The Scandalous Duke Takes a Bride by Tiffany Clare Read Free Book Online Page A

placing random items from the floor onto the silver dish.
    “I’m sorry.” Everything angered her and sent her into silly, stupid, unpredictable rages.
    “It’s not a worry, my lady.”
    “Why is everyone being so nice to me?” She felt tears building behind her eyes. She hated uncertainty, especially when it concerned her future. “I don’t deserve the kindness you have all been careful to dole out. I’ve been wretched these past few weeks.”
    “It’s not a bother at all. We understand everything you’ve gone through, my lady.”
    She wished more than anything her secret could have remained her secret alone, but it was out in the open and the past couldn’t be changed. “Too kind by far. I don’t think my late husband would agree with your benevolence.”
    “He’s well and dead now, isn’t he?”
    The candor in Louise’s voice brought a smile to Jessica’s lips and a few tears leaked down her cheek.
    “He is. And it should be a blessing.”
    “I can’t disagree with you, my lady.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “So you’ve already said,” her maid pointed out.
    “What would I do without you, Louise?”
    “You needn’t think on it. I haven’t gone anywhere, nor do I have plans to leave, my lady.”
    Jessica set the tray back on her vanity and took a deep breath as she looked at her pale complexion in the mirror. She stretched the darkened skin under her eyes, trying to make herself look livelier.
    It didn’t work. Not really. It was so obvious that she was still on the mend, even though three weeks had passed since the miscarriage.
    “I’m afraid you have your work cut out for you. I’m not sure you’ll be able to cover the signs of fatigue that have plagued me over the past month.”
    Jessica pulled at one of the limp red curls hanging about her shoulders. Her hair hadn’t been properly set in weeks, either.
    Louise placed the items she’d picked up from the floor back atop the vanity and smiled at Jessica in the mirror. “You’ll look just as you did at the viscountess’s ball two months past. No one will be the wiser that you’ve been ill. That I can promise.”
    “Only because they are none the wiser,” Jessica said.
    Her maid shrugged and pulled Jessica’s hair away from her face so she could put maquillage on to cover the fading signs of fatigue.
    It was important that she be perfectly presentable within the hour. Hayden had sent a card—unsure of the state she’d be in, she assumed—insisting that he sit with her over tea today. He’d been specific about the insistence part, underlining it twice. And besides, he never sent a card ahead of his visits.
    The first week after the miscarriage he’d come by every day, sitting with her in silence because she couldn’t speak, nor did she know what to say. He would occasionally read the paper to her, or sometimes a few verses from her favorite poets. When she’d been able to get out of bed on her own, he walked her around the house and sometimes out to the garden if the weather was decent and they’d sit in the sun and have their morning tea. Finally, when she’d had the strength to do all that on her own, she’d asked him to give her some time alone, to stop calling on her daily or she’d be constantly reminded about just how weak she was. He’d disagreed but ceded the argument in the end.
    It seemed his patience had run thin, hence the calling card.
    While it had only been a little over a week since she’d seen him last, she knew better than most that she couldn’t keep refusing his company. It was time she came out of the doldrums and faced life head-on. She’d handled every situation that way previously, and it was time to get back in the saddle, as the saying went.
    Not ten minutes after Hayden’s note had arrived, she’d received another from Mr. Warren—the rapscallion set to inherit everything that should be hers, especially considering it was her money that had put the estate back in order.
    Mr. Warren was the