The Rogue's Folly by Donna Lea Simpson

Author:Donna Lea Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Beyond the Page
Published: 2014-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

• • •

In the salon, Maisie glanced over at Dodo with a puzzled look. “I suppose I was a little clumsy in the way I said that?”

Dodo looked up from the folio in her large, bony hands and snorted. “There is no way you could have approached that subject that wouldn’t have gotten your head bit off.”

“I just want her to be happy!” Maisie moaned, twisting her hands in her lap.

“Then don’t expect her to be happy in any way you would understand,” Dodo said sharply. “She is her own woman, and a daughter of whom anyone could be proud. Let her build her own happiness.”

Maisie cast her an unexpectedly shrewd glance. “I know you don’t have much use for me, Lady Dianne.”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Dodo said abruptly. “You appear to be mending your fences now, and that’s all well and good, but as I said, May is very much her own woman now. Took her a while to recover from that awful experience last spring, but she has now, and nicely, too.”

“I’m glad. No matter what you think, I have worried.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Dodo said gruffly. She stared at the woman on the sofa with narrowed eyes. Could she trust this woman? Was Maisie van Hoffen—the Queen of Tarts, as she had called her once—really a changed woman? She supposed she had to take a chance. “I will admit that I have been worried lately, though,” she said. “About your daughter.”

“Why?” Maisie looked alarmed. “Has May said anything? Told you anything? Is she truly well? I thought she looked a little . . . tired, distracted, sometimes. She just seems different. I suppose that is to be expected, but the way I saw her when I first arrived! She had been out riding in breeches!”

Dodo sighed and crossed the room, sitting on the sofa beside the younger woman. “Until recently she has been very circumspect. When she went riding, she wore her proper riding habit and rode with a groom, but then one day, a few weeks ago, everything changed.”

Maisie gazed at her blankly, but then she nodded. “I’ll wager she stole a groom’s saddle and took off riding without a companion!” There was a hint of laughter in her voice.

Dodo looked shocked. “How did you know?”

“’Twas what she always did before when she was feeling particularly wild and free!” She sobered. “It was only when I had no guests, and she knew she could come and go as she pleased without being accosted by a man.”

Dodo got a glimpse of May’s former life, and her lips firmed to a thin line. No matter how much this woman had supposedly changed, it in no way made up for a past of cavorting with unsuitable men, and allowing them to pursue her marriageable daughter with who knew what intent! “Yes, she has donned breeches and taken to riding out alone for long hours at a stretch. And she has fixed up the folly—I assume it is the one in that painting—with furniture, saying she wanted a little privacy and someplace to .

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