were possible.

At the same moment, Lady Brentwood’s gaze darted past Arabella’s shoulder toward a tall, dark-haired gentleman disappearing through a nearby doorway.

“There,” her mother breathed in triumph. “That must be the duke. Quickly now, Arabella.”

Two unwanted gentlemen. One determined mother. Not a single polite avenue of escape.

Arabella did not hesitate.

“Mother, I believe Lady Hampton is trying to gain your attention,” she said in a breathless rush.

Lady Brentwood instantly turned to look.

Arabella moved.

She slid out of her mother’s grasp, her skirts whispering around her ankles as she darted between a pair of laughing ladies and slipped through the nearest open doors. The cool night air hit her skin like a blessing. The gardens lay open before her, dark and gleaming beneath the moonlight.

Freedom.

She stepped onto the gravel path and drew a long, steadying breath. The scent of night roses and neatly clipped hedges replaced the suffocating sweetness of the ballroom. Her shoulders finally relaxed. For the first time all evening, she could think.

She took one more step and a shadow shifted beside a sculpted yew.

Before she could react, she collided with something solid. Someone solid.

Arabella gasped as she stumbled backward, but strong hands caught her elbows and steadied her.

“I beg your—” she began.

The words dissolved as she lifted her gaze.

The man before her was tall, remarkably so, and dark hair fell in an unruly sweep across his brow. Moonlight shaped his features into something striking and severe, almost worn by sorrow. His eyes, a cool storm-grey, held hers with a quiet intensity that stole the breath from her lungs.

He looked briefly startled to find her there, but the reaction faded quickly, replaced by a distant composure that seemed carved from stone. There was something guarded about him, something restrained that hummed like a warning in the darkness.

Arabella’s heartbeat stumbled.

Whatever world he belonged to, it was not the warm, glittering one behind her. He belonged to the quiet and the shadows. And as the night wind stirred the hedges, a chill traced her spine, light and instinctive.

She parted her lips to speak. He did the same. Neither of them managed a single word.

For in that suspended moment, she realized exactly who he must be.

 

Chapter Two

The moment the duke stepped into the Fairfax ballroom, he regretted it. Heat pressed in from every direction, with perfume hanging thick in the air, silk brushing against him like waves, and voices rising in a ceaseless blend of forced laughter and overly polished conversation. He had been away from London’s whirl for long enough that the sudden return felt less like entering society and more like being pushed beneath cold water without warning.

He drew a tight breath. There were too many people. Too many eyes. Too many expectations clinging to him like invisible hands.

A cluster of matrons to his left turned almost in unison, watching him with the keen alertness of hunters closing in on wounded prey.

“Oh look, is that…”
“It must be…”
“Do you suppose he…”

Ewan did not linger to hear the rest. He angled sharply away and slipped along the outer edge of the ballroom before anyone could block his path. Someone called his title, but he ignored it. Another mother stepped forward with a startled-looking daughter at her side, and he sidestepped them neatly without breaking stride.

He kept moving.

Crowds had never suited him. Not before Anne-Marie, and certainly not after. Every bright smile and eager face felt like a demand pressed upon him. A dance. A polite conversation. A proposal. A future he had never asked for.

A marriage he had no desire to seek.

He reached the open French doors leading to the gardens and stepped outside, drawing the first full breath he had taken since arriving. The cool night air hit him like a reprieve. At last—something that did not suffocate him.

He closed his eyes briefly, allowing the quiet to settle around him. The gardens were not empty, but the small groups wandering the paths kept to themselves, their voices low beneath the flickering lantern light. It was calmer here, and infinitely more bearable.

He tugged absently at the edge of his cuff, then at the knot of tension lodged beneath his ribs. Coming to London had been a mistake. He should never have allowed himself to be persuaded. His steward had practically shoved him into the carriage, insisting he attend the Season, insisting his presence was required, insisting he must present himself as a man “ready to wed.”

He knew better.

Marriage was what Roland Cruikshank wanted him to pursue. Not companionship. Not affection. Simply marriage—preferably to a woman with deep pockets and a willingness to overlook the bleak Northern winters at Balfour.

The gravel crunched beneath his boots as he moved farther along the path, and the memory of that conversation slid, unwelcome, through his thoughts no matter how he tried to shove it aside.

***

Two weeks earlier — Balfour House, Scotland

Ewan had stood at the window of his study, staring out at the sweeping moors, wishing the land brought him peace as it once had. Instead, it only reminded him of how much he had lost… and how much more he stood to lose.

Roland Cruikshank stood behind him, clearing his throat.

“My lord… the accounts are dire.”

Ewan did not turn. “So you have said already.”

“And I will continue to say it,” Roland replied, clipped and impatient, “until you accept the urgency of our position. The estate cannot sustain the expenditures of the last years. If you do not secure funds—and soon—we will face the liquidation of assets.”

Ewan’s jaw tightened. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Roland said pointedly, “you must marry.”

The word struck him like a blow.

He finally turned. “I will not trap a woman in a cold marriage merely to balance an account book.”

Roland’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Cold? You speak as though affection has anything to do with it. This is duty. Necessity. Women like the idea of being duchess. They will not complain.”

“They will,” Ewan said quietly. “They always do.”

Roland thinned his lips. “Be reasonable, my lord. You need a wife. An heir. A dowry. London is full of wealthy young women. Choose one.”

Choose one.

Just like that.

As though a woman were a ledger entry.

As though he did not still wake some nights with memories clawing at him—of vows spoken too earnestly, love offered too freely, and a marriage that had never been what he believed it to be.

