Free The Widowed Countess by Linda Rae Sande

deliver his coffin to St. George’s for the funeral and then see to its transportation to Norwick Park for burial. A small graveside service would take place – only a few family members would attend, Clarinda thought – and then life would go on. In six months, she would have a baby to keep her company, to love and cherish and spoil rotten until it was time to send it off to school or marriage.
    And that would be that.
    She frowned. Perhaps she could become a merry widow (after the requisite year of mourning, of course). Lady Winslow had done that, although she’d only made merry with the Marquess of Devonville for a month before agreeing to marry him. Going from a position as a baroness to the Marchioness of Devonville had to offer benefits beyond longer trips to New Bond Street and a larger jewelry box. Clarinda often wondered what Adele Slater Worthington Grandby thought of her new sister-in-law.
    The sudden thought of not being bedded for an entire year had Clarinda raising her face to stare at herself in the oval dressing table mirror. Missy stood behind her, pinning a series of curls across the front of a rather ornate hairstyle. “Am I going somewhere?” Clarinda asked in wonderment. Her maid had never done her hair with quite as many pins before. Of course, David would have had them all out in a few flicks of his wrist when he escorted her to her bedchamber at bedtime. They would scatter about the Aubusson carpet, acting as little land mines when he sneaked back into her room later that night, his bare feet managing to step on enough so he exhaled exclamations of pain and curses as they impaled him. Clarinda smiled at the thought, her eyes suddenly filling with tears as she realized he would never be doing that again.
    “The new earl is due to arrive today,” Missy replied, her face falling at the sight of her mistress on the verge of tears. “Oh, my lady, don’t cry!” the abigail ordered, reaching over Clarinda’s shoulder to fetch a hanky from the tabletop. “I hear he is a very pleasant man, and a handsome one, at that.”
    Clarinda took a deep breath and willed away the tears that pricked the corners of her eyes. “Well, he ought to be. He’s Norwick’s identical twin brother,” she replied with just a hint of derision, realizing talk of David’s brother had her tears dried up faster than the hanky would.
    Missy caught the annoyance in Clarinda’s comment and regarded her mistress’ reflection in the looking glass. “You two do not get along?” she wondered, placing another curl in the coiffure she was creating.
    Realizing her maid might speak of the rift between her and Daniel with the other servants, Clarinda quickly waved a hand as if it was nothing. “Oh, we get along fine,” she lied, surprised her voice didn’t give her away. “I only mean that he’s so good looking because he is the epitome of his late brother.”
    Truth be told, she didn’t know if Daniel still looked anything like David. She couldn’t imagine him having changed much in two years, though. Although, if she gave it some more thought, she could imagine his hair thin on top and turning gray, the crinkles around his eyes becoming deep wrinkles, age spots covering his face and hands, his eyebrows turning into a bushy white unibrow looking something like an albino caterpillar, all his teeth but one or two missing, his cheeks sunken, dark circles beneath his eyes ... trouble was, David would have looked like that, too, if he had lived to be a hundred-and-ten.
    Clarinda shivered, pushing the image out of her mind as Missy announced she was almost done with her hair. “Finally. I’m starving ,” Clarinda said as she got up from the dressing table and made her way to the door. “I’m off to indulge my appetite, Missy,” she claimed happily. “After all, I can let my figure go for an entire year!”
    Daniel Fitzwilliam followed Porter as the majordomo preceded him to the earl’s bedchamber, his boot heels clicking