Thirty Days with the Duke (Dukes of Comfort #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“You did not have to exile yourself with me,” Frances Whitlock lamented, her voice thick with regret.

Across the gently swaying stagecoach, her maid and confidante, Catherine Bright, rolled her warm brown eyes. Fortunately, they seemed to be the only travelers, otherwise they would probably have stayed silent until they reached their destination.

“How many times will you say that, my lady?” the woman asked, her tone carrying a hitch of sympathy. “How many times must I say, where else would I be but with you?”

Swallowing past the lump in her throat and fixing her blurry gaze on the unfamiliar countryside that passed by the coach window, Frances shook her head.

“I just feel so terrible,” she murmured.

“I feel as if I have ruined your life, too. You were content where you were and I have gone and uprooted us both.”

Departing her family and home was a raw pain, still fresh, the ache intensified by the guilt of feeling relieved to have company in this hour of desperate need.

How selfish I am, to be glad that I am not alone.

“May I be honest with you, my lady?” Catherine said, the question piquing Frances’ curiosity enough to draw her attention away from the rolling fields and pretty hedgerows.

“Always, Cathy.”

The maid offered a smile as bright as her name.

“To tell you the truth, I’m rather excited.

” She glanced around as if there were others in the coach with them.

“I’ve never left London before. I realize the circumstances are less than ideal for you, my lady, but…

this is more adventure than I’ve ever had in my life. ”

Frances frowned. “That cannot be possible. You have been to the country estate with us before.”

“But that is barely outside London,” Catherine explained, her cheeks flushed with a shy shade of pink. “I am three-and-thirty, and this is farther than I have ever been. A new part of the country.”

A soft smile raised the corners of Frances’ lips as she watched her maid.

Her friend, really. Her only friend. It was certainly a different perspective, but it was not one that Frances could share.

She did not want to leave London, her home, her sisters, who relied so much upon her.

To her, this was not an adventure, but a nightmare… all of her own creation.

How will Juliet debut without me? Her younger sister would have to rely on Lucinda, the middle of the three sisters, and that did not bear thinking about.

Her smile faded. “But what if we can never return, Cathy?”

“Of course we’ll return,” the maid replied firmly.

“Society doesn’t have as long a memory as you’d think.

I know I’m not so much older than you, but I’ve seen enough in my years to know that everything will be well again.

It’s not as if you were caught in a compromising situation.

All you did was slap a man who, frankly, deserved it. ”

Frances covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smirk, reminding herself that this was no laughing matter. Yes, Lord Sherbourne had acted atrociously toward her, but to strike him in the middle of a ballroom, in front of a respectable crowd…

I am supposed to be the sensible one. Why did that sense abandon me at the very moment where I needed it the most?

She felt a residual shudder, remembering how John had grabbed her by the wrist, spewing vile words of entitlement at her. Telling her that she ought to be grateful for his attention and that he was her last chance for marriage. It had been a moment of madness, and now it was costing her dearly.

“They will be better off without me,” she mumbled, returning her gaze to the passing countryside. “My sisters. My father.”

Catherine clicked her tongue. “They’ll fall apart without you, no matter what your father said. Do you think they’d have managed all these years without you? No, they wouldn’t. I’d wager that your father will write after a fortnight at most, begging you to come back and help with Juliet’s debut.”

The words should have soothed Frances. Instead, they made her heart ache, missing her sisters even more. Silly, really, when it had not even been two days since she had last seen them.

With a shaky breath, she reached into the pocket of her pelisse and closed her hand over the well-worn piece of paper she had stuffed there. Under Catherine’s watchful eye, she drew it out and looked over the words for what must have been the hundredth time since they set out on their journey.

It was a half-page, torn from a newspaper in haste. She had been at the breakfast table, so sick to her stomach with regret that she had not been able to eat a morsel. Lucinda, the elder of her two younger sisters, had passed her the newspaper; to distract her, most likely.

