My Three Lords Read online

  My Three Lords

  Juniper Bell

  How is one innocent country girl to choose between a Duke, a Marquis and an Earl? Must she?

  When Miss Alicia Silverwood marries the Earl of Dorchester, he whisks her off to Notre Plaisir, a country manor where erotic surprises await in the company of three powerful lords.

  The young Earl needs a wife and heir. The cynical Marquis de Beaumont needs a playmate. And the commanding Duke of Warrington needs a reason to live. As for the new Lady Dorchester, she’s about to discover the true nature of her own sensual needs. On top of that, she’s falling in love.

  It might take a miracle for Lady Alicia and her three lords to come to an arrangement that makes them all happy. Or perhaps all that’s required is a little scandalous rule-breaking.

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  My Three Lords

  ISBN 9781419928345

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  My Three Lords Copyright © 2010 Juniper Bell

  Edited by Jillian Bell

  Cover art by Dar Albert

  Electronic book publication July 2010

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  My Three Lords

  Juniper Bell

  Prologue

  When I look back on the first days of my marriage, I wonder if any of those strange and wonderful events would have occurred had it not been for the goatherd. If not for that obliging boy, I would never have caught the Marquis’ eye. He and my husband would never have concocted their plan, and the Duke would never have—

  But my story runs away from me. Indeed, it’s not my story alone. I share it with my three lords. Although I was not present at the plan’s initiation, as White’s is barred to females, I have always been incurably curious. For certain portions of this tale, I have therefore used my own knowledge of the protagonists along with bits of acquired information and a shamefully active imagination to give our story its full flowering. Or, shall we say, its deflowering…

  Chapter One

  White’s Club, London, 1811

  The three friends met, as they so often did, in the comfortably male haven of their favorite club, where the clink of glasses and the rattle of the dice box made a soothing counterpoint to the harsh wind clattering at the windowpanes.

  “Nasty night,” said the Marquis de Beaumont, in a tone of weary distaste. He was the eldest, and enjoyed a most unsavory reputation, reflected in the cynical glint of his dark eyes.

  “What do you expect? London in March. I told you we ought to be hunting. Keeps the chill off.” The young Earl of Dorchester bounced a leg up and down, as was his habit. His thighs, straining against his buckskins, betrayed a man of action who would prefer to race a four-in-hand or engage in fisticuffs rather than sit confined inside a club room, no matter how masculine its décor.

  “My dear boy, we are hunting. You do recall the purpose of this visit to London, do you not?”

  The Earl’s face fell at the reminder.

  The third of the trio, the Duke of Warrington, signaled the waiter for another bottle of brandy. “Dorch may know it, but I require some clarification. I recall mention of a girl, a relative of yours, and your rather unconventional plans for her future. But then I also recall a fair amount of claret.”

  The Duke smiled at his companions, but neither was fooled. Warrington not only outranked both of them, but he possessed a natural air of authority that meant his opinion was eagerly sought and never ignored. The Duke was not to be trifled with, a state of affairs that often rankled the Marquis, no matter that the two were playmates and third cousins on the distaff side.

  “You will not throw a wrench into my plans, I trust,” he said now, eyes glittering at the Duke.

  “Your plans?” Dorchester protested. “We are discussing my marriage, are we not?”

  “Indeed we are,” said the Marquis. “Your marriage, and my ardent desire to see that you live your life in happy, connubial bliss.”

  The Duke stretched his long legs toward the flickering fire in the great marble fireplace. “And there, as they say, is the rub. I must wonder as to the source of this ardent desire. You yourself are hardly an example to be emulated, at least in the area of connubial contentment.”

  “Au contraire,” said the Marquis, irritated. “I’m a famous rake and my lovely wife is a famous whore. We are perfectly suited. Dorch, however, is of a different nature. He requires a different sort of mate.”

  “I know very well what I require,” said Dorchester, leaping to his feet. His friends, accustomed to his inability to stay still for more than a few moments at a time, watched with affectionate amusement. “If I’m to be leg-shackled, I require an innocent girl who will adore me and look upon me as her lord and master, which is what I shall be. She must be sweet to the eyes, restful to the ears, and—”

  “Delicious to the mouth and other interested organs,” finished the Marquis.

  “Precise—” Dorchester aimed a scowl at his older relative. “I wouldn’t have phrased it in such a way.”

  “No indeed, which is precisely why you need my help in this matter. Not only have I located the perfect bride for you, one who matches your description in every particular, but I have offered myself as the instrument of your future happiness.”

  A smile played across the Duke’s firm mouth. “I am filled with anticipation as to the specifics of this proposal.”

  “Very well, then. Let us stipulate that our young friend Dorch, virile though he is, has no interest in the finer arts of pleasuring a woman.”

  “She’s not a woman, she’s my bride,” said the Earl with a fine bluster. “Her purpose is to carry on my lineage.”

