Read Online Disciplining the Duchess by Annabel Joseph - Free Book Online

the mail coach back tomorrow, and my brother will never know. When he is at cards and women, he stays out all night and never wakes before two the next afternoon.”
    She was leaving. In three days. The thought upset him almost as much as her reckless plans. She yanked at his hand until he released her. “Why is it so important to see it?” he asked. “Will you risk your good name, your reputation?”
    “I told you before, those things are meaningless to me now. I do not care.”
    “You ought to. You ought to have a care for the safety of your person at least.” He shot a look at the driver, or tradesman or farmer, or whatever he was. “That man could take you somewhere and ra—” He bit off the word before he uttered it. “Bedevil you. How do you know he’s an honest person? Not only that, but his wagon and horse are both dilapidated.” He looked around at the curious townspeople beginning to gather. She was turning him from a refined peer to a public scold, damn her. “Miss Barrett, if you must continue on this ill-advised course, permit me to engage a more fitting conveyance for your trip, and hire a proper chaperone to ride along with you.”
    She seemed, finally, ready to listen to reason. “Will you? How long will that take?” she asked, watching him carefully.
    Long enough for you to regain your senses. Or at least long enough for me to force you into a carriage and get you home. “It will not take long,” he assured her.
    Court offered her his arm, which she refused, but she followed. “I would lend you my coach but my mother is using it to call on acquaintances,” he said. “I’ll hire one at the inn.”
    “What if you can’t?” came her small voice.
    “There are very few things I can’t do.”
    His tone of authoritative control worked to silence her. He walked quickly along Sedgefield’s narrow streets in the mid-afternoon sun. He was angry, yet he felt some sympathy for her, some grudging admiration. Miss Chaos was willing to risk her life to visit Hadrian’s ancient pile of rocks—it was not merely some passing fancy to her. Any other woman of her set would see the wall as nothing more than a background to pose against and look pretty, but Miss Barrett was not of that ilk. She refused to languish in the drawing room, even though, as a woman, that was her fate.
    Ah, but he could not entertain sympathetic feelings for her. His pace quickened along with his temper, and he left it to her to keep up. After all, this was her fault. If he had not come across her by chance, what might have become of her? What would her brother do when he found out about her attempted flight north? Court remembered with some distaste Barrett’s rough handling when she’d refused to dance with Lord Monmouth, and this was a considerably worse offense.
    Well, it wasn’t his concern to put down sibling squabbles, but to get her safely home. As soon as they arrived at the inn, he’d put her into the first carriage he saw, along with a maid, and send her back to Danbury House. What a load of trouble to take up his afternoon.
    “The innkeeper surely has a lady’s maid to spare,” he lied over his shoulder. “It should be no great thing to hire a girl to take a couple days away. This is not, after all, a busy town like Harrogate. But Miss Barrett, it would be better to abandon this adventure entirely if you can bring yourself to do it. There are Roman antiquities to see in London.” He paused and thought a moment. “I will take you to visit them someday, perhaps, with your brother’s permission. And a chaperone, of course.”
    He turned to receive her response, only to find a village girl stepping along behind him with a covered basket. With great anger, he realized Miss Barrett had not been following at all, but stolen away at some point, probably while he was still going on about the carriage. The girl passed by him, dropping a curtsy. She must have thought him daft, prattling on to himself. Cold fury