The Devious Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page A

called away. Do you happen to know where he was headed?”
    “Polly might be able to tell you,” Anna said, again with that sly look on her face.
    “How would I know? You’re the one that serves the table,” Polly reminded her.
    “Aye, but you’re the one was having a bit of a private visit with him in his room before breakfast,” Anna retaliated.
    Polly glared and colored up briskly. “He did call me in for a word, miss,” she admitted. “He wanted to know if Mrs. Haskell had his laundry ready. He might have mentioned going to Bath,” she added, but diffidently.
    “Bath? Why would he go there?” Deirdre asked.
    “I don’t know, miss,” Polly replied, her face trying to look innocent. “I was just there a minute. He said he wanted to get away early, for it took more than half a day to get to Bath, and he had an appointment in the afternoon.”
    “I see,” Deirdre said. The only person she knew to reside in Bath was Lord Dudley’s wife, Adelaide. Her aunt had often conjectured that Sir Nevil was in league with this woman to wrest Dudley’s fortune from her hands. This news had to be sent back to Fernvale immediately.
    Anna had yet another item of news. “He told Mrs. Haskell he’d stop in again on his way back to London. She told me because I had to make up his room fresh.”
    “Did he say when?” Deirdre asked eagerly.
    “No, miss. If he told Mrs. Haskell, she didn’t tell me. She never tells me nothing.”
    Deirdre sat a moment, thinking about Sir Nevil‘s itinerary, but could make little of it. “Bring coffee upstairs, Polly. Two cups, but make a large pot. Mrs. Bates will be staying here with me today.”
    “Is the gentleman that was with you before back, miss?” Polly asked. Already she had recovered sufficiently so that a glint of interest was in her flashing eyes.
    “Yes, my fiancé is with me,” Deirdre replied.
    “Lord Belami!” Polly exclaimed. “I thought it must be him! My, he’s handsome. When will you be married, Miss Gower?”
    Deirdre softened to a smile. “Very soon.”
    “Surely you won’t be married while you’re in mourning,” Anna said, shocked.
    That was the first time it occurred to Deirdre that Lord Dudley’s death had come so inopportunely. She remembered Belami saying something about not having to wait for her uncle’s demise to be married. They little thought at the time how soon his death would occur.
    “Perhaps a very quiet wedding,” Deirdre said uncertainly.
    “After six months a quiet wedding might be all right,” Anna suggested. There was satisfaction on her thin little face and in her cabbage-green eyes.
    Deirdre had never liked the girl, and she was beginning to see now why that was so. Anna was resentful—of herself, of Polly for having beaux and just generally being pretty perhaps. The only person in the world who did like Anna was the duchess, and she didn’t so much like her as appreciate that she was a good worker. “We shall see” was all Deirdre said.
    “He didn’t look to me like a gent who’d stand around waiting for long,” Polly said boldly and laughed. “If I was you, Miss Gower, I’d snap him up quick as winking.”
    It was on this happier note that Deirdre took her leave. She had planned to give Polly a last bit of a lecture about having shirked her duties during Mrs. Haskell’s absence, but she didn’t want to satisfy Anna by doing it.
    When she reached the upstairs, Belami was just coming out of the dining room. He held a serviette in which he had wrapped some object.
    “What have you got there, Dick?” she asked.
    “Evidence!” he told her, and set the parcel aside on a table.
    “Oh, my, you would like to turn this into a crime, wouldn’t you?” she said, shaking her head. “But I’m afraid it’s no more than death from natural causes. Come into the saloon. I’ve ordered coffee and have some news about Nevil’s doings.”
    She outlined what she had learned from the servants, and before the coffee was