Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Read Online Free

the maid’s reluctance to embark on the unknown, there were still practical matters to consider. “Pray, where will you go, if not with me? Do you know how to find your way back home?”
    Polly shook her head as her face crumpled up again and fresh tears glistened in her eyes. “This is the first time I’ve left the Hathaway house in eight years.”
    They were two women in similar situations, but with different attitudes. While Kate had been trapped at remote Bellingham Hall for only sixteen months, it had certainly seemed like eight years.
    In fact, it had seemed like a lifetime.
    She rested a tentative, reassuring arm around the maid’s trembling shoulders. “It’ll be all right, Polly.”
    “But he’s a stranger. ’Twas another reason Miss Meg didn’t want to do this. How do we know Mr. Fraser isn’t an evil, wicked man?”
    Polly had a point. Ordinarily, Kate would never consider getting into a stranger’s carriage, even with a chaperone. But this was no ordinary situation, nor was Mr. Fraser exactly a stranger, for Kate had almost immediately recognized the new Duke of Loring, even if he hadn’t recognized her.
    That neither surprised nor disheartened her, if only because it presently gave her an advantage. Men seldom took notice of her because she was plain and bespectacled and had no dowry since her stepfather had used it to put a chink in his mountain of debt. Besides, their first and only meeting had been fleeting and, at least for the duke, forgettable. But Kate had never forgotten how tall he was, taller than her stepfather or even her brother. She’d never forgotten his unfashionably long hair, black as a raven’s wing, that fell halfway over his broad brow and curled around his equally broad shoulders. Nor had she forgotten his stormy, blue-gray eyes beneath the thick, black brows, the aquiline nose that gave him a predatory air, and the square, determined chin with the deep cleft.
    And she’d never forgotten the sound of his voice, a liquid baritone that was decidedly English but spiced with just enough of a Scottish burr that hearing him talk was almost like listening to music.
    Sometime last summer, after coming into his inheritance, the erstwhile Lord Nathan Fraser had stopped briefly at Bellingham Hall en route to London from Edinburgh. He’d arrived just in time for dinner, had retired shortly thereafter, and continued his journey before Kate was even awake the next morning. She must have spent less than half an hour in his company, sitting across the table from him while he told her stepfather that he planned to stay in London only long enough to settle his late brother’s affairs then return to Edinburgh until the following spring, when he supposed he’d have to come back to London and see about taking a wife.
    As this was now the following spring, that must be where he was headed. No wonder he didn’t want to claim his winnings.
    But since he was obviously traveling incognito—and now, so was she—she thought the better of revealing his true identity to Polly. Instead she tried to mollify the maid with her most reassuring smile.
    “I don’t think Mr. Fraser is an evil, wicked man. Maybe if he was, he’d be only too eager to take us to London, or wherever he keeps his secret den of iniquity. But you saw that he was most insistent on forgiving Mr. Hathaway’s debt. Yet Mr. Hathaway is not here to receive Mr. Fraser’s forgiveness. Ergo, we must still go in Miss Hathaway’s stead.” She gently rested a hand on the maid’s trembling shoulder. “Think of it as an adventure, Polly. I know I intend to.” She sprang from the settle. “Now I’m going to look for Mr. Fraser. Wait here.”
    “Don’t fret, miss, I’m not going anywhere.” Polly sounded as if she meant it quite literally.
    Kate slipped out of the parlor, glancing all around the lobby, but Mr. Fraser was nowhere in sight. She stole a quick peek into the taproom but didn’t see him there, nor did she see Freddy.