An Unlikely Duchess Read Online Free

been a very sensible idea. It was not her fault that the carriage had broken down at such an inauspicious moment.
    Poor Mr. Porterhouse. He had been very apologetic about the whole thing.

Chapter 2
    The Duke of Mitford was lying on his bed at the Crown and Anchor Inn wondering if he should do something exciting, like undressing and going to bed. He had come upstairs an hour before, when it had become obvious that the taproom was the local gathering place for a large and somewhat rowdy clientele. He had not felt comfortable in such company.
    His coat, with his greatcoat, had been thrown over the foot of the bed. His hands were clasped behind his head. His feet were crossed at the ankles. He had for several minutes past been watching his feet in their white stockings, wiggling his toes to make the occupation more interesting. But his eyes had moved upward and his attention had been caught by a crack in the ceiling, one that extended all the way across one corner of the room.
    Perhaps the ceiling was about to collapse on him, he thought, yawning until his jaws cracked. This journey was really not turning into much of an adventure after all. Though why he should have thought that after twenty-eight years of very circumspect living he would be able to find adventure merely by leaving home alone and incognito, he did not know.
    He supposed he was incredibly naive. Indeed, he knew it for a fact.
    Since the age of six, when he had been precipitated into the title of Earl of Newman by a thunderstorm, he had been groomed for the life of privilege and responsibility that was ahead of him at the time, but that had been his now for the past eleven years. And he had always been an obedient pupil. He had almost never stepped out of line.
    He would not necessarily say he had been a willing pupil. The spirit of rebellion that he saw breaking loose in almost every lad who had ever been his companion burned just as brightly in him. But he had never allowed himself to rebel or to do anything that would hurt his mother or in any way tarnish all the illustrious names he bore.
    The closest he had come to being as other men were, he supposed, was in making Eveline Cross his mistress four years before. But even Eveline had been a perfectly respectable widow of good ton , and their three-year affair—she had broken it off the year before when she had finally admitted to herself that the Duke of Mitford was not likely to do anything as improper as marrying his mistress—had been conducted so discreetly that it was doubtful many people even knew about it.
    She was the one and only woman he had ever been intimate with.
    Mitford sighed and returned his attention to his feet. He tried to make his big toes stand at right angles to his feet. The left one could achieve only an eighty-degree angle. He tried harder. If he cheated and dug his heel into the mattress, he could do it. Perfect symmetry with both toes.
    It seemed that all the world had company and was enjoying it except him. The noise level downstairs was rising in proportion to the amount of ale that must have been imbibed by now. And the female in the next room was talking in a loud, excited voice to her companion. He could not quite catch her words. Not that he would want to eavesdrop anyway, of course.
    It was amazing really that he had any friends at all. But he did, even though he knew that most of them saw him as a thoroughly dull dog. Indeed, they were not shy about telling him so. He did not gamble or drink to excess or participate in any of the wild wagers of the clubs or squander money or flirt with the ladies or whore with those females who were not ladies. Such activities were unbecoming to his position in life.
    Sometimes, he thought with a twinge of guilt, he felt sick of being a duke—everyone and his dog bowing and scraping to his great superiority; everyone and his cat hanging onto every word that issued from his mouth and roaring with amusement at every suggestion of wit; every