A Mummers' Play Read Online Free PDF Page B

really wish—I cannot live in a simple home. I cannot seek a wife who would
want
to live in a simple home, for then she would be as miserable as I. Instead, I must seek a wife who thinks this place delightful, who thinks being a duchess desirable, and who is thus the direct opposite of the type of woman I admire!”
    She stared at him and he suddenly stopped his pacing. “You probably think me mad.”
    “No,” said Justina. “I understand.”
    And she did. Unwillingly, she was remembering some of Simon’s letters, the ones in which he’d talked admiringly of Jack Beaufort. Jack was the best of fellows, brave, bright, and always lighthearted unless he got into his cups and began to talk of his position as heir to the Duke of Cranmoore. On that subject he soon became morose. Simon and the others had cheered him with the fact that his distant cousin, the duke, was young, healthy, and recently married, and so bound to provide little Beauforts to stand between Jack and his dire fate.
    Because Justina had been obsessed with this man, she knew the rest. The duchess had proved to be a poor childbearer. She had suffered two miscarriages, then perished of the third. Before the duke could remarry, he had succumbed to a simple cold that settled in his chest and carried him off on the very day of Napoleon’s abdication.
    “Penny for your thoughts,” Cranmoore prompted lazily. “Or am I just boring you to sleep?” He’d come to rest with one arm stretched along the marble mantelpiece, and the dancing flames illuminated a disturbingly fine length of leg and torso.
    “You are giving me much to think on,” Justina replied, wishing her thoughts were more disciplined. “You could almost be an object lesson to all those who lust after riches.”
    “Oh, I’ve nothing against the riches,” he admitted with a quirky, endearing smile. “It’s the trappings I mind. This is my house, or so they say, but if I try to change anything I am positively assaulted by the pain and anxiety of the staff.” He picked up a bristol figurine and walked around to place it on the other end of the mantelpiece. “That will be back in its place by the time I wake up tomorrow.”
    Before she could comment, he went on. “And of course my mother seems to think Torlinghurst is a museum where everything should be preserved unchanged forever. She’s a distant Beaufort, too, you know. She always wanted to end up here.”
    “Then perhaps your problem, your grace, is inbreeding.”
    After a startled moment, he laughed. “I knew you were no prim and proper miss! Miss Esme Richardson, you were sent to me by angels.” But he tossed a ha–’penny with the other two coins.
    Justina eyed those coins with some concern. They were evidence that his wits were still very much in place, and she had to wonder just what forfeit he intended to claim.
    Then he was beside her with the decanter unstoppered. “A little more?”
    Justina realized with alarm that her occasional sips had drained her glass. She let him fill it, but resolved not to drink any more. The faint effect of the wine had fueled her saucy tongue. Much more and it could be she who turned indiscreet.
    And that could prove fatal. Literally so. She had no illusions about the lengths to which a man like Jack Beaufort might go to keep his secrets.
    He looked down at her. “Will Lady Dreckham be looking for you? Frankly, I’ve no mind to cause a scandal.”
    Justina had to think quickly. “No. She was going to bed when she gave me the command.”
    “And how did you end up in here?”
    “I thought this was the library.”
    Without warning, her chin was raised by a strong finger so she had to meet his steady eyes. “You’re lying, my dear. The library is on another floor entirely.”
    A shiver ran through Justina. Despite the effects of wine, no one could doubt that this man had been an officer, and a capable one. She supposed effective officers had to learn to keep their wits about them, even when