It’s
hard out here for a pimp duke.
Writing
duke heroes over the course of four books, as I have in the Dukes
Behaving Badly series, is hard. Not because the heroes aren’t all
distinctive in their own way; they are, from Matthew’s confused
bemusement about inheriting the title, to Nicholas’s arrogance he
should always get his own way, to Lash’s refusal to step across any
line, to Why Do Dukes Fall in Love?’s hero Michael, perhaps the
most dukely of all my dukes.
It’s
hard writing dukes because dukes are like CEOs. It’d be like
constantly writing billionaires who remain in charge and in command
over companies that support thousands of people. That takes a certain
amount of sameness if you are always writing such a powerful person.
In my duke view, there’s no possibility of a duke dashing off to
become a spy; a duke has too many responsibilities to be that
feckless. Dukes are second only to the royal family, only dukes,
unlike princes, aren’t waiting around for someone to die so they
can assume full command of their position. Dukes are at the pinnacle
of their own possibility, and with that possibility comes an enormous
amount of responsibility.
At
one point during Why Do Dukes Fall in Love?, the heroine Edwina is
pondering the vast mystery that is Michael, the ducal hero.
She
didn’t think many men would have all that power and still be
committed to doing something more with it. Most would be content to
settle, to do what they had to, or what they thought they had to, but
nothing more.
But
not him. It was as though there was a force inside him, propelling
him forward, into action beyond what most men would do.
What
I like about Michael is that he understands what a duke should do,
and he knows he is smart enough to do more than that. He feels
compelled to do more because he thinks it is a waste of humanity to
just be and accept the position that was given to him.
I
always want my dukes to bring more than just their utter dukeliness
to the table, and I love writing such powerful and ultimately
responsible heroes.
About
WHY DO DUKES FALL IN LOVE?
In
Megan Frampton’s captivating new Dukes
Behaving Badly novel, we learn the answer
to the question:
Why
do dukes fall in love?
Michael,
the Duke of Hadlow, has the liberty of enjoying an indiscretion . . .
or several. But when it comes time for him to take a proper bride, he
ultimately realizes he wants only one woman: Edwina Cheltam. He’d
hired her as his secretary, only to quickly discover she was sensuous
and intelligent.
They
embark on a passionate affair, and when she breaks it off, he accepts
her decision as the logical one . . . but only at first. Then he
decides to pursue her.
Michael
is brilliant, single-minded, and utterly indifferent to being the
talk of the ton. It’s even said his only true friend is his dog.
Edwina had begged him to marry someone appropriate–—someone
aristocratic . . . someone high-born . . . someone else. But the only
thing more persuasive than a duke intent on seduction is one who has
fallen irrevocably in love.
About
MEGAN FRAMPTON
Megan
Frampton writes historical romance under her own name and romantic
women’s fiction as Megan Caldwell. She likes the color black, gin,
dark-haired British men, and huge earrings, not in that order. She
lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son. You can visit
her website at www.meganframpton.com. She tweets as @meganf, and is
at facebook.com/meganframptonbooks.
Where
to buy WHY DO DUKES FALL IN LOVE?
iBooks:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/why-do-dukes-fall-in-love/id1054899069?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
RAFFLECOPTER
CODE
Why
Do Dukes Fall in Love?
Excerpt
from Chapter 1
Chapter
1
1844
The
Quality Employment Agency, London
“He
left you with nothing?”
Edwina
glanced to the side of the room, a tactic she knew full well wouldn’t
disguise the moisture in her eyes, especially not from Carolyn, her
oldest and dearest friend. They’d met when Edwina’s late husband
had wanted to find a respectable, but inexpensive, maidservant, and
Carolyn’s agency had found the perfect person. And Edwina had
finally found a friend she could actually talk to.
The
room was as familiar to her as her own lodgings—and definitely more
welcoming. A kettle was heating up water on the small stove, the tea
things—the chipped blue cup for Carolyn, the cup with the handle
that was always too hot for her—waiting until the water boiled.
Cozy,
comfortable, and everything else she was not.
“No.”
She spoke plainly, unable and unwilling to disguise the truth of it.
Eight
years of marriage to one of the most boring men of her acquaintance,
and he didn’t even have the decency to leave her financially
comfortable when he died.
“I
can help you, you know,” Carolyn said in a soft voice. She got up
as the kettle began to whistle and started preparing the tea.
Edwina’s
throat tightened. “I won’t take your money.” Fine words for a
pauper—they both knew that if the choice came between accepting
charity and letting her daughter starve, Edwina would take the money.
Gertrude sat on the floor, playing with her dolls. Was she already
getting thinner? Edwina’s heart hurt at the thought, and she had to
bite the inside of her cheek not to start fretting aloud. That would
do nothing but worry her daughter, who wasn’t old enough to
understand.
