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

“I apologize for being so remiss, m’dear. I’ll have Mrs. Garry air out the lavender room tomorrow so it is ready for them.”

Imogen snapped her attention from the letter she was only halfway finished reading to gape at Papa. “They’re coming here?”

“Oh, yes.” He waved at the letter. “Read on. You will see. You will see.”

She looked down at the letter as though it had turned into a serpent in her hands. “Winifred is coming here—”

“Yes, she and her husband are traveling north to Elgin and intended to stop over for a night or two.”

“Or two . . .” she whispered.

One night she could endure, but two full nights? What would she do with herself? How would she interact with them? How would she sit across the table from Edgar multiple nights and behave as though he was not a wretched excuse of manhood?

Her mind roamed frantically, seeking some solution, some escape.

Perhaps she could take herself off elsewhere.

Perhaps she could be gone before they arrived. Desperate thoughts and all impossible. She could not leave Papa. She could go nowhere.

She looked down at the letter again and tried, not very successfully, to focus on the words scrawled on the page. “Did she say when they are coming?”

“Ah, yes. As I said I was very thoughtless.” He tapped the side of his head. “You know me these days. I’m afraid I’m quite forgetful. The letter when it arrived . . . oh, let’s see. When was that?” He looked toward the ceiling of her bedchamber as though the answer was inscribed there. “Two weeks ago?”

She sputtered, “Papa! Two weeks ago?”

“Yes, m’dear. Read on,” he directed. “They arrive tomorrow. Won’t that be lovely?”





Chapter Twelve




A scream rent the air and jolted Perry awake from a pleasingly dreamless sleep. He looked about wildly in confusion, scrubbing two hands over his face as he tried to recall where he was.

The chamber, though finely appointed, was not his bedchamber at Penning Hall. The space was much smaller and lacking the deep masculine hues of mahogany and deep blue damask. His dressing room at Penning Hall was larger than this bedchamber.

He eyed the several paintings and delicate figurines of cherubs throughout the room, and then he remembered where he was. Cherubs. He shuddered. His mother was quite enamored of bloody cherubs. They were all over her house.

It all rushed back.

He was in a guest bedchamber in his mother’s dower house.

The scream that had interrupted his slumber ended, but now a flurry of footsteps sounded on the stairs. They drew closer, pounding down the corridor. With grim acceptance, he knew they were headed toward his chamber.

He’d selected the chamber located at the back of the house, a room tucked away at the end of a corridor—for what little good it did. He thought occupying the most remote bedchamber might make him less conspicuous in the house. Almost as though he wasn’t here at all, in his mother’s dower house, relegated to a chamber that vomited cherubs.

It had been many years since he resided under the same roof with his mother, but he had not forgotten what it was like.

When he finished at Eton, he’d moved directly into his own house in London. A proper bachelor’s residence. It was what was done, and make no mistake, both he and his mother preferred it that way.

He loved his mother, and she loved him, but it was easier for them to both love each other when they weren’t living under the same roof. He suspected it was that way for a great many grown children.

Except Imogen Bates.

If appearances could be believed, she reveled in living with her father. They doted on one another. He’d be surprised if a cross word was ever spoken between them. It wasn’t natural. He resisted the voice inside him that called that admirable and told himself it was simply further evidence that she was not quite right.

His mother had her friends and diversions and interests, and—at the time he completed his studies at Eton—his sister to still usher out into Society. She had been happy to see him out on his own and not underfoot.

The only thing that had saved her from total despair when he lost his title and moved back in with her was that Thirza was still the wife of the very powerful and well-connected Earl of Geston.

The door to his chamber burst open unceremoniously, striking the wall with a bang.

His mother strode in, her wild gaze sweeping the bedchamber.

He scrambled to pull the bedding up to his waist. She might be his mother, but he was not in the habit of exposing himself to her. He could not recall the last time his mother had even seen him in the altogether. Quite possibly, she never had. There had been wet nurses and nannies in his life from day one. She likely had never done more than hold him and bring him out at parties to show off the heir. Laughable now when he considered how he had never been the true heir.

“Peregrine!” she exclaimed, and then he noticed that her stormy eyes were red-rimmed and fraught with worry. “How could you have not told me?”

“Told you . . . what?” He gripped a fistful of sheets at his hip and shook his head in confusion.

“That you—you are afflicted!”

“Afflicted?” What was she talking about? He searched his mind. Did she know of his kiss with Imogen Bates and the advent of his inconvenient desire for her? It was certainly an affliction.