The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance

Brief Extract: Charles Augustus Cheyne, Duke of Long Acre, had no land. Neither in the United Kingdom nor in any other state of earth did he own a perch of ground. He did not own mines or railways, or Consols, or foreign or domestic stock of any kind ... Read more

Brief Extract: Charles Augustus Cheyne, Duke of Long Acre, had no land. Neither in the United Kingdom nor in any other state of earth did he own a perch of ground. He did not own mines or railways, or Consols, or foreign or domestic stock of any kind. All the money he had was the result of his own industrious fingers, of his own industrious brain. Neither the Heralds' College nor the Lord Chancellor had ever heard of the Duke of Long Acre. The title was one purely of courtesy, conferred upon him by his peers, who were no peers of the realm, but untitled citizens of the Republic of Letters. If he was no duke, he would have furnished sufficient material for making two dukes of satisfactory size, as dukes go now. He was six feet tall, measured fifty inches round the chest, and forty-two round the waist. He had a large, beaming, good-humoured face. He wore no hair on his face; the hair of his head was of a dull dun colour, and always closely cut. No one could remember the colour of his eyes. He was reported to be the strongest and best-tempered man in Fleet Street. Less