“Yes.” Caroline nodded. “We’ll reveal ourselves at some point and show just how shallow the duke is. Then, the betrothal will be called off, and we can all go back to who we were before. What do you say? Please, Ally, please!”
Alaina halted, staring out of the window at the trees shooting by them.
I should say no. I shouldn’t even be considering this.
Yet she felt as if she was entering another world as she left London. Perhaps, out here, anything was possible.
“If it was just for a few weeks,” she whispered. “Then maybe … maybe we could do it.”
“Excellent! Now, take off your clothes.”
“Hey! I’m your friend; I’m not that sort of friend –”
“Ha, worry not. If we are going to do this right, when we turn up at the Duke of Peddleton’s house, I must look like you, and you must look like me. Come, it may not be long until we are there.”
Alaina considered arguing once again, but soon, her resolve took hold, and she changed. She pulled on Caroline’s fine pastel blue gown, and then they hastened to change each other’s hair. Caroline’s was dragged into a simple chignon, and they struggled with a lack of pins to hand in order to get Alaina’s dark locks into some finer updo, with a few loose long strands hanging down around her ears. Once complete, Alaina pulled the bonnet on again and then looked down at her clothes.
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever done,” Alaina said, her voice deep and wary.
“Not yet, it isn’t. Look, Ally. We’re there.” Caroline pointed beyond the window.
Alaina’s stomach fluttered with nerves as the carriage came to a halt on a gravel track. The door was opened fast, and Alaina saw the startled expression of the driver as he looked between the pair of them. He bowed quickly, retreating, saying nothing at their change in appearance. Alaina stepped down, her eyes darting towards the house.
This is no house. It’s a manor.
Broad and made of yellow stone, the fine house stretched wide in the green grounds. To the right was a formal garden spilling with flowers, their sweet scents noticeable even from here. To their left was a grand stable with a cobbled courtyard in front where horses were being led around, exercising.
“Ally,” Caroline whispered, following behind her. “You’re looking the wrong way.”
Alaina dragged her gaze away, realizing what Caroline meant as her friend stood behind her like a dutiful lady’s maid.
The doors to the house had opened, and a man stepped out onto the gravel road. With short auburn hair, a strong jawline, and wide-set eyes, he was strikingly handsome.
“Oh,” Alaina murmured aloud so only Caroline could hear her. The tall and well-dressed man walked forward. She hoped it had to be a footman, someone who was of her level, for he was so handsome; then she noticed the fine suit, the gleaming gold buttons, and the fine cloth of his waistcoat.
Oh no. This is the Duke of Peddleton.
Chapter 4
Don’t mess up. Don’t be like Gregory. I have to hold onto this life. I cannot lose this lifestyle and know the misery that Gregory knows.
Marcus kept this mantra repeating in his head again and again as he walked towards the fine carriage. It was all he had thought of as he had watched the carriage pull up on the drive: the woman arriving to meet him now was a means to an end, a way to keep his life intact, but then something strange happened.
As he neared the carriage, two ladies turned to face him. One was clearly the maid. She dropped back behind her mistress, bowing her head at once, and then her mistress stepped forward. This had to be Lady Caroline.
When her green eyes met Marcus’, he halted, quite in danger of tripping up on the gravel beneath his feet. The bold green eyes topped plump cheeks that were naturally rosy. Her full lips, the sort that painters dreamt of, were parted a little as she stared back at him. She was shorter than him but tall for most women, with a curvy figure that made the pastel blue gown hug her well.
With a suddenly dry throat, Marcus moved towards her.
Marcus recalled his old days, the days of his youth when he found it all too easy to go from one lady’s bed to the next, making love to different kinds of beauty, quite intoxicated by a woman’s presence. Lady Caroline was one of those beauties that he would have been drawn to.
She smiled up at him, a kindly smile that still made it all the more difficult to speak. He thought of her smiling up at him in different ways, perhaps down on her knees before him in his bed chamber or from the bed covers as he moved above her.
Stop it, man!
“Lady Caroline,” he said, clearing his throat as he moved nearer to her.
“Y-yes,” she stammered, then hastened to curtsy. She seemed to think the better of curtsying so low, resetting herself, and bobbing a smaller curtsy as he bowed to her.
