Cocky Mister: A Regency Cocky Gents Book
Cocky Mister
A Regency Cocky Gents Book
Annabelle Anders
Contents
Chapter 1
A Protector
Chapter 2
Manly Pursuits
Chapter 3
The “Man of Her Dreams”
Chapter 4
My Hero
Chapter 5
A Minor Skirmish
Chapter 6
Mister and Mrs.
Chapter 7
Have a Care
Chapter 8
Good Morning!
Chapter 9
And Married too…
Chapter 10
Husband
Chapter 11
Rationalizing
Chapter 12
Jonquil and Primrose
Chapter 13
There’s this Duke…
Chapter 14
Killing Time
Chapter 15
A Close Shave
Chapter 16
Freedome
Chapter 17
Romance in the Air
Chapter 18
Love?
Chapter 19
Fleeting Recollections
Chapter 20
Surrender
Chapter 21
Between a Rock and a Stone
Chapter 22
One More Day
Chapter 23
Dreaming Together
Chapter 24
It’s Complicated…
Chapter 25
Girl Talk
Chapter 26
Damn Culpepper
Chapter 27
He will come!
Chapter 28
Redirect
Chapter 29
Pesky Details
Epilogue
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Copyright © 2020 by Annabelle Anders
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without written permission from the author.
* * *
Annabelle Anders
www.annabelleanders.com
Editing by Tracy Mooring Liebchen
* * *
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Created with Vellum
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny
but in ourselves.”
* * *
—William Shakespeare
Chapter 1
A Protector
Stone Spencer, the second son of the Earl of Ravensdale, stepped onto the terrace and silently closed the French doors behind him.
Of course, he would find her here. Lady Tabetha Fitzwilliam ought to know better than to leave a ball, unchaperoned, away from the safety of others, even if she only intended to do so for a few minutes.
She stood beneath the moonlight, resting her arms atop a brick wall, her back arched ever so slightly and her bottom pushed out, stretching the fabric of her pastel pink gown in a manner that had Stone wanting to strangle her.
For a lady who had been extensively schooled on all matters of propriety, she certainly was a reckless minx.
He’d been “watching out” for her, at the request of her brother, for three weeks now, and this was precisely the sort of behavior he’d come to expect: following rules when they were convenient for her and exhibiting naïve cluelessness where her safety, as well as the safety of her reputation, was concerned. She not only seemed to trust the worst sort of gentlemen, but she brazenly flirted with them—as long as they held titles.
In other words, never with him.
If Stone were a duke, a marquess, or an earl, perhaps she would deign to lower herself. She might even do so if he was a wealthy viscount.
But Lady Tabetha Fitzwilliam was not about to waste her efforts on the second son of an earl, or even trifle with one, for that matter.
Likely, that was why the Earl of Westerley had asked him to keep watch over her in his absence. She was safe from Stone, a gentleman who lacked any title whatsoever. Or, rather, he was safe from her.
Stone’s eye twitched in annoyance as he appreciated her shapely figure in the moonlight.
“Meeting someone?” he intentionally provoked her. Blond curls pinned atop her head shone like white gold in the moonlight, and the creamy skin revealed by the cut of her gown appeared almost alabaster. The diamonds in her tiara sparkled when she stiffened.
She touched a hand to her hair but did not turn around to greet him. “I came outside to be alone.”
Which was precisely why he’d followed her. Other gentlemen, men with perverse intentions, might consider her sojourn from the ballroom as an invitation of sorts. Those who didn’t consider it an invitation might pounce on it as more of an opportunity.
Lady Tabetha was no antidote. In fact, she was rather pleasant to look at—too pleasant at times—but more importantly, her dowry was larger than most. When her sister’s husband had refused to accept the dowry set aside for her, their mother had simply added that sum to the younger daughter’s.
Not only did Lady Tabetha require protection from opportunistic impoverished lords but from her own naiveté. She was lucky Westerley had realized that even under her mother’s oversight, she’d still be vulnerable amidst such gentlemen.
Her brother, a newly married man who was besotted with his wife, was currently more than a little… distracted, as was her newly married older sister.
Already the Season had proven more entertaining than most.
Stone ambled to the wall and leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely on the ledge beside her.
“General expectations are that you would discreetly go away when a person expresses her desire to be alone,” she said.
He didn’t have to look to know she’d lifted her chin in defiance.
“So good of you to set me straight.” But Stone didn’t move. It felt good to be out of the stuffy ballroom.
“I now understand why your parents named you Stone.” She gave a little huff. “Because you have nothing but rocks between your ears.”
