The Ice Duchess: Prequel to the Duchess Society Series Read online

  The Ice Duchess

  Prequel to the Duchess Society Series

  Tracy Sumner

  Copyright © 2020 by Tracy Sumner

  The Ice Duchess was previously published in the anthology ‚A Scandalous Christmas‘ (2020).

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Victoria Cooper

  Edited by Casey Harris-Parks

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Also by Tracy Sumner

  About Tracy Sumner

  “Love is my religion—I could die for that—I could die for you.

  My creed is love, and you are its only tenet.”

  - John Keats

  Chapter 1

  A boisterous Derbyshire manor where neither hero nor heroine want to be…

  December 21, 1820

  It couldn’t be, but she knew it was.

  Georgiana stood in a shadowed recess beneath the imperial staircase gracing Buxton Hall’s entrance, a beaded reticule dangling forgotten from her wrist, her breath trapped between her lungs and her lips. The fragrances of the season—frankincense, cinnamon, roast goose—swirled, and she closed her eyes, hoping, praying…

  But when she opened them, Dexter Reed Munro, the Marquess of Westfield, mere days from becoming the Duke of Markham if the rumor was correct, stood on the lowest step of the flight across from her, his expression amused, his head tilted as if someone had told a joke and he was considering whether to laugh.

  When one yearned to hear that laugh.

  A horde of fluttering, preening admirers surrounded him, and his smile, polite but winsome, looked so authentic they’d no idea he was soundly rejecting them. She could spot a fake right off. And, heavens, did she recognize the Munro brand of rejection.

  He doesn’t care for society, she’d love to tell the flock.

  He only cares for his bloody rocks.

  Georgiana released the punishing grip on her reticule, then smoothed the velvet tuft into place. With murmured appreciation, she took a glass from a passing footman and climbed the staircase opposite Dexter’s, knowing they were likely to meet on the landing. Champagne bubbles erupted on her tongue, the fiery sensation giving her much-needed courage. She’d never been able to shut off the part of her that whispered that one please every time she came within spitting range of him. He hadn’t known about her obsession, and truly, she didn’t need to recall. Those untamed children racing over moor and heath, roaming the limestone caves and caverns of Derbyshire, were long gone. Their lone kiss, a glancing brush of his lips against hers before he departed on his adventures, meant nothing.

  His love of fossils and stone had been the only thing he’d taken with him. The reckless, passionate sister of his closest friend, a girl who’d fallen hard during their split-second kiss, hadn’t been a concern.

  Thankfully, things changed. People changed.

  Georgiana Whitcomb, Countess Winterbourne, was no longer reckless or passionate about anything. And with her brother’s death, the circle of three friends had been forever broken.

  “Markham has returned from his travels.” Lady Pembroke saddled up beside Georgiana, prepared to unleash an anthology of intrusive observations.

  “You’re stepping ahead, my lady. For now, he’s simply Westfield,” she said though she didn’t move away as she wished to. Lady Pembroke had a daughter, Lady Elizabeth, whom Georgiana quite liked. A review of Elizabeth’s membership in the Duchess Society was going before the committee next month. The committee comprised of Georgiana and her best friend, Hildegard Templeton. Georgiana had put her heart, soul, and the experience gained from a wretched marriage—in addition to a substantial amount of her deceased husband’s monies—into her organization for young ladies. Elizabeth was a prime example of a naïve girl needing tutelage on ways to navigate an aristocratic arrangement.

  Ways to survive would be closer to the truth.

  If speaking to Elizabeth’s dragon of a mother was the price of admission, Georgiana was willing to pay.

  Lady Pembroke tapped her fan on Georgiana’s wrist, three soft rebukes. “The duke is gravely ill, or so I’ve heard. Westfield wouldn’t have returned without a noose closing around his neck. The horrendous row he and his father had, why, it’s close to six years ago as I recollect. The scoundrel cares only for things long dead and set in granite. His father, once he’s dust, will finally be a person of interest.”

  “Closer to seven years, actually,” she murmured, choosing to ignore the vulgar statement about the Duke of Markham’s health. The last time Georgiana had spoken to Dex was the night of the argument with his father, where he’d been furiously packing for an expedition that would take him far from his ancestral home, far from everything, exactly as he’d wanted. Exactly as he’d gotten.

  Yet, as she invariably tended to, Georgiana defended the notorious marquess, a hard, hard habit to break. “I believe geology is his profession. He didn’t merely travel; the government funded his research. Surveys and such, hence the familial conflict.”

  Lady Pembroke grasped the walnut railing, then snatched her hand back when an evergreen needle pricked her through her glove. Holly, ivy, English fir, and mistletoe adorned every surface, framed every window until Buxton Hall looked like the forest had been invited inside the manor. “Imagine thinking to turn a hobby into a profession. Our set doesn’t have professions, my dear. Westfield must be half-mad, as they say. Making it worse, he taught a class at Oxford last year. What future duke needs to be an academic?” She lifted a perfectly-shaped brow and brought her wounded hand before her face as if the injury puzzled her. “Childhood friends, weren’t you?”

