Her Best Friend, the Duke Read online

  An excellent student...

  In the art of flirtation

  Caroline Yaxley has always been in love with her best friend, James Dunstable, Duke of Heydon. After years of waiting for him, she’s finally admitted defeat and decided to find a husband. James suggests she practice her nonexistent flirtation skills on him, which seems like a good idea—until she must pull away to avoid a shattered heart. Their pretend attraction has begun to feel alarmingly real!

  “I don’t think I know how to encourage a gentleman’s suit,” Caroline said softly.

  “You don’t know how to flirt?”

  She shook her head. “I think I did once, but years of trying to discourage gentlemen has left me unable to remember how.”

  “Go on,” James urged, smiling. “Flirt with me.”

  “I most definitely will not.”

  “It’s the only way you’ll learn.”

  Caroline felt her heart begin to pound at the idea of looking into the eyes of the man she loved and casually flirting with him.

  “I’ll make it fun,” he said.

  Closing her eyes, she nodded. It was a mistake. Of course it was. It would mean weeks spent in James’s company, more than she had ever done before.

  “Wonderful. I’ll draw up a lesson plan tonight.”

  Author Note

  Her Best Friend, the Duke is the sixteenth historical romance I’ve written, but the first one where the hero and heroine already know each other better than they know themselves. It is a subject that is special to me on a personal level—my husband and I met when we were sixteen, and before we started dating, we were good friends. I think there is something rather lovely about waking up each morning with your best friend by your side.

  Caroline and James’s story has been one of my favorites to write—their friendship means there is an instant intimacy between them and I loved writing the scenes where they were falling for one another without realizing it (on James’s part at least!). I do hope you enjoy their blossoming romance.

  LAURA MARTIN

  Her Best Friend, the Duke

  Laura Martin writes historical romances with an adventurous undercurrent. When not writing, she spends her time working as a doctor in Cambridgeshire, UK, where she lives with her husband. In her spare moments Laura loves to lose herself in a book and has been known to read from cover to cover in a single day when the story is particularly gripping. She also loves to travel—especially to visit historical sites and far-flung shores.

  Books by Laura Martin

  Harlequin Historical

  The Pirate Hunter

  Secrets Behind Locked Doors

  Under a Desert Moon

  A Ring for the Pregnant Debutante

  An Unlikely Debutante

  An Earl to Save Her Reputation

  The Viscount’s Runaway Wife

  The Brooding Earl’s Proposition

  Scandalous Australian Bachelors

  Courting the Forbidden Debutante

  Reunited with His Long-Lost Cinderella

  Her Rags-to-Riches Christmas

  The Eastway Cousins

  An Earl in Want of a Wife

  Heiress on the Run

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Luke, for fourteen years of love and friendship. And for everyone who married their best friend.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Royal Kiss & Tell by Julia London

  Excerpt from The Making of Baron Haversmere by Carol Arens

  Chapter One

  Walking quickly, Caroline ducked behind a group of middle-aged women, straining her ears to hear the conversation between the two young debutantes just to her left.

  ‘It’s not that she’s ugly,’ Rebecca Preston said with an air of authority. Caroline could imagine the quizzical tilt of the girl’s pretty head as she searched for the right way to describe her.

  ‘No,’ Sophie Saltwell agreed, ‘not ugly as such.’

  Caroline grimaced. At least she wasn’t out-and-out ugly.

  ‘Just a little angular. And old.’

  ‘Far too old.’

  That she couldn’t argue with. At twenty-four years old she was well past her prime in the eyes of potential suitors.

  ‘If it were me, I would bow out gracefully,’ Miss Preston said and Caroline had to smother a laugh. Miss Preston was considered the diamond of the Season and, with her thick golden hair and brilliant blue eyes, it didn’t seem to matter to the eligible gentlemen that she was cruel and shallow. She would be inundated with proposals by Christmas and no doubt be married to someone titled and wealthy by spring. The idea of her bowing out of the search for a husband was absurd.

  ‘Isn’t she connected to the Duke of Heydon somehow?’ Even above the din of the ball Caroline could hear the wistful sigh at the mention of James.

  ‘Not romantically.’

  Normally Caroline would step out at this point, fix the gossiping girls with a hard stare and make some acerbic comment to throw them off balance, but their words had been a bit too close to the uncomfortable truth and instead she found herself just wanting to slip away.

  Quietly she turned, not wanting to hear what they were about to say regarding her relationship with James. Her very firmly platonic relationship. A wonderful friendship, but definitely nothing more.

  With her head down she hurried from the ballroom, avoiding eye contact with the people she had grown to know so well these past few years. The same few attended each ball, each evening at the opera, each dinner party. It was suffocating rather than comforting and she had an intense desire to keep walking out of the front door and never look back.

