Man of My Dreams Read Free Page B

a grin. “Neither do I, but it sounded like a nice thing to say.”
    They both laughed, when it was honestly a dreary subject. Tiffany was quick to change it. “I suppose this late meal means you haven’t had your morning ride and are going to be in a rotten mood all day because of it.”
    Megan usually breakfasted bright and early with the squire, then spent half the morning riding her horse, Sir Ambrose, and the other half grooming it. No stableboy—though they only had one since they owned a mere four horses—was ever allowed near her pride and joy, other than to feed Sir Ambrose, and even that Megan liked to do. For anyone who knew about her tendency to haunt the stables, it wasn’t hard to guess that Megan absolutely loved horses.
    “Actually, I did have my ride.” Staring again at her sausage, Megan added, “Last night.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “Around two in the morning.”
    “You didn’t! ”
    Megan glanced up to explain earnestly, “I had to, Tiffany, I swear I did. I was near to going crazy.”
    “Did you take one of the footmen with you?”
    “I didn’t have the heart to wake them.”
    “Megan!”
    “Well, no one saw me,” Megan said, defensive now, realizing belatedly how scandalous it was for a young lady to go out in the middle of the night by herself. “I stayed to the road for Sir Ambrose’s sake, since it was so dark last night. And it worked. I went right to sleep when I got back.” Tiffany just stared, so Megan added, “That ride did more than just let me get to sleep. On the third trip to the village and back—”
    “Third?”
    “I ran the route five times—well, I only had the bloody road to stick to, and Sir Ambrose was as game as I for a full-out gallop.”
    Tiffany rolled her eyes.
    “ As I was saying.” Megan got back to the subject. “On the third run it came to me exactly what I could do to set Ophelia Thackeray on her ear in the grandest way possible, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
    Tiffany’s expression turned instantly wary. “You didn’t reconsider socking her, did you?”
    “No,” Megan said with a grin, then triumphantly added, “I’m going to build a mansion twice the size of hers and become the new reigning hostess of the area. That will show her.”
    “Uh, how do you propose to do that?”
    “Very simply. I’m going to marry a duke.”
    “Oh, well, that will do it. Which duke did you have in mind?
    “Wrothston, of course,” Megan announced. “He’s the only one we know.”
    Tiffany sat up, because putting a name to this duke took the whimsy out of Megan’s idea, enough to make Tiffany worry that she might actually be serious. “We don’t know him a’tall. If you’ll recall, he wasn’t at Sherring Cross when we took tea with his grandmother. The only reason we even got on his estate was that your father had some obscure acquaintance with the dowager duchess and took the chance of writing her for advice when he was looking for a horse to buy you for your twelfth birthday.”
    “And it was fate that she invited us to come choose one from the duke’s stables.”
    “Fate? They had hundreds of horses. She was delighted to get rid of one.”
    Megan leaned forward to whisper that word ladies weren’t supposed to know anything about. “They breed them at Sherring Cross, so of course she was glad to sell one.” Then she sat back to add, “We already have something in common—horses.”
    “We? As in you and the duke? Good God, Meg, you aren’t really serious about this, are you?”
    “Absolutely.” Megan grinned excitedly. “Just imagine, Tiff, a magnificent coach pulling up to the church, with the ducal arms of Wrothston emblazoned on it, while the countess with her still unmarried daughters is standing there agog. Then yours truly steps out of the coach, assisted by the most handsome man imaginable. I will, of course, be magnanimous and bid the countess a good day, and even introduce my husband, the duke. And I will