  “You make my point for me, my boy. You require an obedient, well-trained wife who will fulfill your various needs. She will be far more willing and able to play her part in the drama if she, too, finds some pleasure in the arrangement. I take it you find no quarrel with that, Warrington?”

  “No,” said the Duke dryly. “Though I’ve sworn never to fall victim to the tender sex, my encounters with them are generally enhanced by a sense of mutual enjoyment.” The Duke had a certain reputation of his own, that of the elusive heartbreaker. His refusal to fall in love and, more importantly, to marry, had sent more than one matron into an unseemly rage in the privacy of her boudoir. The Duke seemed content with his current heir, who happened to be the man pounding his fist into the leather armchair next to him—his distant cousin, the Earl of Dorchester.

  “Must you attack that piece of furniture so ruthlessly?” he asked his heir.

  The Earl flung himself back into a se
ated position. “I don’t enjoy hearing my intimate life discussed in so cold-blooded a manner.”

  “Cold-blooded,” the Marquis scoffed. “Precisely the opposite. I intend to help mold your bride into the most warm-hearted, warm-blooded, passionate, satisfactory creature you can imagine.”

  “And what will you yourself gain from the experience?” the Duke inquired.

  “I will gain the happiness of a friend. The successful disposition of a young relative, whose parent has come to me for guidance in finding a suitable husband.”

  “And?” prompted the Duke.

  “You know me too well.”

  “To know you is to love you, and more importantly, to be wary.”

  “If you insist on knowing all, this particular girl has always intrigued me.”

  “Oh?” The Duke exchanged a look of surprise with the Earl, as not much managed to intrigue the Marquis. “Is she a beauty, then?”

  “She’s pretty enough, but no great beauty who will find sport in tormenting helpless lovers. No, Miss Alicia Silverwood possesses something else. Something I cannot describe, and which I have never been able to categorize and thus dismiss. Ever since our first meeting, under circumstances that shall remain private, she has lodged in my mind’s eye. Since I cannot marry her myself, or bed her out of wedlock without causing an irretrievable rupture with that branch of my family, I can never have her.”

  “Unless Dorch goes along with your absurd proposal.” Warrington stood up, his lean length dwarfing the other two men, and signaled for the porter. “I do believe we’ve heard enough, Dorch. Come along.”

  But the Earl of Dorchester, for once, stayed in his chair and leaned forward, elbows on knees, to scrutinize the Marquis. “Warm-hearted and passionate, you say?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “You can form this girl into a wife who will suit me?”

  “I have very few talents, but I pride myself on my intimate knowledge of the feminine…soul.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Dorch. He has only his own interests in mind.” The Duke allowed the porter to help him into his greatcoat.

  “But he already revealed his own interests. If they align with my own, what matter?”

  “Yes, Warrington, what matter? The boy needs an acceptable bride, and I can provide one, along with a special service that will lead to a long and happy life. Why, I’m willing to place a handsome wager on the outcome. Shall we say, my new curricle?” To cement the agreement, the Marquis opened his porcelain snuff box and offered it to his friends.

  The Earl’s face lit up, but the Duke declined the snuff along with the wager. “I must state my strong objections to this entire endeavor. But you’re of an age to make your own destiny, Dorch. I won’t stop you. And now, I must away.”

  Heavy silence followed as the Duke took his hat and walking stick from the porter. The Duke’s friends knew where he was headed, but the dread topic was best left untouched. All discussion of his condition was strictly forbidden among the three.

  Finally the Marquis raised one dark eyebrow and drawled, “I take it you have no desire for an invitation to the deflowering?”

  The Duke turned on his heel and stalked out of White’s, a discreet sea of servants bowing as he passed.

  The Marquis laughed and beckoned to the nearest waiter. A minute later, pen in hand, he scrawled a note that would be delivered to Warrington House the next day.

  “Notre Plaisir, in the merry month of May. As the proverb has it, the more the merrier.”

  * * * * *

  Chadwick House, London, May 1811

  I confess to an embarrassing trembling in my hands when my sponsor, Lady Chadwick, presented me with the Earl of Dorchester’s proposal. I do not like to quiver and swoon the way some girls do. But I had only met the Earl a time or two, always in the company of others. I could not recall a single conversation conducted on personal terms. He had never even appeared on my dance card.

  “Are you certain? He wishes to marry me?” Try as I might, I could not keep the astonishment from my voice. I was no heiress, nor celebrated for any particular claim to beauty or scintillating wit. I was a simple girl from the country, recently freed from the confinement of the schoolroom. I had attended a sum total of four balls and two routs, as well as one musicale at the home of the Marquise de Beaumont, who, quite frankly, provoked a sense of alarm in me.

