The Hidden Duchess: A Regency Romance (Spinsters of the North Book 1) by Isabella Thorne

Author:Isabella Thorne [Thorne, Isabella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mikita Associates
Published: 2022-04-29T23:00:00+00:00

She had responded to him as Miss Caroline Graves, as a woman whose response to a duke was if not equal, at least of her standing. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking. She wasn’t Emily, had never been and never would be. He had only ever known her as Emily Baker, the maid of all ridiculous things. He did not know Caroline, Miss Caroline, she corrected in her mind. He might seem a decent enough man on the surface, at the level that she might have witnessed as the noble lady she had lost herself in the moment before, but she was still a prisoner and there was still a very real possibility that he and his father had no qualms with such seedy business dealings. Hadn’t her own father given warning after warning about this family? She could not trust him. She cursed herself for having allowed her guard to slip.

She stepped hastily away.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s not your fault,” she replied in haste. “You were thinking about someone understanding you and what it would feel like if Lady Lydia could see such things.”

He furrowed his brow and shook his head. “I was not thinking of Lydia…”

He seemed ready to vehemently deny her words and then stopped himself. He assessed her discomfort. “Perhaps you are right,” he said. His voice was husky as if he had been just as ready to give himself over to the pull of the moment as she had been. “I suppose I’ve always hoped that a lady would understand me so completely.” He cleared his throat and turned looking out at the falling leaves again. “Perhaps one day she will,” he said, but the words felt like a lie.

Caroline could not say whether he had thought about her claim to his motivations and decided that he did, in fact, agree or if he had merely told her what she needed to hear to ease the tension of the moment. Either way, she was grateful.

With a swift curtsy she excused herself from the room and was glad for the mindlessness of the hours of work ahead of her. She yearned for the distraction.

That had been too close. She had come far too close to letting him in when what she needed to be doing was keeping him firmly out. Or better yet, getting herself out of this blasted house. Caroline felt more desperate than ever to find her way home. Perhaps some part of her had wanted to stay for Robert, but she knew now, that was a fool’s errand. She shook her head with incredulity at her tumbling thoughts. She had to escape.

Lizzy had called the house cursed and Caroline had laughed at her. Now, she was beginning to believe. Perhaps it was. In the past months there had been a turnover of seven maids. In a household this size, Caroline did not know any of them. Nonetheless, she did not believe they all took other employment; not when the household of a duke was a coveted job.

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