There, Frances had discovered the solution to the scandal that she had incited, the means by which she could escape London and lay low for a while: Governess wanted, to educate a young lady of noble birth. Alderwick Estate, Bath.

A little research had informed her that the Alderwick Estate belonged to the Duke of Alderwick, Dominic Everhart. Although, she had not been able to find out much more about him or whom she might be teaching if she were to be granted the position. Whoever he was, it seemed that he kept to himself.

“Is this foolish, Cathy?” Frances turned to her friend, her heart in her throat.

“Should we go back now before I make an even greater idiot of myself? This duke may laugh me out of his estate for arriving without writing first. What if the position is filled already? What if I am unsuitable? What if he has heard of my scandal already?”

Catherine raised an eyebrow. “News travels fast, my lady, but not that fast. Where this estate is… it’s far enough from society that news may never reach it.

” She hesitated. “But becoming a governess in Bath when you’re an earl’s eldest daughter, already five-and-twenty; I daresay that might damage your prospects more than your scandal. So, it’s up to you.”

Frances knew that her father would be horrified if he knew what she was doing and would likely have a few more choice words to say to her about it, which was precisely why she had not told him.

Yesterday morning, she had left a vague letter of apology, and two more of farewell to her sisters, before sneaking out into the dawn with Catherine to catch the stagecoach westward.

Now, with evening fast approaching on their second day of travel, Frances and Catherine would soon be at their destination.

“I have no prospects to damage, Cathy.” Frances smiled wanly.

“I have dedicated my life to my sisters, and that is why I must do this. They shall have no prospects if I return to London, if I stay at their side. Who would approach Juliet after she debuts, the sister of the woman who smacked Lord Sherbourne so hard that it left a handprint, if that very woman is standing with her at a ball? At her debut? And Lucinda cannot have another unsuccessful Season, or my father shall lose his mind.”

A deep, sad sigh shifted Catherine’s chest. “Oh, my lady… there’s not a moment goes by where you’re not thinking of those two, is there?”

“I have played the part of their mother for so long that I do not know how to not worry over them,” Frances replied, as she lightly brushed her thumb over the newspaper, smoothing out the creases. “When they are married, maybe I will go back home.”

Although, I doubt I will be welcome.

Her father had been apoplectic with fury on the night she struck the Viscount, and his anger had not dimmed in the aftermath.

If anything, her continued presence in his house had seemed to stoke his rage.

For three days, every time they had passed one another in the hallways, or she came down to dinner or breakfast, he would leave the room, his scowl saying everything.

“You have disgraced us. You have humiliated me. You have probably destroyed your sisters’ futures.

And what is worse, I have no doubt that you did it on purpose, just to spite me,” he had said in the carriage on the way back from the ball.

“I cannot bear to look at you. Your mother would be heartbroken, and I am grateful that she is not here to see what a wicked girl you have become.”

After all she had sacrificed for her family, to make her father’s existence that much easier, to ensure that his two youngest daughters grew into fine young ladies, that was all he could say to her.

No understanding, no leniency, no sympathy.

She had tried to explain, tried to defend herself, but he had not listened, snarling at her that he did not want to hear her wretched excuses.

“This is for the best,” she whispered, more to herself than to Catherine.

She was worth nothing in her household anymore, unmarriageable and scandalized. At least at this Alderwick Estate, she might be of use, not helping her sisters anymore—not directly, anyway—but helping a young lady who might need that same care and attention.

Yes, this is for the best. Her stomach twisted into knots. If the duke will have me.

Unceremoniously dumped on an empty stretch of country road, with vague instructions to “walk that way until you see the manor,” Frances was beginning to doubt her plan all over again.

It was getting dark and the sky offered no sunset to light their way, rainclouds threatening to make their journey even worse.

“Do you smell that?” Catherine asked brightly, as she walked along at Frances’ side.

“Smell what?”

Catherine grinned. “That fresh air. Goodness, it feels nice!” She sucked in a deep breath. “That has to be good for you.”

“If we do not find the manor soon, I doubt anything will be good for us,” Frances replied grimly.