A Duke's son to the rescue (Regency Romance) (Regency Tales Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

awake in the darkness, wondering how she could continue to live this way. As she lay there, her emotions too numb for tears, she heard the rain begin to fall outside her open window. No lightning or thunder, just the soothing, steady pattern of rain emptying from the clouds above, nourishing the soil below. It was as if the sky was doing her crying for her.
    Sighing, she got out of bed. The rain was coming in through the open window, soaking her dress—soaking her dress. Of course!
    Charlotte smiled. The rain could do what she couldn’t, and wash her dress. She took the garment and held it out so that the water would drench her dress and wash the dirt and mud from the cloth. It wouldn’t be new, nor would it be a perfect laundering, but the dress would be the better for the impromptu cleaning. When the dress was wet through, she wrung the cloth and drained the excess water from it. Bringing the dress back inside, she lay it on the floor so that it would dry. There was little to look forward to in her life, but at least she would be a trifle cleaner than she’d been today.
     
    Her dress was a little damp at the waist and neck the next morning when she put it on, and the garment was not without wrinkles, but the clumps of dirt and embedded grime were gone. It was shabby, but it was clean. Her mother looked at her with suspicious eyes as Charlotte followed her father out the door, but Charlotte’s face gave nothing away and finally her mother turned away. The dress was the same one she always wore; her boots were the same, except that her toes were visible where the soles had separated from the uppers. As she walked out the door, Charlotte was smiling to herself. Her father, walking in front of her as he always did, noticed nothing.
    They headed for the Walsingham Hall grounds where Charlotte had been working the day when she had seen Lord Davenport on his horse. It seemed as if it was a long time ago and yet it had only been a day or two. Just two days, but in that time, something had changed within her. A spirit she could not identify, born out of a resistance to her father’s cruelty and her mother’s mockery, began to take hold of her. As they walked, Charlotte surreptitiously kicked off her boots, hiding them under a hedge where her father would not discover them. She would rather be barefooted than an object of derision, she decided.
    “I’ll be working the garden right across the pathway,” Mr Smith told her when they reached their place of work. “So don’t think you’ll get away with anything because I’ll see you and I’ll take a stick to you. Do you understand me?” 
    Charlotte smiled, and made a mock curtsey. As she did so, her bare toes were exposed. Mr Smith’s face was suffused with the bright crimson of rage. “You worthless girl, what have you done with your boots?”
    “My boots?” Charlotte looked down at her feet with every appearance of surprise. “Why, where on earth could they be? I had them on when I left this morning. The soles were coming apart; they must have fallen off. What will I do? I’m barefooted. Should I return home?”
    “One of your tricks, eh?” Smith growled. “I’m having none of that. You’ll stay here and work. You don’t need your feet to pull weeds. You don’t need boots in summer.” He stamped away, clearly thwarted by Charlotte’s ploy but unable to find a way to retaliate in his customary fashion. Charlotte knelt on the ground and began to pull the weeds from the flower beds. It was tedious work, but the flowers were lovely and she enjoyed the soft texture of the petals and the sweet fragrance they emitted. She didn’t know it, but as she knelt, her skirts arrayed around her, her bare toes peeking out from the hem of her skirt, her thick brown hair tied back to expose her slim neck and dainty chin, she was beautiful. Her beauty transcended her worn clothing; it was a triumph of physical attributes, youth, and a natural breeding which defied the crass