  I did not care for the way her eyes swept me up and down, searching implacably for flaws and no doubt finding many. As I have mentioned, I was no beauty, with my chief virtues being a clear complexion, a pleasing bosom, and thickly curling hair the brown-gold color of wheat in autumn. I was light on my feet on the dance floor and pleasant enough in conversation, but I saw no reason for the Marquise to look upon me as a stray farm cat intruding into her domain.

  I wondered whether she knew about my first, unforgettable meeting with her husband. But the Marquis had vowed never to betray my secret, and say what one might about that notorious rakehell, I knew him to be a man of his word.

  “Does the Earl say why he wishes to marry me?”

  “Why?” Lady Chadwick’s double chins shook like jelly. “My dear Alicia, you do ask the most inappropriate questions. Why should he not desire to marry you? You are under my protection.”

  “Please forgive me,” I murmured, delivering a little bob of a curtsy. My upbringing had not prepared me for such sensitivities. I was continually saying things I should not and skating near the thin edge of disgrace. Lady Chadwick had saved me from disaster many times in the few short weeks I’d been in London.

  “I will send our acceptance immediately,” she said, reprovingly.

  “But—”

  “Immediately,” she repeated firmly. “The Earl of Dorchester is precisely the sort of husband your dear father wishes for you. He’s wealthy enough, he’s young, and you must admit he’s handsome.”

  I brought up an image of bright blue eyes, ruddy cheeks and a body that was always jittering and jobbering. Girls of delicate upbringing are not supposed to be picturing male bodies, but as I mentioned before, I was raised in the country, along with my six brothers. I do believe it is impossible for a girl with six brothers to be unaware of certain realities related to the male gender. I had, eventually and after the aforementioned embarrassing episode involving the Marquis, learned to keep such knowledge a more closely held secret.

  “I suppose he’s handsome enough.” A bit like a roast mutton with legs. Fortunately, I managed to keep that thought to myself.

  “Handsome enough? Why, girl, I am ashamed to call myself your sponsor. The Earl of Dorchester is quite sought after. You will be the envy of all the other girls, not to mention their mothers. Don’t you know he’s the Duke of Warrington’s close friend and heir?”

  She spoke the name of the Duke in the same hushed voice she used for members of the royal family and all other arbiters of the haut ton. He was rumored to possess a devastating charisma fatal to ingénues such as myself, or so I’d been told at my first rout.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  I’d been enjoying the refreshment of a lemonade after a particularly vigorous quadrille. Another young debutante told me in an excited voice that the Duke of Warrington would be attending later that night.

  “I do hope I shan’t faint,” I said, intending it as an amusing sally.

  “Oh, certainly I shall fall into an instant swoon,” she answered. “He’s said to be the most fatally attractive man in the whole of England, and the most eligible bachelor too. Young ladies frequently faint at the mere sight of him.”

  I giggled at her absurd exaggeration. But she blinked at me with such sincerity that I decided the birdwit deserved to be teased. “Then I hope I never set eyes on him,” I declared.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve never fainted in my life, and I have no intention of doing so on account of a Duke, and if he’s indeed so deadly a presence, I will beg him to stay very far away from me. If he approaches, I shall be forced to
toss my lemonade in his face to defend myself from his fatal charm.”

  “Miss Silverwood!” At that moment, I feared she truly would faint. She swayed and I grasped her elbow to keep her upright. Immediately her chaperone came to her side and shot me a terrifying glare.

  After she’d been whisked away, an amused voice spoke behind me. “What on earth did you say to the poor girl?”

  I turned, surprised, to see a gentleman emerge from behind a pillar. Had we been introduced? Could I have forgotten such a thing? He was a tall man, quite well-favored, strong and straight, with shadowed green eyes. His hair, clipped short in the Brutus style, was the color of roasted chestnuts. Although he was far from old, an air of seriousness clung to him, as though he bore some deep burden.

  “Nothing of interest, and certainly of no significance to you.” I was not, of a matter of daily habit, quite so impertinent. But the closeness of the ballroom, the perfumed air and the night’s tedious conversation were grating to my nerves.

  He seemed undisturbed by my pertness. “And why not?”

  “Because you are very rude to eavesdrop, and quite incompetent as well.”

  “Is that so?”

  This conversation, at the very least, was far from tedious. “Quite. If you listen to other people’s conversations, you should do it properly and not oblige them to repeat themselves.”

  He gave a solemn nod. I noticed his eyes did not dart around in search of someone more important. “I shall have to improve my eavesdropping, it seems.”

  “Or eschew the practice. Although I do concede, at times it is the only way to learn anything of interest.”

  “Quite right. And at this moment, I find myself extremely interested in what a fresh-faced young girl such as you could possibly have said to Miss Chastity Morehouse that would cause her to be borne away from you as if you had the plague. I believe I heard a reference to the Duke of Warrington?”