Craving (Regency Lovers 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedications

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Mailing list/newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, website, contact Carole, leave a review on ebook site

  About The Author

  Other books by Carole Mortimer

  Regency Lovers 3

  CRAVING

  By

  Carole Mortimer

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2018 Carole Mortimer

  Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Formatter: Matthew Mortimer

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-70-5

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DEDICATIONS

  My husband, Peter

  Chapter 1

  Weston House, London,

  Summer, 1817

  “Miss Sophia Marchment is here to see you, Your Grace.”

  Magnus Spencer, the Duke of Weston, placed his pen carefully in its holder before answering. “Show her in, Simms.” He had been expecting this visit from his sixteen-shortly-to-be-seventeen-year-old daughter’s potential headmistress for the following year at Miss Marchment’s School for Young Ladies in Portsmouth.

  What Magnus had most definitely not been expecting was the beautiful young woman who swept into his study just seconds later.

  He had assumed any headmistress of a girls’ school would be middle-aged or older.

  Assumption, in this case, was obviously a dangerous thing.

  Sophia Marchment could not possibly be aged more than five and twenty, at most. Having been divested of her cloak and bonnet, it was possible to see she was also, without doubt, one of the most beautiful and shapely women Magnus had ever set eyes upon.

  Her uncovered and fashionably styled hair was a lovely golden color, her eyes sky blue, her complexion creamy smooth. She was also tall for a woman, possibly only seven or possibly eight inches shorter than Magnus’s own height of six feet and four.

  As for her figure in the fashionable russet gown she was wearing… Her waist and hips were slender, but her breasts were full and currently spilling slightly over the top of the low neckline of her gown.

  Magnus dragged his gaze away from those full breasts as he belatedly rose to his feet and made a polite bow. “Miss Marchment.” He took care not to step out from behind his desk. The last thing he needed was to stand in front of this too-young-to-be-a-headmistress with his pantaloons noticeably tented outward by his aroused cock.

  “Your Grace.” Instead of returning the formality, she instead thrust a lace-gloved hand forward across his desk.

  Magnus frowned his displeasure. Shaking hands was a manly thing to do, and then only occasionally. A bow usually sufficed. A handshake was not something he would have expected from a lady of quality.

  Which, he decided as he studied the delicate arch of Sophia Marchment’s brows, her high cheekbones, and the perfect bow of her full lips, the delicacy of her chin and throat, along with the silk material of the gown she was wearing, this young woman most certainly was.

  What the hell she was doing as the headmistress of a school in Portsmouth for young ladies, Magnus had no idea. But he would most certainly not be sending Clarissa to an establishment run by someone so young or so beautiful, no matter how much his daughter might plead and whine when Magnus told her of his decision.

  Several of Clarissa’s close friends attended the Marchment school in Portsmouth, and although Magnus would have preferred not to send Clarissa away from home, she had her heart set on joining her friends. Magnus had just been grateful, with Clarissa’s seventeenth birthday looming in three months’ time, that his daughter wasn’t demanding to enter Society next Season. He had also heard nothing but praise for Miss Marchment’s establishment from the parents of Clarissa’s friends.

  Either the mothers of those girls, all as demanding as Clarissa, were just relieved to have their daughters out of the house for a while, or the fathers had been rendered blind by Sophia Marchment’s beauty.

  Magnus might have had a cockstand at the sight of her, but that did not mean he wished his young and impressionable daughter to become one of this woman’s pupils. The opposite, in fact. He could not remember the last time he’d had such a visceral reaction to a woman, or if he ever had. The fact he had a cockstand merely looking at this woman was, in his opinion, a good enough reason not to send the already impressionable Clarissa to the Marchment school.

  “I trust your maid has been offered refreshment while she waits for you?” he prompted politely.

  “I do not have a maid, Your Grace.”

  “Your companion, then.”

  “I do not have one of those either.”

  “Then how did you— You came here alone and unchaperoned?” His mouth firmed at the realization.

  She nodded. “It was such a glorious day, I enjoyed the walk.”

  “Alone?”

  “Completely.” A knowing smile curved Sophia Marchment’s lips as she at last allowed the hand he had ignored to drop back to her side. “I am not what you were expecting.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No, you most certainly are not,” Magnus acknowledged tightly.

  “Whereas you are exactly what I was led to expect,” she drawled.

  Magnus raised one dark and haughty brow. “Indeed?”

  “Oh yes.” She did not wait to be invited to do so as she made herself comfortable in the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “The Duke of Weston is exceedingly tall and largely built. He is known far and wide for his austere, haughty, and aristocratic bearing. I believe it has also been mentioned that you are not averse to using arrogance if you deem a situation warrants it. Unlike you, Your Grace, I have done my homework.” She met his gaze with those challenging blue eyes.

