LITMIR.BIZ

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I love my father, and will always care for him, but beyond that, I live my life as an independent woman, Your Grace.’

      ‘None of us is independent, Miss Wingate. Freedom is an illusion. Ladies are restricted by their natural delicacy, gentlemen by their duties and obligations.’

      ‘Some of us have more freedom than others, it is true,’ she said.

      Natural delicacy, my hat! The temptation to say something very indelicate indeed was great, but she controlled it.

      ‘A duke has a great deal, a married woman very little. I have the privilege of birth and prosperity and I am fully aware that if I were the daughter of an agricultural labourer or a weaver as disabled as my father is now, my life would hold very little freedom. My delicacy, as you put it, would have to be disregarded. I am fortunate and I do not intend to throw away that good fortune simply because social pressure dictates that I should be married.’

      The words, And who would be foolish enough to ask you, with that attitude? were almost audible, she thought.

      The Duke closed his lips on them. That clearly caused him a struggle because it was a moment before he spoke. ‘I trust that you find the freedoms are worth the sacrifice, Miss Wingate. I see that the children have extricated themselves from the maze. I must bid the Bishop good day and remove them before they disturb his peace any further. Thank you for a most delightful afternoon.’

      Liar, Verity thought, as she walked with him towards her father’s seat. He thoroughly disapproves of me and he is clearly regretting those indiscreet confidences in the maze. He never intended to make them so he will like me the less for that.

      She kept a smile on her lips as she showed the party out, but it took several minutes pacing up and down the hallway before she could recover it sufficiently to go out to her father. It was a shock to find herself so upset at the unspoken disapproval. She did not like the man, so why should it matter what he thought of her?

      ‘What did you think of our new neighbour, Papa?’ She exchanged a quick glance with the Chaplain over the Bishop’s head and he nodded encouragingly. Her father was not overtired, it seemed.

      ‘A fine figure of a man,’ Mr Hoskins translated as her father’s hands moved. ‘A considerable asset to the neighbourhood. He has suffered two bereavements in a short time and finds himself with many responsibilities in addition to acquiring the care of six younger siblings. I feel confident that he will rise to the challenge.’

      Her father nodded and mouthed, Most impressed.

      ‘And what do you think, Mr Hoskins?’ It was too easy to forget that the man had opinions and a voice of his own and she always tried to bring him into the conversation in his own right.

      ‘His Grace’s reputation does not lie. He seems a perfect paradigm of what a nobleman should be. One cannot envy him the responsibility of so many brothers and sisters as well as having to assume the burden of his great rank at so young an age.’

      ‘He must be twenty-seven and he behaves as though he is fifty-seven,’ she muttered.

      Her father was speaking again. ‘Charming children. Intelligent and lively.’

      ‘Yes.’ She could agree with that. A pity their half-brother did not have the natural charm to match theirs—or his own looks and breeding.

      ‘There will be quite a fluttering in the dovecotes when all the hopeful mamas in the district realise what an eligible bachelor has landed in our midst,’ Mr Hoskins said, then bit his lip and gave her father an apologetic look. ‘Most frivolous of me to consider such a thing. And, of course, the poor man is in mourning.’

      Her father chuckled and moved his hands slowly enough for Verity to translate. ‘He will not be in mourning forever and there is nothing to stop him looking in the meantime. You never know, he might find a young lady he likes in the neighbourhood.’

      ‘Papa, really.’ There was a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at her.

      You are not going to try matchmaking on my behalf. Not with that man. Or any man.

      But of course there was no danger of the Duke taking an interest in her, however much her father might wish it. She had shocked him with her outspoken views on marriage on top of demonstrating that she was an antiquarian hoyden who attacked upstanding aristocrats with mouldering skulls. Miss Verity Wingate was the last woman the Duke of Aylsham would want as a wife.

      * * *

      ‘I like her, she has a nice smile and she isn’t stuffy. Are you going to marry her, Will?’ Basil sat on the carriage seat opposite him and cocked his head to one side like a particularly nosy, and somewhat scruffy, sparrow.

      ‘Do not refer to a lady as her, Basil. And do not ask intrusive personal questions. I am most certainly not going to marry Miss Wingate.’

      Beside him his sisters sighed loudly. ‘But why not?’ Araminta demanded. ‘Miss Wingate is nice. And pretty and she is right next door, which is very convenient.’

      ‘Do I need to remind you that we are all in mourning? I cannot consider courtship until a year has passed from my grandfather’s death.’ He could well believe that they had no clear concept of the formalities of mourning because they did not even have the colour of their clothing to remind them. Their mother had put her foot down and refused point-blank to allow her daughters to be dressed in black, or even grey or lilac, on the grounds that it would depress their spirits. Will had pointed out that their spirits were supposed to be depressed during the mourning period and she had told him that he was cold and unfeeling.

      On the other hand, the children were mourning their father in their own ways, he supposed. Sometimes he came across the girls with suspiciously red eyes and Basil’s more outrageous feats might be a way of distracting himself from painful memories. He had an uneasy suspicion that their upbringing had given them a different, more natural, way of dealing with their emotions than was suitable for him.

      ‘How stuffy of you, Will,’ Althea said. ‘Being sad about Papa doesn’t alter the fact that you need a wife because of us. I overheard Miss Preston tell Mr Catford that your life would be so much easier if you had a duchess.’

      ‘Eavesdropping is unbecoming to a person of gentility, Althea,’ Will said automatically. Miss Preston was quite correct: life would be much easier with a wife by his side. And in my bed, a wicked little voice whispered in the back of his mind, prompting his imagination to present him with an image of Miss Wingate rising naked and dripping from the fountain pool. ‘We will not mention the subject again.’

      And you can stop it, he snarled at his own imagination as he crossed his legs. She is a hoyden, a bluestocking, an unnatural female opposed to marriage. Utterly unsuitable.

      It was bad enough having his stepmother inhabiting the Dower House and infecting the children with her madcap ideas. An unconventional duchess was the last thing he needed.

      ‘And the Bishop is nice, too,’ Araminta pronounced. ‘I like him. He’s got kind eyes and he talks with his hands and I’m sure he enjoys having visitors. I shall call on him again.’

      ‘He will come to us if he is well enough.’ Will tried not to contemplate his siblings descending uninvited and unsupervised on the Old Palace in order to observe the Bishop, or to try to enliven his routine. ‘It is not proper to call again until one has received a return visit. Now, tell me what you each learned in your last lesson.’

      That, as he might have expected, was greeted by a collective heavy sigh. Will refrained from joining in and reminded himself that no one had ever said that being a duke was easy.

      ‘Will,’ Basil piped up. ‘What have you done with your cane?’

      * * *

      ‘Who was that man and all those children?’ Melissa demanded as Verity closed the door and leaned back against it.

      ‘There were only

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