No Groom at the Inn: A Dukes Behaving Badly Novella Read Online Free Page A

and was resolutely headed to become an unpaid chicken-and-children herder, he’d appeared.
    “Maria, how lovely to see you, and isn’t this incredible?”
    Maria hugged her, and Sophronia felt immediately better—she had spent only a day or so on her own, without any kind of human discourse (beyond the purchasing of the coach tickets, not to mention the ale), and she hadn’t realized just how bereft she had felt without anyone to connect to. Until Maria wrapped her in an embrace.
    “Now, now, my lady, why are you crying?” Maria sounded perturbed, as she should—Sophronia never cried, not even when she’d come to the conclusion that her father had, indeed, left nothing for her. “Why are you here? Is there anything I can do?”
    Sophronia drew back from her friend’s embrace and shook her head. “I am fine, this is really an amazing story, I just—I think I am just overwhelmed.”
    Maria nodded toward the bed. “Let’s just sit down and you’ll tell me all about it. I have to say, you could have knocked me over with a feather when the note arrived, telling me to come here posthaste.”
    Thankfully I will not be knocked over by any kind of feather, not if I do this properly , Sophronia thought to herself. It seemed she could leave the chickens behind, but they would not leave her.
    “S o you just have to pretend to be engaged to the gentleman?” Maria said after Sophronia had related the details. Put that way, it did sound rather easy.
    “Yes, and I have to persuade his mother that I am a suitable bride for her son, which is the most important element.” The lady was so sweet, and obviously adored her son. Already Sophronia felt bad about her part of the deception, at fooling the woman who only wanted her son to settle down and have a family. A fact she had repeated no fewer than a half dozen times while they were having tea and getting “better acquainted.”
    If all the people she was to meet in the ruse were as talkative as Mrs. Archer, there would be no concern about having the lie discovered—she had barely gotten a word in edgewise, and the words were limited to “yes, please” and “just milk.”
    “You will do fine. And then—and then you’ll have enough for us to go to the country?” Maria’s tone was hopeful and wistful; they’d talked about what they wished they could do when they knew there was no chance of it. That Maria was still hesitant about the possibility made Sophronia’s heart hurt, even as she was thrilled their dream could become reality.
    And then what? a voice asked in her head. You buy a cottage, you and your maid go to live there, and then what? You spend the rest of your life alone?
    She had to admit the voice had a point. She hadn’t thought much past leaving London and being able to survive without having to become a poor relation. What if that was all there was to her life? Things that were less bad than something else?
    Was that a way to live? Now it was her father’s voice talking to her, and she frowned. It was because of his daydreams, his refusal to settle for less than the best, to look to the future, that she had been landed here in the first place. He didn’t have a say in what she was going to do for the rest of her life, given how he hadn’t thought of it at all while he was alive.
    She would just have to adopt her father’s viewpoint, ironic though that felt; she would get to the point where she was in the cottage, but wouldn’t think beyond that.
    “Yes, we’ll be able to go to the country, and buy a little cottage, and live there. Forever.” Even to her own ears, she didn’t sound delighted at the prospect, but thankfully Maria was focusing on the words, not how she said them.
    “Thank you, my lady,” Maria said in a fervent tone. “We will persuade all of them. We have to.”
    And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? “Yes, we will.” Sophronia walked to the wardrobe in the corner of the room, opening the doors to reveal a few gowns