I Spy a Duke Read Online Free PDF Page B

shelter and food. She lived.
    He caught her distinction, arching a brow at her. “Just enough ?”  
    “As you said, sometimes the days are long and terrible. It becomes hard to see past the memories.” She focused on the path ahead, one foot in front of the other in a defined route. Certainty, when the rest of her life mired in shadows. “But sometimes, I remember what it was like before his passing, and I pretend that I feel like myself again. It’s easier on days like this, when the sun is bright and the heat leaves no room for the cold hand of death.”
    She didn’t know why she spoke so freely around him, when she never talked about what had happened with anyone else. He, of all people, was the last person she should have confided in—yet the words spilled out before she could stop them.
    He nodded, this time in solemn understanding. “On most days, I consider well enough an accomplishment.”
    She bit her bottom lip, frowning. “I must believe that it will someday get easier.” When she finally looked Evan’s killer in the eye and exacted sweet vengeance, she’d begin again, her duty fulfilled.  
    Revenge was the most important thing. Perhaps the only important thing.  
    They’d reached a fork in the path. Would Abermont choose the sunny road to the left ending at the gazebo, or the more secluded stroll through the orchard? When he hesitated, Vivian took the decision from him. She started down the path most traveled. The safest path. Because this pull to him was dangerous, and she had enough danger in her life.
    What she needed was stability. Answers. Neither were things the Duke of Abermont could provide for her.
    Something new flickered across his face as he registered her choice. Perhaps disappointment that she’d chosen a path less secluded; perhaps her eyes deceived her entirely. She could not be sure, and she did not want to examine it. She’d made her decision.  
    She walked with purpose, quickening her stride. He fell into step with her, never missing a beat, in tune to every change.
    “Perhaps all we can hope is for a new normal,” he ventured. “It’s never going to be the same as it was. But I think, eventually, you’ll achieve peace of mind. You’ve much to accomplish still.”
    She managed a small smile. How she wanted him to be right, but she doubted it. “Your optimism is reassuring.”  
    “It ought to be, as I am right about nearly everything,” he teased.
    She grinned for real now. “Is that so?”
    “I’m afraid it’s a family trait,” he pronounced, as they strolled down the rhododendron-lined path. “While I am right a solid eighty-five percent of the time, my sister is right an absolute ninety-five percent of the time. If you find me an officious bore, I challenge you to engage in conversation with Elinor for more than two hours and not wish to club her over the head with the nearest vase.”
    She laughed. “‘Officious bore’ is the last phrase I’d use to describe you.”
    He led her through a section filled with poppies, roses, and lupins, the juxtaposition of the colors reminding her of one of Thomas’s kaleidoscope toys. “Oh, really? I’ll admit, the scandal sheets have described me as ‘infuriatingly handsome’ and ‘deliberately standoffish.’ Which one is closest to your thoughts?”
    She did not confess that the former was the most apt description she’d ever heard of him. Nor did she tell him how much walking with him made her forget the chasm between them. Her father had been the second son of a viscount—even before she’d accepted Sauveterre’s mission and became a governess, they wouldn’t have been on equal footing.
      “Neither,” she replied, careful to keep her voice as light as his. Lying had apparently become second nature. “I would say that while the Duke of Abermont thinks a bit too highly of himself, he is startlingly easy to talk to, and he has excellent taste in brandy.”
    He stopped in the middle of the path. “Ah,