Love Letters From a Duke Read Online Free PDF

last week and it won’t do no better this week than it did then.” She shot a glance over her mistress’s slim shoulder. “And who’s this?”
    “The new footman,” Miss Langley told her, obviously happy to change the subject.
    Another loud harrumph followed. “Not much to him,” she said, maneuvering herself closer and reaching out to take a hold of his arm.
    Thatcher was starting to feel an affinity for the horses over at Tatt’s.
    The housekeeper sniffed and gave him one more pinch. “More meat on ’em than it appears, but still, he’ll need feeding up a bit.” She cast a glance over him as if she too was measuring him, then looked at the side of his head where the line of a scar still remained. “In the army, were you?”
    He was so startled by this astute observation, he could only nod.
    “Thought so. Got that ‘hungry, ain’t been fed since I left home’ sort of look. Well, I’ve got a good kitchen, when the grocer ain’t badgering me, and we can use the help around here. But there will be no cheek in my kitchen, do you hear me? No pinching my arse when you think I’m not looking, no chasing after my Sally, or I’ll show you the business end of a cleaver, I will.”
    “Madame, I have no desire to—”
    “Madame, he says.” Mrs. Hutchinson snorted. “Nice manners, but just see that you don’t.”
    “I have no intention of pinching you or your Sally,” he said quite honestly.
    “Harrumph! Mind that you don’t. Then again, iffen you had the brains the good Lord gave a goat, you’d skiddle out of this asylum as fast as you can.”
    “Mrs. Hutchinson!” sputtered Miss Langley.
    “Just giving the poor man a bit of advice, miss,” she huffed. “’Sides, he knows I’m teasing.” And when Felicity turned away, the lady shook her head and jerked her thumb toward the door.
    “I found it,” came Miss Thalia’s triumphant cry as she reentered the room, the aptly named Brutus at her heels. The mongrel reattached itself to his boot with a determined snap of his teeth.
    When no one else noticed his predicament, the ladies busy laying out the livery, he bent over to pluck the determined canine off his boot. The dog growled and snapped at this interruption to his afternoon snack.
    “Oh, look at you!” Miss Thalia declared. “Making friends with Brutus. Aren’t you a dear man.”
    If she’d known what he was thinking—that the dog would most likely solve their problems with the grocer—she might not have been so effusive.
    Miss Langley, on the other hand, had unfolded the silver trimmed jacket and was holding it up to survey it.
    “What happened to the other footman?” he asked, having no doubt he could find the man happily ensconced in Bedlam.
    “There was no other footman,” Miss Langley said as she shook out the jacket.
    “And this livery?” he asked, suspiciously regarding the jacket the pair of them looked determined to shove onto him with nothing less than suspicion.
    “Was our father’s.”
    He shook his head. “Your father was in service?”
    “Heavens no,” Miss Langley said, “a diplomat. ’Twas a costume he had made while he was assigned to the Russian court.”
    “No, Duchess,” her sister argued. “’Twas Nanny Jamilla who had it made for him when we were in France.”
    “Whyever would Nanny Jamilla want Father to dress up like a footman?”
    “I daresay it was a jest. You know how she liked to tease him–and she did have a fondness for footmen.”
    Miss Langley snapped her fingers. “Yes, now I remember. You are right. I distinctly recall Father being such a good sport about it.”
    Both girls nodded as if that made perfect sense, while Thatcher regarded the costume with newfound horror. They might not understand, but he had some idea what this Nanny Jamilla had in mind when she’d commissioned this faux livery.
    “I daresay it seemed a waste not to put it into use,” Miss Langley told him.
    Practical, and insane to boot. But he rather suspected this