The Inconvenient Duchess. Christine Merrill

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       Chapter Two

      The front door was oak, and when she dropped the heavy brass knocker against it, Miranda Grey was surprised that the sound was barely louder than the hammering of the rain on the flags around her. It would be a wonder if anyone heard her knock above the sound of the late summer storm.

      When the door finally opened, the butler hesitated, as though a moment’s delay in the rain might wash the step clean and save him the trouble of seeing to her.

      She was afraid to imagine what he must see. Her hair was half down and streaming water. Her shawl clung to her body, soaked through with the rain. Her travelling dress moulded to her body, and the mud-splattered skirts bunched between her legs when she tried to move. She offered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d decided against wearing slippers or her new pair of shoes. The heavy boots she’d chosen were wildly inappropriate for a lady, but anything else would have disintegrated on the walk to the house. Her wrists, which protruded from the sleeves of the gown before disappearing into her faded gloves, were blue with cold.

      After an eternity, the butler opened his mouth, probably to send her away. Or at least to direct her to the rear entrance.

      She squared her shoulders and heard Cici repeating words in her mind.

      ‘It is not who you appear to be that matters. It is who you are. Despite circumstances, you are a lady. You were born to be a lady. If you remember this, people will treat you accordingly.’

      Appreciating her height for once, she stared down into the face of the butler and said in a tone as frigid as the icy rainwater in her boots, ‘Lady Miranda Grey. I believe I am expected.’

      The butler stepped aside and muttered something about a library. Then, without waiting for an answer, he shambled off down the hall, leaving her and her portmanteau on the step.

      She heaved the luggage over the threshold, stepped in after it, and pulled the door shut behind her. She glanced down at her bag, which sat in its own puddle on the marble floor. It could stay here and rot. She was reasonably sure that it was not her job to carry the blasted thing. The blisters forming beneath the calluses on her palms convinced her that she had already carried it quite enough for one night. She abandoned it and hurried after the butler.

      He led her into a large room lined with books and muttered something. She leaned closer, but was unable to make out the words. He was no easier to understand in the dead quiet of the house than he had been when he’d greeted her at the door. Then he wandered away again, off into the hall. In search of the dowager, she hoped. In his wake, she detected a faint whiff of gin.

      When he was gone, she examined her surroundings in detail, trying to ignore the water dripping from her clothes and on to the fine rug. The house was grand. There was no argument to that. The ceilings were high. The park in front was enormous, as she had learned in frustration while stumbling across its wide expanse in the pouring rain. The hall to this room had been long, wide and marble, and lined with doors that hinted at a variety of equally large rooms.

      But...

      She sighed. There had to be a but. A house with a peer, but without some accompanying problem, some unspoken deficit, would not have opened its doors to her. She stepped closer to the bookshelves and struggled to read a few of the titles. They did not appear to be well used or current—not that she had any idea of the fashion in literature. Their spines were not worn; they were coated with dust and trailed the occasional cobweb from corner to corner. Not a great man for learning, the duke.

      She brightened. Learning was not a requirement, certainly. A learned man might be too clever by half and she’d find herself back out in the rain. Perhaps he had more money than wit.

      She stepped closer to the fire and examined the bricks of the hearth. Now here was an area she well understood. It left a message much more readable than the bookshelves. There was soot on the bricks that should have been scrubbed away long ago. She could see the faint smudges on the walls, signs that the room was long overdue for a good cleaning. She rustled the heavy velvet of the draperies over the window, then sneezed at the dust and slapped at the flutter of moths she’d disturbed.

      So, the duke was not a man of learning, and the dowager had a weak hand on the servants. The butler was drunk and the maids did not waste time cleaning the room set aside to receive guests. Her hands itched to straighten cushions, to beat dust out of velvet and to find a brush to scrub the bricks. Didn’t these people understand what they had? How lucky they were? And how careless with their good fortune?

      If she were mistress of this house...

      She СКАЧАТЬ