Page 1 of His Wild Duchess
CHAPTER 1
“Lady Penelope!”
On the back side of Egerton Manor, Penelope dropped her horse off at the barn with the stablehand, giving her mare a warm hug around the neck before departing. She usually preferred to wind down alongside her mare, Fiona, by brushing her hair and feeding her by hand. It helped their bond to grow into something trusting and dependent. But on this day, Penelope had already promised her mother she’d assist in redecorating the Manor for the new season. The thought alone made Penelope’s skin crawl. The longer she could avoid it, the better.
Once alone, she yanked off her riding boots, running barefoot on the hot earth. Sweat trickled down her brow as she opened the back doors to Egerton, and even a few stray leaves wafted to the floor. Most days, she always returned home with a piece of nature tangled in her lengthy hair, twigs and leaves poking out like a thorny crown.
Freezing in her tracks, Penelope flinched, slowly turning to face the wrath of a perturbed housekeeper. “Mrs. Daughtry!” she gasped.
“Look at these floors!” Mrs. Daughtry gestured towards the dirt and grime that smudged onto the tile from Penelope’s feet. She waggled her finger irritably in her face. “I told them! I told those groundskeepers that they’ve got to plant something over that path you made out there. All it is now is dirt and mud from your mare’s feet!”
She and Fiona had made a path around Egerton Manor, and from how often she rode, the grass was no longer able to grow over the bare earth. Though she looked upon it with pride, she wouldn’t dare let Mrs. Daughtry see it. “Promise you won’t tell Mother!” she pleaded. “I’m going to head upstairs in just a few minutes!”
“After all these years, and you’re still trying to get me to lie to the Lady of the house!” Mrs. Daughtry, inexplicably tall and narrow, quickly stormed up to her, swiping at the leaves and twigs that decorated the floor. “Why can’t you behave like other respectable young ladies?”
“How can I when there is a world of wonder right outside our doors?”
“There is a world of wonder inLondon,Lady Penelope!” Mrs. Daughtry sighed, tossing the leaves out the door. “Which is something you’d know if you attended the societal seasons in the heart of the city.” When she turned back to Penelope, there wasonly pity on her wrinkled face. “Why must you insist on being a spinster?”
“Feeling bold today, aren’t you, Mrs. Daughtry?”
“Don’t act as if you don’t enjoy it,” the housekeeper grumbled, wiping her hands over an apron.
“Summer at Egerton Manor is like heaven to me,” Penelope said, turning to steal a glance back out the window. “When the weather is perfect like this, it almost feels like an insult to not go out and enjoy it.” She smiled at Mrs. Daughtry. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, Lady Penelope, I understand thatyoubelieve that.” Mrs. Daughtry shook her head at her, letting out a pitiful sigh. “Take a look in the mirror, and see how your heaven as changed your very face.”
Penelope crossed the room to meet herself in the mirror, and glistened with pride. “I see nature left its phantom kiss along my skin, showing the world that there is only one being I belong to.”
“And what would that be?”
“Why, the wilderness of course,” Penelope mused. She traced her fingers along the freckles that sporadically appeared across her face like constellations, as her mother liked to so graciously point out. “And I quite like the color of my skin now, in truth.It has a lovely amber tint, quite rustic. Like tea that has barely steeped.”
Even her hair, once a chestnut brown, grew red in the sunlight, the ruddy glow remaining even indoors. She pulled her eyes away from the mirror, not wishing to appear vain. “My days in the sun have allowed me resistance to its stare, Mrs. Daughtry,” she teased
“That is hardly the point.” Mrs. Daughtry pressed her lips together impatiently. “A letter arrived today from Her Grace, your sister.”
Penelope looked away so she could secretly roll her eyes, frustrated that the conversation always had to change to her older sister. “Alicia can send all the letters she wants. It won’t change anything.”
“I figured. Thought it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
Penelope gazed around the room. “Dear Mrs. Daughtry, where are my -”
“Beasts?” the housekeeper frowned at her, obviously annoyed. “Around the Manor somewhere. Poor Henry took them out while you rode.”
“Henry? The boy is terrified of dogs!”
“Well,” Mrs. Daughtry shrugged, “it was his turn.”
Penelope couldn’t help but laugh. “They are rather tame. I’m sure Henry is doing well with them.”
“You can call them tame, Lady Penelope, because they are obedient with you.” Mrs. Daughtry looked away, lips pressed together in a firm line. “For the rest of us, however…”
“You practically raised them as much as I,” Penelope argued.
“Doesn’t change the fact that they sneak food like minxy little children! Just last week, hunters came back with the plumpest rabbit you’d ever see,” Mrs. Daughter exclaimed, a dramatic hand over her chest. “When it was roasted, the smell was divine. Unlike anything else.” Her eyes narrowed. “Which it seemed the dogs believed as well.”
Penelope giggled, imagining her loyal hounds working together to steal the rabbit for them all to share. “I’ve always told you,” she said. “They’re quite smart.”
