Page 20 of His Haunted Duchess
A middle-aged maid with premature streaks of gray opened the door. Her eyes widened. Frederic bowed.
“I have come to inquire after Lady Caroline,” he said.
The woman stared at him. Her nose quivered. For a horrible moment, he was struck with dead certainty that he had enquired at the wrong house. The next, he wondered if she was going to shut the door in his face. Finally, she stepped aside and curtsied.
“Do come in, Your Grace.”
The hall was plain but decorated with sense and simplicity—a comfortable sort of place. The windows trembled with light, airy white curtains that let in the morning glow and chuckled with the light breeze. His boots clicked on warm, golden marble as he followed the maid forward.
A caramel-colored spaniel pounded down the staircase, barking uproariously as it sped over the blue carpet.
“Heel, Ajax,” the maid ordered, shooing it with her hands.
The dog paid her no attention. It jumped off the stairs, ears waving like flags, and onto the tile, skittering. Then, it caught sight of Frederic.
It paused, lifting one ear. Frederic stared at it.
The dog turned on its heel and sprinted back the way it had come, its collar jangling like a sled at Christmastime.
Frederic and the maid watched it go.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” she said. “The mistress is very fond of animals. There’s a monkey, too, in the sunroom.”
Did she say a monkey? He hadn’t expected a menagerie. She gestured him toward a sitting room of some sort and opened the door before him.
“This way, Your Grace. The viscountess will attend you.”
Frederic stepped into the room. He thought immediately of a cathedral at noon—filled with light and solemn quiet. A row or two of worn books slumbered on their shelves. A large, gray parrot hunched sleepily on a perch in the corner. Frederic settled himself into a seat. The maid left.
Frederic breathed out a little. The moment was coming faster than his nerves—which he had carefully steeled—could bear. Why was he so unsettled? It was hardly a love bond that he was proposing—a more mercenary reason to marry perhaps couldn’t be found. And yet—something in him burbled and hissed like a pot on a stove. He quenched it like a hot iron in oil. This was a task to be completed, nothing more.
“Winifred!” a voice boomed across the hall. Frederic jumped. “Someone has misplaced my riding crop, and I won’t stand for it!”
Heavy footfalls tramped through the entryway. Frederic listened in wonderment. The woman’s voice would have put an early morning reveille to shame.
“Winifred! There’s no use pretending you can’t hear me.”
Privately, Frederic agreed. Her voice echoed around the hall like a heavy drum.
“I’ve told the staff a hundred times not to let the spaniel have my crop, but itwillgo on chewing it, anyway. That blasted—ah, there you are!”
A hurried, whispered conversation, then silence. Frederic drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. The sitting room door opened. He stood, bowed, and raised his eyes.
The short, blowsy-curled woman of the night before stood before him in a green riding habit and knee length black boots. He looked down at her in surprise. She was shorter than he remembered, even with the imposing black hat. Given her soiled riding boots, she must have just entered from the stables.
“So, it is you,” she said grimly. “I wondered, perhaps, if Winifred had been joking.”
Frederic raised his chin.
“Winifred, it appears, was not, your ladyship.”
She straightened, then curtsied.
“We are honored by your presence, Your Grace,” she said, respectfully enough, especially considering the night’s events. They might even have expected him this morning, waiting on hisproposal. Frederic bristled. Well, whether or not his gallantry was anticipated, there was nothing left but to continue forward.
“There can be little doubt in your mind, my lady, as to why I have come.”
She looked at him quizzically. Her eyes travelled over his face and seemed pleased with what they found.