Stone chuckled at that. She was at least partly right. He was known as the stubborn one.
Even so, he far preferred ‘Stone’ to the name his father had burdened him with at birth, in honor of dear Uncle Buckley. Not many outside his family were aware of it, and he preferred to keep it that way. He didn’t even like to think about it.
Although listed in Debrett’s, he wasn’t much more than a side note. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You’re always laughing at me,” she complained.
“You amuse me.” On the occasions when she wasn’t inciting him to violence on her behalf, that was.
He felt, as much as heard, her heavy sigh.
“My sister and Lady Felicity are both advising me to steer clear of Culpepper.”
As in the Duke of Culpepper—a questionable character at best. Unfortunately, as one of the few unmarried dukes who wasn’t in his dotage and still had hair on the top of his head, he had become Lady Tabetha’s primary target.
She turned to Stone with a frown, resting her elbow on the ledge. Any other minx would have considered the setting terribly romantic.
Not this one. Mercenary little chit.
“Trouble is,” s
he began, “Felicity is soured on marriage altogether. And as for Bethany, since marrying Chaswick, she thinks every marriage ought to be a love match. She’s gotten worse than Westerley in that regard.”
Tabetha’s only sister, Bethany, had married one of Stone’s oldest friends, the Baron of Chaswick, two days into the Season after being compromised by him. What might have turned into a catastrophe had turned out rather well for the couple in the end—if their lovesick behavior was anything to go off of.
And after being jilted, Lady Felicity would be suspicious of anyone.
No surprise that the two ladies had issued such a warning.
Stone felt another eye twitch coming on. Advising Lady Tabetha against something was far more likely to have the effect of encouraging her in the opposite direction.
And it was no secret that this particular conniving little debutante wanted, more than anything in the world, to become a duchess.
Of anything.
Stone was all too aware of this aspiration where young ladies were concerned but that didn’t mean he approved of it.
And yes, a gentleman’s title was important to all ladies of the ton—hell, to everyone in London—but status and rank had become something of an obsession with this particular one.
“It’s not as though I have an abundance of eligible dukes to pick from,” she complained. “The Duke of Wagtail is much too old, and have you noticed he only has one long eyebrow? And Blackheart—well—he is… Blackheart. Which leaves me with Culpepper. He is not terribly old, he’s handsome enough, and his title is well respected and goes back several generations.”
“So why don’t Ladies Chaswick and Felicity approve of him?” He’d take this route rather than attempt to discredit the man she’d set her sights on. Although he could do precisely that easily enough.
The day after this minx made her debut, he had prioritized digging into Culpepper’s background. Stone, along with everyone else who’d witnessed the introduction, couldn’t help but notice that when Lady Tabetha had been presented to His Grace, she’d gushed and giggled unlike she’d done with anyone else. Stone had almost been embarrassed for her.
Stone didn’t trust Culpepper, nor had Chaswick, Tabetha’s brother-in-law.
Three years prior, buried in gambling debt, Morris Hagerton, the Sixth Duke of Culpepper, had refilled his ducal coffers by marrying a wealthy American heiress. Eighteen months later, the man was a widower. Details surrounding the late duchess’s death were scarce. Neither the questionable state of Culpepper’s finances nor the murky circumstances of his wife’s death lent him credibility as a potential match for Westerley’s sister.
“They say he’ll take advantage of my naiveté. That all he wants is my dowry. Once the novelty of being a duchess has worn off, Bethany says I’ll wish I’d married a man who loved me, or at least actually cared about me.”
Her coffee-colored eyes dared him to agree with his sister’s assessment as she lifted her chin, a golden curl falling back from her heart-shaped face.
“The part about the dowry has merit. You can’t deny that. Your sister simply wants you to be happy.”
“She doesn’t understand.” If anything, Tabetha’s eyes darkened to an even deeper shade of brown. They appeared almost black. “After spending hours and hours on lessons learning how to walk properly, how to talk properly, and what to say, not to mention a year at Lady Agatha’s Finishing School. In addition to…” She frowned but then lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at him. “Being a duchess will make me happy.”
Stone lifted one brow at the irrational reasoning behind her beliefs. How did one so young become so arrogant? Just a slip of a thing, too…
“Are you attracted to him?” If she was, then he’d have to be even more wary.
“Of course, I am! He’s a duke!”
Stone resisted the urge to roll his eyes skyward. “I mean, romantically. Are you attracted to him?”
By the opening and closing of those perfect little pink lips, it was obvious he’d shocked her, which was precisely why he’d asked the question. He wanted to force her to think about what she really wanted. At the very least, he hated the idea of her betrothing herself for a title without having contemplated this aspect of marriage. She was one of his best friend’s sisters, after all.
