Secrets of an Accidental Duchess Read Free Page B

didn’t really care this time. Olivia found it so difficult to call her sister by her new name. She’d always be Serena, her oldest, wisest sister, no matter what everyone else thought.
    “I’m so happy for you,
Meg,
” she murmured, grinning.
    “Another niece or a nephew for us! How perfectly lovely.” Jessica seemed to have forgotten her annoyance at Margie’s demands upon Phoebe.
    Jessica, Phoebe, and Olivia gathered around Serena, embracing her as one, kissing her cheeks and pressing their hands over her still-flat stomach.
    “Are you happy?” they asked her.
    “Are you excited?”
    “Are you afraid?” Jessica asked.
    “Yes, I’m excited and happy, and no, of course I’m not afraid.”
    Phoebe kissed Serena’s cheek and rose. “I really must go feed Margie,” she said softly. With a special smile at Serena, she took her leave.
    Olivia spent most afternoons walking the grounds of Jonathan’s vast estate. Some might say that Jonathan’s lands were overgrown and dilapidated, but the area was so full of delights and treasures, Olivia found her new home to be utterly marvelous.
    Jonathan had only recently moved back to Sussex and begun taking care of the property again, and he and Serena had just begun the work of refurbishing the house and grounds. Serena always laughed when she said that after having lived in Sussex for less than a year, she was glad she could walk from the front door to the carriage door without getting pricked by thorns or tripping over a fallen branch.
    Some afternoons Olivia walked with Jonathan’s mother, the dowager countess, a lovely, cheerful woman, and others she walked with her sisters. But she was diligent about taking the time to walk daily, and most of the time she ended up on her own.
    In Antigua, Mother had rarely allowed her to step foot outside, because Olivia’s doctor had always said that taking outdoor exercise would be detrimental to her weak constitution. But Mother wasn’t here. This wasn’t Antigua, this was England, and the climate, flora, and fauna were very different. If anyone objected to her walks, Olivia would simply say she was certain she was safer here.
    Today, wearing her usual plain brown wool walking dress and sunbonnet, she ventured into the woods deep within Jonathan’s properties. The terrain was more uneven out here than it was nearer to the house, but paths wound through the trees, one of them leading to a natural spring wedged between two rock outcroppings.
    Olivia breathed in the fresh autumn air and gloried in the crackle of dry leaves and brush beneath her boots. Before she’d left the house, she’d tucked a loaf of stale bread beneath her arm—she came in this direction every few days to feed a gaggle of gray geese that had made its home by the spring.
    Humming under her breath, she descended the curve in the path that led to the spring. Glancing up from her feet, where she’d been looking to prevent herself from tripping over the rocks, she jerked to a stop, leaving a broken note hanging in the air.
    A man—a man surrounded by eager geese—was crouched by the water.
    He looked back over his shoulder at her. Obviously he’d heard her crackling and humming her way toward him. She hadn’t been attempting stealth.
    Her pulse throbbed in her chest at a sudden realization. She was alone in the forest with a stranger. A
man
.
    She licked her lips nervously, watching him rise to his feet. Trying not to watch the way his black Wellingtons encased his strong calves and his leather breeches clung to his muscular thighs.
    It wasn’t polite to stare at a strange man’s thighs, she reminded herself sternly. Forcibly, she yanked her gaze upward.
    He wore black gloves, and he gripped a small round burlap bag, likely food for the geese, one of which was pecking hungrily at it, trying to open it to spill out its contents. The bag hung at the man’s side, and he didn’t seem to notice the goose at all.
    Olivia dragged her gaze farther upward. A