Lady in the Mist by Laurie Alice Eakes Read Free Book Online

arched one brow in query. “Mr. Wilkins, is it?”
    “Aye, so you know of that.”
    “I heard through the dining room door when Miss Eckles told Kendall of the loss.”
    “The poor man,” Dinah cooed. “All that lovely money of his, and he’s without a wife to enjoy it.”
    “Or heir to inherit it,” Deborah added.
    “He won’t be looking to either of you for solace,” Letty snapped. “Get your minds off of men and onto your work. You’re both too young for Harlan Wilkins.”
    “He’s no more than thirty,” Dinah pointed out. “That’s young to be a widower.”
    “Isn’t the midwife a bit too young to be a widow?” Dominick asked.
    “She’s not a widow,” all the women chorused.
    “The women in her family have been midwives for generations,” Letty explained. “She used to simply work with her mother and grandmother, but when they died, Miss Tabitha took on the work alone. She’s the closest medical person we have since the apothecary died last year.”
    “Then the death of a patient must be even harder on her.” Dominick gazed through half-lowered lids at the bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling. “I wonder if she needs comfort.”
    “She’s so old,” Dinah and Deborah protested.
    “All of four and twenty.” Letty banged a lid onto a pot. “And you steer clear of her. She’s had enough grief in her life, and Harlan Wilkins may make more for her.”
    “Will he blame her for his wife’s death?” Dominick asked.
    “Most likely. He’d never think it has to do with his neglect of that poor young lady he married.”
    “You have a poor opinion of the man,” Dominick mused.
    “No less than I have of any gaming male.” She gave Dominick a pointed glance, then yanked open the door of the oven set into the hearth. “I expect you gambled your way into servitude.”
    “I didn’t gamble away my future,” Dominick shot back, then, for a chance at honesty in an existence that owed little to truth, he added, “not like you think.”
    Gaming establishments hadn’t been his downfall. No, he’d taken a different sort of gamble and won at a price he still didn’t know if he could pay.
    “You don’t fool me.” Letty stalked to the table and began to inspect the vegetables the girls had peeled. “Nothing else brings a gentleman down like the cards or the dice or females.”
    “Not me.” Dominick shot her a smile and headed for the dining room. “Though you’re mighty presumptive that I’m a gentleman.”
    The dining room door swung shut behind him before she could respond, which was good. The cook was, after all, right in that. He was a gentleman, destined from birth to become a clergyman. Third sons of Cherretts always became clergymen. If no third son existed, then the honor and living went to a male cousin. Second sons became Army officers.
    Cherretts did not become redemptioners in lands barely developed out of the wilderness.
    He set the linens on the table and began to inspect each piece. If he’d been an obedient son, if he’d been interested in being a politician vicar instead of a man serving God, Dominick would be sorting altar cloths for imperfections instead of serviettes. But from the moment he’d set foot in Oxford, he’d determined to destroy any of his father’s hopes that the third son of this generation would step into the role of vicar.
    He’d considered himself a success until his downward trajectory flew out of control and he found himself facing a scandal that hurt his family. He chose exile to spare them. More than exile—a chance at redemption.
    As he spread a cloth over the table and arranged serviettes and silver for two diners, he wondered if he could bear four years of servitude and no hope of redeeming himself, rather than take the next step in his plans. Acting as a butler-cum-valet was proving onerous. Less onerous than all the things his uncle said he might have to do to accomplish his mission. But he’d agreed. He’d practiced with his