Read Online The Lady's Disgrace by Callie Hutton - Free Book Online

Abigail attempted to put the woman at ease, since she’d notably been taken aback by Joseph’s announcement.
    Lady Durham merely nodded briefly. The silence that followed became almost painful as the woman fussed with the sleeves of her dress. Joseph cleared his throat a few times, apparently lost as to what exactly had just happened at his breakfast table.
    Abigail wondered if perhaps Lady Durham had had intentions toward her husband. But from the look on Joseph’s face, the thought had never crossed his mind.
    “Would you care for tea?” Abigail said, smiling pleasantly at their guest.
    “No, thank you. In fact, I’m afraid I must run off. I just now remembered an appointment.” She rose quickly and headed for the door, almost crashing into Joseph as he jumped up to pull out her chair. With a quick wave, she left the room, her hurried footsteps echoing in the hall until the sound of the door closing left them in stunned silence.
    “That was strange.” Joseph continued to stare at the closed door.
    …
    Lady Edith Durham breezed by Manning, her insides quaking with anger. How dare Joseph return from London with a wife! That was to be her role. She’d spent numerous hours at the blasted church, attempting to gain Joseph’s favor. Her year of mourning was almost up, and she had decided to make known her intentions very soon. All her planning and plotting had come to naught.
    So caught up in her internal reverie, she hadn’t even noticed where she had ended up. She’d also forgotten that she’d arrived in her coach. The devil take the man for distracting her so! She reversed her course, and headed back to the ninny driver who had seen her stomp away from the house, but never thought to follow her. If she wasn’t paying him such a low wage, she’d fire the dolt.
    “Take me home,” she grumbled as she slapped at the footman who held his hand out to help her into the carriage.
    Damn, damn, damn. Just the thought of the tidy income Joseph enjoyed, along with the money from his trust, made her eyes water at the loss.
    Men. They were the bane of her existence. She’d thought when she escaped from the brutal clutches of her father that she would never have to worry about the vile creatures again. Except she’d soon discovered that a woman alone was a target for every sort of blackguard on God’s good earth.
    After two years of being pinched, patted, and grabbed while she attempted to serve drinks at a tavern, she’d bought some fashionable clothes from her meager savings and headed to London. With fake references, she began work at a dress shop, and by mimicking the accents of the ladies who had come into the shop, she’d secured a position as a companion to the former Lady Durham.
    Thankfully, the old Lord Durham hadn’t been too particular about who he hired as a companion to his wife. Within weeks, the woman had died, and Edith had been right there, ready to take her place. Who would have guessed that the old Earl was busy running his estate into the ground, so when he turned up his toes, all Edith had inherited was a small income that barely kept her alive?
    When the new Lord Durham had arrived to claim his inheritance, he hadn’t been the least bit taken with her attempts at seduction. She’d been quickly removed before he’d installed his insipid wife and three brats.
    She’d be damned if she was going to lose this latest opportunity, with no other promising quarry in this benighted town. No matter what, she would not go back to being poor again. Something had to be done about this wife of his. Something permanent, that would remove greedy Lady Abigail’s hands from money that should have been hers.
    Tomorrow, when she wasn’t seething from anger and could think clearly, she’d come up with an idea.
    Bloody hell.
    …
    Abigail tapped lightly on the housekeeper’s sitting room door.
    “Come in,” the woman said.
    “Good afternoon, Mrs. O’Neill.”
    “Oh, my lady. Please have a seat.” The