Miss Amelia Lands A Duke by Sandy Raven

Author:Sandy Raven
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2014-10-01T18:00:00+00:00

After a delightful excursion to the standing stones nearby, Amelia arrived back in her suite of rooms just in time to find her temporary maid Gertie waiting with fresh hot water in a hip bath. “His Grace has sent word that you will share dinner with him at the pavilion in the maze, one hour after your return from your outing. He has seen to all the arrangements.”

“He does appear the type to make those kinds of decisions and expect them to be carried out, doesn’t he?” She thought back to the groom wearing Caversham livery who accompanied them during their outing today. The man stayed an appropriate distance behind them, but always within a reach should there be an emergency of any sort. She’d asked the other women if the man was a sweetheart of one of them, and they’d all said no. Amelia knew then that His Grace had sent a protector to watch over them—as if Lord Merivale’s grooms were not sufficient protection.

“I cannot say, Miss,” the young maid said. “I am Lady Merivale’s personal maid’s assistant. I am unfamiliar with the duke’s habits.”

“Gertie, it was a rhetorical question,” Amelia said. Gertie gave her a curious tilt of the head, and she explained, “I really wasn’t expecting an answer.”

The maid helped Amelia shed her walking dress and damp boots, then her undergarments. Her feet were chilled to the bone after having walked through a damp pasture to see the ancient stone circle in Stonehenge, and she couldn’t wait to step into the tub to warm them. The arrangement of cut stones was worth the trek—and the cold feet—though in her opinion it was rather underwhelming in appearance. They were just stones. Some standing, some not. They were enormous stones in a cow pasture as the duke had said.

“Gertie, do you know if my aunt has gone?”

“Yes, Miss. She and her maid left right after breakfast.”

Amelia frowned as Gertie helped her bathe, realizing she was truly alone here. Her aunt had actually left. Left her here, with a stranger who said he wanted to marry her. How could she trust his word when she didn’t know him?

Perhaps that second slap had knocked some sense into him.

Only now she worried about upsetting him or alienating him. What would happen to her then? Where would she go? The only person aside from Gertie who knew His Grace intended to marry her was Aunt Katherine, and she was no longer here to support her. Not that it was likely she would have supported her anyway. Caversham could change his mind and it would leave her ruined, and her aunt would never accept her back in her home, nor would any upstanding family should she seek new employment. Not after word of what happened in Merivale’s library got out.

And word always got out. Gossip such as this—the nobody who landed a duke—was too juicy a tidbit to keep quiet for long.

She could refuse to marry him. After all, he’d not asked her. She could return to London and try to eke out a quiet living as a book binder.

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