Duke of Scandal by Adele Ashworth Page A

it this way,” he continued, his voice direct as his impressions of the situation began to solidify. “If she’s sincere, and truly believes she’s legally married, I have the upper hand with the knowledge that she’s been duped by my brother. If she’s not sincere, she’ll be forced to wonder how much I believe of her story, and whether I trust her or anything she says.”
    â€œShe’ll likely wonder that anyway,” Sir Walter remarked.
    â€œTrue,” he acknowledged. He stopped pacing and gazed out the window to his left. “Which means my plan must be better than hers.”
    â€œWhat plan?” Then Colin sighed, leaning back heavily in his chair, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “Tell me you’re not going to France.”
    â€œNo, I am going to France.”
    â€œWith her ?”
    Sam almost laughed at the priceless look of shock, even subtle envy, that Colin gave him.
    â€œOf course.” He leaned over his friend’s desk, placing his palms flat on the scattering of paperwork. “Frankly, I don’t care who she is—if she’s only naive or lying with pleasure, or whether she’s working with Edmund or looking for him as she says. I want to find my brother—”
    â€œAnd Claudette?”
    Sam immediately stood erect, his gut burning again with a displaced anger and resentment he’d tried to hide for years.
    â€œIf she’s with him, perhaps.”
    â€œFor revenge,” Colin bluntly said for him.
    â€œTo set things straight,” he murmured in quick response, explaining nothing.
    Colin slowly shook his head. Then sitting forward, forearms resting on the cluttered desktop, fingers interlocking, he gazed up at Sam’s face, his tone underscored with warning. “Nothing has changed in all the years he’s been gone. You know why he left, and although this beauty, who claims to be his wife, is part French—”
    â€œAnd part English,” he cut in.
    Colin blinked innocently. “Now you’re defending her?”
    Sam didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful to Colin for helping him keep things in perspective. “I know what I’m doing.”
    â€œWell then,” Sir Walter added, rubbing his palms along his wide chest, “I’d be careful if I were you. From what you’ve described of the Lady Olivia, she doesn’t strike me as a woman to be undermined. Especially if she’s toying with you. ”
    Sam nodded once, acknowledging the older man’s advice with an uncomfortable sense of foreboding.
    â€œSo you’d use her for revenge,” Colin maintained wryly.
    Sam said nothing for a moment, then harshly whispered, “Opportunity.”
    The rain suddenly intensified again, pelting the large window behind the desk, interrupting their discoursewith a reminder of outside realities.
    Colin stood and stretched. “Let’s eat, gentlemen. I’ve got a new cook and he’s marvelous with a hen.”
    Back to realities indeed. “As are you, my friend.”
    Sir Walter snickered; Colin laughed outright. “And yet you seem to attract the ones of exceptional beauty.”
    â€œWho never belong to me,” he quickly countered.
    â€œThere’s always Edna Swan…”
    He didn’t like that option, either.

Chapter 4
    O livia knocked impatiently on the front door of number 2 Parson’s Street, invitation in hand. She wasn’t certain if this was the Duke of Durham’s residence or only that of a friend with whom the man stayed while in the city. She’d learned from Lady Abethnot that the man spent most of the year secluded in his Cornish estate near Penzance. But he’d asked her here for dinner, in a hastily written note, to discuss their “mutual predicament”—whatever that was—and she had quickly consented to the summons. If dinner was to be served, all the better.
    Her first