Marguerite Kaye - The Lady Who Broke the Rules

‘What do you think?’ Kate asked.

‘It’s not what I thought it would be. I thought the home of a duke would be more … showy.’

She gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Just wait. There is gilt and gold aplenty in the state rooms.’ She urged the tired horse into motion once more. ‘The prettiest part of the grounds is to the north, which is where the main lodge is. The smaller one you can see leads to the Dower House. And through those woods there is a path to the village, where Lily, Giles’s betrothed, lives in the vicarage.’

‘Let me make sure I have this right. Giles is your eldest brother now, and you are next in age?’

‘No, I come after Harry. Ned was next after me,’ Kate said, ignoring the familiar lurch in her stomach as she spoke Ned’s name, ‘and then there is my sister, Phaedra, who is twenty, four years younger than me. Since my spectacular failure to make a good marriage, all my father’s hopes are pinned on Phaedra making her debut next Season but I suspect they are misplaced, for though my sister has the potential to be quite dangerously attractive, she has very little interest in anything but horses, and none at all in either parties or clothes, much to my aunt’s despair. My Aunt Wilhelmina,’ Kate explained, seeing Virgil’s puzzled look, ‘is a widow, my mother’s sister and has been at Castonbury since Mama died. Oh, and then there is my cousin Colonel Ross Montague, the one who has met Jamie’s wife. He also grew up at Castonbury with his sister, Araminta, but she is lately married. And Ross has returned to India … and very possibly ran off with his sister’s maid! And that,’ Kate said, laughing, ‘concludes the current history of the Montagues. I can see from your face that we have signally failed to live up to your expectations, and I haven’t told you half the skeletons we have in our closet, believe me. Why Papa thinks himself superior, I have no idea.’

‘Nor indeed have I,’ Virgil replied, wondering what the devil he’d let himself in for, but unable to resist returning her smile, all the same.

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