My Fair Duchess (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel Book 1) Read Free Page A

The infestation combined with too much rain had hurt their holding’s worth.
    “Father has a plan. When I graduate, I’m going home to help him institute it. It’s my dream.”
    “I wish you the best of luck,” Colin said, meaning it. The only dream he had was not to end up like his father, at the mercy of a wicked woman.
    In the distance, Lady Farnsworth, his mother’s archenemy, and the wife of the man currently bedding his mother, appeared at the edge of the lake embankment. Even with the distance separating them, Colin could make out her green silk gown fluttering gently behind her in the summer breeze. She raised a long slender arm and waved.
    Colin grasped his oar, angled it against the side, and slid it into the water where it dipped beneath the dark surface with a swoosh and a ripple. Rhetford sat up from his reclined position and grabbed his oar. “Are we headed back to the celebration now?”
    “You are,” Colin said. “I have a prior engagement.” Lady Farnsworth had passed him a note after dinner tonight expressing a wish to see him in private to give him a present. He knew all about her idea of a gift. The idea of bedding Lady Farnsworth tonight did not excite him as it had the first time, however. She was out for revenge, and he was her chosen instrument. The lady was foolish to think his mother would care, but who was he to point it out again. He’d explained this already several months ago after learning what she was up to. He no longer got a bitter taste in his mouth at the memory of her confessing that she’d used him.
    “What do you think you will do in the future? I mean, when we eventually graduate, that is.” Rhetford’s question captured Colin’s attention.
    He hadn’t given it much thought. He had two more years at Cambridge and really, what was there for a future duke to do but dutifully learn all about his land and the people who relied on him? His father, though weak in backbone, was healthy enough in his body and no doubt had plans on exactly what he wanted Colin to do, and Colin would do everything in his power to live up to his father’s expectations and give the duke a bit of the happiness he so richly deserved. In fact, Colin had a sudden idea of how he could help his father now…
    A plan formed in his mind. One that would aid his father and provide the gossipmongers more to talk about than the pathetic way his father continued to be cuckolded. He took a deep breath of the jasmine-scented air. “I do believe I shall work on becoming a notorious rake.”
     

 

    Norfolk, England
    The Harthorne home
    The summer of 1812
     
    “Amelia de Vere, if you do not come down here ready to go right this instant I will insist your father not give you any pin money this month,” Amelia’s mother called shrilly from the foot of the stairs.
    Reluctantly, Amelia put down the novel she had been reading. Sense and Sensibility. She was almost done, which made her sad because the story was so grand and wonderful. But what would be far more depressing than ending a great book you wished would go on and on was having her pin money withheld and not being able to buy another novel next week. No novel meant she would have to live in the real world for a while without the luxury pretending for a brief time that she was someone else.
    She scrambled off the bed with one last look at her book. Not being able to purchase another one would be infinitely worse than having to survive going to town to be fitted for a new dress with her mother today. The fitting would be short, but a new book could last her several days. At least Mother had said Constance could go with them. That way Amelia did not have to suffer the seamstress’s pitying glances when Mother went on and on about how Amelia had still failed to blossom and then said dramatically―and with her hand pressed against her forehead― Maybe next year .
    Amelia snorted. She’d given up on becoming a beauty and decided she was perfectly happy