The Duke Goes Down (The Duke Hunt #1) by Sophie Jordan

She’d vowed never to make that mistake again. Never to put her lips where they did not belong—and they definitely did not belong on Peregrine Butler.

A knock sounded at her door and she bade enter, glad to put an end to those particular thoughts of the past. No more. She’d finished with it years ago. She’d made peace with herself and those days when she had been foolish enough to believe in a scoundrel’s words.

“Good night, my love.” Papa shuffled in wearing a robe and mismatched slippers. She was certain he was not aware of the color of his slippers. His eyes were not what they used to be even with the benefit of his thick spectacles. He leaned down to press a kiss on the top of her head. “What plans have you for the morrow, daughter?”

“I was thinking of working in the garden.”

The garden was long overdue her attention. She would never be as attentive to it as Mama had been, but Imogen did what was necessary to tend it and keep it from perishing. There were some cabbages, beetroot and leeks that needed gathering and Imogen knew they would be delicious in their dinner tomorrow. There would be enough for a few vegetable pies. Doubtless a few of their congregants would enjoy their culinary labors.

Gwen Cully had her hands full with her uncle bedridden these days. She would doubtlessly appreciate a day when she did not have to come home from toiling in the smithy to then prepare a meal.

“What of you, Papa? What are your plans?”

“Well, I wanted to catch up on some correspondence and then I was thinking of calling on Mr. Gupta. He mentioned receiving a new book on the fall of Rome that I would very much like to peruse.”

“Lovely. Do you need someone to—”

He patted her shoulder. “I am not so infirm I cannot walk myself. It is scarcely a mile.”

Imogen resisted correcting him that it was a little farther than that. She knew it was important to not make him feel feeble in body or mind. If she were in his situation, she would like to maintain some of her independence, too. It was a tricky game they played—he asserting his independence and she trying not to offend and overly curtail him.

“You could take the gig,” she suggested.

As much as she did not love him operating conveyances—his reflexes were not what they once were—it was a small carriage and it would be a short drive. Better that than him walking such a distance.

“Daughter, I am able to walk,” he insisted with an indignant wobble of his head as he stared down at her. He had shrunk a bit, but he was still tall enough to look down at her even when she wasn’t seated.

“With a cane,” she gently reminded him. “You walk with a cane, Papa.”

“Dr. Merrit said it was important to continue walking if I wish to recover more of my mobility. Did you not hear him say the same thing?”

“Very well, Papa.” She relented, noting his flushed cheeks and not wanting to cause him distress. Although she had also heard Dr. Merrit warn him to not overexert himself. There was no sense in arguing with him.

With a mollified nod, he bestowed another kiss on her head, his warm breath rustling her hair. “Off to bed with you now,” he directed as he had done when she was a little girl. It gave her heart a pang, for in many ways he was more child than she these days.

“Good night, Papa.”

He closed the door after him and she headed for her bed. Slipping off her robe, she slid beneath the counterpane she had already turned down for the night, happy for the comfort of her bed.

Once settled, Imogen blew out a breath and stared into the dark, fixing her thoughts on the morrow and the tasks ahead of her, mentally checking them off one by one and deliberately keeping her mind from straying to the evening’s ball and Peregrine Butler and the taste of his lips on hers.





Chapter Ten




Perry spotted the good vicar slowly ambling down the lane outside of Shropshire and paused astride his horse.

The older man leaned heavily on his cane as he advanced, both of his gnarled hands gripping the brass head for support.

Perry grimaced. Advanced was a gentle euphemism. He was not making much progress at his current pace.

Dismounting from his horse, he held on to the reins and hailed the vicar, tipping his hat as he called out a greeting.

The man broke his focus from his shuffling feet and looked up, his expression lighting with delight when it landed on him. “Oh, good day to you, Mr. Butler.” His rheumy-eyed gaze skipped to the horse beside Perry. “Out for an afternoon ride on that fine beast of yours? It’s a fair day for that.”

“Indeed it is, sir.”

After a restless night, Perry had risen early. He had tossed and turned. Fraught with the memory of the prior evening’s events, he’d scarcely slept. Not only did he discover who was spreading rumors about him, but he caught her in the act—and then he kissed her.

He had kissed Imogen Bates.

He still felt it in his gut. Deep in his blood. He had kissed her as though she was his to kiss and hold. As though there was not hostility and long-standing aversion between them. As though she were not a prim and gently bred lady but instead a hot-blooded lover. The kind of lover you took in broad daylight and cover of night equally. Without modesty. Without caution. With only wild abandon.

God, he had been too long without female companionship of the intimate variety. That was the only explanation. For no other reason could the painfully straitlaced vicar’s daughter ever entice him. Hellfire. She’d looked down her nose at him since the day they first met.