The Art of Duke Hunting Read Online Free PDF Page B

village. The captain, Roman, and Lady Derby were the lucky occupants, along with a plethora of visitors on the island. The rest of the ship’s passengers had had to make do at the large, ill-kept rooming house on the opposite side of the village green, decorated with streamers for an upcoming summer fête.
    He wondered what the countess was doing on the other side of the corridor separating their chambers. He was one part curious, two parts horrified that he’d taken advantage of a respectable lady, three parts dreading the proposal of marriage he was honor bound to offer her, and four parts (man that he was) fantasizing about the surreal night he had spent with her. He refused to consider the living hell the two of them would be forced to endure if she accepted his offer. But she would not. He was certain.
    Well, he was almost certain.
    As convinced as the fact that they were stuck on the Isle of Wight for as long as it took for another ship to sail into port and get them off of this damned isle. Then again, Roman wondered how he was going to screw up his courage to set foot on another ship.
    A knock sounded at his door. Perhaps it was she. He looked down at his borrowed clothes and winced. The captain was a heavyset man. Roman tucked in the billowing cloud of shirt linen. At least he had left the last of the salt water in the copper tub in the corner.
    “Come,” he barked.
    The captain appeared, his ruddy complexion speaking decades of raw weather.
    “Your Grace? I would have a private word.” The man of the sea glanced at the length of his form and his lips twitched.
    “Thank you for the use of your linen, Captain. And what may I do for you?”
    “Well, it is more what I must do for you, Your Grace.”
    “Whatever do you mean, sir?”
    “I mean that I must carry out what your friend insisted at the point of his pistol.”
    Roman stared at the older man. “I beg your pardon?”
    The captain chuckled. “When His Grace, the Duke of Kress, dragged you on board my ship, he paid me very handsomely to guard his vowels to give you if you survived the voyage.”
    Vague flickering of his closest friend, Alexander Barclay, the new Duke of Kress, racing hell for leather toward the docks, wandered just out of reach of Roman’s mind. “Did he, now?”
    “He did,” the older gentleman replied, his merry eyes not matching his grave expression. “Had him escorted off The Drake when he began singing the French national anthem. It left a very foul taste in my mouth if I do say.”
    “I’m sure it did, bloody Frenchy that he is.”
    “Yes, well, there’s more to it.”
    “Go on then. I am not too proud to admit that I was three sheets to the wind obviously.”
    “More like one hundred and three sheets in a gale force, Your Grace.”
    Roman sighed. “Go on.”
    “After he left, you promised me a thousand pounds if I tied you to the railing. You refused to take a cabin, but you were of sound enough mind to know you’d likely topple over the side given your state of, ahem, ill balance.” He cleared his throat. “You couldn’t form a sentence let alone a secure knot. I’m sorry to say that during the storm I was too preoccupied to come to your aid. But, I also knew my knot would hold.”
    “Of course, it would,” Roman acknowledged. “And, of course, I shall honor my debt to you, sir.”
    “This will help, certainly.” One corner of the captain’s lips curled with humor. Roman was surprised the man was in such a good spirits given that his ship was nearly destroyed. Then again, the unexpected windfall from two dukes was most likely the reason.
    The captain reached into his pocket and extracted a sheet of paper. In extraordinarily large and ill-written letters, Alexander Barclay, the half-French Duke of Kress, promised him his entire newly gained fortune if Roman completed a voyage of at least three days’ duration. The amount was half the size of Roman’s own family legacy. It was signed by both parties and