Book excerpt: THE GHOST (Ruthless Regency Dukes 6) is the sixth and final book in USA Today and Amazon International #1 Bestselling Author, Carole Mortimer’s, latest Regency series. Six Dukes, bound together by their friendship and loyalty. When one of them is murdered, the five friends remaining are each given the task of investigating one of the five officers suspected of being responsible for the killing. The man had been prisoner for so long he no longer had any idea whether it was night or day. The room where he was being kept was below ground and had no windows. It was bare of all comforts except for a pile of dirty and lice infected straw in one corner and a single blanket to cover himself with during the worst of the cold. He had tried, at first, to keep track of time, but as the days, weeks, months passed, they had all merged together. The monotony was broken only by the haphazard delivery of a plate of the most basic of foods and a jug of water by a surly and silent man whose clothes appeared to be as ragged as his own. The smelly bucket in the corner of the room was removed only once a week. The last thing he remembered, before waking in this hellhole, he had been deeply entrenched in the battle at Waterloo. He recalled being run through with a sword, and then struck on the head. Since then, there had only been this room, the pain as his wound oozed an unpleasant pus before finally healing, near starvation, and the bone-deep cold. At first, he had been sure his friends would find him, and he would be rescued from this living hell. But he no longer held out that hope, knowing they must all believe him to be dead. He had been abandoned, and was now forgotten. Even, it seemed, by the woman he had loved so deeply he would gladly have given his life for her. Had she mourned him? Cried for his loss? Or had she moved on when all hope had been lost? One thing he knew, when he was free, and he was determined he would escape, all who had wronged him would suffer the full measure of his fury.