Along Came a Duke Read Free

in your hat,” Harriet repeated, reaching up and plucking the white quill from his brim.
    â€œHey, that’s my souvenir—”
    But whatever its meaning, the feather was gone as Harriet quickly dispatched it, tossing it to Mr. Muggins, who caught it deftly and looked up at his mistress with an overly proud expression in his eyes at having caught his prey.
    â€œYou can thank me one day,” Harriet told Roxley, as if that was enough of an explanation.
    â€œWhatever happened to your carriage, my lord?” Tabitha ventured, changing the subject.
    â€œNot my carriage, Miss Timmons. ’Tis Preston’s.” The earl waved his hand over toward the smithy. “I warned him not to take the corner by the great oak at that speed, but would he listen? As ill-mannered and stubborn as your dog.” He shrugged and grinned as if their dangerous and foolhardy misfortune was a badge of honor.
    Harriet laughed. “My brother George did the same thing last spring. Hell-bent he was, my father says.”
    â€œHarriet!” Daphne gasped. “Remember what Lady Essex said about language! She’d double her lessons if she were to hear you say such a thing.”
    â€œNo, Harry!” Roxley lamented, glancing from Daphne back to Harriet. “You aren’t letting my aunt ruin you?”
    â€œNot ruin, my lord,” Harriet told him. “Just round me out. My mother has given up. But Lady Essex is determined. She has plans to bring me to Town next month.”
    â€œTo Town, you say?” Roxley asked.
    â€œYes, didn’t she write you?”
    â€œNever does,” he told her. “Just shows up and bedevils me for weeks on end.” He grinned at her. “Now I am forewarned and in your debt.”
    â€œYes, well you can dance with me at Almack’s.”
    â€œNever!” he said with a shudder. “I shall be away all next month. Yes, away. Hunting.”
    â€œIt isn’t the season for hunting,” Harriet told him, folding her arms over her chest.
    â€œIt is somewhere,” he teased back.
    â€œIf you are so resolved to avoid Lady Essex, whatever are you doing here in Kempton?” Harriet asked.
    â€œRacing! We’re trying to beat that coxcomb Kipps back to London, and I told Preston that we could use the Kempton road as a shortcut. Bet Dillamore a monkey we’d get to Town first.” He raked his hand through his dark hair and looked again at the lopsided carriage. “Warned Preston about that corner by the oak,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.
    â€œDear me,” Tabitha said. “Five hundred pounds?”
    Daphne’s eyes went wide at the amount. “I do hope Mr. Thury knows how imperative it is that you get your wheel repaired.”
    â€œOh, he does,” Roxley told her. “Preston has even pitched in. Prestigious fellow that he is. Though might be ’cause he’s got twice that wagered and he’ll be in the suds with his dreary uncle if we lose.” Lord Roxley craned his head toward the smithy’s forge and called out, “We’ll beat Kipps yet, eh, Preston?”
    There was a low growled muttering from behind the forge where a bent-over figure worked.
    The earl shrugged, a rather apologetic motion. “He’s in ever-so-foul a mood. Ho, there! Preston! Come meet some of the local ladies. There are few gentlemen in these parts and we are considered a rarity.”
    On that, Roxley had the right of it.
    Gentlemen left this sleepy, forgotten corner of England for school as soon as they were out of short pants, and few returned—the lure of the army, the navy, and even the clergy offered far more exciting venues than the quiet meadows and green hills of Kempton. Hadn’t all of Harriet’s brothers—save George, her father’s heir—hied off to the four corners of the world rather than remain in the place of their birth?
    And they did so because they