The Danger of Dukes by Phynix de Leon

might.”
     
    …
     
    Later that night Lord Grayson’s little sister Samantha, whom I found was sixteen, was still bouncing on her feet excited about her first ball.
                  “Did you not see all the beautiful dresses, and oh! How lovely everything was! And the gentlemen were just so dreamlike,” Sam sighed.
                  “My lovely one, I saw it and lived it and now that it is over I am glad. I am so sore that I doubt even a warm bath could cure my aches,” I yawned as we started up the stairs, slowly going one at a time.
                  “You sound just like my grandmother, what is it that made your body so weak?” She blushed quickly and added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
                  I waved it off. “It is no terrible secret but I am afraid it must wait until I am safely wed to your brother.”
                  “Did you even have a choice in marrying him?” she asked quietly.
                  “I had little choice in the beginning and I shall miss home. But this is home now and I wouldn’t wish it away for the whole world, Sam,” I said with a gentle smile.
                  Instead of smiling back she looked worried. “My brother is a very good actor, please be careful for yourself.”
                  “What does that mean,” I asked confused.
                  She just shook her head. “Things are not as they seem, Alana. Why would a duke in his late twenties marry quickly and to an American when he could have waited as long as he liked and chose someone from home? Things are changing after my other brother died. Big Brother cared only about the family name, not the family before all of this.”
                  Puzzled by her tone, I turned to her. “Whatever do you mean?”
                  “Let me put it another way. All he cares for is the family bloodline; he never loved any of us.” She made a grim smile twist her lips. “But then again never had Father.” She sighed rubbing her head and walked away from me. “I wish you a good night Alana.”
                  “And a good one to you as well,” I replied softly.
                  I wandered around the second level of the house until I had turned so many corners I was lost. The farther I traveled into the east wing the dustier items became until white sheets had been tossed carelessly over the subjects to keep away the dust.
                  However there were paintings upon the walls of children and then I spotted a portrait of the duke as a boy with a charming golden hair little girl sitting next to him and a younger boy standing behind him. The smiles upon their faces were cheerful and happy. The painting next to that was unmistakably of Lord Grayson, with his arrogant chin tilted up and a slight smirk on his face.
                  I lifted a hand and gently brushed my fingers across his face.
                  “Always the dashing man, aren’t you? Too bad you are as cold as the weather in this land,” I said softly.
                  “I cannot help the way others see me, however I thought better of you,” a deep voice rumbled from the shadows across the hall.
                  Startled I spun around with a gasp. “Don’t do that!”
                  “It is my home. I may do as I please.” He stocked out of the shadows towards me. “But I wonder why you were in this part of the house. No one besides me has come here in years.”
                  “I was restless, so I moved about,” I quipped.
                  The duke came forward and turned me toward the wall and the portrait. “This however is not me. It was my father. You were right however he was indeed a very cold man.”
                  I blushed as I felt his breath on my