Loving Lady Marcia by Kieran Kramer Read Free Book Online

at Kitto Tremellyn’s, an extremely eligible widower. We have much in common, and I can’t have any distractions.” She paused. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Marcia. You can rest in the bosom of your family now. But some people’s work is never done.”
    And then she stalked out.
    When the door shut behind the viscountess, Marcia put her palms to her cheeks. The windows in the drawing room loomed: crazy, sideways panes of glass that blurred into a kaleidoscope of angles.
    Her life. Her precious life that she’d cultivated with great care …
    A low moan threatened to spill from her throat.
    “Marcia? Dear?” Mama’s voice came to her a few seconds later.
    Somehow, between sobs that racked her so that she could barely breathe, she was able to convey to her mother what had happened. Mama pulled her up the stairs to her bed and gave her something hot—her tea from the cozy sitting room, with something added to it that made her eyes heavy.
    She remembered nothing sequential after that. Just images and feelings.
    The beloved stair railing at the school, the one leading from the main hall to the second story, where most of the girls slept.
    Pain. Gut-wrenching despair threatening to double her over.
    Daddy’s voice, low and grave.
    The special hum that filled the air when all the girls and their teachers were in their classrooms.
    Susie, Gretchen, Holly … her three oldest students, who were so excited to graduate and were busy writing their speeches.
    Rosa and Georgina, the youngest girls and identical twins, both beyond thrilled about their upcoming roles carrying bouquets to the Daisy Queen and her runners-up in the spring festival.
    Marybelle, the newest staff member, who was shy and only now coming out of her shell, all because she excelled at charades and had won the faculty contest.
    The aging Mrs. Blalock, who pretended to be gruff but whom all the girls adored. She’d been Marcia’s own maths teacher.
    And dear God, Deborah … a tireless support to her and an amazing teacher in her own right.
    Ellen, Katie, Sharon, Priscilla, Emily, Christina, Rebecca, Suzanne, Emma, and all the other girls—they were like flowers to her … a beautiful, lush bouquet.
    Their faces and names seared her heart.

 
    Chapter Four
    Duncan had been earl four years, and after a miserable start in which seduction, death, and childbirth had loomed large, he’d had a revelation—it had happened on the docks in Southampton, the morning he’d almost sent baby Joe off to live with strangers in Australia. When he’d stepped on the gangplank, Joe bundled in his arms, all his weighty problems—at least the problems he’d thought were weighty—had ceased to bother him anymore.
    Looking into Joe’s infant face, at those large gray eyes which had stared so steadily back at his own, he’d had a life-changing thought: To the devil with society’s expectations . He had his own to meet, and his standards were far higher.
    Now he and Joe were a pair, and Duncan was home, the home in London he’d created especially for the boy—and he was determined to put a cheery face on things, despite the fact that he’d been miserably rebuffed by the vastly intriguing Lady Marcia Sherwood only an hour before. He was used to having certain members of society give him the cold shoulder, but this particular snub had stung deeply.
    He wasn’t quite sure why. It would require some thought, a brandy before the fire that evening. Not that he wanted to revisit the awkwardness of the encounter—
    Oh, very well, he did. He wanted to think of her marching along, her profile clean and strong, her figure lithe and supple beneath the practical gown and simple spencer. He wanted to remember the way her lips had pursed when he’d demanded to know more about her—the way, for a split second, her sideways blue glance had given away her interest in him when she’d crossed the street to leave him.
    Her interest. In him .
    It was there.
    That was what he