A Lot Like a Lady Read Online Free PDF

responsible for Annabella’s pain and unhappiness. She couldn’t go in there. The maid offered an anxious smile and some of Juliet’s ire evaporated. The maid was only doing her job. Something Juliet was all too familiar with .
    After all, isn’t that how you got yourself in this predicament? Doing the bidding of your mistress?
    Juliet took a deep breath, stepped over the threshold, and paused, saying a silent prayer asking God to forgive her for her deceit.
    A walnut desk dominated the front portion of the room and the Duke of Wyndham sat behind it, scratching with a pen in a giant book, himself no less intimidating had he been the King. Attired in a tailcoat of evenly spaced light and dark brown stripes and a white shirt with a neatly tied white cravat at his neck, he held himself with the self-assurance of a well-respected man of nobility. His light pecan-colored hair brushed his collar and a wavy lock fell across his forehead, as though refusing to be tamed. Her hand twitched with the urge to push the hair into order.
    Juliet hastily averted her eyes lest the duke catch her staring.
    The room was everything she expected and nothing at all like she had envisioned. She cast a longing glance at a bay window that opened outward over the street. Heavy green and brown draperies were pulled wide open. Was the view from that window as spectacular as the one from the rooms she shared with the aunts? She sighed, wishing she had the courage to walk over and see for herself.
    Juliet stole a glance at the duke, but he was still occupied with scribbling in his book. Emboldened by his obvious lack of interest in her presence, she surveyed the room. Her breath caught.
    Books .
    What must have been a hundred leather-bound books lined the wall opposite the bay window. The room obviously served as a combination office for the duke and library. Longing filled her. Oh, to take just a few steps and run her fingers along the books… to be able to pull any one of them out and open it whenever she wanted to…
    “Please have a seat,” murmured his grace without looking up, his voice like a bucket of cold stream water interrupting her daydream.
    Have a seat, eh? I’d like to put a boot in your seat.
    Instead, she tempered her anger and crossed the room, stopped in front of the desk, and dropped into a deep curtsey. As she leaned forward, the low-cut neckline of her dress gaped and her bosom nearly spilled out the top of the loose-fitting garment. Juliet’s face burned with embarrassment. Her hands flew to the front of the dress to reposition it, and she snapped up so fast she nearly tumbled over backward.
    Please let his eyes be on his ledger still and not on me.
    When she lifted her face, the duke was regarding her with censure, his eyebrows knitted together, mouth in a tight line. Juliet groaned inwardly and looked at the floor to avoid his intense scrutiny. Her knees began shaking and her hands started to tremble. It took all of her willpower not to crumble to the floor and confess everything. But then an image of Annabella’s blotchy, tear-streaked faced popped into her mind.
    “Please, Juliet, you have to go in my place. I cannot face all the condemnation and scorn from those haughty people. I will die if I have to.”
    Annabella’s words stabbed at Juliet’s conscious. As nothing more than a servant, she was used to criticism and disapproval from the aristocratic braggarts. But Annabella had truly been heartbroken by the unfair judging and subsequent shunning she’d had to endure because of the duke. It had broken her friend. It had… changed her.
    The memory of the hurt and despair on Annabella’s face at the thought of being sent to London, to him , renewed Juliet’s determination to try and keep up the pretense for as long as she could, to protect Annabella from further rejection. Although she was sure going along with her friend’s scheme would have dire consequences for them both.
    The duke cleared his throat, and