Kiss of a Duke Read online

  Kiss of a Duke

  12 Dukes of Christmas #2

  Erica Ridley

  Contents

  Kiss of a Duke

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Thank You For Reading

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ISBN: 1943794189

  ISBN-13: 978-1943794188

  Copyright © 2018 Erica Ridley

  Photograph on cover © PeriodImages

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

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Kiss of a Duke

  Just one more kiss… (Milady, it’s cold outside)

  * * *

  Lady chemist Penelope Mitchell took England by storm with Duke, a perfume for men that has women swooning at their feet. To prove the same aphrodisiacal potency of her upcoming version for ladies, the new perfume must cause a rake to fall in love with her in ten days. And she has just the man in mind…

  * * *

  Sexy pleasure-seeker Nicholas Pringle—known as “Saint Nick” for his wicked ways—wants to end the absurd cologne that has every young buck believing himself a ladies’ man. How hard can it be to charm a spinster into changing her mind? But when Penelope does the charming, this rakish scoundrel must decide between losing the war... or losing his heart.

  * * *

  The 12 Dukes of Christmas is a laugh-out-loud historical romance series of heartwarming Regency romps nestled in a picturesque snow-covered village. After all, nothing heats up a winter night quite like finding oneself in the arms of a duke!

  * * *

  Love romance? Have a free book, on me!

  Sign up at http://ericaridley.com/vip for members-only exclusives, including advance notice of pre-orders, as well as contests, giveaways, freebies, and 99¢ deals!

  Chapter 1

  Marlowe Castle

  Christmas, England

  * * *

  “To the Duke!” yelled a half-sotted voice in the middle of the packed ballroom.

  “To Penelope Mitchell!” the crowd shouted back, raising their goblets of spiced wine in unison.

  Clinks of crystal glasses and peals of merry laughter filled the high-ceilinged assembly room as the spectators’ cheers warmed the nutmeg-scented air.

  Despite this being the third such toast in the past half hour, Miss Penelope Mitchell still couldn’t quite credit that the entirety of her mountaintop village had crowded into the castle’s largest chamber to celebrate something other than the year-round Christmastide their town was primarily known for.

  As a lady chemist, she couldn’t be prouder.

  Her satisfaction wasn’t solely because the townsfolk had gathered to celebrate the accomplishments of a woman, or even because the accomplishment in question was a perfume she had invented herself.

  As far as Penelope was concerned, she and one thousand of her neighbors had gathered to celebrate a breakthrough in science.

  Unlike more well-known natural philosophers, Penelope’s primary field of study was neither plant life nor the animal kingdom. The majority of her observations and chemical experiments took place in the custom-built laboratory next to her kitchen. An unobtrusive metal firewall separated both rooms from the rest of the house in case of accidental fire or explosion.

  Today, it was Penelope’s soaring heart that felt close to detonation.

  “Congratulations!” shouted her bosom friend Miss Gloria Godwin over the joyous din of the crowd.

  Although Gloria directed her passions toward the infinite expanse of the heavens whilst Penelope preferred to focus on glass vials of chemicals she could hold in her hands, the two had been inseparable since childhood.

  “Thank you,” Penelope said, as soon as she edged close enough not to have to shout. The party had been underway less than an hour, and already she feared losing her voice before morning. “I cannot believe Duke is this successful.”

  “It isn’t,” Gloria said matter-of-factly. “The party isn’t for your perfume. The celebration is for you. We’re proud all of England has recognized your talent.”

  Penelope gave her a crooked grin. “Who knew our town’s resident lady chemist would become a champion not only of science, but of fashion?”

  “I did,” Gloria said without hesitation.

  Penelope’s cheeks heated. “You’re a good friend.”

  “And you’re mad as a hatter,” Gloria replied with a flash of her dimples. “But it seems so is everyone else. There’s nothing England likes better than to copy whatever barmy antics appear in the scandal sheets. I ask you, what sort of man would douse himself with animal secretions in an attempt to attract a woman?”

  “A wise man who understands science,” Penelope protested. “It’s chemistry, not madness. A natural reaction. When the olfactory glands of certain mammals are exposed to the—”

  “Stop right there.” Gloria covered her ears and pretended not to hear. “This is a party, not the annual gathering of the Natural Philosophers Society.” She frowned. “Is there a Natural Philosophers Society?”

  Penelope opened her mouth to answer.

  “No, don’t tell me. Don’t tell anyone,” Gloria said quickly. “That’s not why we’re here, darling. No one cares how your perfume works. They just love that it does. All those articles and caricatures and gossip columns with stories of previously unrakish men being practically trampled by eligible females within minutes of applying your eau de toilette… You’re a genius.”

