The morning after the boxing match, Rosalie woke in the most glorious way. It was still early, the house was dark and quiet, and her men were teasing her nipples with their tongues, their naked bodies pressed against her. She squirmed beneath them, looping an arm around each of their necks as she stretched, feeling the wonderful ache between her thighs that told her she was claimed. Loved. Cherished.
Before long, lounging between them wasn’t enough. In a stroke of genius, Burke flipped her around atop him so she could ride his face. Meanwhile, it put her in the perfect position to take his cock with her mouth. It was sure to be her new favorite position.
Never one for being left out, Tom joined her in pleasuring Burke with his mouth. The added gift of getting to tease him with her tongue just made it that much easier to chase her release. Curled as he was with his feet towards Burke’s head, Rosalie and Burke used their hands together to stroke his thick cock.
No one rushed. Tongues worked slowly, and hands cherished rather than possessed. The release that built inside her rolled in like a thunderstorm. A feeling of heavy clouds resting deep inside, building in intensity until, with a crack of lightning, the storm broke and she was coming on Burke’s tongue.
Burke groaned, following her with his own release, which she shared with Tom. Desperate to have them both, she flicked Burke’s hand away and sank her mouth down onto Tom, claiming his release too.
“Greedy thing,” Burke teased, his mouth still warm between her quivering thighs.
She hummed her agreement, her lips around Tom’s cock as she drank his release. Sated, she flopped off Burke, wedged between his side and Tom’s legs.
“We should wake up like that every day,” Tom panted.
Rosalie couldn’t agree more. But she couldn’t risk staying abed. She sat up, climbing over Tom’s legs.
“Where are you going?” Burke muttered, his face pressed in the pillow.
“It’s still early,” Tom echoed.
“Not so early that I cannot start my day,” she replied.
“Come back to bed so we can do that again,” said Burke, blindly holding out his hand.
“You both have work to do too,” she chastised. “We still have a wedding to plan for the duke, a wedding to make sure never gets planned for you, sir…and don’t forget we all agreed we need a better plan for saving James from himself.”
Burke dropped his hand. “Give a man a minute to recover from having his cock sucked to oblivion.”
“If you two cannot keep up with me, I shall have to ration you,” she warned, smiling to herself as they both scowled. “I propose that, at least for today, we play the opposite game. Tom, you work on getting Burke unengaged, and Burke you work on getting James…unJames’d.”
“And what will you do?” Tom muttered.
Rosalie sighed, picking up her discarded clothing. “I have to go see a duchess about a tiara.”
“Oh, Piety, you must choose this one,” Mariah cried. “Look at the sapphires, how they sparkle!”
The other young ladies rushed to Mariah’s side to gaze at the delicate tiara glittering with diamonds that sat clustered around three square-cut sapphires, each as large as a quail’s egg.
Rosalie stood in the corner of the morning room, watching the chaos unfold. It was time for Piety to pick the tiara she would wear for her wedding. The duchess had all the family pieces brought out and displayed. Just before breakfast, Rosalie had helped Mrs. Robbins set each piece in a semicircle around the room.
There were eight in total. Each one beautiful in its own way. Three came with a matching set of earrings. Rosalie enjoyed helping Mrs. Robbins get them ready for viewing. The woman was highly knowledgeable about Corbin family affairs. She told Rosalie stories about the different pieces as they set them up—who commissioned them, who wore them to what event, which paintings in the house feature a past duchess wearing it.
For these tiaras were so much more than jewelry. They were history. The history of this family, this house, the title and its legacy. The weight of it made plain Rosalie Harrow feel small and insignificant…wholly unworthy.
“I like the one with the teardrop pearls,” said Elizabeth, ghosting her fingers over the matching earrings on the velvet cushion.
But Piety had eyes for only one tiara. It was the largest piece in the collection. A spray of diamonds were arranged in little sunburst patterns, the stones polished to shine like glittering starlight. “This one,” she whispered, eyes hungry.
“Would you like to try it on?” said the duchess.
The ladies squealed again as Mrs. Robbins stepped forward and held up a hand mirror. Prudence picked up the tiara and turned to her sister. “Goodness, it’s heavier than I imagined.”
