Good Dukes Wear Black Read Free Page B

behavior. Not some long-ago war experience or being coddled too much as little children. Even so, she wasn’t prepared to argue the matter with Trent, who, even if he was pig-headed was the dear friend of her own friend’s husband. She would keep the peace for Leonora’s sake.
    â€œI thank you for the advice, your grace,” she said to Trent as she took one last look at the still-sleeping Grayson. “Now I suppose I’d better get back before my mother returns from the card room.”
    â€œI’d offer to escort you,” Trent responded with a short bow, “but I don’t think you’d wish for the scandal that would ensue from such an arrival after several minutes’ absence any more than I would.”
    Now that was a dreadful thought. Ophelia shivered a little. “No, no, I quite agree. I’ll go back on my own, thank you very much. Good evening, your grace.”
    â€œGood night, Miss Dauntry,” she heard him call to her as she shut the door to his study behind her.
    Really, she thought as she headed back to the ballroom, it was too bad that Trent was so high in the instep. For he was as handsome a man as she’d ever met.
    Fortunately, Ophelia had long ago resigned herself to the fact that handsome men, for all that they might be pleasant to look at, were rarely worth the trouble.
    Just look at what poor Maggie had had to endure at the hands of George Grayson.
    No, she thought, stepping back into the crowded ballroom, she was quite happy not to let her mother see her in the Duke of Trent’s company.
    She valued her freedom far too much to dangle after a man like that.

 
    Two
    â€œThis is excellent prose, Miss Dauntry.”
    Ophelia couldn’t stop her smile of satisfaction at the compliment from her editor, Mr. Edwin Carrington. She’d worked hard on her piece for this week’s Ladies’ Gazette and was pleased to know he had noticed.
    â€œThank you, Mr. Carrington,” she said from the doorway of his office in the cramped quarters of the newspaper. “I thought my readers might appreciate hearing about my own trouble mastering the French knot. It can be quite difficult for a beginner.”
    â€œAnd that’s just the sort of personal touch I appreciate about your columns, Miss Dauntry.” His smile was genuine, though Ophelia could tell that he was ready to get to the next in the stack of stories on his cluttered desk. Running a newspaper wasn’t an easy business and Ophelia knew from her time with the Gazette that Edwin gave it his full attention.
    Before he could dismiss her, however, she broached the topic that had actually brought her to her editor’s office. “Did you have a chance to look at my piece about the orphan problem in the East End? I know it’s not the sort of thing we normally print, but I thought perhaps…”
    His sigh at her words told Ophelia all she needed to know.
    â€œIt’s not that your story is bad, Miss Dauntry,” he said, his gray eyes kind as he gathered another set of pages. “It’s just that the Ladies’ Gazette isn’t that sort of paper. I’ve tried to tell both you and Mrs. Grayson as much, but you both keep coming to me with these kind of pieces. I greatly fear that I will lose both of you to one of the larger London papers soon.”
    Before she could respond, Ophelia felt her friend Maggie Grayson step up beside her. Both ladies moved farther into the office to stand side by side in front of Mr. Carrington’s desk.
    â€œBut we could make it that sort of paper, could we not, Mr. Carrington?” Maggie asked with a reassuring squeeze of Ophelia’s arm. “It’s just a matter of a piece here and there about more serious issues. Ladies do not wish to always be wrapped in cotton wool, you know. And I believe they would appreciate hearing about things that are happening right here in their very own city. Some of them have very