The Duchess by Sophie Jordan

Author:Sophie Jordan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Widows enjoy many things. But nothing so much as freedom. Even better if there is the money to enjoy it.

—Valencia, the Dowager Duchess of Dedham

A few afternoons following the unwelcome visit of her father and stepmother, Valencia hastened through the upstairs corridor to change for a ride in the park with the girls. She was determined to evaluate the horsemanship of her young charges. They all insisted they were accomplished riders, so she was not too worried on that score. As there was no better place to be seen than Hyde Park, she looked forward to observing them as they showed off their seats to all the eligible gentlemen and, perhaps more importantly, the matchmaking mamas.

Just ahead of her, the door to the duke’s study opened and a small group of starch-suited, stuffy gentlemen emerged.

The men paused at the sight of her and offered perfunctory bows.

“Your Grace,” the most senior gentleman of the set intoned, his eyes blinking owlishly behind his spectacles. She remembered him well from their previous meetings. He looked searchingly at his companions and then back at her again, his nostrils flaring. “You are still here, then, I see.”

Clearly this perplexed the man.

“I am. You see correctly,” she agreed, enjoying the befuddled looks they swapped. As far as she was concerned, any aggravation she might suffer was only a good thing. She particularly enjoyed not fitting into the box they wished to forever keep her.

They might bow and scrape and address her as “Your Grace,” but it was meaningless. It always had been. They did not respect her. They thought her worthless, her late husband’s great failure—a wife who had not given him a child and fulfilled her end of the unspoken and yet understood bargain in a marriage.

“But the new duke has taken residence,” the older gentleman added, as though she did not realize this.

“Yes. He has,” she agreed once again, her tone admirably unruffled despite her mounting annoyance.

“But you should be at the dower house,” one of his associates said, insisted, as though she needed to be enlightened on this point. Men. What would women do without being steered and bossed about by them?

She bristled now. “And yet . . . I am somehow here.” She did not owe them an explanation, and they certainly were not in any position to interrogate her.

They tsked collectively as though this was an unacceptable response and they wielded authority over her. They were not her father or guardian or husband.

Merely the men to say how much or little money you can have.

She grimaced. Indeed. Only that.

The elder bespectacled gentleman looked her up and down with nothing short of exasperation. “Your Grace, this is simply not done.” He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and gestured around them. “Your time here has come to an end, and you must retire to the dower house. Have some dignity. Do not make this more uncomfortable than it needs to be.”

Uncomfortable? For whom? She blinked, her face overly warm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.