The Pretender Read Free Page A

in a foul mood to begin with was not the most propitious choice. So Elizabeth held her tongue and waited the handful of minutes until the clock in the hall outside the parlor struck nine, echoing in the lingering silence of the breakfast room.
    “May I be excused from the table, please, Father?” she asked, setting her napkin onto the table before her.
    The duke looked at her. “What are your plans for the day, daughter?”
    Elizabeth did not hesitate in her response. “I thought to give some time this morning to my sampler work and letter writing before Mother and I are to go off to the modiste in Corbridge for a fitting.”
    The duke beamed his approval. “Splendid. You’ve been working very hard on that sampler, Bess. It must be quite good. Will we ever see it?”
    Elizabeth eyed Isabella a second time, exchanging another private glance. “When it is finished, Papa. Not a moment before.”
    The duke grinned at his wife. “Our Bess is quite the perfectionist, Margaret. Just like her papa.” He waved a hand. “Off with you then, child. Make good use of the morning’s light.”
    Elizabeth pushed back from the table. “Thank you, sir. I intend to.”
    Moments later, Elizabeth was twisting the key in the lock on her bedchamber door to ensure that she wouldn’t be disturbed. She turned to face the room. Mullioned windows were opened onto the bright morning sunlight, spilling past the pale damask draperies to glow like amber in the freshly polished wall paneling. A wardrobe, carved in elegant rosewood, stood in the far corner, filled with countless gowns of satin and silk. Her dressing table was lined with bottles of scent that had come from as far away as the Orient. A Savonnerie carpet stretched across the floor and hangings of elegant brocade draped her poster bed, a bed whose mattress was stuffed with the finest goose down in all England. She had but to pull a bell and an army of servants would come running;she’d been born to a life of privilege, yes, but that privilege came at a cost.
    Elizabeth crossed the room to where a small willow basket lay tucked upon a cushioned window seat. She removed from it the scrap of linen she had stretched across a wooden tambour frame, plucking the needle from where it was stuck at the fabric’s edge. She studied the canvas thoughtfully before poking the needle through, drawing the colored thread its length and repeating it for a single perfect stitch. There, she thought as she held the piece out and admired the result in the light. After all, she had told her father she intended to work at her sampler. . . .
    Elizabeth left the window and her needlework, and lowered herself into the chair behind her writing desk. She sat for several moments, her chin at rest in the palm of her hand, staring out onto the ornamental knot garden that stretched to the apple orchard below her windows.
    Even at this early hour, it had all the makings of a perfect summer day. The duchess’s roses were in bloom, spicing the air on the breeze gently rustling through the treetops. A chorus of birdsong trilled in perfect accompaniment as Caroline began her practice at the spinet in the drawing room below. Horses, their dark coats gleaming in the sunlight, grazed peacefully on lush green pastures in the distance. Elizabeth, however, scarcely noticed it at all. The serenity, the music, the beauty of the day, none of it reached her. It was her father’s indignant words at the breakfast table that morning that echoed through her head instead.
    Preposterous . . .
    Idiocy . . .
    Equality! A woman to a man? Have you ever heard of such nonsense?
    Much as she loved her father, admired and respected his goodness and genuine love for his wife and daughters, there were times when he could be simply antediluvian. It was as if he’d woken that morning several centuries too late for breakfast. Why? she thought for what wasn’t the first, second, or even the twentieth time, why had he afforded her and her