A Lady And Her Magic Read Free Page A

as he withdrew more notes from his drawer. They arrived nearly every day. From people his mother had gambled with and lost. They all knew she wasn’t good for the debts. Yet they played with her anyway because the Duke of Robinsworth never left a debt unpaid. His presence in their drawing rooms might not be valued. But his purse certainly was.
    “I’ll take those,” she said again.
    “Why, Mother? You cannot begin to pay them.”
    Her face fell. “I do not know why you feel you have to be so cruel,” she said as her eyes welled up with tears.
    “I do not understand why you gamble with money you don’t have.” He tapped the cards on the table. Then he made a clucking sound with his tongue. “But I’m prepared to pay them in full.”
    “As you must, Robin,” she said quietly, using his childhood nickname.
    “On one condition,” he amended.
    Her face contorted slightly. “Which is?” she said from between gritted teeth.
    “I’m closing the town house effective immediately. You’ll be moving back to the Hall.”
    She jumped to her feet. “I will do no such thing,” she gasped.
    He continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “I will reconcile your debts. Every last one of them. Then you will cease gambling with money you do not have. You may use your pin money any way you see fit.”
    “But there’s not enough,” she protested.
    Still, he continued. “You will spend nothing more than your pin money. You will move back to the Hall. You will assist me with my daughter.”
    “Anne hates me.”
    Anne hated everyone. “You will assist me with your granddaughter. She could use a feminine presence. You will behave respectably and set a good example for her.”
    “You need a wife,” she snapped. “It’s unfortunate that no one of respectable breeding will have you.”
    Oh, his mother knew how to throw the barbs that would hurt the most. “Then I am free from the wife search, it seems, since no respectable woman would pay me her favors.” He leveled her with a glare. Though Miss Thorne had graced him with a smile and no fear in her eyes.
    “It took years for me to get over your past deeds. To find my way back into society. You have no idea how arduous the task was.” He couldn’t gather sympathy for her, despite the look of anguish in her eyes. “If I move back to the Hall, I will once again be cast beneath your dark cloud of suspicion.”
    “Do you think I killed my wife, Mother?” he clipped out.
    “Of course not,” she rushed on.
    “Then I would assume a mother who finds no fault with her son will be quite content to return to the family estate.”
    “My friends won’t know what to think.”
    “Quite frankly, Mother, I don’t give a damn what they think,” he drawled. “I’ll have Wilkins begin the preparations to move your household.”
    “And just when do you think this will take place?”
    “As soon as I bellow down the hallway,” Ashley replied. Wilkins would take great pride in ruffling the duchess’s feathers.
    “That man hates me,” she grunted. “When I’m in residence, I’ll expect him to treat me as befits my station.”
    “He’ll treat you as well as you treat him, Mother.”
    “I’d prefer being dropped into a vat of hot oil over being nice to that man.” She jumped to her feet and headed for the door.
    “I’m certain that can be arranged,” Ashley called to her retreating back.

Three
    The duchess arrived the following afternoon in a flurry of activity. Ashley leaned against the newel post and surveyed the staff who scurried up and down the corridors of his home.
    “How did you do it so quickly?” Ashley asked, shaking his head in wonder.
    “Sheer strength of will, Your Grace,” Wilkins replied with a haughty smirk.
    “One would think you’d be hesitant to take on such a task, since doing so means you’ll have to see Mother on a daily basis.” Then Ashley caught the direction of Wilkins’s gaze as he stared at his mother’s housekeeper, whose bottom