“I’m not going to discuss that with you!”
Stone had known Westerley’s sisters for over a decade, for almost as long as he’d been friends with their older brother. He’d discussed dances, flowers, food, and even gossiped about various people in the ton with them. Hell, he and Westerley had taken the girls for ices at Gunter’s on several occasions.
Never once had he discussed anything of a truly personal nature with either of them. Perhaps he ought to have left this conversation up to Lady Tabetha’s mother or her sister…
Stone shifted his gaze away from her, focusing on nothing particular in the moonlit garden again. “I suppose he is mildly good looking, in a dukish sort of way. I don’t know how he avoids a crick in his neck looking down his nose like that.”
“That sort of thing is to be expected of a duke,” Tabetha defended Culpepper.
“It’s what he’s been taught. And just so you know, he is more than mildly good-looking. He is refined, noble, and… and… he is well-groomed.”
Stone could all too easily imagine the pouty expression on her rosebud lips. He’d seen it a time or two over the past few weeks—or a thousand times or two.
She wasn’t at all pleased with the level of diligence to which he was fulfilling his promise to her brother, but he’d be damned if she’d walk into a trap under his watch.
“Touché.” He grimaced. “But you’ve yet to answer my question. Are you attracted to him? Sexual compatibility is something all young women ought to consider before consenting to marry—even grasping little chits like you.” He slid her a sideways glance. “Because mark my words, you will be expected to lie with him. He’s not only going to require an heir but a spare as well.”
“I am quite aware of this.” She pursed her lips. “He doesn’t repel me.”
She had so much to learn.
“Has he kissed you?” Stone clenched his fists. Duke or not, if the blighter had, he’d be feeling the other end of Stone’s fist. Because she was a lady and she was not without protection.
“That.” There went that little chin again. “Is none of your business.”
But she was not blushing, and she hadn’t shown any other telltale signs indicating such a thing had occurred.
Stone exhaled. “So, he has not.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t.” Even as she answered, Stone could see the wheels turning in her devious little mind. “He’s two decades older than me—nearly forty. And men hardly ever live as long as women. He’ll die soon enough and long after that, I will still be a duchess.”
“He outlived his first duchess.”
“I refuse to die in childbirth.” Again, with the arrogance.
“The bad ones hold on forever,” he pointed out.
She smiled smugly. “Culpepper isn’t one of the bad ones. Besides, what could I possibly learn about him from a single kiss?”
Stone cocked one brow. So naïve. So very inexperienced.
Tabetha twirled a finger around the curl dangling along her cheek. For two weeks, Stone Spencer had shadowed her everywhere—at the request of her overbearing brother.
A ride through the park? Mr. Spencer rode alongside her conveyance on his mount.
A visit to the repository? He annoyingly strolled behind her, looking over her shoulder. Always watching her with that knowing smirk.
Why couldn’t Westerley have asked one of his other friends to be her keeper? For instance, the Marquess of Greystone? In his fine clothing, with his haughty manners, the marquess never would have made such a nuisance of himself.
Or Viscount Manningham-Tissinton? He likely would have watched over her from the shadows. Mantis, as her brother called him, wouldn’t ha
ve felt it necessary to impose his beef-witted opinion on her.
Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy vexing her.
She glanced over to where he rested his arms on the wall, facing the darkness beyond the manor. Unnerved by his profile, her gaze dropped to his hands.
They were ruddy, calloused, rough, and looked as though he may have broken one or more of his fingers at one time. Even tonight, a fresh cut showed on the back of one of his knuckles, likely from one of his brawls. She couldn’t help but contrast them to Culpepper’s, whose hands exemplified his refinement. The duke’s fingers were slender and pale, his palms nearly as soft as her own. As they should be.
Nobility was intentionally removed from labor so that they could serve a higher purpose. Lady Agatha had drilled this idea into her students.
“You have been kissed before, haven’t you?” Mr. Spencer flicked a disparaging look in her direction again. His indigo eyes narrowed, almost as though his question was a dare.
“Of course, I’ve been kissed.” She smoothed one of her sleeves.
“By the son of one of your father’s tenants? Behind the old oak tree at Raven’s Park? When you were, what? All of four and ten?”
“No.” His taunt grated. She had been three and ten—thank you very much—and it had been a silver birch.
He laughed. That laugh that conveyed that he knew he was right. Tabetha stomped her right foot on the ground, and then immediately regretted it. Not only did it fail to make any sort of satisfying thump, but she might as well have been barefoot for all the protection her slippers afforded the bottom of her poor foot.