  “My brother, Anthony,” Georgiana said, stepping onto the landing. Even whispering his name sent her heart to shatter on the marble beneath her feet. “The marquess was my brother’s closest friend.”

  The grief in her voice was enough to cast Lady Pembroke off like a ship that had scraped a glacier. Georgiana smiled sadly and sipped her champagne. The Ice Countess. It’s what the ton called her, and the moniker fit. At least, it fit now that Georgiana no longer had to play a part. Play a game. She was free to do as she deemed fit.

  Freedom she’d never relinquish. Not for anyone. Not for anything.

  The hair on the neck of her nape lifted, cogent awareness sending goosebumps along her arms.

  Georgiana glanced across the crowded landing, and there he stood.

  Someone bumped into her, but the view was better from the spot she stumbled into. Between an aging viscount and an inebriated baron, both short of stature and style. Dex hadn’t seen her—a temporary respite in the small space—so she seized the silent moment to record the changes. Prepare for a conversation should she have to endure one. Let the tumble her heart had taken settle in, settle down.

  She palmed her quivering stomach. Oh, my, is this feeling familiar.

  The woman at Dex’s side bounced up on her toes to whisper in his ear. His smile was rueful, his lone-shouldered shrug contrite. Disarming as he brushed off the suggestion, one Georgiana didn’t want to fathom. She drew an aggrieved
breath through her teeth, suppressing the ridiculous, possessive burn in her chest.

  However vexed she was, she couldn’t deny the beauty of the moment.

  Candlelight sparked off jeweled facets and polished cuff links, off the gold and silver paper looped around the banisters. Off Dex’s eyes, a unique mix much like his composite rocks. Green one day, hazel the next, a surprise every time she’d gazed into them, a gift one hadn’t expected to receive. He tilted his head, highlighting the auburn streaks in his hair. Not ginger, not brown but an appealing combination of both. His skin was tanned when it hadn’t been before, accentuating a pale crescent scar on his temple. Slightly taller. Leaner. A hard edge shaping his face, rawness filtering into his jaw, his stubborn chin.

  As it tended to, life had sculpted them both.

  Surely, there were more classically handsome men, although none she’d met had the distinctive blend of intelligence and a desire for experience beyond what was easily obtained. A hunger she had as well, but she was a woman, which made all the horrendous difference in the world. A modern-day pirate minus the sword, Dex had gone through life almost incensed. And she had, from the first, understood.

  He’d known who he was from day one, which was rare in their often counterfeit world.

  Dex flicked his coat aside and braced his hand on his lean hip in exasperation, and Georgiana realized with a sinking heart that she was still attracted to him. She’d always liked the temperamental ones when the temperamental ones caused all the trouble. She’d often told the ladies of the Duchess Society: if you have the luxury of choice, obtuse men are easier to control.

  Candlelight simply loved this clever one, she decided and polished off her champagne.

  Once, so had she.

  As if an ember had struck his skin, Dex glanced up and over the crowd, easily able to do so when her meager height was a hereditary disadvantage. Of course, he recognized her, his gaze sweeping low, then back. He was shocked; this was evident. His bottom lip slowly parted from the top, his eyes widening enough for her to make out the color: a dark, luscious green matching the mistletoe at his elbow. Even a hint of crimson, like the holly berries sprinkled across every table, flowed into his cheeks.

  She was glad for his astonishment. Sophomorically, patently glad.

  Because, when she turned her back and climbed the flight of stairs to the double salon, she was the one leaving this time.

  It couldn’t be, but he knew it was.

  Dex tunneled his hand in his trouser pocket and caressed the chunk of lapis lazuli he’d found on a geological assignment in India last year. Lady Georgiana Collins—he shook his head, no, it was Whitcomb now—had eyes that color if memory served. The ton had gone wild over the girl, and those eyes, her first Season. Seizing on the success, her father had promptly auctioned her off to the highest bidder to save his estate. To save his arse, to be blunt. Then Anthony died. And Dex left Derbyshire, banished because he wouldn’t follow his father’s directive to stay and manage the duchy. Dex hadn’t considered stepping in as a friend of the family, proposing a different course of action for Viscount Thimley’s daughter, Georgiana. There were other men of means who’d sought an heir, a beautiful wife. Dex could have produced a list of younger, kinder candidates with scant effort.

  The Earl of Winterbourne had been neither young nor kind.

  Nodding to a passing acquaintance, Dex followed the crowd into the salon, memories weighing his step. It was only later, with an ounce of wisdom added to his emotional balance scale, when he’d started to miss her, miss Derbyshire like his very breath, that he recognized he hadn’t been a particularly good friend. To Anthony. To her.

  He’d realized a lot of things that were pointless to realize now.

  Taking a standing position along the back wall with the men who expected to escape to the billiards room when the musicale began, his gaze tracked Georgiana as she smoothed her skirt and settled gracefully into one of the chairs half-circling the pianoforte. Candlelight from the chandelier washed over her as she fussed with the glass in her hand, trying to decide where to place it. Her hair was darker, honeyed wheat instead of the white blonde of their youth. Her gown was unremarkable, yet the shimmering silk clung to each gentle curve. And he’d gotten a brief look at her face. Beautiful as ever.

