Read Online The Spinster and the Duke by Jillian Eaton - Free Book Online

could not be certain. Feeling overwhelmed and tired and cranky as a three year old who had skipped its nap, she stood up abruptly. “I fear I need to rest for a while. The journey was very tiring. Could you have a maid direct me to my room?”
    “Certainly,” Charlotte murmured. The concerned glance she exchanged with Dianna was discreet, but Abigail caught it nevertheless.
    “I will be fine,” she said, even though to her own ears her voice sounded strained. “A long nap, a hearty meal, and I will feel right as rain.”
    Her pretty brow creased with genuine concern, Dianna leapt to her feet. “Aunt Abigail, I never meant to—”
    “Please.” Abigail held up her hand. “I just need to rest.”
    Somewhere between leaving London and walking through the front door of the Graystone’s beautiful mansion a weight had settled on her heart. It constricted her from the inside out, pressing and squeezing until she felt quite literally out of breath. The sensation was something she’d felt only once before: the day Reginald broke her heart.
    His unexpected visit, their passionate kiss, the long trip to Sussex, the memories invoked by stepping inside a grand estate and sitting in a parlor not unlike the one she’d sat in thirty years ago… It was all too much, too fast. After living a life of calm predictability Abigail felt as though she’d suddenly been tossed out to sea in a life boat, left to churn and spin amidst the waves.
    A maid dressed in dark gray appeared and she followed her gratefully up the sweeping staircase and into a beautifully decorated bedroom suite with cheerful yellow walls, a matching set of cherrywood furniture, and a four poster bed with a sky blue canopy.
    Her trunks were already unpacked, but she did not bother changing out of her traveling clothes. Pausing only to unlace her boots, she kicked off one and then the other before throwing herself on the mattress, closing her eyes, and falling instantly asleep.
     
    In the parlor, their voices hushed and their expression worried, Dianna and Charlotte discussed Abigail’s unusual behavior.
    “She has been acting odd for days,” Dianna confided. Biting her lip, she set aside her untouched glass of lemonade and began to pace the middle of the room, her shoes sinking silently into the thick Persian carpet. “I never should have told her the Duke of Ashburn was returning to England.”
    “And let her receive the shock of her life when he turned up on her doorstep?” Charlotte arched one russet brow. “I would think not. You did the right thing. Now we have to decide what to do next.”
    Needing to do something with her hands, Dianna plucked a crystal swan off a side table and absently stroked its long feathered back. “I do not know if we should interfere.”
    Charlotte snorted. “So says the woman who dragged me to an illicit masquerade ball so I could woo a stranger into marrying me.”
    “It worked, did it not?”
    A warm smile captured the corners of Charlotte’s mouth, curving her lips upwards even as she rested a hand over her growing belly. “It certainly did. You know her better than I, but I would imagine there is a reason she never married even after all these years and it is not because she is unattractive or ill suited. Why, your aunt has to be one of the most intelligent women I know.”
    “She is absolutely wonderful,” Dianna agreed without hesitation, “and most deserving of her own happily-ever-after. I just wish I knew if Ashburn is the one meant to give it to her.”
    Charlotte was quiet for a moment before she said, “I of all people know how it feels to be pressured in marrying someone you do not love. I can imagine that pressure is ten fold when you are destined to inherit a dukedom. I am sure Ashburn did what he thought was right at the time, even knowing it would cost him the woman he loved. And he could have come back and tried to make her his mistress, but he stayed away all of these years.”
    “Do you really