Free The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin Page A

situation here was really quite good, if a little isolated. How long, she wondered, would it take to build a new house worthy of an American duchess?
    Cora read her mother’s thoughts. ‘Mother, you know that my being here is nothing more than an accident.’
    Mrs Cash chose to misunderstand her. ‘My poor girl, how frightened you must have been. Still, it was really most fortunate that you should have been rescued so promptly. And by such a Samaritan.’
    Cora realised that nothing would prevent her mother from believing that her accident and subsequent rescue was a sign that Providence was supporting her ambitions for her daughter. Cora might think she was a free agent but Mrs Cash and the Almighty knew better. Indeed, Mrs Cash was prepared to concede that Fate’s method of bringing her daughter within proposing distance of a duke was more ingenious than anything that she might have engineered. The only blemish in the divine plan was that Cora’s injury was not so serious that she would be obliged to stay at Lulworth indefinitely. A broken ankle would have been so much more definite. Really, there was nothing more appealing than a pretty girl confined to a sofa. Still, it couldn’t be helped. The important thing was to get Cora out of that hideous nightdress into something more becoming. She began to regret leaving Bertha behind, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad to have brought her in her coach. But she didn’t want the Duke to think that she was the kind of woman who travelled with the help. A pointless scruple it turned out, as the Duke had not been there to greet her in person. Was that intended as a slight, or was there something in the impenetrable English rule book which meant that hosts above a certain rank never waited at the door to welcome their guests? It was one of the many things she would ask Mrs Wyndham.
    She turned to Cora. ‘I must leave you now, Cora, the Duke is expecting me at lunch.’
    ‘I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, Mother. Maltravers is everything a duke should be. But I wouldn’t make your dissatisfaction with the décor too plain. I have the feeling that he is very attached to this house.’
    ‘As if I would do anything so ill-bred! Really, Cora, sometimes I think you forget that I am mistress of a house quite the match of this one.’
    ‘I am not sure the Duke would agree. I don’t think he is in the habit of comparing himself with others.’
    Mother and daughter glared at each other. Cora closed her eyes in feigned weariness. But Mrs Cash was not to be silenced so easily.
    ‘Even dukes can count, Cora,’ she said, sweeping from the room.
    Cora lay back, imagining her mother’s impatient progress through the house. Unconscious when the Duke had brought her to Lulworth the day before, she had so far only seen the inside of the bedroom and a glimpse of the dark corridor beyond. If only Bertha were here. She needed to see the house for herself, but she couldn’t very well wander the corridors in the Duchess’s second-best nightgown. Not for the first time, Cora cursed her mother’s notions of propriety.

    Mrs Cash found a footman waiting outside her daughter’s room, ready to escort her to the dining room. The wide oak boards creaked as she walked carefully down the polished steps.
    The footman opened the library door.
    ‘Mrs Cash, Your Grace.’
    Mrs Cash wondered if she should curtsy, but thought on the whole not. She had been expecting one of those milky Englishmen whose youthful slimness was almost a reproach to the corpulence to come, but the Duke was darker almost than any Englishman had a right to be, his hair was black and his slightly hooded eyes were a golden brown. She couldn’t make out his age. She knew he couldn’t be more than thirty but there was nothing youthful in the grave way he took her hand. Deep grooves ran from his nose to his mouth and there were flecks of grey at his temples.
    ‘Mrs Cash, welcome to Lulworth. I hope your stay will be