Redemption of the Duke Read Free

followed, but he was still standing
     there, watching her, his expression bemused but determined. She should probably worry
     about that show of determination, but couldn’t believe he was serious.
    Yet her mind was flooded with curiosity. He’d been a cavalryman, she realized, her
     pace slowing as her mind settled. Why had a duke—or the heir to a dukedom—bought a
     commission in the army?
    She tried to put away her interest when she reached the bench where her friends sat.
     Their expressions lightened with welcome upon seeing her, and relief flooded through
     her.
    They were impoverished gentlewomen just like her: Jane Ogden, with a slight limp since
     childhood, worked as companion to an elderly woman; and Charlotte Atherstone, a chaperone
     nearing her middling years and well respected for her unmatched ability to keep her
     charge protected, even as she guided her into a proper marriage.
    Faith liked Charlotte’s work best, and aspired to such a position. It felt . . . motherly
     or sisterly to help a young lady find the perfect man, the perfect life. It was almost
     what she was doing with Adelia, but she herself didn’t have the vast understanding
     of the peerage that Charlotte had, her own mother being so disinterested. So they
     had long discussions where Charlotte talked and Jane and Faith absorbed. Relationships
     among the peerage could be so complicated, but it was the sort of puzzle Faith enjoyed.
    They all had the same afternoon off each week, Wednesday, and had randomly met in
     Hyde Park when a chill wind had blown off Charlotte’s bonnet, and the younger two
     women had ended up chasing it. It had been refreshing for all of them to meet like-minded
     souls. Though they’d only met two months before, they felt almost as close as sisters.
    Charlotte smiled serenely as Faith approached. “We feared we would not see you today.
     So Miss Warburton could do without you after all.”
    Faith sat down on the same bench as the two women, trying hard not to look back the
     way she’d come. If the duke had followed her, she didn’t want to call attention to
     him—and surely he wouldn’t approach her in front of witnesses.
    “Miss Warburton is attending a musicale at her aunt’s this afternoon,” Faith said.
     “Plenty of relations for her to talk to. But tonight, the family and I will be attending
     the Earl of Greenwich’s ball, her first engagement of this kind. Miss Warburton is
     understandably excited. I had much to prepare this morning before I could leave.”
    “You are her companion, not her lady’s maid,” Jane said disapprovingly. “I cannot
     believe they did not bring enough servants to London with them.”
    Faith shrugged. “I am grateful for the work, even if it goes beyond what I was told.
     And I’ve told you how satisfying it will be to me to help the girl find maturity and
     happiness.”
    “But without the extra salary, I’m sure,” Charlotte said, frowning.
    Faith was glad for the sympathy of her friends, but she steered the conversation away.
     They discussed Jane’s elderly employer having her first visit from a relative in more
     than a month—the three of them occasionally visited the woman together, cheering her
     up—and how Charlotte’s young lady had received a second inappropriate proposal that
     had to be turned down.
    “She is devastated, of course,” Charlotte said. “She doesn’t understand that these
     men are beneath the expectations of her family, beneath her in means and in placement
     in Society. I heard the poor girl crying in her bed last night. She’s afraid she will
     never find a husband, and doesn’t want to hear that I believe she simply needs be
     patient. To a fresh young girl, who am I but an aging woman who never managed to marry?”
    Though they gave each other sympathetic nods, Faith was having a hard time concentrating.
     She couldn’t forget the strange meeting with the Duke of Rothford. She wanted to question
     her friends