  She stilled that impulse, reaching instead for one of the doors that led off the grand hallway and slipping into the semi-darkness.

  The ball was an annual event held by Lord and Lady Strand a week before the proper start of the Season in London. Caroline had been attending for seven years and knew the house well by now. She had escaped to the library which led to a small terrace at the back of the house. The terrace wasn’t accessible from the rest of the garden so unless anyone else came in through the library she knew she would get a few minutes alone.

  Caroline shivered as she stepped out into the cool air, wishing she had something to put round her shoulders. It was only October, and a mild October at that, but this evening felt cold and crisp and seemed to signify the end of summer.

  There were no chairs on the terrace, just a low stone balustrade running around the edge that Caroline pulled herself up on to, lying back so she could look up at the stars. The sky was clear and even here in London it was easy to pick out the constellations.

  ‘You’re a fool,�
�� she muttered to herself, as she replayed Miss Preston’s words. They had been unkind, but not untruthful. She was too old to be searching for a first husband. Most of her friends were married and producing their second or third child by now. A couple had even been widowed and were approaching the Season with the hope of finding husband number two.

  ‘Not a fool,’ a low voice said from behind her. Caroline jolted upright, forgetting for a moment she was lying on the narrow balustrade and nearly flying into the garden below.

  Strong hands gripped her and pulled her to safety, only letting go when she was steady on her feet. In her chest her heart was pounding and she felt the familiar rush of desire and hopelessness and comfort all at the same time.

  ‘James.’ She regarded him for a moment, watching as he opened his arms before moving in to embrace him. She had to suppress a sigh as he wrapped his arms around her body, giving her a little squeeze before releasing her. ‘I didn’t know you were back.’ Quickly she stepped away. She wasn’t worried about anyone seeing them, more about her reaction to being so close to him.

  ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘You did. I nearly ended up in the flowerbeds.’

  ‘That would have given the gossips something to talk about.’

  Caroline grimaced—they didn’t need any more fodder.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ she said, feeling the warmth swell inside her as she always did when James was close.

  He stepped to the stone balustrade, swinging a leg over and sitting on the edge, his feet dangling in the void below. ‘Come sit with me, we have a few minutes until you’re missed.’

  ‘I think they’ll miss you before me,’ Caroline said grimly. She was a mere Miss, a spinster, inconsequential to most people in the ballroom. James was a duke, an unmarried duke, and as such was always trailed by a horde of hopeful young women and their mothers, besieged everywhere he went.

  ‘I was rather stealthy,’ James said with a grin. ‘I’d only just arrived when I saw you escaping out here. Hardly anyone could have seen me.’

  ‘It only takes one...’

  He laughed, the sound cutting through to Caroline’s core and piercing her heart. She steeled her mind, reminding herself it was always like this when James first came back. She just needed some time to adjust, some time to get used to him being close again. In a few weeks she wouldn’t feel as though her heart were about to rip apart every time she saw him smile, knowing he would never look at her with anything more than a friendly regard.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

  He’d written, but he was a poor correspondent. She’d received one letter eight months ago telling her about his time in Rome and another two months later detailing his travels to Naples. Then nothing, a whole six months with no word from him.

  ‘Italy. Venice, Rome, Naples, Sicily. It was wonderful, Cara. The people, the culture, the food. It’s divine. You should go, you would love it.’

  ‘I think the only way my family would allow me to travel to Italy would be if I announced I was joining a convent.’

  ‘A legitimate life choice.’

  ‘I don’t look good in black.’

  ‘Perhaps your abbess could give you special dispensation to wear blue.’

  ‘Clothing aside, I’m not sure I have the right disposition to become a nun.’

  He regarded her, a mock-serious expression on his face, ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘Too mischievous. That wouldn’t do.’

  She sighed. Perhaps she would find a husband who liked to travel. A man who could show her the canals of Venice and the Colosseum in Rome.

  ‘You weren’t enjoying the ball?’ He leaned in a little closer so Caroline caught a hint of his scent, a blend of lavender and citrus—the cologne she had presented him with two years ago at Christmas.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s the first of the Season, a novelty still surely after the long summer in Hampshire.’

  ‘Can you imagine doing the same thing over and over again, year after year?’ Caroline asked quietly. ‘I go to the same balls, see the same people, dance with the same gentlemen. There’s no variety, there’s no freedom.’ She eyed him, watching as a smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

  ‘You should have been born a man.’

  She closed her eyes, imagining having the endless options afforded men of her class.

  ‘I’m too old,’ she said quietly. It wasn’t something she’d admitted to anyone else, not even her mother, who grew increasingly desperate each Season as it came and went without a single marriage proposal. At first Caroline had purposely scared any potential suitors away. She hadn’t wanted to be tied to some old goat of a man, losing what little power she had over her own life. Then she’d gained a reputation for being a little too forthright, a little too free with her opinions.

