Curiosity Killed the Duke

  Dukes in Danger

  Book 8

  Emily E K Murdoch

  © Copyright 2023 by Emily E K Murdoch

  Text by Emily E K Murdoch

  Cover by Dar Albert

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 23

  Moreno Valley, CA 92556

  ceo@dragonbladepublishing.com

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition November 2023

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Thank you for your support of a small press. At Dragonblade Publishing, we strive to bring you the highest quality Historical Romance from some of the best authors in the business. Without your support, there is no ‘us’, so we sincerely hope you adore these stories and find some new favorite authors along the way.

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  CEO, Dragonblade Publishing

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch

  Dukes in Danger Series

  Don’t Judge a Duke by His Cover (Book 1)

  Strike While the Duke is Hot (Book 2)

  The Duke is Mightier than the Sword (Book 3)

  A Duke in Time Saves Nine (Book 4)

  Every Duke Has His Price (Book 5)

  Put Your Best Duke Forward (Book 6)

  Where There’s a Duke, There’s a Way (Book 7)

  Curiosity Killed the Duke (Book 8)

  Twelve Days of Christmas

  Twelve Drummers Drumming

  Eleven Pipers Piping

  Ten Lords a Leaping

  Nine Ladies Dancing

  Eight Maids a Milking

  Seven Swans a Swimming

  Six Geese a Laying

  Five Gold Rings

  Four Calling Birds

  Three French Hens

  Two Turtle Doves

  A Partridge in a Pear Tree

  The De Petras Saga

  The Misplaced Husband (Book 1)

  The Impoverished Dowry (Book 2)

  The Contrary Debutante (Book 3)

  The Determined Mistress (Book 4)

  The Convenient Engagement (Book 5)

  The Governess Bureau Series

  A Governess of Great Talents (Book 1)

  A Governess of Discretion (Book 2)

  A Governess of Many Languages (Book 3)

  A Governess of Prodigious Skill (Book 4)

  A Governess of Unusual Experience (Book 5)

  A Governess of Wise Years (Book 6)

  A Governess of No Fear (Novella)

  Never The Bride Series

  Always the Bridesmaid (Book 1)

  Always the Chaperone (Book 2)

  Always the Courtesan (Book 3)

  Always the Best Friend (Book 4)

  Always the Wallflower (Book 5)

  Always the Bluestocking (Book 6)

  Always the Rival (Book 7)

  Always the Matchmaker (Book 8)

  Always the Widow (Book 9)

  Always the Rebel (Book 10)

  Always the Mistress (Book 11)

  Always the Second Choice (Book 12)

  Always the Mistletoe (Novella)

  Always the Reverend (Novella)

  The Lyon’s Den Series

  Always the Lyon Tamer

  Pirates of Britannia Series

  Always the High Seas

  De Wolfe Pack: The Series

  Whirlwind with a Wolfe

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  About Emily E K Murdoch

  Chapter One

  11 April 1811

  Samuel Dellamore, Duke of Chantmarle, had never seen a man dance in a skirt before.

  Kilt. Kilt—he really had to remember the lingo of this place. If he was going to be courted by the very best of Scottish nobility, the least he could do was not call the blessed thing a skirt.

  Samuel beamed out across the dance hall, ensuring that anyone who glanced at him saw nothing more than an idiot.

  That was the best part of what he had to do, spying on behalf of the Crown. Acting the fool. It was starting to become so easy for him that at times—

  “I said, are you listening to me, Your Grace?” huffed a woman just to his left.

  Samuel started. “I beg your pardon?”

  The politeness was a reflex. It was easy, being a duke, to always sound polite. Really, he should thank his lucky stars—and his childhood governess—that they had done such a superb job at preparing him for prancing about the place. Samuel tried not to grin. It was something he was perhaps a little too good at, to tell the truth.

  “I am afraid I was not listening to a word you said, Lady Romeril,” he said cheerfully, knowing it would rile the older woman to no end. “I was too busy watching the dancing, you see.”

  He spread an aristocratic arm to their left where the dance was continuing. Skirts and kilts were flying, the dancers were whooping as they went, and the music seemed, to Samuel’s ear, to be getting more and more frantic.

  Really! One would never get away with dancing in such a wild manner in London!

  “They call it a reel,” said Lady Romeril stiffly.

  Samuel examined the older woman carefully. Known, as she was, for being one of Society’s most terrifying doyennes, it always amused him how swiftly he could get under her skin and ruffle the old thing.

