The Irish Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t allow himself the luxury of believing he’d earned her respect or obedience. Like any heathen, she was simply enjoying the moment. He grinned back, and pointed to a stream ahead. Understanding, she spurred her mare to greater speed.
    They sailed over the trickling water, landing side by side on the boggy soil of the other side. Fiona’s laughter rang through the crystalline air as Neville’s gelding disapproved of the oozing mud and reared, but she paced her mount to his as they slowed the gait of their horses to cool them off.
    “That’s a fine animal you have there, your noble lordship,” she said without her usual mockery. “I wish Michael would bring in more of the same. Aberdare used to be known for its fine horseflesh.”
    “You don’t have to use my title, or your warped version of it,” he answered without insult. “I’m family of sorts, and you call Michael by his given name.”
    She shrugged and didn’t deign to look at him. “Michael is my cousin and Irish to the bone. You’re none such.”
    The coldness descended between them again. Fiona was out of bounds for the thoughts he was having anyway.
    “Ireland and England are one country now,” he reminded her. “We have the same government and have had for twenty-two years. Why do you continue fighting a war that’s long over?”
    “One country, is it now?” she asked with scorn. “And who’s to represent me and mine in your precious government? And don’t say Seamus,” she warned. “He’s a bloody turncoat. He gave up the religion of his mother to call himself Protestant so he might attend Oxford. I’ll have naught to do with his notions. Ninety percent of this country is Catholic and cannot hold office. I’ll show you what your wretched representation does for us.”
    She dug in her heels and sent her mount flying down the road.
    Cursing at ever presenting such a topic of conversation to the hothead, Neville raced his horse after her.
    They arrived in a lane of suspiciously new stone cottages. Neville resented every penny Michael spent, money that should have gone to Anglesey had Blanche married Neville as she was supposed to have done. But watching these women in their woolen shawls and unfashionable skirts hauling their pitiful belongings down the dirt lane in wagons and carts to the new cottages, Neville reluctantly admitted had he been in the earl’s shoes, he would have done the same. The care of an estate’s tenants came first.
    Fiona had a greeting for everyone, although she neglected to introduce him, Neville noted with amusement. Perhaps she believed he would disappear if she pretended he didn’t exist. He watched as she lifted a heavy parcel from an elderly woman who apparently had no cart. He didn’t understand the exchange of Irish that followed, but the old woman gave him a nearly toothless grin.
    His cousin Blanche had grown up on the estate and had always attended the tenants of Anglesey. Neville had come into Anglesey only when his uncles and father had died, and his grandfather grudgingly accepted that his despised grandson remained the lone heir. Neville had barely been twenty. Inundated with responsibilities he hadn’t been trained to undertake, he’d gladly left the welfare of the tenants to Blanche.
    Only Blanche didn’t live at Anglesey anymore. Now the burden of tenants and land and duty all fell to him. Without the wealth to hire enough help, he neglected more than he should.
    Reaching for the parcels carried by a young mother with two children clinging to her skirts, Neville contemplated whether Lady Gwyneth would take over the duties Blanche had abandoned with her marriage. He had difficulty imagining the shy woman as Lady Bountiful. She would learn, he decided optimistically.
    Ahead of him, Fiona deposited her burden at a cottage where she conversed in Irish with the women gathering around her. They accepted her completely as one of them, not as any Lady Bountiful.
    Neville frowned. Fiona was the