  When everything had changed, nothing had changed.

  A wave of tenderness mingled with annoyance rolled through him. Dex grabbed a tumbler from a passing footman, hardly caring what the cut crystal contained, as drinking provided pointless activity set to keep him from following the disastrous impulse to approach his deceased best friend’s little sister.

  He frowned, tapping his finger on the glass. Though he’d never considered Georgie a sister. His displeasure deepened. Dex took a sip of what turned out to be excellent Irish whiskey, closing his eyes to the satisfying burn. Why was he torturing himself? He’d been halfway around the world when he heard about her marriage, no way to stop what was already in motion, although his heart gave a vicious thump as it did whenever he thought of her. About Anthony. About his dying father.

  Bloody, blasted Derbyshire, he seethed and tossed back the rest of his whiskey.

  “Why the glower, Markham? Christmastide celebration and all. Food, spirits, music, although that forebodes to be repellant. It looks as if Lady Marshall is going to once again insist on punishing us with her talent. The pianoforte is not her friend.”

  Dex turned before he reconciled the look on his face. He wasn’t often in polite society, and his feral edges were glinting like a blade in the sun. “It’s Westfield. The duke lives.”

  The man at his side, a baron he’d shared a faro table with years ago at White’s, took an instinctive step back. “Apologies. Word in the village is the situation at Markham Manor is dire. I simply assumed…”

  Forcing his lips into a smile, Dex waved away the rest of the coxcomb’s justification. “A logical conclusion. No matter. I’ve recently arrived from Italy, a bit short on sleep. My terseness is uncalled for. Ignore me.” Please.

  “The Ice Countess,” the coxcomb whispered with a nod in Georgiana’s direction. A brandy-scented dash of air slid from his lips. “Gorgeous but frightening. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Men are deathly afraid of her. And her dashed society.”

  Dex shifted uncomfortably, gathering others had seen where his gaze had settled. “Come again?”

  The baron cocked his head, a lank of flaxen hair falling across his brow. His pale eyes lit with excitement when he grasped Dex had no idea what he was talking about. “My sister went to her school before she married. Or joined her club or whatever. The Duchess Society, the countess calls it. I don’t know what she teaches because Emmaline had already attended day school or some such idiocy, but now Emma talks about a wife’s rights. As if they have any. Had her husband set up a trust before she’d sign the betrothal agreement. Can you believe it? But Patridge needed her dowry to save himself, so I guess that’s his mismanagement, ain’t it?”

  “Indeed,” Dex murmured, examining this information from all sides like he would a fossil.

  Ice Countess, he thought, glancing back at her. Georgiana’s head was bowed, perhaps to send the off-key musical notes over her head instead of into her ears. The nape of her neck was sleek, strands of hair escaping her chignon to curl delicately against her skin. She looked positively regal sitting there in the gilded light, the untouchable woman they imagined her to be. When the girl had been cunning, even lewd at times, intelligent to a fault, up for any challenge, any dare. Dirty hems and scraped knees and effervescent charm.

  Nothing icy about her.

  “I told Mother, don’t send Emma to a woman who’s vowed never to marry again herself. What’s the use in that? Got a crusader returned to us, so I was right. As men usually are.” The baron traced the toe of his patent shoe over a swirl in the Aubusson rug, a dance step with himself. “My betrothed, when I secure her, and I have my eye on a few lovely ladies, I do, because the walls are c
losing in on me, isn’t going near any Duchess Society. No sir. I’ll write that in my agreement.”

  Dex paused, holding back comment because this young buck knew little about life and even less about women. Never marry again? Georgiana couldn’t be more than twenty-five to Dex’s thirty. Undoubtedly, she had an income from her marriage, possibly a dower residence, maybe even a townhouse in the city, so she didn’t have to remarry, he supposed.

  But what about love, passion, children? The girl he’d known had wanted a family.

  When Lady Buxton staggered into the salon carrying a massive tub of raisins soaked in brandy and asked who would not only light the dish but try to catch the flaming fruit between their teeth, Dex shoved off the wall with a frustrated oath. He’d seen the injuries resulting from this beguiling parlor trick before. “I’m done for the night. Happy Christmas,” he said to the baron whose name he couldn’t for the life of him recall and angled his way through the crowd, wondering why this many people wanted to spend their holiday in Derbyshire.

  Wondering how he’d ended up in the same country manor as Georgiana Whitcomb.

  A situation possessing dangerous potential.

  Because the eager boy racing over moors and climbing towering oaks and sleeping in limestone caves was inside him, and young Dexter was tempting him, telling him to follow the inclination to halt in the salon’s doorway and stare at Anthony’s capricious sister until she, in turn, noticed him, a tried-and-true game they’d played before.

  Which, after a hushed, pulsing trice, like a cord connected them and he’d given it a yank, she did.

  He tipped his chin over his shoulder. Meet me outside.