“Then what is it you have in mind right now?”

“Doing to you a little of what you’ve been doing to me.”

Bamberg pushed the blanket off her shoulder and lifted his head to her breasts, taking her sweet flesh into his mouth. But she was clearly determined not to allow him to lift her alone into a state of bliss. Not this time. Coaxing him back to her lips, she seduced his mouth with her lips and tongue and with soft murmured cries in her throat. Before he could recover from that, she was undoing the buttons of his breeches.

Bamberg was lost the moment she reached inside and wrapped her fingers around him. All the strength and self-control he’d employed last night was gone. He’d never be able to hold back now.

“Hullo?” a voice called from outside the cottage. “Is someone here?”




CHAPTER 6




How to Ditch A Duke

– Step 6 –

Pack for Foreign Climates


OLIVER PENNINGTON MCKENDRY came into the world in the wee hours of the morning with a healthy cry of protest after nearly twenty hours of labor. Immediately following the birth, Dermot and an exhausted Millie took a few moments alone, holding their infant son and admiring the perfection of the wrinkled face and hands and feet.

Soon after, the grandparents were allowed in. And shortly after that, the baby was taken briefly to the Great Hall to meet the other members of the Pennington family who were continuing to arrive. Aunts and uncles and cousins lined up to view the infant.

It was sometime in the middle of the day when Dermot and Millie looked at each other and remembered the friends they’d left out on the small island in the loch.

“After what I’ve done to her,” Millie said unhappily, “Taylor will surely never speak to me again.”

“No doubt,” Dermot agreed dolefully, before adding brightly. “But the silver lining in that cloud is that we’ll be drinking fine Bavarian wines until we’re old and grey. Bamberg will now be certain that I’m his best friend.”

Receiving a slap on the arm, he immediately went down to send a groom off after the duo. But he only got halfway to the stables when he espied his uncle, Blane McKendry. The minister was approaching from the direction of the loch. And he was walking with two people.

Lady Taylor Fleming and Franz Aurech, the Duke of Bamberg.

And they both appeared to be extremely jovial. In fact, Dermot noticed they were holding hands.

“Ah, nephew,” the cleric called out as they approached. “We have cause for celebration.”

“Indeed, we do,” Dermot replied, shading his eyes against the sun and trying to avoid looking at the two island castaways. “And it’s a fine day for a celebration.”

He wondered how his uncle heard about the baby. He hadn’t sent word to the village, but thankfully, someone had done it.

“After the storm last night,” Blane McKendry began, “I knew that old George Hanover, that monster of a pike the Squire and I have been angling for since you were a lad, would surely be rising for a fight. You remember last year the Squire nearly had the blackguard, but the beast tore the rod right out of his—”

“I recall, Uncle. It was an epic battle.” Fishing. Island. It now made sense how these three were together.

“Aye, so this morning I rowed out to the island. Thought the Squire would already be there, but I beat him to it.” The minister smiled with obvious satisfaction. “Then, just as I was going by the cottage, I saw a few wisps of smoke and realized someone was in there. And who should answer my call but these two fine people.”

Dermot hazarded a glance at them. Standing arm in arm, they appeared to be unperturbed by the story. Whatever response Millie feared from her friend, it didn’t show in Taylor’s shining face.

“And once we shook hands all around, what do you think they asked me?”

“For a fish to fry up for breakfast?”

“Nay, lad! A wedding!” The minister beamed at his companions.

“I asked your uncle to marry us today,” Bamberg announced, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

Taylor held onto the duke’s arm and smiled happily at the minister. “Your good uncle here has given up a day of angling in order to officiate at our wedding. And we’re hoping you and Millie will stand up for us as witnesses.”

Bamberg nodded. “We should like to be married at once. Do you mind, McKendry? Do you think Lady Millie would mind?”

Millie would be thrilled. And how appropriate that these two should want to be married now, without Taylor’s horrid father and brother present. Very satisfying, indeed.

“Not at all. I’m certain she’ll be delighted,” he replied. “Come inside. I have some news of my own to convey.”

