Chapter 1
Julian Valente, Duke of Niblick, pushed through the oak doors of Hatchards and immediately regretted every decision that had led him to this moment. The bookshop’s familiar scent of leather and parchment vanished beneath an oppressive cloud of his own making—cinnamon and nutmeg wafting from his person like an advertisement for holiday pudding. Three matrons near the poetry section swiveled toward him in unison, nostrils flaring.
“Sweet merciful heavens,” whispered Mrs. Pemberton, clutching her reticule. “It’s the Pumpkin Spice Duke.”
The words rippled through the shop like cannon fire. Heads turned. Fans snapped open. A clerk dropped an entire stack of sermons, which scattered across the floor with the desperate flutter of evangelical panic.
Julian’s jaw tightened. He’d come for Byron’s latest collection and a moment of peace. Instead, he’d walked into what appeared to be a spice-scented ambush.
“Your Grace!” called Lady Thornfield from the biography section, her voice pitched at a frequency that could shatter crystal. “You’re even more aromatic than the scandal sheets claimed!”
The crowd pressed closer. Julian found himself backed against a display of agricultural treatises, their leather spines digging into his shoulders. A woman in lavender silk inhaled deeply near his left elbow.
“Like Christmas morning,” she sighed. “But with the promise of romance.”
This was his life now. A walking advertisement for seasonal excess. A man reduced to his aroma, his worth measured in how thoroughly he could remind London’s ladies of their grandmother’s kitchen. He’d inherited a dukedom, extensive lands, and political influence. Society cared only that he smelled like baking spices.
“I am less man than pastry,” he muttered, then winced at his own melodrama.
“What did he say?” demanded a portly dowager in orange silk.
“He spoke of pastry!” squealed her companion. “How deliciously appropriate!”
The crowd surged forward. Julian’s back pressed harder against the agricultural section. A treatise on turnip cultivation jabbed his shoulder blade with pointed disapproval.
“Ladies, please,” he said, his voice carrying the authority of a man accustomed to being obeyed. “I merely wish to purchase a book.”
“Which book, Your Grace?” called someone from the crowd.
“Byron,” he replied, then realized his mistake.
The collective swoon nearly brought down a shelf of philosophical texts. Someone fanned herself so vigorously she created a small windstorm. A matron in puce velvet actually staggered backward and collided with the sermons display, which promptly collapsed beneath her weight.
“Byron and cinnamon!” she gasped from the floor, buried under evangelical literature. “My heart cannot withstand such poetry!”
Julian closed his eyes. This was worse than the incident at White’s, where he’d been forced to escape through the kitchen. Worse than the opera, where three separate mothers had attempted to introduce their daughters during intermission. At least there he’d had an exit strategy.
Here, he was trapped.
The crowd pressed closer still. Someone sniffed audibly near his cravat. Another woman sighed with such volume it rattled the windowpanes.
“Ladies, surely you have other engagements—”
“None so pressing as this!” declared Mrs. Worthington, elbowing her way to the front with the determination of a cavalry charge.
Julian’s eye twitched. A single spasm that contained the entirety of his existential crisis. He was thirty years old, had commanded respect in Parliament, and could trace his lineage back to the Conquest. None of this mattered when faced with the collective might of autumn-mad matrons armed with fans and romantic delusions.
The shop door chimed again. Julian tensed, expecting another wave of admirers. Instead, a young woman entered carrying what appeared to be a contraption resembling a weaponized tea kettle. She wore sensible brown muslin, her chestnut hair escaping from its pins in inky wisps. Smudged spectacles perched on her nose, and her sleeves bore the telltale stains of someone who spent more time with machinery than millinery.
She surveyed the scene with the air of a general assessing a battlefield, then sighed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, her voice cutting through the romantic sighing like a blade through silk. “What fresh nonsense is this?”
“The Duke!” called Mrs. Pemberton. “He’s here! He smells of Christmas!”
The newcomer’s gray-green eyes fixed on Julian through her spectacles. “You’re the spice duke?”
“I am Julian Valente, Duke of Niblick,” he replied stiffly.
“Right. The commodity.” She adjusted a valve on her contraption with brisk movements. “Stand aside, ladies. This is a public health matter.”
“Public health?” gasped Lady Thornfield. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Excessive seasonal aromatic exposure,” the woman replied, hefting her device. “Known to cause fainting, romantic delusions, and poor purchasing decisions. I’m here to clear the air.”
She aimed her contraption at the crowd and pumped a brass handle. A fine mist emerged, carrying the sharp scent of vinegar and something distinctly unromantic. The crowd recoiled as one.
“What are you doing?” shrieked Mrs. Worthington.
“Neutralizing atmospheric spice contamination,” came the crisp reply. Another pump, another mist. “Standard procedure for autumn-related public disturbances.”
The crowd backed away from the advancing vinegar cloud. Several women pressed handkerchiefs to their noses. The magical aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg that had held them captive dissolved beneath the assertive tang of the woman’s chemical intervention.
“This is most irregular!” protested the dowager in puce, struggling to her feet from the sermon pile.
