The Duke’s Desire by Margaret Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

before he passed away. We never had occasion to use it before, but fortunately, we brought it with us.”
    Verity continued to smile. “I trust you have not been waiting long,” she said, glancing at the cloaked Fanny.
    “Not at all. We walked up from the inn and arrived only a few moments ago. Had we known the situation, we would have waited for you there.”
    And come in their carriage, for which she paid, Verity thought grimly. Still, she wouldn’t have minded so much, for Fanny’s sake. She looked exhausted.
    There had been no need for them to walk, in any event. Clive could afford the hire of a carriage as well as she, no matter how much money he claimed to have invested in his cotton mills. He was just too much of a miser to spare his wife the walk.
    “If you had written to apprise me of your intentions beforehand—”
    “Nancy doesn’t want any help,” Jocelyn declared from the front door.
    Glad of the interruption, for otherwise she might have said something regrettable, Verity turned to see her obviously dismayed daughter in the doorway. She gave her a pointed look and smiled all the more, a definite hint to her daughter to be polite to their guests. Any guests, no matter how unwelcome. “Say hello to Uncle Clive and Aunt Fanny, Jocelyn.”
    “Hello, Uncle Clive,” Jocelyn said obediently, and without enthusiasm. “Hello, Aunt Fanny.”
    “Please go to your room and take off your cloak and bonnet. Then you may help Nancy unpack your things when she comes.”
    Jocelyn nodded, all the joy of their return ruined for her, as it was for her mother.
    “This is indeed most fortuitous,” Clive continued as Jocelyn slowly walked up the stairs on the right of the entry. “I was just saying we would have to go to the Jefford Arms for accommodation, wasn’t I, Fanny?”
    His wife nodded.
    A loud and distinctly disdainful sniff from the front door drew their attention.
    Nancy stood on the threshold, one small trunkunder each arm, and a bandbox in her hand, glaring at Clive and his wife malevolently.
    Verity hurried toward her. Her back was to Clive and Fanny, so they couldn’t see her expression, which was both determined and pleading. “Look who has come!”
    “I see. Them.”
    “Nancy, please!” Verity whispered.
    With a resigned glance at her mistress, Nancy put an expression on her face that was supposed to be a smile, although it was far more like a grimace than anything else.
    “How do you do, Mr. Blackstone, Mrs. Blackstone?” she inquired with cold civility.
    Before they could answer, she briskly continued, going up the stairs after Jocelyn. “Well, enough chitchat. I’ve got to get to work. Mustn’t malinger. Mustn’t stand about like I’m the emperor of China with all the time in the world to chat and run about visiting folks.”
    “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’d like to take off my traveling clothes,” Verity said hastily as she hurried after Nancy without waiting for a response from her in-laws.
    “Those crows always come any old time it suits them,” Nancy muttered as she reached the landing and turned toward the upper floor. “Think this is an hotel, they do, with all their coming and going,and him supposed to be in business. My eye! If he is, he’ll soon be bankrupt!”
    Verity let Nancy mutter until they entered Verity’s bedchamber at the front of the house. She closed the door as Nancy put down the trunks. “Nancy, I must ask you again to please try to speak to the Blackstones with some respect.”
    “I do try. I just ain’t very good at it,” Nancy confessed as she faced her mistress.
    Verity began to untie the ribbons of her plain black bonnet. “Please, you must try harder. They are my relations, after all, and I must ask you to respect my wishes.”
    Nancy sighed with the sorrow of the ages. “For you, I’ll do me best—but I can’t promise to do more. They make my flesh crawl!”
    “You know I do not like them either, yet we must be nice to them, for