  Magnus somehow felt wrong-footed in this conversation, as if he was the one being interviewed rather than the woman seated opposite him. Something which had never before happened to the “exceedingly tall and largely built, and austere and haughtily aristocratic in bearing, and not averse to using arrogance if the situation warrants it” Duke of Weston.

  Nor should it be happening now. Admittedly, this woman was a step up from a tradesperson, but not by much. She was offering a service for which she would be generously paid.

  Good God, that made her sound like a high-class whore, something Magnus was sure she was not.

  Despite her outer confidence and the glitter of humor in her eyes, Magnus sensed there was a harder center to Sophia Marchment. One that said look but do not touch.

  His cock, thank God, also seemed aware of that unspoken warning and had now deflated and returned to a more acceptable state and size.

  Its normal size.

  Because Magnus did not react to any ladies in this noticeable fashion.

  His wife had died ten years ago, but her memory lingered on, and not in a pleasant way. It had been an arranged marriage between their two families rather than a love match.

  Lucy had been a shrewish and demanding wife and duchess d
uring their eight years of marriage, and the reason they only had the one child, Clarissa, was because Magnus simply could not bear the thought of sharing Lucy’s bed again once she became pregnant with Clarissa during the first year of that marriage. Besides, Magnus had a perfectly suitable cousin to inherit the title, and his sons after him, so there really had not been any necessity for Magnus to ever bed his wife again in an effort to procure his own heir.

  Magnus had spent the ten years since Lucy’s death bringing up his young daughter, managing his estates, and visiting his club where he would often dine with male friends.

  There had been no mistresses.

  Certainly no intention on Magnus’s part of ever marrying again. Even the thought of it was still enough to cause him to inwardly shudder.

  He had only dallied occasionally with a few ladies of the demimonde, but even that had waned the last couple of years from a lack of interest and little desire on Magnus’s part for the mess of it all, both physically and emotionally.

  Indeed, Magnus had now decided, at the age of eight and thirty, that he was too old to want the bother of having to be even slightly charming to a woman in order to bed her, and that the reward did not equal the amount of effort involved. His own hand had served him well enough these past two years, even if the pleasure did feel rather hollow afterward. No doubt self-pleasure would continue to suffice for another two years and longer.

  His instant physical reaction now to the forward and outspoken Sophia Marchment was a complete shock to him. It was also as unwelcome to him as it no doubt would be to her, if she ever became aware of it.

  Which she would not.

  This completely unsuitable headmistress would be on her way back to Portsmouth very soon, without the promise of Magnus’s daughter as one of her future pupils. After which, he would never have to see Sophia Marchment, or that enticing body, ever again.

  Sophia was not being completely honest when she claimed not to be surprised by the Duke of Weston. He was certainly tall and large of shoulder and chest. He was also austere, as the frown lines between his eyes testified. Haughty and aristocratic was obvious in his demeanor. She had no confirmation as yet, from their brief conversation, as to the arrogance.

  But her informant had forgotten to mention Magnus Spencer was also fiercely handsome. Much as a caged tiger could be called fiercely beautiful.

  The duke had fashionable slightly overlong dark hair that curled about his ears and nape and onto the wide forehead which sported a perpetual frown between gray eyes that shifted in color from glacial to dark and stormy. He had a slightly overlong nose between sharp cheekbones, and a sculpted and firm mouth above a square and strong jaw.

  His dark gray superfine was also tailored perfectly to his wide shoulders and muscular chest and arms, his silver brocade waistcoat flat against his stomach, hips slender, with long and muscular legs above knee-high and highly polished black Hessians.

  Possibly aged in his late thirties, not only was Magnus Spencer exceedingly handsome, but he also possessed a simmering and dangerous presence it would be unwise to ignore.

  Much as Sophia had been enjoying herself at the duke’s expense these past few minutes, it was perhaps time to deal with this matter in a more businesslike fashion. “I am not as young as I look, Your Grace. In fact, I shall be eight and twenty on my next birthday,” she informed him briskly. “I have been headmistress of the school for young ladies for the past three years, and was employed there as a teacher for seven years previous to that. I have references I can produce in regard to the school, if you should need to see them.”

  “Not at present, no,” Magnus dismissed.

  She smiled slightly at the predictable answer. Magnus Spencer no more approved of her than she did him. “It would be as well to inform you now that, although the departure of several of my girls at the end of the school year in June has resulted in several vacancies, I do not take just any young lady into my establishment. Nor is it merely a question of a parent being able to pay the fees. Each of the girls must be suited to the school’s ethos. Which is why I always prefer to meet prospective pupils, and their parents, before I even consider accepting them into the school. Normally, I would have requested that you and Clarissa visit me in Portsmouth, but as I was in London for a week of the summer anyway, I decided that, on this occasion, my visiting you would serve the same purpose.”