“What if she is unhappy?” Ewan asked.

Roland’s expression hardened. “What she feels is irrelevant. What matters is that you do not lose Balfour.”

***

Ewan shoved the memory aside with the same force he had used to thrust himself out of Scotland and into this wretched ballroom. Now here he was, wandering alone through a London garden, attempting to forget why he had come at all, and trying even harder to ignore the guilt that clung to him like a second coat he could not take off.

He moved deeper into the grounds until the chatter behind him softened. Lanterns glowed along the pathways, scattering pale light across the lake, and the faint scent of night roses drifted through the breeze. The quiet soothed him more than anything he had felt since arriving.

He exhaled slowly. Finally.

Then he heard it—the whisper of skirts, light and quick. Voices carried faintly from the ballroom, followed by footsteps that were drawing toward him with alarming speed.

He tensed.

Another marriage-minded mama, no doubt. Or a debutante dispatched like a trained courser to intercept her quarry. He braced himself, jaw tightening, ready to issue a polite but frigid dismissal.

The figure burst around a yew hedge in a sweep of pale silk.

Before he could step aside, she collided with him full force.

Ewan staggered back from the impact, catching her by instinct before she could fall. Her gasp pierced the night air. For one suspended heartbeat, the world narrowed to the clear blue of her eyes—wide and startled beneath the sweep of golden-blonde curls that had slipped free beside her temple—her heart-shaped face flushed.

She looked startled, breathless, and very much as though she wished she were anywhere but in his grasp.

Good. He felt much the same.

“I beg your—” she began, then faltered.

Recognition flickered across her face, or perhaps simple shock. Difficult to tell.

Ewan released her at once. “The gardens are not empty, madam,” he said, his tone clipped. “You might keep greater awareness of where you are going.”

She blinked, affronted. “I might offer the same advice to you, Your Grace. You were standing directly in the path.”

“I did not expect anyone to be fleeing the ballroom at such a pace.”

“I was not fleeing,” she said, the primness of her tone undercut by unmistakable defiance.

He raised a brow. “No?”

“No,” she repeated firmly.

Her chin lifted with such composed indignation that he nearly laughed. Clearly she was lying. Clearly she had never lied well in her life.

“Then perhaps you were simply walking with… unusual purpose?” he offered.

She narrowed her eyes. “Must you always sound so impertinent?”

“Impertinent?” he echoed. “How generous. Most accuse me of far worse.”

“Then I revise my assessment,” she said crisply. “You are insufferable.”

He inclined his head in a shallow bow. “I am frequently told as much.”

This earned him a glare so sharp it might have cut him had he been a lesser man.

She stepped back, straightening her gown with quick, irritated motions. “I assure you, Your Grace, I have no intention of entangling myself with you.”

He went still. She knew precisely who he was, yet rather than simper or blush or offer him even the courtesy of an introduction, she spiritedly announced her lack of interest. The omission struck him with unexpected force. Most young women could scarcely breathe in his presence without reciting their full lineage. But this one… she truly had no wish to pursue him.

Remarkable.

Unheard of.

And strangely refreshing.

“Very prudent of you,” he replied coolly. “Entanglements are something I avoid as well.”

“Yes, I gathered that from your disposition,” she said.

A faint, unwelcome tug of amusement touched his chest.

“You may return inside,” he said, gesturing toward the distant glow of the ballroom. “I am certain your escort awaits you.”

“I do not require an escort,” she replied, lifting her chin.

He considered her. Young, strikingly beautiful, alone in the dark. Too trusting for her own good. “I suspect you do,” he said quietly. “Women often do.”

“I am not afraid of shadows, Your Grace.”

“Perhaps you ought to be.”

Her eyes flashed. He had not meant to say it—not quite like that. But something in her expression drew it from him.

She folded her arms. “Is this how you address every woman who crosses your path?”

“Crosses my path?” His brows drew together. “You ran headlong into me.”

“Entirely by accident.”

“So you were not sent to find me?”

She looked almost offended by the idea. “Sent? By whom?”

He gestured toward the distant lights. “Take your pick. At least half the matrons indoors spent the evening skulking like foxhounds in hopes of cornering me.”

Her lips curved, despite herself. “I am not one of their foxhounds.”

“That is indeed a comfort.”

“It was not intended as praise.”

“So I suspected.”

The silence that followed felt strangely taut. She had spirit—more than most. Wit too. And absolutely no fear of him.

He did not know what to do with that.

She let out a slow breath, as though exhaustion had finally caught up with her. “Truly, Your Grace, I only wished for a bit of air.”

He nodded toward the tree-lined path. “There is a bridge ahead with a fair view of the water. You may find it quieter there.”

She hesitated, just long enough for him to notice. Then she brushed past him, her chin lifted in a way that suggested she refused to give him the dignity of gratitude.

Moonlit silk whispered across the gravel as she walked away.

Ewan watched her for only a moment. Just long enough to feel a faint pull deep in his chest—unexpected, unwelcome, entirely unhelpful. He resisted it, naturally. A sensible man would.

Ridiculous.

He turned back toward the distant murmurs of the ballroom, intending to retreat to solitude, to freedom, to silence, to anything that did not involve a pair of defiant dark eyes and a young woman who seemed utterly unimpressed by him.

He had taken three steps when a sound broke sharply across the quiet—a soft scrape, a shift of weight, the cut-off sound of a startled breath.

And then the violent crash of water breaking open.

He spun toward the lake.

The wooden bridge gleamed empty in the moonlight.

The girl was gone.