Beauty and the Duke by Melody Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

dizzy.
    But none of this meant the ring was magic. The idea was ludicrous.
    If the ring were magic, she’d be able to fly or turn invisible or possess some other power that would allow her to transcend mere human frailties. She would beinvulnerable to doubts, her intellect intact, and she’d be perfectly cheery, like a dollop of warm sunshine on cobbles.
    Taking in their determined expressions, she recognized the futility in glossing over reality. A reality born from the wisdom that came with age and experience, a wisdom that rebelled against a concept charged with fanciful notions. A wisdom acquired through life experience, and that refused to make her a co-conspirator with her students. And then she folded.
    How could she be so cruel as to tell them the truth?
    “It is not wise to believe in sorcery and fairytales,” she told them instead.
    “Why, Miss Sommers?” Babs asked.
    “Because…” For a moment, Christine was at a complete loss as she sought to explain her logic. “Because we are sensible, and sensible people do not waste time on such piffle.”
    She started to step past them when Dolly spoke. “But Miss Sommers…”
    Christine stopped. Something in her chest tightened. They looked so crestfallen, she felt a compunction to explain. “Lord Sedgwick and I used to know each other a long time ago,” she said gently. “He and my father were in contact and we met again last night at the Fossil Society gala when Mr. Darlington introduced us. His grace then came to talk to me about…” she thought of the need for secrecy about his find, “something private. That is all.”
    Relieved to feel the first plop of rain against her shoulders, Christine looked up at the thunderheads. She told all of them to get back to their rooms.
    “Go on now, get to shelter.” She smiled encouragingly.
    But watching them shuffle away, she didn’t understand why she felt as if she had just crushed their hearts.
     
    Christine could not remove the ring.
    She used lard, tallow, ice, steam, Aunt Sophie’s cod-liver oil. Nothing worked. In the end, Christine resorted to wearing gloves during class the next week and pleaded hard work in the laboratory to get Mrs. Samuels, her housekeeper, to deliver her meals in the evening while she studied Erik’s tooth fossil.
    She had not seen him since his visit to the abbey a week before. Not even a minutia of gossip appeared in the rags. Every day she had looked, expecting to see news that some aristocrat was offering up his poor virginal daughter to the devil duke of Sedgwick for perpetual bondage in the name of matrimony. But she’d read nothing.
    Christine spent the last week evaluating Erik’s find, poring over every detail in every book in her extensive library and that of the museum’s, perusing every drawing depicting every documented fossil found. Today had finally been the last day of classes and, after collecting the students’ books, she hired a hack and traveled a mile west to the church to see her father.
    The old cathedral was a magnificent affair with seventeenth-century stained-glass windows and pillars carved from granite. It was the church where Christine had been baptized. Every Sunday since she had come to live at the abbey, she attended services at this cathedral with due diligence. Even Christine’s father, who had been a free thinker for his time, and Aunt Sophie, who definitely held a particular bent toward one’s spiritual freedom, had never risked their mortal souls. Still it had been a surprise to Christine that Papa had requestedin his will to be buried here instead of the abbey. Aunt Sophie told her later that this cathedral had been the place her father had married her mother.
    A wrought-iron fence enclosed the cemetery. Christine’s father was buried near the rose garden. In all that time since Papa had passed, she had never seen another visitor to this sacred place. Today was no different. She removed the spent flowers she had placed in the urn next