Once Upon A Dream by Mary Balogh Grace Burrowes

Author:Mary Balogh, Grace Burrowes [Balogh, Mary; Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

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DUKE OF MY DREAMS

* * *

By

Grace Burrowes

Dedication

* * *

To the odd ducks

Chapter 1

* * *

“I do not ask this boon of you lightly.”

Elias, Duke of Sedgemere, strolled along, damned if he’d embarrass Hardcastle with any show of sentiment in the face of Hardcastle’s wheedling. Hardcastle was, after all, Sedgemere’s oldest and dearest friend too.

Also Sedgemere’s only friend.

They took the air beside Hyde Park’s Serpentine, ignoring the stares and whispers they attracted. While Sedgemere was a blond so pale as to draw the eye, Hardcastle was dark. They were both above average in height and brawn, though Mayfair boasted any number of large, well-dressed men, particularly as the fashionable hour approached.

They were dukes, however, and to be a duke was to be afflicted with public interest on every hand. To be an unmarried duke was to be cursed, for in every ballroom, at the reins of every cabriolet, holding every parasol, was a duchess-in-waiting.

Thus Sedgemere endured Hardcastle’s importuning.

“You do not ask a boon,” Sedgemere said, tipping his hat to a fellow walking an enormous brindle mastiff. “You demand half my summer, when summer is the best time of year to bide at Sedgemere House.”

They had known each other since the casual brutality and near starvation that passed for a boy’s indoctrination at Eton, and through the wenching and wagering that masqueraded as an Oxford education. Hardcastle, however, had never married, and thus knew not what horrors awaited him on the way to the altar.

Sedgemere knew, and he further knew that Hardcastle’s days as a bachelor were numbered, if Hardcastle’s estimable grandmama was dispatching him to summer house parties.

“If you do not come with me, Sedgemere, I will become a bad influence on my godson. I will teach the boy about cigars, brandy, fast women, and profligate gambling.”

“The child is seven years old, Hardcastle, but feel free to corrupt him at your leisure, assuming he does not prove to be the worse influence on—good God, not these two again.”

The Cheshire twins, blond, blue-eyed, smiling, and as relentless as an unmentionable disease, came twittering down the path, twirling matching parasols.

“Miss Cheshire, Miss Sharon,” Hardcastle said, tipping his hat.

Sedgemere discreetly yanked on his friend’s arm, though nothing would do but Hardcastle must exchange pleasantries as if these women weren’t the social equivalent of Scylla and Charybdis.

“Ladies.” Sedgemere bowed as well, for he was in public and the murder of a best friend was better undertaken in private.

“Your Graces! How fortunate that we should meet!” Miss Cheshire gushed. The elder by four minutes, as Sedgemere had been informed on at least a hundred occasions, she generally led the conversational charges. “I told Sharon this very morning that you could not possibly have left Town without calling upon us, and I see I was right, for here you both are!”

Exactly where Sedgemere did not want to be.

“We’ll take our leave of—” Sedgemere began, just as Hardcastle winged an arm.

“A pleasant day for pleasant company,” Hardcastle said.

Miss Cheshire latched on to Hardcastle

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