Edwina
wasn’t entirely certain she was old enough to understand, either.
“I
wasn’t offering to give you any money,” Carolyn replied in a dry
tone of voice, glancing over her shoulder as she spoke.
Edwina’s
gaze met Carolyn’s.
“Well,
what then?” she asked in an unsteady voice.
“Employment,”
Carolyn replied, returning to her task.
“Employment?”
Edwina echoed, an uneasy feeling settling somewhere in her gut. The
gut that was remarkably close to her stomach, which hadn’t eaten
today, and had only had some porridge and some hard cheese yesterday.
So
the uneasy feeling would have to ease.
“You
do know I run an employment agency.” Carolyn gestured to the room
they sat in. “Since you have used my services.”
“Yes,
back when I could afford them,” Edwina replied in a tone that was
both wry and pained.
She
took a deep breath, and looked around her. It was undeniably
pleasant, if modest. The cozy, comfortable room of the Quality
Employment Agency, filled with books, papers, mismatched chairs, and
an enormous battered desk, where Carolyn normally sat, welcomed her,
made her feel safe in a way her new lodgings did not.
“Yes,
but—” and then Edwina felt both foolish and snobby, since the
answer was obvious, and yet had not occurred to her because of who
she was. Who she had been.
“But
what?” Carolyn picked up the teacups, wincing as she felt the heat
from the offending handle. She brought them over to where Edwina was
seated, placing them on the desk and sitting back down in her usual
spot. “You need a job, Edwina. No matter who you are. Even
ladies—especially ladies, judging from my experience—need to have
enough money to eat and to live. Even if their husbands were so
disappointing as to leave them bereft of anything but their good
name.”
“And
even that was sullied, thanks to George’s entrusting of the
accounts to his brother as soon as it seemed the businesses were
getting profitable, and worthy of notice,” Edwina remarked in a
bitter tone. She kept her tone low, so her daughter couldn’t hear.
“I told him I could handle them, that I had gotten them to the
state they were in, not to mention I told him how untrustworthy his
brother was—and yet he said he’d never ‘let a female deal with
important things,’ ” she said in an imitation of her late
husband.
“More
fool he,” Carolyn remarked. “If he had allowed you to continue to
oversee the finances you wouldn’t be in this situation now, would
you?”
It
was a well-worn discussion, but one that still made Edwina angry.
George had been so blind to her attributes he hadn’t seen she was
skilled at maths, far better than anyone in his own family,
especially his debt-beleaguered younger brother. He had been fine
when she oversaw the accounts when they weren’t important—but
ironically, as soon as her skill had yielded results, he took them
away from her and handed them to a man. Simply because he was a man,
and his brother, and not a woman, and his wife.
And
now she and little Gertrude were being made to suffer for it.
George’s brother hadn’t done more than shrug when Edwina had told
him how George had left her. He already had a wife, he said, and he
couldn’t afford to take her in, although he had offered a place to
his niece.
But
Edwina couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from her
daughter; she was the only thing keeping Edwina from stepping in
front of an oxcart one day. That she and Gertrude might starve to
death was not something she wanted to contemplate—what reasonable
person would?—even though she had to.
Which
brought her back to why she was currently sitting with her closest
friend in said closest friend’s employment agency, realizing that
perhaps she had to consider employment herself.
“What
can I do?” she said at last, hating how pathetic and needy she
sounded. Better pathetic and needy than dead, a voice said
inside her head.
Carolyn
chuckled, taking a sip of her tea. “What can’t you do? You can
balance accounts, drive hard bargains with tradesmen, oversee
skittish maids, sort out the temperamental discord among upper-class
servants, and keep an older husband relatively comfortable in
illness. Not to mention you are extremely well-read—there are
benefits to having a neglectful husband—and your parents ensured
you had all the education you’d need to be an adept wife, whether
you married a politician, a solicitor, or even a lord.”
“Or
a businessman with lofty pretensions,” Edwina added. “They
thought they had taken care of me. I wish they were still here.”
She shook her head. “I do not wish to be married again, if that is
the employment you are suggesting.” Once was enough, and she would
have said never would have been enough if it weren’t for Gertrude.
And it is not as though she had any other family to resort to; her
parents had both been only children, and she had no relatives that
she knew of.
“I
am not in a husband acquisition business, Edwina,” Carolyn replied
in a mocking tone. “If
I
were, don’t you think I could afford a better office?”
They
both glanced around at the tidy but shabby room. “Excellent point,”
Edwina replied with a grin, picking up the cup with the still-hot
handle and taking a welcome sip of tea. “So what do you have in
mind?”