  And now...well, now she was wondering if she hadn’t been too quick to decide she didn’t want the same life all her friends had settled into.

  ‘Too old? You’re twenty-four, Cara, not sixty. Too old for what?’

  ‘For this.’ She looked at him in the moonlight, her expression grave. ‘Most of those girls in there are seventeen or eighteen. They’re young, they’re nubile, they’re impressionable. Who would choose me over someone like Miss Preston or Miss Saltwell?’

  ‘Anyone with half a brain.’

  Caroline shivered as a breeze caught the material of her skirt, rippling it against her legs. James shrugged off his evening jacket and draped it around her shoulders, his hands brushing against her bare skin and sending sparks of heat through her body.

  ‘Where has all this come from?’ James turned to face her. ‘I thought you didn’t want to marry.’

  She grimaced. It had been what she’d said for so many years. For so long she’d been convinced having no one was better than settling for second-best. The man she loved would never think of her in the same way, so she’d decided she would grow old a spinster.

  ‘I didn’t. I don’t...’ She paused, knowing she should guard her feelings, keep her secrets, but as always James’s eyes found hers and the words started to spill out. ‘I’m twenty-four. Most women in my family live well into their sixties. That’s forty years of solitude. Of returning home each night to a quiet house, to seeing all my friends dote on their children and one day their grandchildren. I don’t want a husband, but I do want to be married.’

  James sat there looking at her, blinking rapidly as if he thought a bandit had stolen the woman he knew and replaced her with an impostor.

  ‘Any man would be lucky to have you,’ he said eventually. ‘More than lucky.’

  Caroline scoffed. ‘If you could just remind the eligible gentlemen of that fact, I’d greatly appreciate it.’

  James opened his mouth as if he were about to say more when they both stiffened. The door to the library was opening, letting in a swell of music from the ballroom for a couple of seconds before dying away. She squinted into the darkness, trying to make out who was walking silently through the library.

  They couldn’t be caught together, not like this. The members of the ton were aware of Caroline and James’s unique relationship. An unlikely friendship she’d heard it touted by some of the more polite gossips. Still, she was an unmarried woman and he a single gentleman. They had to be cautious and being found together with no chaperon on a private terrace would cause a grand scandal.

  Caroline closed her eyes for a second, imagining the pain and humiliation that would follow if James was forced to marry her. He would, of course, he was a gentleman and, more than that, he cared for her, just not in the way she wanted. Still, it would be painful, knowing he’d been forced into the one thing she wished for every day.

  ‘Arrivederci,’ James whispered, then launched himself off the wall into the flowerbeds below. Caroline slipped off his jacket and dropped it down to
him, then he was gone, blending into the darkness as he disappeared into the bushes.

  ‘Miss Yaxley.’ It was Rebecca Preston, her face a picture of suspicious confusion as she stepped on to the terrace.

  ‘Miss Preston.’

  ‘Are you out here alone?’

  ‘Of course,’ Caroline said sweetly. ‘The ballroom was a little too hot for my liking. I thought some fresh air would be pleasant.’ She swung her legs back over the balustrade and stood to face Miss Preston.

  ‘I thought...’ Miss Preston began, stepping up to the balustrade and peering over suspiciously. ‘Have you seen the Duke of Heydon?’

  ‘No, not for some months. I believe he’s still in Italy. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No matter.’ She waved a dismissive hand, then turned slyly to Caroline. ‘You two are friends, aren’t you?’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Perhaps you could introduce me to the Duke. I would love to make his acquaintance.’

  Caroline looked at her, blinking in amazement at the request. A wave of nausea roiled through her as she imagined pretty Miss Preston fluttering her eyelashes at James, before she quickly reminded herself that one of his strengths was an ability to see past an attractive façade to the person underneath.

  ‘I’d be delighted to introduce you,’ she said, knowing she should stop there, but unable to help herself. ‘He is quite a particular man, though, and can be a little abrupt if you stray from the topics of conversation he is interested in.’

  ‘Oh?’ Miss Preston leaned forward as if eager to snatch the knowledge from Caroline.

  ‘He loves to talk about the weather, he’s quite an expert, and he is very interested in fashion and clothing, both men’s and women’s.’

  ‘Really? How extraordinary.’

  ‘He’s an extraordinary man.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Yaxley, I shall await the introduction with anticipation.’ Miss Preston paused, her lips forming into a rosy pout that Caroline would wager the young woman practised in the mirror to make sure she got it just right. ‘Of course, if you need any introductions from me then it would be my pleasure. It may be my first Season, but I seem to be inundated with invitations already.’

 
-->