What a Duke Wants by Lavinia Kent Read Free Book Online

child spit up? Isabella longed to lean against the corner of the carriage and close her eyes to the whole mess. Mrs. Wattington was doing just that in the opposite corner. She’d made one comment to the effect that Isabella must have fed the boy something offensive and then she’d turned her face to the wall and closed her eyes. Loud snores had been her only contribution since.
    Poor little Joey had finally fallen asleep himself and now lay cradled in his basket on the bench beside Isabella. A pail of stinking rags lay at her feet.
    It felt like the worries of the last days had taken physical form, everything striving to defeat her. Since the moment she’d left Mr. Smythe in the stable yard that morning, nothing had gone right.
    Oh, needles and pins.
    Isabella wasn’t even sure whom she was cursing. She’d learned a few more explicit expletives while in service, but had long ago decided it was far better not to voice them—or even think them. Her habit of speaking without thought might be mostly cured—except when he was around—but she could just imagine Mrs. Wattington’s face if Isabella ever released even a quiet damnation after dropping something on her foot. No, it was far better to avoid actual curses altogether.
    Oh, dogs and cats.
    This time she knew exactly what she was cursing. She was cursing little Joey for being so difficult and so lovable. She didn’t know how she was ever going to manage to leave him—only that she was. She cursed Mrs. Wattington for not showing more interest in caring for her own baby. She cursed him , she cursed Mr. Smythe, for appearing now—now, when he was the last thing she needed. And she cursed life itself for being so unfair. She cursed the life of her past when she’d had everything and not known it. She cursed the brother who’d forced her to flee from that life. She cursed Colonel Foxworthy, whose death had been the final reason for her flight, whose death still haunted— No, she refused to think about that.
    She cursed the man in the blue coat—whoever he might be. And she cursed her new life. Cursed that she’d never appreciated how hard it was to work. Cursed early mornings and late nights. Cursed cold baths in well-used water. Cursed the pail of smelly rags. She was so tempted to kick the thing over with her foot.
    But mostly she cursed London, wonderful, horrible, stinking, lovely city. She had spent most of her girlhood longing to be there, longing for balls, and gowns, and stylish bonnets, and titled young lords who would fall instantly in love with her beauty and ask for her hand in marriage.
    She closed her eyes and remembered the dream, the wonder, the enchantment and hope.
    Then she opened them wide and stared about the slightly worn carriage, breathed in the smell of baby spit.
    She knew the difference between fantasy and reality.
    This was reality.
    Reality was that she was speeding toward London and with every mile that passed she became more convinced she could not return, more sure that somehow she had to escape.
    “W hy don’t you just tell her who you really are?” Douglas asked as he glanced through the pile of correspondence that had just been delivered. They’d been at The Three Feathers for barely a quarter of an hour and Douglas already appeared as if he’d been working for days.
    “Why don’t you give that to my secretary or whoever in that bunch of dour-faced gentlemen that follow wherever I go is responsible for it?” Mark answered, trying to shrug out of his jacket, the stiff embroidered brocade fighting his every move. He didn’t even want to consider how many people were actually in his traveling party.
    “Is that your way of telling me to mind my own business? You should know by now that is a hopeless cause. And I will be passing this all on to Mr. Downs, but it never hurts to have a good look first, keeps everybody on their toes.”
    “How did I end up with the only batman in the whole army whose real goal is to be a