Free The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke by Jillian Hunter

Boscastle not long after at a Prussian military academy. Heath had gone on to a quiet but personal glory. Adrian had given himself to adventure and darker acclaim.
    Yet he could still remember his last conversation with the man who now claimed to be his father, Guy Fulham, the Duke of Scarfield. Well, it had been more of an eavesdropping until Scarfield had caught Adrian by the scruff of the neck and humiliated him in the midst of a house party.
    “Look at you, listening at keyholes like a dirty little thief. But then I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? Your mother was naught but a whore, and your natural sire was a soldier. Not even an officer, if you please. An ordinary, ignorant soldier who didn’t even have the wherewithal to survive a year in battle.”
    His life had started to make sense then. His father had grown aloof since the death of Adrian’s mother four years earlier. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out a few unsavory facts about his place in the world. The old duke wasn’t his blood, as it turned out. Soon enough the abuses and malignant neglect of the man he’d believed to be his father assumed a more dramatic meaning. Adrian’s young mother, Constance, had apparently taken a lover, a common soldier who happened to be passing through the village, and that’s why the duke had come to despise the sight of Adrian.
    The old bugger thought his heir was a by-blow.
    The revelation should have broken Adrian’s spirit. Another boy would have been shamed by repeatedly being reminded he was the accidental product of an adulterous affair. Instead, it cheered him immeasurably. Gave him a new purpose in life. He decided to become a blood-and-guts soldier like his real father. He would show the duke what he thought of his stuffy old world. He’d become a great military adventurer, a wealthy nabob, and flaunt his successes under the aristocracy’s nose.
    Only it hadn’t worked out that way at all. Revenge, Adrian had discovered, rarely did. Yet by the time he’d set upon his path, he couldn’t turn back. He was as much a victim of his vengeance as he was the perpetrator.
    He hadn’t counted on the rest of the world not exactly agreeing to his half-cocked plans. Or himself. Fighting had knocked most of the anger out of him. In fact, he’d gorged himself on so much violence that he had become numb.
    He’d had military adventures, all right. Only his reputation had been built as a mercenary, not a hero. He had trained native soldiers to beef up British forces and subdued insurgents in the battle against French encroachment on foreign holdings. The rulers who appreciated being spared an assassin’s knife had rewarded him in gold, rupees, and diamonds. He had been granted trading rights by East India Company and held mercantile interests in Bombay, Madras, China, Persia, and India. He’d made his name by agreeing to fight anywhere for a price.
    And then a year or so ago the duke had the gall to ask Adrian home, claiming to be stricken with some mortal affliction. He wrote that he hoped to make amends. Home? For the love of hell, Adrian had only come back to England because he’d be a fool to refuse an inheritance that was his by right. No other reason, although he was ready to settle down.
    And if he wanted to claim a woman forbidden to him by friendship?
    “Adrian.”
    He glanced up moodily at the mild reproach in his host’s voice.
    “Yes?”
    “I asked you what it is you are apologizing for.”
    “Apologizing? Ah.” He frowned. The head injury must have jolted his brains, after all. He rarely brooded on the past. “Well, I’m sorry for all the bother. It’s bloody embarrassing to have a chair broken on your noggin and then end up being cosseted like a vestal virgin.”
    Heath sighed. “You were defending my sister. There’s no need to apologize for that.”
    Adrian regarded the other man with a scowl. “Except that I bollixed it up. The true offender sneaked away, and I fainted at your