The Inconvenient Duchess

but with little strength. He could feel the bones through the translucent skin.
    When she spoke, her voice was a hoarse whisper. The glow in her eyes had faded to a pleading, frightened look that he had not seen there before. ‘Please. Before it is too late. Meet the girl. Let me die in peace.’ She smiled in a way that was more a grimace, and he wondered if it was from pain. She’d always tried to keep such rigid control. Of herself. Of him. Of everything. It must embarrass her to have to yield now. And for the first time he noticed how small she was as she lay there and smelled the hint of decay masked by the scent of the lilies.
    It was true, then. This time she really was dying.
    He sighed. What harm could it do to make a promisenow, when she would be gone long before he needed to keep it? He answered stiffly, giving her more cause to hope than he had in years. ‘I will consider it.’

Chapter Two
    T he front door was oak, and when she dropped the heavy brass knocker against it, Miranda Grey was surprised that the sound was barely louder than the hammering of the rain on the flags around her. It would be a wonder if anyone heard her knock above the sound of the late summer st m.
    When the door finally opened, the butler hesitated, as though a moment’s delay in the rain might wash the step clean and save him the trouble of seeing to her.
    She was afraid to imagine what he must see. Her hair was half down and streaming water. Her shawl clung to her body, soaked through with the rain. Her travelling dress moulded to her body, and the mud-splattered skirts bunched between her legs when she tried to move. She offered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d decided against wearing slippers or her new pair of shoes. The heavy boots she’d chosen were wildly inappropriate for a lady, but anything else would have disintegrated on the walk to the house. Her wrists, which protruded from the sleeves of the gown before disappearing into her faded gloves, were blue with cold.
    After an eternity, the butler opened his mouth, probably to send her away. Or at least to direct her to the rear entrance.
    She squared her shoulders and heard Cici repeating words in her mind.
    ‘It is not who you appear to be that matters. It is who you are. Despite circumstances, you are a lady. You were born to be a lady. If you remember this, people will treat you accordingly.’
    Appreciating her height for once, she stared down into the face of the butler and said in a tone as frigid as the icy rain-water in her boots, ‘Lady Miranda Grey. I believe I am expected.’
    The butler stepped aside and muttered something about a library. Then, without waiting for an answer, he shambled off down the hall, leaving her and her portmanteau on the step.
    She heaved the luggage over the threshold, stepped in after it, and pulled the door shut behind her. She glanced down at her bag, which sat in its own puddle on the marble floor. It could stay here and rot. She was reasonably sure that it was not her job to carry the blasted thing. The blisters forming beneath the calluses on her palms convinced her that she had already carried it quite enough for one night. She abandoned it and hurried after the butler.
    He led her into a large room lined with books and muttered something. She leaned closer, but was unable to make out the words. He was no easier to understand in the dead quiet of the house than he had been when he’d greeted her at the door. Then he wandered away again, off into the hall. In search of the dowager, she hoped. In his wake, she detected a faint whiff of gin.
    When he was gone, she examined her surroundings in detail, trying to ignore the water dripping from her clothes and on to the fine rug. The house was grand. There was no argument to that. The ceilings were high. The park in front was enormous, as she had learned in frustration while stumbling across its wide expanse in the pouring rain. The hall to this room had been long, wide and marble, and lined with doors that hinted at a variety of equally large rooms.
    But…
    She sighed. There had to be a but. A house with a peer, but without some accompanying problem, some unspoken deficit, would not have opened its doors to her. She stepped closer to the bookshelves and struggled to read a few of the titles. They did not appear to be well used or current—not that she had any idea of the fashion in literature. Their spines were not worn; they were coated with dust and trailed the