Read Online The Lost Bee by L. K. Rigel - Free Book Online Page A

touched her elbow.
    “Don’t say a word or I swear I’ll cry.”
    “I will.” He took the tray and set it aside and put his hands on her shoulders. “I will say a word.” She had forgotten how good it felt to be touched by a man who cared for her. “I have watched him, Susan. The duke is not a grasping sort. He won’t force you, I don’t believe. Be strong, as I know you are.”
    He replaced the tray in her hands, and she went upstairs. She would remind Millie who she was. At least, she would remind him who her father was.
    “Thank you, Fenton.” His grace dismissed his man as Susan set the tray on a table near the fire and poured his coffee.
    “Pour a cup for you too, my dear,” he said. “Sit. Sit here by the fire. It must feel good against the chill.”
    The heat was indeed lovely, and the coffee smelled of nutmeg and The Lost Bee. The good fires Leopold used to keep for her came into her mind, and she pushed the image away.
    “Cecily has left us, I understand.”
    “Yes, your grace.”
    “I have never thanked you, Miss Gray, for bringing Cook this coffee. I do so enjoy it.” He knew her name, and that she had told Cook about the coffee. He chuckled. “I see you believe the stories, that I am an old debaucher who has his way with the upstairs maids. That makes me sad, Miss Gray. I had rather thought we were friends.”
    “Your grace, I…”
    “Now you know my secret. I indulge the duchess and pretend to be pleased with the girls she sends my way. We enjoy our coffee and gossip about the inmates of the house. It’s how I find out what goes on around here. Fenton does his best, but I find a female perspective is more, ah, complete.”
    “Your grace.” She was stunned, not quite sure what to say.
    “I am not unaware of my wife’s faults. Her gambling, her dalliances with other men, her intrigues. It is my great failing.”
    “ Your failing.”
    “I’ve never been able to relieve my dear Delia of her fears. I watched her grow up, you see. I think I’ve loved her since she was a child. But I’m too old for her. I always was. I was wrong to marry her. I thought I could save her.”  
    Over the next few days, the duke told Susan more about the duchess’s wonderful qualities. She was put so at ease that she confessed in her case those virtues were not so easy to see.
    “Why don’t you marry our Matthew Peter and go back to Carleson Peak?” he said.
    “I suppose for the same reason I haven’t accepted a coronet.” She smiled. “Neither the proposal nor a position in the country is on offer.”
    “Now there you may be wrong—on both counts.” He paused as if debating whether to tell her something. “I still think of your father, you know. Wasn’t he someone’s son?”
    “Estranged son.” How she missed Papa still! Had he lived, her life would have been entirely different. “His family objected to my mother.” She wouldn’t have met Leopold Singer. But then, there would be no Persey.
    “Yes, well. You see to your young man.” There was mischief in the duke’s expression. “And very soon, you might be receiving some other good news.”
    Apparently the duke put a good word in one or two ears, and a few days later Matthew Peter asked Susan to marry him. This time she let him complete his proposal. This time she said yes. She and Matthew Peter were to take positions in Carleson Peak at Laurelwood, Squire Carleson’s estate, and live in the great house there.
    It was a mere ten miles from John’s cottage, and Persey.
    The opportunity came the old-fashioned way, through random events. Someone Susan didn’t know made a casual, thoughtless remark to another person she didn’t know who passed it on as a matter of chit-chat to someone she did know and who happened to think of her.
    Mrs. Carleson of Laurelwood had been widowed and left with a young son. She had recently told Lady Branch she wanted a new housekeeper and wished to find a woman of good character with a brain in her head.