Piety did a little dip, lowering her head, and Prudence placed the tiara atop her golden curls. All the young ladies sighed as Piety looked at herself in the hand mirror.
“You look like a queen,” Blanche whispered with awe.
“No one say that on the day,” said the duchess. “Her Majesty will be quick to take offense.”
The other girls twittered with laughter.
Rosalie blinked. “Is…will the Queen be coming to the wedding?”
“Of course,” the duchess replied with a haughty sniff. “Miss Harrow, you do remember my son is a duke of the realm, do you not? The Queen will come and show her support for his union.”
“Daddy says she will be the first one to call me ‘Duchess,’” Piety added, still admiring herself in the mirror.
A footman knocked twice and entered. “Your Grace, Madame Lambert has arrived,” he called. “I’ve put her in your parlor.”
The girls squealed anew.
“The modiste!”
“Your wedding clothes are ready!”
Piety turned as if to leave.
“Not so fast, Miss Nash,” the duchess called. “You are not a duchess yet. The jewels stay here.”
“Oh,” Piety gave a soft little laugh. “Of course, Your Grace.” She slipped the tiara off her curls and set it back on its stand, leading the way out of the room.
With all the ladies cleared out, Rosalie could glance across the room and see James standing there, his arms folded over his chest. Like her, he’d watched the proceedings with a careful eye.
Mrs. Robbins replaced the hand mirror and righted the sunburst tiara on its stand. “I’ll go see they have everything they need with the modiste and then begin packing this away,” she said to the duchess.
“I can help,” said Rosalie.
“Don’t you want to watch Miss Piety try on her wedding clothes?” the duchess said with a raised brow.
Rosalie smiled. “Not particularly. Quiet suits me this morning. Please, Mrs. Robbins, let me help.”
“Of course, dear,” said Mrs. Robbins. “I’ll only be a moment, and we’ll finish together.” With a curtsy to the duchess, she took her leave.
James made to follow her out, but the duchess called to him.
“James…wait.”
He stilled, halfway to the door.
The duchess turned to Rosalie. “Which would you choose, Miss Harrow?”
Rosalie glanced warily from James back to the duchess. “It is not for me to choose, Your Grace. I am not marrying the duke.”
“Humor me,” she replied. “I want to see something.”
Rosalie raised a brow. “This is a test then? What happens if I fail?”
“Absolutely nothing,” the duchess replied. “You are no longer my ward, remember? I have no say over what happens to you.”
Rosalie glanced at James, and he gave a curt nod. She swallowed, surveying the jewels. Walking past the starburst crown and the one with the square-cut sapphires, she paused in the corner. There on a green velvet cushion sat a pretty tiara made of thin-spun gold. It was made to look like leafy vines, with clusters of amethysts for grapes. It had no matching earrings. A few diamonds added sparkle, but it was nowhere near as ostentatious as the starburst crown, nor as queenly as Elizabeth’s choice with the dripping teardrop pearls.
“This one,” she said, pointing to it.
The duchess pursed her lips. Had Rosalie passed the test? She couldn’t tell. “And why this particular one?”
Rosalie glanced at it again. “It reminds me the most of Alcott, I suppose. There is something pastoral about it. This was not made for a queen or a duchess floating the halls of St. James’s Palace. This was made for a lady who lives her life quietly in the country. This is a tiara she could wear in front of her tenants at Christmastime and not be seen as putting on airs. At least…that is how it makes me feel,” she said with a shrug.
James and the duchess both watched her closely.
“What do you know of this one?” said the duchess.
“Nothing at all,” she replied. “I could be mistaken entirely. Perhaps this was only ever worn at St. James’s.”
The duchess stepped forward, eyeing the tiara with a confusing mix of reverence and disdain. “This tiara was bought by the third duke and presented to his wife upon the birth of their son and heir.”
“How do you know?” asked James, stepping towards them.
“Because there is a letter in the lining of the box,” she replied. “I found it when I was newly married. I’m sure it is still there, hiding behind the velvet. It’s an obnoxious thing, full of the worst kinds of flowery sentiment. It’s all dreams and promises and sighs of happiness.” She sniffed, glancing down at the officious piece of jewelry.
Rosalie’s heart was in her throat. “What did you do…after you read the letter?”