  Being a distant aunt, of course, helped. Or rather, nephew.

  “Well, I think it a ‘reel’ shame you aren’t dancing,” he quipped.

  Lady Romeril groaned. “Really, Chantmarle. You could not think of anything better than that?”

  He perhaps could have composed a more impressive jest if Samuel had not also been scanning the crowd for the miscreants he had been sent to Scotland to search for in the first place.

  Samuel’s eye flickered across two young ladies seemingly bickering over a lace edged fan, two gentlemen arguing politics, and a gaggle of girls racing by who must have been permitted to attend their first dance and were showing themselves up terribly. There were sixteen people dancing, none of whom matched any description of the ruffians he had been sent to apprehend, and Lady Romeril’s droning conversation did not entirely drown out the chatter around them.

  “—heard the duke had rushed his marriage to a woman who—”

  “—not in this Season, I don’t know what my modiste was thinking—”

  “—aye, ye ken the snappit of the—”

  Samuel blinked. That last bit was, in truth, difficult on the ears, but he thought it meant—

  “Samuel Dellamore! You are not heeding a single word I am saying, are you?”

  He blinked again. The irate expression of Lady Romeril swam into view. “Sorry, old thing,” he said cheerfully. “Not a syllable.”

  Perhaps if it were not Lady Romeril, Samuel would have paid greater attention to her words. He was able to move easily through Society on the King’s orders, after all, because Samuel Dellamore, Duke of Chantmarle, was beloved and accepted in almost every drawing room in the country.

  Any other woman would have been offended, and perhaps Lady Romeril was. But as it was, she merely rolled her eyes, tapped him with her fan as though he were a mischievous boy of seven who needed reprimanding, an
d tutted her tongue.

  “When you wrote to me and requested my aid in finding you a bride,” she said meaningfully, “I never presumed I would suffer such indignities!”

  Samuel’s smile slipped ever so slightly.

  Ah. Yes. The cover story.

  Well, the Duke of Chantmarle could not waltz—or reel—up to Scotland at the end of the Season without giving any explanation. Society would talk. Gossip would grow, and before he knew it, it would be impossible to hunt down the people he had been sent to find.

  It was all very well being a duke, but when that distracted from one’s purpose, it was smarter just to keep everyone’s expectations low and the gossip predictable, to slip back into the caricature of himself he had created years ago.

  Samuel, Duke of Chantmarle: idiot.

  Everyone had believed it for so long, Samuel thought darkly, there were moments when he was starting to believe it himself.

  “Well, I am grateful to you, I do declare,” he said aloud for Lady Romeril’s benefit. “And I do indeed need to find a bride for . . . um. Reasons.”

  Samuel almost rolled his own eyes. It was tiresome indeed, being treated like a complete dullard, but there it was. Everyone spoke more openly around a man they believed to be less than sharp. More secrets were whispered, more hints dropped, more statements muttered rather than murmured. It was so much easier to discover the truth of those around him.

  Still. It was starting to wear, even Samuel had to admit.

  At least, he would have admitted it, if he’d had anyone he could admit it to . . .

  “Do not concern yourself, Your Grace, plenty of families of the very best blood find that an injection of a dowry does wonders for the name,” Lady Romeril was saying in what she clearly thought was a delicate tone. “And that is why I brought you here.”

  Samuel forced himself to grin. “Most thoughtful of you, Lady Romeril.”

  And it was, in a way. He had to acknowledge that his plan to entice Lady Romeril to invite him to Edinburgh for her end of Season celebrations had been haphazard at best, ill thought through at worst. Why would anyone seek to aid a duke who had spent most of his time in Society playing the jester?

  He had not accounted, clearly, for Lady Romeril’s almost pathological need to be the center of attention.

  The Duke of Chantmarle wishes to find a bride? Well, then Lady Romeril was going to find one for him.

  “I have never been to Edinburgh before,” Samuel said, saying the first truthful thing to his companion for a while. “I had never imagined it to be so . . . so . . .”

  So impressive. Oh, Samuel was a London man, and other than his estates in Devon, he rarely spent time anywhere else. He was accustomed to Society and enjoyed the ability to order anything through one’s butler and have it arrive that very afternoon. He liked Almack’s as well as the notorious inns and gaming hells he spent time in when needing to get away from the simpering ton.

  He had never dreamed, in truth, that there could be a city he enjoyed more. But Edinburgh was starting to surprise him.

  “Precisely,” Lady Romeril said, completing his sentence. “And some of the best families of the north are here.”

