Read Online Dare To Love by Trisha Fuentes - Free Book Online

taking out the teacups for service.
     
    “Yes,” Gwendolyn proclaimed, taking a seat.
“So was my father’s. Just so funny though, thinking of everyone
calling Tommy His Grace.”
     
    “Yes, and it took him months to finally
accept the entitlement,” Constance acclaimed, handing Fitzwater the
service tray. “Did you know that these two children used to cause
so much trouble when they were younger?” Constance asked Phyllis
who was sitting at the farm table.
     
    Fitzwater grabbed the hot teapot and began to
serve everyone a cup. “I remember when His Grace and Gwendolyn were
ten and got into his father’s shaving blades. I walked in on them
shaving Mr. Whiskers, the cat’s tail. Oh, I have never seen two
kids run so fast!”
     
    Constance started to hoot, “What about the
time when the two of them put frogs in Miss Pinkel’s wash
basin?”
     
    “The governess?” Gwendolyn asked, amazed that
they still remembered.
     
    “Yes…I have never heard a woman scream that
loud!” Constance chuckled, slapping her thighs with her hands. “She
ran down the stairs so fast she tripped on her way down, tumbling
through to the lower steps. How it was possible to get up from that
plunge and run straight out the door was some miracle.”
     
    “It was a sight to behold,” Fitzwater
declared. “How about the day I found His Grace covered head to toe
in honey because the two of them decided to count the bees in a
tree hive? Miraculous the boy was not stung.”
     
    “Or the time the Duchess found Gwendolyn
daring His Grace at a horse race…oh my, she nearly fainted at the
sight of her daughter wearing breeches!”
     
    The four of them remained laughing when
Thomas suddenly appeared. Like the wind blowing out four candles,
each one of them shut up and said nothing further.
     
    “You were talking about me, weren’t you?” He
asked, turning to every one of them and then setting eyes on
Gwendolyn.
     
    Gwendolyn’s heart stopped momentarily when
their eyes locked. How does he do that? Oh, she has to stop
thinking about him so much. You are getting married
Gwendolyn…married? “Not all subjects are about you, you know. You
may recommence and do, whatever—Duke’s do, Your Grace,” she
curtsied, eyeing the lines around his mouth beginning to curl. He
was going to smile, but he held back.
     
    “Ten winters absent, five minutes back, and
she acts like the mistress of the manor,” he retorted, leaving them
all alone.
     
    Constance wondered at the door for a moment
and then leaned into Phyllis. “No one speaks to His Grace that way;
I am amazed by the way they feel comfortable around each other.
Like two halves of the same person.” Constance stood idle for a
second more than twirled around to peek through the door, before
whispering to Gwendolyn, “Have you met her yet?”
     
    Gwendolyn knew immediately whom she was
speaking about, “Lady Hale?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “Yes, briefly…she seems quite nice.”
     
    Constance and Fitzwater both shot looks at
one another. “Seems, is too good a word dear. She purrs like a
kitten when around him, but she is an alley cat
through-and-through.”
     
    Gwendolyn was taken-back, she had never heard
Mrs. Hornebrook, Constance, talk like that before! She wondered if
she was always this over-bearing person who loved to gossip. “Oh?”
Gwendolyn asked, batting her eyelashes, the intrigue choking her.
“But he must care for her, correct? They are getting married?”
     
    “Yes, my dear, does it distress you to see
him with her?”
     
    “Well, I—”
     
    “Oh, I don’t know about him sometimes, unsure
what possessed him to solicit this engagement; I don’t know what he
sees in her.”
     
    Fitzwater grabbed the sugar bowl and scooped
some into his cup with a spoon, “She is quite pleasant on the
eyes.”
     
    Constance swatted Fitzwater on the shoulder,
“Dirty old man, don’t think I won’t tell your mistress about your
latest perception—see if I