They’d done it. Millie’s perception of her friend’s true feelings, added to his own cleverness in giving them time alone, had kept a duke from being ditched.

The Duke and Duchess of Bamberg. It certainly had a fine ring to it.




AUTHOR’S NOTE


We hope you enjoyed How to Ditch a Duke.

As many of you know, our characters live and breathe for us. At the end of the Pennington Family series, many of our readers wrote to us asking if some of the family members could come back in future stories. Well, this was a little teaser. Those of you who have read our previous novels and novellas will remember Millie and Dermot from Dearest Millie.

Here is a listing of other books involving the Penningtons:

The Promise

The Rebel

Borrowed Dreams

Captured Dreams

Dreams of Destiny

Romancing the Scot

It Happened in the Highlands

Sweet Home Highland Christmas

Sleepless in Scotland

Dearest Millie

And we’re not done. You’ll be seeing the Penningtons again.

This Spring, our novel Highland Crown serves as the start of our Royal Highlander series. In this exciting trilogy, three extraordinary women in the Highlands of Scotland find the courage to defy the world at a tumultuous moment when a new Scottish identity will be forged or a political assassination will divide a nation forever.


Please sign up for news and updates and follow us on BookBub. You can also visit us on our website.


Peace and Health,

Nikoo and Jim (writing as May McGoldrick).




TO TEMPT A HIGHLAND DUKE



AUGUST


BRONWEN EVANS






PREFACE


Widowed Lady Flora Grafton must be dreaming…Dougray Firth, the Duke of Monreith, the man who once pledged her his heart and then stood by and allowed her to marry another, has just proposed.  While her head screams yes, her heart is more guarded. Why, after eight years, this sudden interest? When she learns the truth… can she trust Dougray to love her enough this time?




PROLOGUE




Fenworth House, Perth, Scotland 1814

DOUGRAY FIRTH, Viscount Crew, enjoyed the quiet of the late hour, or early morning, whichever way you chose to look at it. He took another swig from the near empty bottle of whisky in his hand and looked up at the night sky.

Fate was a bastard. He’d known that for years, but tonight it stabbed him hard.

On this warm summer night he sat on the terrace of Fenworth House, the Earl of Fenworth’s countryseat, cursing his father the Duke of Monreith. His best friend’s little sister, Flora, the woman he thought he would marry, was to be wed in the morning but not to him.

And whose fault was that?

He closed his eyes and sighed, letting the whisky wash away the terrible memories of six years ago. He’d been eighteen and his father’s meddling had destroyed his world.

He wanted the whisky to give him courage. To give him the courage to give his father exactly what he wanted—Dougray’s agreement to wed Flora instead. Doing so the day of her wedding would be a scandal, but they would live that down.

He also knew Flora would eagerly forego Lord Grafton if he asked her to marry him instead.

But he couldn’t marry her.

He loved her. She was his best friend. The only woman who got him through Connie’s death and the one person who had not let him give up on his search for his son, the son the Duke had taken from him.

Because Dougray loved her he would let her go.

For to marry her could sign her death warrant.

He took another long slug from the bottle still in his hand. The fiery liquid burned his throat; that is what brought tears to his eyes.

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his linen shirt.

He sat consumed by misery when out of the corner of his eye he saw a ghostly figure slip through the front entrance and walk into the rose garden that led down to the small pond at the front of the estate.

He knew who it was and where she was going.

Dougray knew this house better than his own. He’d spent more time here than at his father country estate. Angus Mackenzie, the Earl of Fenworth’s son was his best friend and Flora’s older brother.

He told himself not to follow, but his feet did not want to listen. The almost empty bottle fell to the terrace as he set off in pursuit.

He didn’t catch up to her until she had reached the summerhouse. This is where they’d come to be alone. To share their hopes, fears, and dreams. It was where six months ago he had stolen his first kiss from her.

She was sitting on the bench in her nightgown, her knees drawn up to her chest with her head resting on them. He heard a sniff and realized she was crying. The sound made him almost double over with pain.

“Don’t cry, sweeting.”

Flora jumped at the sound of his voice. She had not heard him enter, so lost in her own misery.