  By here, Samuel had to assume she meant the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms.

  And they were spectacular. Not that he would ever say as much in Lady Romeril’s presence, who was herself a Patroness of Almack’s, but really the two were incomparable. The Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh were larger, lighter, better decorated. The food was actually palatable—quite unlike Almack’s—and the music!

  Samuel found, quite to his surprise, that his foot was tapping to the beat. “What do they call this?”

  Lady Romeril frowned reproachfully. “Highland dancing. I have informed His Majesty that I greatly disapprove, naturally. The flinging of the hands! The whoops!”

  Samuel grinned. “I rather like it.”

  It was easy, at times, to slip into the character he had created. Especially when his tastes matched those of a boor.

  Just for a moment, a flicker of guilt seared around his heart. Was he himself perhaps rather closer in personality to that character than he would like to admit? The thought had gone before he could give it any real consideration, which was a relief. Samuel had far more important things to worry about, and Lady Romeril was only the first.

  The dancing had changed, its pace increased, and the dancers were laughing and calling out to each other in the soft burr of the Scots. Samuel discovered a smile had crept across his face, and he allowed it to linger there.

  Well, why not? The dancing was, in truth, impressive. Though he would never reveal a true opinion to anyone, the whole Assembly Rooms were rather fantastic. More people here than ever attended Almack’s, more pleasurable music, more entertainment . . .

  In a strange way, it would be difficult to return to London.

  Samuel’s attention sharpened. But he would, the moment he had discovered the rogues who had been passing secrets to the French.

  The reminder of his true purpose in Scotland refined his concentration, even as he permitted his face to continue displaying the vague smile. He had to remember what he was here for, how he could help if he were able to track down the traitors who were sharing secrets with their greatest enemies.

  “You look tired.”

  Samuel blinked. Lady Romeril was examining him seriously. Almost—and it made his stomach lurch to see it—with genuine care.

  “It has been a long week,” Samuel allowed himself to say.

  Too right it had. A week of sending messages, bribing servants, receiving angry letters from London asking why he had not managed to find the blackguards yet, and a constant confusion about the language and, more importantly, the food.

  The food! Why was everything boiled in its own skin up here? And why did the Scots’s understanding of a cake entirely differ from his own?

  Lady Romeril nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. Well, wife hunting can be a difficult business.”

  For just a moment, Samuel stared. Wife hunting? He wasn’t wife hunting, he was—

  “Yes,” he said swiftly, hoping to goodness she had not noticed the momentary gap when he had forgotten his cover story. “Wife hunting.”

  He almost snorted. Wife hunting? Why did women have to make everything sound so ridiculous?

  Besides, he could not be less in the market for a wife if he tried to be. Bring a woman into the dangerous life that he led? Risk a woman’s heart, reputation, perhaps her very life? Absolutely not.

  The day he allowed a woman to distract him that severely was the day, Samuel thought grimly, he would have to pack up and retire to the countryside. Heaven forbid.

  “—outrageous, the way she has danced both the reel and the second with Mr. McDonald—”

  “—never seen Miss Douglas behave in such a—”

  “—has to be tonight, the letter is going to London then Dover on the mail coach—”

  Samuel’s ears pricked.

  There was still a great deal of chatter going on around him, not including the indefatigable Lady Romeril . . .

  “—consider daughters of earls to begin with, and we can then move on to—”

  There was a pair of ladies behind him—he had spotted them a few minutes ago—in matching gowns of a light blue tartan. They seemed to be gossiping about a Miss Douglas—one of the dancers, Samuel had to presume. It appeared she had transgressed by crossing a very important social line, though he could hardly care less.

  “—given preferential treatment! We shall have to hope Mr. McDonald will soon propose, or else—”

  But it wasn’t their conversation which had drawn his ear.

  As Samuel continued to nod periodically at Lady Romeril—anything to ensure she did not believe he had stopped listening to her—he attempted to look lazily around, as though merely taking in the contours of the room.

  His gaze narrowed. There. Just behind him.

  Two men. One tall, the other shorter. Both stocky, both strong. One was speaking without looking at the other, and both appeared entirely unsuited to the Assembly Rooms.

  Samuel looked away swiftly and nodded once more to Lady Romeril. “Yes, yes, I quite agree.”

  What he had agreed to, he was unsure. It did not matter. It appeared that he had, by complete chance, discovered at least two of the men who could be in this traitorous ring.

  Sending an urgent letter to Dover? Why, that could only mean information sent to France. And the only people sending letters to France at this time? Spies.