Free My Dear Duchess by M.C. Beaton

biting remarks and Mrs. Sayers’ venom? The Duke looked at her distressed face and read her thoughts.
    He said, “We will have to have them some time, you know, and we may as well get it over now. Once this ‘courtesy’ visit is over, I shall make sure that they are not invited again. There! Does that please you?”
    She nodded dumbly but—oh!—
how
she wished she could bar the gates to Chartsay. The thought of seeing Clarissa again in the company of her husband made her feel positively ill.
    That breakfast seemed later to Frederica to be the last time they were to be alone together. No sooner had they finished than the local county came to call in droves. Then, when he was not receiving guests, the Duke was closeted in his steward’s room, dealing with problems of the estate from the repairs to cottage roofs to what to plant in the five-acre field.
    Faces came and went during the day, each visitor fortunately calling only for the regulation ten minutes. Curious faces, high-nosed faces, degenerate faces, inbred faces went in and out of the drawing room in a seemingly endless stream.
    The arrival of the Rector, Dr. Witherspoon, and his plump comfortable wife was the only pleasant interlude in the long day. Mrs. Witherspoon was comfortably if unfashionably dressed in a round gown of cambric and a poke bonnet with several drooping osprey feathers. Her cheerful, rosy-cheeked face with its shrewd little eyes seemed to register the uncomfortable atmosphere created by the now-fawning servants and the faint smell of disuse which hung about the enormous room. Seeing that the Duke was relaxing in the Rector’s company, Frederica suddenly confided to Mrs. Witherspoon that she felt sure that there could be nobody left in the whole county to call and suggested a walk in the grounds.
    Mrs. Witherspoon gladly assented and walked with Frederica out into the golden sunshine of the afternoon.
    Frederica was not yet acquainted with the grounds but she suggested they should walk to a rotunda by the edge of one of the ornamental lakes. They moved slowly across the grass companionably discussing gowns and recipes.
    “It is a fine and handsome home you have, Your Grace,” said Mrs. Witherspoon at last, plumping her stout figure down on a stone bench in the rotunda.
    “I’ faith, it is indeed,” said Frederica sadly, looking across at the great sprawling pile. “I am not used to such grandeur.”
    “There, there,” said Mrs. Witherspoon, patting her hand. “You will soon become accustomed to it, I dare say. And then you have always me at the rectory to run to, my dear. We have a snug place, rather shabby I admit, but it suits me very well. We are only a short ride from Chartsay, you know.
    “Is Lawton behaving himself?” she asked abruptly.
    Frederica hesitated and then confessed that they had experienced a certain amount of trouble on their arrival.
    Mrs. Witherspoon nodded her head in satisfaction. “That one had too much of his own way when the old Duke was alive. The old man was a bit of recluse, never saw a soul or gave so much as a breakfast party so Lawton and that army of servants ran things pretty much as they pleased. The way Lawton went on you would think that Chartsay was his. You would be well advised to get rid of him
and
that precious sister of his.”
    “But they have been here so long,” pleaded Frederica, feeling cowardly. She told Mrs. Witherspoon of her husband’s confrontation with the servants.
    “Bravo!” she cried, clapping her plump hands together. “But mark my words, it’s easy for the men, particularly a man like His Grace who’s used to commanding a battalion. If you have any trouble, just come to me.”
    Frederica felt very comforted. They strolled back across the lawns in companionable silence.
    After saying her goodbyes, something made Mrs. Witherspoon turn in the doorway and look back. Frederica stood alone in front of the double-arcaded carved screens at the back of the great hall. In the