“So is mobbing a man for his scent,” the woman replied, adjusting her spectacles. “Yet here we are.”
The crowd dispersed with remarkable speed, muttering about interference and ruined romantic moments. Within minutes, the shop had returned to its usual scholarly quiet, save for the lingering scent of vinegar and wounded dignity.
Julian stared at his unlikely rescuer. She was methodically disassembling her contraption, each component returning to its designated slot in what he now realized was a cleverly designed portable case.
“That was…” he began.
“Necessary,” she finished, not looking up from her equipment. “You were loitering in public like a pumpkin pie advertisement. What did you expect?”
“I expected to buy a book.”
She glanced up, and he caught a flash of something in her eyes—surprise, perhaps, that he’d responded with exasperation rather than gratitude. “Byron?”
“How did you—”
“You mentioned it before they swooned.” She snapped her case shut with military authority. “Romantic poetry and seasonal spicing. You might as well have announced your intent to propose marriage to the entire female population of Piccadilly.”
Julian’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I hadn’t considered the strategic implications.”
“Clearly.” She shouldered her case and turned toward the door, then paused. “Though I must say, I expected a duke to have more spine.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You have a voice that could command regiments,” she said, studying him with the detached interest of a naturalist examining a curious specimen. “Yet you let yourself be cornered by matrons armed with nothing more dangerous than fans and romantic expectations.”
Julian straightened, his full height bringing him well above her modest stature. “Those ‘romantic expectations’ have proven remarkably persistent. This is not my first such encounter.”
“Then perhaps you should consider alternative venues for your literary pursuits. Or alternative scents.”
“The scent is not by choice.”
Her eyebrows rose above her spectacles. “Not by choice?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Most interesting problems are.” She adjusted her spectacles again, a gesture he suspected was habitual when she encountered puzzles worth solving. “Well, Your Grace of Nutmeg, try to avoid creating further public disturbances. Some of us have actual work to do.”
She turned for the door, then stopped as a sharp, authoritative honk echoed from somewhere above. Julian looked up to see a magnificent white goose perched on the bookshop’s roof, visible through the skylight. The bird’s unblinking blue eyes surveyed the scene below with the gravity of a judge pronouncing sentence.
The remaining stragglers in the shop—clerks, a few genuine customers, and Mrs. Pemberton, who had been pretending to examine devotional texts—all froze at the sound.
“The Sacred Goose!” whispered someone.
“She honks!” gasped Mrs. Pemberton. “It’s a sign!”
The woman with the contraption rolled her eyes. “Oh, brilliant. Now the poultry is involved.”
But the damage was done. Mrs. Pemberton’s voice carried to the street, where a small crowd had gathered to peer through the windows. “The Sacred Goose has decreed! She approves of the Duke’s new lady protector!”
Julian dropped his face into his hands. “Lady protector?”
“A match ordained by divine fowl!” called someone from outside.
The woman—his supposed protector—stared at him with the expression of someone who had just realized she’d stepped in something unpleasant. “This is not happening.”
“I’m afraid it is,” Julian said weakly.
Above them, Toni honked once more, a sound that somehow managed to convey both satisfaction and ominous portent. The crowd outside pressed closer to the windows, their faces alight with the possibility of witnessing the beginning of a romance blessed by London’s most mysterious avian authority.
“Wonderful,” the woman muttered, hefting her case higher on her shoulder. “I neutralize one atmospheric disturbance and create a matrimonial one.”
Julian found himself studying her profile as she glared up at the goose. Her jaw had a determined set that suggested she’d faced down more formidable opponents than romantic gossip. Ink stains marked her fingertips, and her spectacles had slipped down her nose during her rescue operation, leaving a small indentation on the bridge.
“I don’t suppose,” he said carefully, “you’d consider allowing me to properly thank you for your intervention? Perhaps over tea?”
She turned to stare at him. “You’re asking me to tea? Now? While half of London is convinced we’re divinely destined for matrimony?”
“The timing is admittedly poor.”
“The timing is catastrophic.” She pushed her spectacles back up her nose with one ink-stained finger. “I’m Treva Bratton, by the way. And I suspect this conversation is about to become significantly more complicated.”
Julian managed a bow despite the circumstances. “Miss Bratton. I’m in your debt.”
“You’re in everyone’s debt, Your Grace. The question is whether you intend to do anything useful about it.”
Before he could ask what she meant, Mrs. Pemberton’s voice rang out again: “They’re talking! The Goose’s blessing continues!”
Treva Bratton closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, Julian saw the resignation of someone who had just realized her careful, rational life was about to become significantly less rational.
“Tea,” she said grimly. “Yes. We definitely need to discuss this. Before the gossip sheets decide we’re already engaged.”
Above them, Toni stretched one wing in what could have been a blessing or a warning, then settled more comfortably on her perch, clearly prepared to oversee whatever chaos was about to unfold.
Julian straightened his cravat and wondered if dukes were permitted to emigrate to distant colonies where no one had heard of seasonal aromatics.
Unfortunately, he suspected geese could fly.