It's Hard Out Here for a Duke by Maya Rodale

Author:Maya Rodale [Rodale, Maya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

A duke must take time to visit all of his properties. Visiting multiple vast estates around the country may prove to be a strenuous and lengthy endeavor for which many will feel no pity.

—The Rules for Dukes

There were worse things, James supposed, than spending a few hours alone in an enclosed carriage with the duchess for a trip he had no wish to embark on. He spent the first portion of the journey listing them privately to himself: a trip to the dentist, bloodletting, enduring a mathematics lecture with Claire, being separated from Meredith . . .

She had stayed behind to supervise his sisters.

That was the polite excuse anyway.

It was understood that the duchess had seen them in a somewhat compromising position. Perhaps she had also witnessed that invisible, intangible, passionate something between them.

He shouldn’t be kissing anyone the way he kissed her. It was one thing when Meredith told him not to—that, he could respect. It was all those rules and expectations forbidding them from being together that he found intolerable.

But he couldn’t say he was surprised by it. Meredith had let him know that she wasn’t suitable, and thus that the duchess wouldn’t approve. Yet he hadn’t quite been prepared for the extent of her disapproval. It radiated from her like rays from the sun on a cold day—bright, cold, relentless.

Even now, a few hours into a carriage ride.

“Well, it is nice to leave London at least,” James remarked, finally done with his list of greater tortures and eager to thaw out the duchess. “I confess I do miss greenery. And open space. And fresh air.”

“You will like Durham Park. The house is very fine, of course, but I suppose it is the grounds that you will find most enticing; there are many rolling hills and a forest thick with game. The stables are fine, too. I imagine that you might wish to spend the majority of your time at Durham Park, once things are settled.”

“You mean my sisters are settled.”

“And you. When you are all properly settled.” There it was again—a pointed little reminder that she knew, or suspected, or at any rate disapproved that the one woman he fancied was not considered an acceptable candidate for the role of wife and future duchess. “We can always retire there when the season concludes.”

“And when does that blessed event occur?”

“In midsummer.”

“I shall count the days,” James said dryly.

The duchess opened her mouth to say something and quickly thought the better of it. Was it a lecture on how lucky he was to have to suddenly assume more responsibility than he wanted? Or was it another lesson on how to succeed in society? Perhaps she even had a reason why he should prize the good opinion of the haute ton over true happiness with Meredith.

James braced himself. She ought to have a go at him now, when he was a captive audience. Instead, she pressed her lips in a firm line and looked out the window.

“C’mon now, Josie, what were you going to say?”

“You’ll see, Duke.

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