Regency NotorietyThe Dark DukeThe Rogue's Return by Margaret Moore

Author:Margaret Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Historical

The Roque’s Return

To my great-great-grandfather Moore,

the rogue who got sent to the colonies to reform,

or so I’ve been told.

Chapter One

Lincolnshire, 1868

“Oh, Miss Barton, how wonderful to see you! Isn’t it simply dreadful?” the unfortunately familiar female voice declared pleasantly.

Grace Barton smiled noncommittally as she turned to face Miss Myrtle Hurley and her silent twin sister, Miss Ethel, who were now blocking her way as formidably as any brick wall.

As always, the elderly women wore virtually identical black bombazine dresses, gray wool cloaks, ratty fur muffs they had apparently owned since the Regency, and corresponding black bonnets. Their thick white hair was dressed the same way, and to a stranger, they would look like mirror images of the same, sweet elderly woman.

Unfortunately, Grace knew from long experience that neither the brisk April breeze blowing from across the fens and tugging at her thin wool cloak and bell skirt, or the smell wafting toward them from the nearby fishmonger’s, would cause them to move until they had said what they wanted to say.

“Good afternoon,” she said evenly, wondering what particular piece of salacious gossip the Hurleys would regale her with today.

“Good afternoon,” Miss Myrtle, the eldest of the twins by a full five minutes, said breathlessly. She always spoke breathlessly, and she always smiled, no matter how terrible the tale she was going to relate, or how damning her criticism.

Grace often felt that was how the Hurley girls—who had been “girls” for the past seventy-five years—managed to avoid criticism themselves. If any other person who did not look like the epitome of sweet seniority said the things they did and revealed the secrets they told, they would be shunned.

“It’s just too distressing!” Miss Myrtle exclaimed. “Not for us, of course, but for so many others!”

“What has happened?” Grace asked, keeping her tone carefully neutral as she shifted her basket into her other kid-gloved hand, partly because she was impatient, but also because Miss Ethel was trying to peek inside, and Grace didn’t want her to see the contents. It was none of the woman’s business that the fish Grace had purchased was the cheapest she could find.

“It’s the rents,” Miss Myrtle announced, not without a sense of importance. “Sir Donald is raising them—most definitely! I heard it from Mrs. Banks herself not two hours ago.”

Grace swallowed hard. As well as the holder of the largest estate in the country, Sir Donald was also the landlord of Barton Farm. For once, the Hurleys’ news was important and, if it came from his housekeeper, likely to be true.

“I do so hate to be the bearer of bad tidings,” Myrtle Hurley said eagerly, a pleasant smile still on her round face. “But everyone will know sooner or later. Sir Donald came home yesterday, and he has already spoken with some of his tenants!”

How typical of the Hurleys to treat this news of a raise in rents as just another fascinating piece of gossip ! Grace thought, keeping any sense of her displeasure from her face.

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