  Good God, Magnus realized somewhat dazedly, this bloody woman was interviewing him!

  He had never heard of such a thing before. Indeed, he was sure any other educational establishment would be honored to claim Lady Clarissa Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Weston, as one of their pupils.

  Not this bloody woman, apparently.

  And that was twice now he had thought of her in that way in as many seconds. Understandably so, in Magnus’s opinion. The blo—the woman was far too outspoken and arrogant for her own good.

  “Might I meet Clarissa now?” she prompted coolly.

  “She is not at home this morning.” Magnus had purposefully chosen a time for this meeting when he had known he would be able to persuade Clarissa into going shopping with her friends, accompanied by her maid.

  If the meeting with the headmistress did not go well, and so far it had not, then Clarissa was not averse to attempting to wind him about her little finger to get her way, with either cajoling or temper tantrums. He sincerely doubted his daughter’s determination to join her friends at school in Portsmouth, and his refusal, would be the exception.

  Irritation flared in those sky-blue eyes. “Then I fail to see what I am doing here.”

  Magnus’s eyes narrowed. “You are here to be interviewed as a prospective headmistress and future female role model to my almost seventeen-year-old daughter.”

  Blonde brows rose in mocking humor. “How have I done so far?”

  “Not well,” he answered truthfully.

  “As I thought.” She rose to her feet. “We are wasting each other’s time, Your Grace, and it is too fine a day for a lengthy conversation that is obviously going nowhere. If you should decide you wish to speak with me again, with Clarissa in attendance, then I am staying at Royston House for the rest of the week. After that time, I shall have returned to Portsmouth.”

  Magnus’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You are staying at the home of the Earl of Royston?”

  Sophia Marchment met his gaze unflinchingly. “I am, yes.”

  “The unmarried Earl of Royston?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without benefit of a maid or chaperone?”

  “Yes.”

  His jaw tightened. “That is—unusual.”

  “Is it?”

  “You know that it is.”

  She gave a dismissive shrug. “I am not interested in what society decides is or is not acceptable.”

  “Then perhaps, as you run a school for young ladies, you should be,” Weston bit out harshly.

  Sophia could almost see the cogs of disapproval turning inside the duke’s handsome head. Nor did she intend satisfying his obvious curiosity as to her relationship to Royston. Or if she even had one.

  She already knew from this conversation with Magnus Spencer that his daughter would not be a suitable match for her school. Sophia required her pupils to have backbone at the very least, even if they had not yet been taught how to use that backbone in their everyday life.

  Magnus Spencer’s personality was so overbearing, his daughter could not possibly have developed the necessary qualities needed for admission to Sophia’s School for Young Ladies. Indeed, she almost pitied the poor girl. But it was not the sort of pity which would cause her to bend the rules in regard to the pupils she was willing to accept. One meek and mild pupil could affect the future self-confidence and self-determination she instilled in the rest of her girls, something Sophia could not allow.

  She gave a knowing smile. “I believe we are both agreed Clarissa would not be a good fit, either for the school or me.”

  Those da
rk brows once again rose in surprise. “How can you possibly know that when you have not even met Clarissa?”

  “Because I have met you,” Sophia drawled.

  Those wide shoulders stiffened. “And I have met you.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Your point being?”

  “I can see little purpose in getting into a discussion about personalities when I have already told you my decision.”

  “Personalities?” The duke rose to his height of several inches over six feet. “You are refusing to take my daughter as a pupil in your school because of what you think you know of my personality?”

  The duke was far too controlled and controlling for Sophia’s taste. But when he was angry, truly angry as he was now, at what he considered to be her criticism of him, there came a fire in Weston’s eyes which spoke of a wilder and more passionate nature beneath that controlled demeanor. Much like that tiger she had likened him to a few minutes ago.

  So much so that Sophia believed if the duke were ever to divest himself of that control, along with the dictates of polite behavior of the society she so despised, he would become a dark and demanding lover to some lucky woman.

  Not Sophia, of course, because no matter what the duke might think of her currently staying unchaperoned and without a maid at the home of a single gentleman, she did not—

  Sophia turned as the door of the duke’s study swung open without warning.

  “Papa, I have purchased the most delicious bonnet I should like to show—” The dark-haired young lady—obviously Lady Clarissa Spencer—stopped speaking to give Sophia a sharp and critical glare with the same gray eyes as her father. “Who are you?” she demanded to know.

  Telling Sophia that she had perhaps been hasty in her judgment of Clarissa Spencer. This young lady was no mouse but possessed the same haughty bearing as her father.

  Chapter 2