August (Prairie Grooms, #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

too well.” She glanced back at the house. “Where are the others?”
    “Belle and Sadie took the baby and drove to town for a few things,” Constance told her. “We offered to finish up here.”
    Penelope stared at the baskets of laundry they were hanging on a line. “It’s come to this, has it? We’re naught but laundresses?”
    “Penelope,” Constance said in a scolding tone. “This is our new life. It involves working with our hands, just as the Duchess said it would. If she can do laundry, then so can we. She lived this life too, you know, long before she was ever married to His Grace.”
    “No one is around, you say?” Penelope asked.
    “No one,” Eloise reassured.
    Penelope sunk to the grass in a very unladylike manner. “Cooking, laundry ... you realize none of us even knows how to sew? Is that to be expected of us as well – sewing?”
    Constance and Eloise looked at each other. “It can’t be so bad,” Constance offered. “Belle and Sadie make it look rather easy.”
    “That’s because they are used to back-breaking, menial work – work that was to be forever beneath us! Now what are we, servants in our own homes?”
    “What homes?” Constance pointed out. “We haven’t any homes, yet.”
    “We had a home!” Penelope wailed back. “What I wouldn’t give to be back in London right now! We had servants, cooks, footmen ...”
    “Footman,” Eloise corrected, holding up one finger.
    “Oh, very well – footman, ” Penelope conceded. “But it wasn’t as if we were poor ... at least, not until Father passed.”
    Constance sunk to the ground beside her. “Why do men have to gamble? Father lost our dowries with his games of chance.” She plucked at the blades of grass around their skirts. “No wonder no decent gentleman would marry any of us.”
    “It wasn’t just the lack of dowries, and we all know it,” Penelope said. “His Grace said it was because of that relation of ours, Thackeray Holmes.”
    Eloise was quick to join them. “You don’t believe all that talk of our suitors and those of our other cousins coming to bad ends, do you?”
    “They did come to bad ends,” Penelope pointed out. “All of them.”
    “Yes, but did they because of cousin Thackeray?”
    “Cousin Thackeray,” Constance mused. “Penelope, you’re the eldest. Are you sure you’ve never met him?”
    Penelope let go a heavy sigh. “My dear sister, you’ve been asking me that for a year now, and for that same year I’ve given you the same answer. No, I haven’t.”
    Constance leaned forward and put her chin in her hands. “What if he were here somewhere?”
    Penelope reached over and smacked her on the arm. “Sit up, Constance! You are not acting like a lady!”
    “None of us are. We’re sitting on the ground, after all.” Eloise pointed out.
    Penelope gave up, and with a roll of her eyes fell backwards upon the grass. That sent her sisters into fits of giggles. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked at them. “What is so funny?”
    “You’ve finally given in,” Constance said through her mirth. “You’ve fought it the entire journey.”
    “Fought what?”
    “Being unladylike.” Eloise said, turning up her nose mockingly. “We gave up long ago. Not completely, mind you, but let’s face the facts – we’ve not seen anyone like us our entire journey. What are we to do?”
    Penelope sat up the rest of the way. “We must teach those around us proper decorum, or otherwise we risk sinking to the lower levels of society. Mother would be appalled.”
    Constance’s eyes grew wide and she pointed at Penelope.
    “What?” Penelope asked crossly. “You know I am right.”
    Eloise gasped as her hands flew to her mouth.
    “What?!” Penelope asked in a sharp tone. “Why precisely are you gaping like codfish?”
    Constance and Eloise pointed at the same time, their mouths open as if in a silent scream. Penelope’s own mouth snapped shut as she followed the direction their