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

“I thought you might be glad of it now. Count yourself fortunate.”

Fortunate? He supposed he was. He could not imagine being married to Lady Circe now that he had fallen so low. What if they had wed before the truth of his illegitimacy came to light? She would despise him. At least he did not have to endure that, waking beside a woman who loathed him for the circumstances of his birth. At least now whomever he married would know what she was getting—a bastard born son of a duke without a penny to his name.

Perhaps he should set aside the entire notion of marriage, pack a bag and leave. Head for some distant land where he might start anew and make his fortune. Men and women were doing it every day. Sailing across the pond. Canada. New Zealand. South America.

With a muttered curse, Perry lifted the bottle of wine he had been nursing and took a deep swig. A final swig, it would seem. He gave it a small shake, and looked through the mouth to eye the hollow interior. With a regretful sigh, he tossed the empty vessel to the ground at his feet. “A fine year. Pity ’tis gone.”

“Your mother awaits, Your Grace,” Thurman reminded.

Perry spread his arms wide. “As you can see, I’m not fit to sit at my mother’s table.” He then wagged a finger at the stern-faced butler. “And Thurman, you know better. I’m not ‘Your Grace’ anymore.”

“Old habits are not so easy to alter.”

They certainly were not. He was still learning that himself. It was difficult to break the customs of a lifetime.

“Call me Perry.”

His mother’s butler shuddered. “I would never demean myself to call you that revolting moniker.”

Perry chuckled. “Very well. You may call me by my truly revolting name then.”

Peregrine.

It was the type of ostentatious name that belonged to a duke. Not a bastard like him—the bastard he’d turned out to be. But he would let Thurman have his way.

Thurman waved toward the door. “Your mother . . .”

Perry looked down at himself. His clothes were hopelessly wrinkled, and wine stained his cravat. “In my present state, she would not wish me at her table.” His mother was fastidious and exacting in nature. A duchess through and through. She would not approve.

“Perhaps.” Thurman sniffed and started to leave, but then he stopped. “If I might be so bold as to inquire, how was your time in Shropshire yesterday?”

“You mean did I manage to corner the baroness and her daughter in the churchyard?”

Thurman inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment. There was not a fraction of shame in the motion. The old gentleman had taken Perry’s descent hard, perhaps only second to the unhappiness Perry’s mother suffered, and he wholeheartedly supported Perry finding an heiress.

In fact, Thurman and Mama had spent a great deal of time strategizing over that very matter, insisting that Perry attend church and all local happenings where the few heiresses of Shropshire congregated.

“Fret not. I did engage with the baroness and her daughter after church. Well, mostly the baroness. The girl hardly speaks.” Truth be told, her widow mother was more intriguing than the callow daughter. “I escorted them to their carriage.”

“They were amenable?”

“As always,” he said, feeling wearier than he should.

He had begun courting with the intent to wed well over a year ago when he was still the duke. Naturally he had not courted anyone in Shropshire then. He’d thrown himself into the season and the London marriage mart like a good nobleman. The time had come and he had resigned himself to taking that next step toward the proper state of matrimony. Now, however, the act of courting felt so very desperate and soul-crushing.

“Very good. The baroness’s daughter is by far the most eligible female Shropshire can boast.”

It did not bear mentioning that while she might be the most eligible female in the shire, Perry would never have bestowed any amount of attention on her before. Harsh perhaps. And yet true. It was simply the way things had been in the before times.

The before times. When he was a duke and life had been decidedly uncomplicated. When he had everything he ever wanted. Before a pair of dour-faced gentlemen, agents of the crown, had arrived in his drawing room alongside the morose-faced Penning family solicitor. It had been the most lowering moment in his life.

Initially, given their expressions, he had thought they were before him to deliver the news of a death . . . and he supposed, in effect, that was precisely what they were about on that ill-fated day. Only the loss they were there to proclaim was his own.

He’d sat stunned, hands limp at his sides, speechless as a slab of marble as they’d imparted the news of his illegitimacy. It was all a blur. He vaguely recalled the pop and crackle of the fire in the great hearth. The scent of leather from the armchair he sat ensconced within filling his nose.

As dark and somber as crows, the gentlemen had circled him within the shrinking space of his drawing room, citing their proof. They presented him with several signed documents and witness statements.

Perry remembered looking at those papers, trying to process the words, the parchment brittle in his shaking hands. He’d felt like a lad in school again, attempting to decipher a particularly difficult Latin text. Latin had not been his best subject.

In the rubble of his shock, he recalled feeling a sense of gnawing guilt. Perhaps that was because of the grim lines of the faces watching him, the tight set of their mouths. Judgment was writ all over their expressions. Condemnation. As though he were somehow culpable. As though he had set out to defraud the true Penning duke of his rightful life.