  Penelope swallowed an uncomfortable lump in her throat at the praise. “It’s not genius. Experiment after experiment has proven that the properly proportioned secretions of both musk whales and civets—”

  “No, no, no.” Gloria grabbed a fresh glass of mulled wine from a passing footman and shoved it into Penelope’s hands. “Do not explain how it works. To anyone. That ruins the magic.”

  With a sigh of frustration, Penelope lowered her nose to smell the steam of her spiced wine. Of course “how it works” was the important bit. Chemists, natural philosophers, and alchemists alike dedicated their lives to trying to decipher the workings of nature. Being able to turn an undesirable element into a desirable one was the entire point.

  “Then what is the ‘magic?’” she asked.

  Gloria raised her brows in surprise. “Prinney wears your perfume, because none other than Beau Brummell told him true gentlemen shan’t leave their dressing rooms without it. The Prince Regent! In your perfume! That’s the magic. Now that you’re famous—”

  “I’m not famous,” Penelope reminded her. “A specific combination of painstakingly researched olfactory elements is famous.”

  “—our town is more renowned, too,” Gloria continued, brown eyes shining. “I shouldn’t be surprised if we have twice as many visitors this year, from those wishing to see the birthplace of Duke.”

  “My laboratory?” Penelop
e reared back in horror. “I allow no one inside. In order to keep the pristine environment unadulterated with—”

  “Not your laboratory,” Gloria assured her. “They want to see the beautiful Christmas village that inspires you. Who wouldn’t want to visit a snow-topped mountain and return home inspired, too?”

  Penelope tightened her lips, lest the truth spill out. She wasn’t inspired by a snow-dusted mountaintop village, no matter how picturesque. She was driven by molecules and vials and complex chemical compositions. The irony was remarkable.

  She hadn’t intended to turn London’s fashionable set on their ears. She had been competing in a nationwide quest to determine causal factors in the mating habits of certain nocturnal mammals. Her intent had been to prove that lady natural philosophers were just as competent at investigation as their male counterparts.

  That her research should result in the discovery of a chemical compound just as potent when applied to humans had been incidental to her cause. When she’d packaged it as Duke and sold it on a lark, she hadn’t anticipated how quickly the new scent would take over local shops, then regional distributors, then national magazines, then end up as part of the morning toilette of the most influential man in England.

  Or that Brummel would convince Prinney, too.

  She grinned at Gloria. Progress had been made. The Natural Philosophers Guild had refused to allow a lady chemist’s research into their precious contest, but England had taken notice nonetheless. What did it matter that their fellow villagers had come to celebrate scents rather than science? Her smile dipped.

  “Where’s Penelope?” boomed a voice from across the tumultuous chamber.

  “Speech!” shouted another.

  Penelope ducked her head to hide her face before she could be spotted. She was used to spending weeks at a time in the privacy of her laboratory. Not pontificating on stage in front of her neighbors. If she stayed near the back, they wouldn’t find her.

  “Speech, speech!” the crowd echoed in raptures.

  “Go on, you brilliant woman.” Gloria tried to nudge her in the direction of the grand dais on the other side of the ballroom. “Your people await.”

  Penelope sent a dubious glance in the direction of the dais. She couldn’t even see it behind all the people. “What do they expect me to say?”

  “You gave them what we all want,” Gloria explained with a smile. “A tool to help them find love. What could be purer?”

  “That’s not what I did at all,” Penelope said in surprise.

  “Speech, speech!” cried the crowd.

  “I didn’t say you personally acted as matchmaker,” Gloria chided her gently. “But you created a perfume that enables two previously unknown people to come together and perhaps discover love.”

  “I created a chemical solution that enabled two previously unconnected compounds to come together,” Penelope stammered. “It has nothing to do with love.”

  “Everything has to do with love,” Gloria said.

  Penelope shook her head. “There is no love. It’s an illusion. A romantic fantasy invented to explain chemical reactions as old as nature itself.”

  Gloria’s mouth fell open. “How can you say that? You camped in tents for months and witnessed the effects of your compounds firsthand. If your perfumes can make rodents fall in love, you cannot deny that—”

  “Civets are Viverridae, more similar to primitive felines than rodents,” Penelope interrupted. “And they don’t fall in love. Their females go in heat. In fact, as Samuel Williams wrote in his Natural and Civil History of Vermont—”

  “What do American natural philosophers know about love?” Gloria spluttered.

  “That it doesn’t exist,” Penelope blurted out.

  “Speech, speech!” screamed the crowd.

  “Love is a fictional construct invented to make natural biological urges sound more palatable in Polite Society,” Penelope explained earnestly. “Animals excrete scents. Humans are animals. If we’re in love with anything, it’s our own excretions.”

  “Good God.” Gloria stared at her in disbelief. “That is the least romantic—”

  “‘Romance’ is an arbitrarily prescribed set of unnatural behaviors and absurd superstitions created to explain and engender a mythical emotion we invented whole cloth. All because we believe ourselves to be superior to other animals.”

