While the Duke was Sleeping by Sophie Jordan

Author:Sophie Jordan [Jordan, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-10-24T21:00:00+00:00

Poppy spent a miserable night tossing and turning in the bed she shared with her sister. She could still feel Struan Mackenzie. His lips. His hands. The way his brogue rumbled on the air, the sound infusing her body with heat.

If it wasn’t too late when she returned home, she would have dragged out the hip tub for a bath. Perhaps that would rid her of the memory of him—if she could scrub him off her body. By the time she fell asleep dawn was already tingeing the sky.

It was the only excuse she had for sleeping in so late. An hour and a half hardly amounted to a good night’s rest. She hurriedly stabbed the pins into her hair. There would be no time for breakfast. She would have to go directly to the shop.

She had just finished with the last button on her dress when the door to her chamber was flung open—no thanks to Bryony. Her sister had left it unlocked after she stepped out this morning to visit the washroom. Bryony squealed at the sudden intrusion from where she sat in front of their dressing mirror, dropping the ribbon she had been trying to weave into her plait.

Poppy spun around to face their flush-faced landlady. The woman might be a busybody, but she had always granted them a semblance of privacy and at least knocked before entering their rooms.

“Mrs. Gibbons!” Poppy planted her fists on her hips and leveled her with a stern look. Boundaries. They needed to discuss their boundaries.

The lady practically danced in place, indifferent to Poppy’s disapproving stare. “Come! Come at once!” She waved her hands furiously. She looked fit to apoplexy.

“What?” Bryony jumped up to her feet from her chair, evidently sensing something epic was on the verge of transpiring. “What is it?”

“A grand carriage with a footman riding in the back! Heavens! It has a coat of arms on it. I don’t know the house, but I’ve never been very good at keeping such things to memory.”

A sinking sensation started in Poppy’s stomach. Something epic indeed.

“It stopped here?” Bryony hopped and clapped, catching some of Mrs. Gibbons’s enthusiasm.

“Yes, and they want to see you, Poppy! They wait in the parlor.”

“They?” Bryony demanded, stopping her hopping to swing her gaze to Poppy. “They who?”

“A duchess! I confess after I was told her title I heard nothing beyond that, although there was a string of names.”

“Poppy!” Bryony clapped her hands in a frenzy. “There’s a duchess calling on you!”

Poppy nodded absently at her sister’s stupefied expression. “Yes, I heard that.” She didn’t need to be told the string of names to follow the duchess’s title. She knew who it was. Currently, there was only one duchess in her life. Poppy pressed her hands together and twisted her fingers. “I, uh, shall go downstairs, then.”

Both her sister and Mrs. Gibbons nodded eagerly. “Yes, do hurry! Don’t keep her waiting.”

She smoothed her hands over her dress and walked with far more composure than she felt down the stairs and into the parlor.

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