Free Miss Darby's Duenna by Sheri Cobb South Page A

it. “I should be eternally grateful if you would do so.”
    The duchess raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That, Selwyn, I should like to see!”
    * * * *
    The morning sun rose high over the city of Bath, casting a golden hue over the local limestone which comprised its stately Georgian architecture. Although no longer the fashionable resort it had once been, the city still had a distinguished, if somewhat dated, air, not unlike the many elderly aristocrats who lingered there in fond recollection of their younger days. Numbered among these venerable denizens was the dowager Lady Hawthorne.  From her lodgings in Laura Place, this worthy gentlewoman frowned at the view which had greeted her virtually every morning for the past twenty years.
    “Draw the curtains, Mildred,” she ordered her companion, a thin, colorless woman of indeterminate age. “The sunlight will fade the carpet.”
    “Yes, my lady.”
    Miss Mildred Hunnicutt scurried to do her employer’s bidding, grateful for the quirk of fate which had made her second cousin to a widow of wealth and position, and thus provided her with genteel employment and a roof over her head. Alas, fate was not often kind to spinster ladies, and Miss Hunnicutt had abandoned all matrimonial hopes many years earlier, when her sweetheart had married a young woman chosen by his family while the bridal couple were still in their respective cradles.
    Having carried out Lady Hawthorne’s command, Miss Hunnicutt returned to the table where the dowager sat scanning the newspaper as she sipped her morning chocolate. Knowing that her ladyship detested interruptions, Miss Hunnicutt held her tongue as she buttered a slice of toast. As the silence lengthened, the companion thought longingly of the Gothic romance she had recently borrowed from the lending library and wished she might return to her room to fetch it.  But alas, Lady Hawthorne was no more fond of novels than she was of interruptions. In fact, as Miss Hunnicutt recalled, the last time she had seen her employee thus indulging, she had insisted on presenting her with an uplifting volume of sermons to read in its stead. Recalling this incident, the companion suppressed a sigh and contented herself with perusing the back of Lady Hawthorne’s newspaper.
    While it made a poor substitute for the thrilling works of Mrs. Radcliffe, the page presenting itself to Miss Hunnicutt contained the society news from London, and so she passed the time in learning the latest doings of the beau monde, their identities thinly veiled by the lavish use of initials and abbreviations. She had spent several minutes thus agreeably occupied when one tidbit surprised a startled squeak from her lips.
    “Well, Mildred?” demanded Lady Hawthorne impatiently, lowering her newspaper to frown at her errant employee. “I trust you will explain why you saw fit to interrupt this fascinating account of Lord Mablethorpe’s sojourn to America? I had just reached the part where his party was set upon by savages.”
    “I beg your pardon, my lady,” Miss Hunnicutt twittered, “but I found this item most interesting. Tell me, is Sir Harry not betrothed to a Miss Darby?”
    “Miss Darby, Miss Derwood, something like that. Although why any woman of sense would choose to marry my ramshackle grandson quite escapes me. Impudent young popinjay! Although I must confess, the lad is as handsome as he can stare,” she added with a glance toward the mantle, where a yellowed miniature revealed a curly-haired boy cradling a redheaded infant on his lap. “Indeed, I have often detected in his countenance a pronounced resemblance to myself.”
    “I have often remarked upon it also, my lady,” replied Miss Hunnicutt dutifully, thankful to be spared a scolding.
    “But that is neither here nor there,” continued Lady Hawthorne brusquely. “Why do you bring up my grandson now, when I was so enjoying reading of Lord Mablethorpe’s travels?”
    “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I