  Gloria spluttered in disbelief. “Surely you agree modern society is superior to the lives of rodents and primitive cats!”

  Penelope sniffed. “Male civets don’t douse themselves with the glandular excretions of other, more popular civets in order to attract the attention of voluptuous female civets at local assemblies.”

  “They would if they could,” Gloria muttered beneath her breath. “All males are optimists.”

  “Speech, speech!” roared the crowd.

  “Someone fetch Penelope Mitchell!” shouted a man near the dais.

  “I see her!” a woman shrieked. “She’s with Miss Godwin!”

  Penelope rolled back her shoulders. “Very well. I don’t know anything about love—”

  “Obviously,” Gloria muttered, louder this time.

  “—but science has proven that olfactory information can incite sexual arousal in both genders of many animals, causing the mating instinct to demand immediate and natural carnal satisfaction. I can talk about that. I’ve personally observed many instances of—”

  Gloria grabbed Penelope’s arm and turned her away from the stage.

  “No speech!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Miss Mitchell is much too shy and… er… ladylike. She appreciates your support. Enjoy the party! And the wine! Talk amongst yourselves!”

  “Furthermore,” Penelope continued thoughtfully as her best friend tugged her a safer distance from the dais, “I’m glad I’m in no danger of ‘falling in love.’ I like being a chemist and I like being a spinster. There’s no reason to fuss with the permanency of a husband if all a woman wishes to do is satisfy the occasional natural urge.”

  Gloria wrinkled her nose. “But what about all the other women?”

  Penelope tilted her head. “What other women?”

  “The ladies who do wish to fuss with the permanency of a husband. You might not have a biological or financial or romantical need for marriage, but I daresay most women do not have that luxury. They have to marry.” Gloria’s voice faltered. “And we like to believe in love.”

  Penelope’s heart twisted in remorse. Gloria was right. Penelope might be too rational for romance, but that was no reason to ruin the experience for anyone else. In fact, Penelope was in a unique position to actually do something about it.

  “You’ve inspired me,” she announced.

  “I-I’ve inspired you?” Gloria stammered in obvious concern. “To do what?”

  “To help,” Penelope said. She gave a sharp nod.

  Gloria blinked. “Help how?”

  “With science.” Penelope tapped her chin. “What did Duke do?”

  “Make an obscene amount of money?” Gloria guessed. “Revolutionize modern perfumes?”

  “Men’s perfumes,” Penelope corrected with chagrin. “An easy market, and a mistake. The world doesn’t need more dandies and rakes.”

  “What does it need?” Gloria asked suspiciously.

  “Empowered women,” Penelope replied without hesitation. “I cannot control Society, but I do control what I research in my laboratory. Duke was just the beginning. I have more research. The next product I launch will be Duchess.” She straightened her shoulders in determination. “For women.”

  Gloria clasped her hands to her chest. “You could make a perfume to help women find husbands?”

  Penelope nodded. “Or become female rakes. Ladies’ choice. Once you attract a man, it’s up to you if you want to keep him.”

  Gloria burst out laughing. “There’s no such thing as lady rakes.”

  “There should be.” Penelope gave her a wicked grin. “Why should men have all the
fun?”

  “Speaking of rakes…” Gloria grabbed Penelope’s arm and bounced on her toes. “Don’t look now, but Nicholas Pringle just walked into the ballroom. Nicholas Pringle! Here, in this very ballroom.”

  Penelope shrugged. “Who?”

  “Only the most fawned-over rake to ever grace the Society pages. I recognize him from the caricatures alone. He once—Is that his brother?” Gloria let out an appreciative whistle beneath her breath. “It must be a brother. He looks just like him. Don’t look! They’ll know we’re talking about them. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I can’t believe you’re overreacting.” Penelope gave an exaggerated yawn. “How handsome can two men be?”

  “I’m not overreacting,” Gloria promised. “I’m just the first to—”

  Audible female gasps rippled through the crowd, followed by several dramatic swoons.

  “—the first to notice,” Gloria finished smugly. “They call him ‘Saint Nick’ because he’s as wicked as they come. One look and you’re smitten.”

  Penelope raised a brow.

  Gloria fluttered her eyelashes. “At least I didn’t swoon.”

  “No, but you bruised my arm.” Penelope wrenched out of Gloria’s grasp and angled her head toward the open ballroom doors. “Where are they?”

  Gloria fanned her throat. “Saint Nick is the gentleman with—”

  “Found him.” The strangled words barely escaped Penelope’s suddenly dry throat. Gloria was right.

  From a biological perspective, he was the finest male specimen Penelope had ever seen. And as a living, breathing woman… Good heavens.