“I returned it to the box and never looked at it again until this morning. I’ve never worn it,” she added quietly.
Rosalie shared a glance with James. “Why not?” she whispered.
“Because I knew I did not deserve to wear such a symbol of goodness and kindness,” the duchess replied. “The third duke’s first wife represented everything I am not. She was loving where I am cold. She was graceful where I am calculating.”
“His first wife?” Rosalie repeated.
“Oh yes, she died in childbirth with their fourth or fifth child. A girl, I think. I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter,” the duchess said with a wave of her hand. “She died, and he remarried, as all men do. Sentiment goes out the window when there are children to raise and a home to keep and a bed that needs warming.”
Rosalie’s heart broke for the duke, thinking of him all alone, their children without a mother, his dukedom without a duchess.
“Mother…where did you get the money?” James murmured.
The duchess and Rosalie both stilled. Rosalie closed her eyes, heart pounding. The duchess turned slowly to look at her, scorn in her eyes. “You told him?”
“No,” she whispered.
“George told me,” he added. “You paid off all her family’s debts. Seventeen thousand pounds. Don’t tell me why…at this point, I think I’m afraid to know your reason. But please, tell me how.”
She sniffed. “Almost from the moment your father and I married, I set up a secret account and began moving money into it.”
“Why?”
“Because all ladies ought to have a plan of exit,” she replied, her eyes on Rosalie. “I lived quite frugally, taking most of my allowance and finding ways to secret it back into my own pockets. I would write bills of sale for jewelry and baubles, never delivered. Ornamental trees, never planted. I got bolder. I once commissioned a Grecian temple that was never built. Your father always thought I was spending the money. He never checked. He never cared. Over time, I stopped bothering with taking his money and I simply multiplied my own.”
“How?” said James.
“I invested some in properties. I speculated a few times, but I don’t enjoy the risk.” She turned to her son. “I have not taken a farthing of the estate’s money since he died. Yes, I made a show of being a spendthrift, and you rightly cut me off from the house accounts, but that was more a test of you. A test of your mettle. Would you protect the estate, even from me? It gratifies me greatly to know that you would.”
James narrowed his eyes. “How much, mother? How much of a fortune have you amassed in the shadows?”
She pursed her lips, her eyes belying how much she was enjoying this moment. “I’d have to have my agent give me a full accounting, seeing as there are properties involved…but it’s somewhere around two hundred thousand.”
Rosalie gasped, raising a hand to her mouth.
“Bloody fucking hell.” Wholly undone, James sank down onto the closest sofa. He pressed his hands to his temples. After a minute, he raised his head. “Two hundred? You have, in your name, a fortune worth two hundred thousand pounds?”
The duchess gave him a self-satisfied smirk. “Well…give or take seventeen thousand. Will you stop worrying now about my generosity to Miss Harrow? Can we all move on, James?”
“Move on?” he cried, launching to his feet. “Do you have any idea what even a portion of that money could do for the upkeep of this estate? Do you know how hard I’ve worked to keep it all together? The tireless hours I’ve spent considering selling off pieces of our land. The work I’ve done to innovate, to expand, to safeguard what we have, to fill our coffers!”
“You needed the experience, James,” she countered. “You came into your role a young man, hopeful and naïve. You needed to learn to fight. You needed to learn to win. If I had just given in and paid your debts, offered you loans, you wouldn’t be the brilliant lord you are now. You needed to stay hungry. You needed to work. I taught you how to work.”
“And now? What do we do now?”
“Now you keep running your brother’s estate as the silent Duke of Norland. You are more than capable, James. You don’t need my money, nor my help. Should you ever find yourself in a position where you do…simply ask.”
With a growl, he stormed out of the room, closing the door with a snap that made the pictures rattle and Rosalie flinch.
The duchess made to leave too. Pausing by the door, she turned, her eyes leveled on Rosalie. “Your mother would have made the perfect duchess,” she murmured, tears in her eyes. “Patient and demure, lovely as a painting. She would have been worthy enough to wear that tiara on her wedding day.”
Rosalie nodded, not bothering to wipe away the tear that slipped down her cheek.
The duchess gave her a soft smile. “If it is ever her daughter’s wish to become a viscountess…I will not stand in the way.”
