Free A Highland Duchess by Karen Ranney Page A

still had fond memories of Aunt Ethel, a widow for so many years she claimed not to be able to recall her husband at all.
    Would she be the same? In a matter of years would someone ask her about the Duke of Herridge only for her to be confused? Would she search her memory and be unable to remember the husband she’d so hated and feared for four years?
    No, memories of Anthony were forever lodged in her mind, burned into her brain by shock and horror.
    The laughter was closer, and she halted behind one of the columns. From here she could see down into the courtyard, that lovely space where she’d breakfasted with Ian only this morning. Light shone behind several windows lining the courtyard, and shadows flitted against the draperies.
    Her heart beat rapidly, her hands grew damp, and her feet felt encased in blocks of ice. For endless moments she stood watching and waiting, a prayer trapped in her mind. How foolish she was—God had not helped her at Chavensworth.
    Perhaps she thought that if she watched the door to the courtyard, it would remain shut. The men would stay inside with their party guests. She wrapped her arms around her waist, unable to push back the fear.
    The stairs were barely illuminated by a lamp in the corridor below her. She clung to the banister with a hand while she gripped her skirts with the other and took one step at a time.
    At the bottom of the steps she moved across the gravel, the stones biting into her bare feet, stopping at a spot close to where she’d breakfasted that morning.
    The door opened.
    She stepped back, behind a tall bush. A stream of men left the room. All of them were dressed in evening wear, and most of them appeared to be smoking a cigar. The smell of tobacco, a not unpleasant scent, wafted through the air.
    Ian emerged finally, dressed in a similar fashion as the others. He was handsome enough in his everyday clothes, and even more so in black and white. But some people had considered Anthony a handsome man as well. They hadn’t looked into his eyes and seen his withered soul.
    Ian was intent upon shaking the hands of the men clustered around him.
    “No, Sir Eustace, I will be unable to attend,” he was saying.
    “A pity. You have a first-rate scientific mind.”
    “Coming from you, Sir Eustace, I consider that a great compliment. Thank you.”
    “Keep up the good work, my dear boy. I think you’re on to something.”
    One by one the men walked to a door on the other side of the courtyard, once more entering the house. Ian and another man followed them, Ian’s hand on the man’s shoulder.
    There were no women in sight. No cancan dancers or scantily clad women of society.
    Several maids and two footmen entered the room the men had vacated, evidently gathering up the dishes and straightening the chamber. She heard them laughing, the kind of camaraderie that went on in well-run households.
    “If I’d known you were so curious,” Ian said from behind her, “I would have invited you to dinner.”

Chapter 8
    S he turned to see Ian standing in the shadows.
    He took a few steps toward her, slowly, as if not wishing to startle her.
    Her heartbeat was so rapid she was faint with it.
    “If you had attended, I’m afraid someone would have recognized you,” he continued. “Not to mention the fact that you would probably have been exceptionally bored.”
    “Was it an exceptionally boring dinner?” she asked, feeling absurdly close to tears. Relief because he wasn’t like Anthony?
    He moved out of the shadows and to her side. “Parts of it were,” he said. “But I’ve learned to take the bad with the good. Some speeches were quite illuminating. My guests are members of the Royal Society, very learned men, all in all. True, some are boors, but you find that in any group.”
    “I’ve no affinity for science.”
    “Do you know that for certain?” he asked. “Or are you only saying that because you’ve not been exposed to much of it?”
    “I’m not even entirely