Two Lady Scoundrels and a Duke - Tessa Candle Page 0,16
must be.”
What did this insufferable woman want? Had she actually come all this way simply to pick at old wounds? “I suppose you will have to find him, first. Best get to it and stop wasting your time here.”
Katherine pushed past Marie on the path and proceeded to the chicken house. She still had to remove the pile of leavings she had shoveled up the last time. Not pleasant work, but it would be worse for Marie. Katherine laughed inwardly. If the trollop insisted on staying, she would have to put up with the ammonia stink. Inside the building she found her shovel and a wooden bucket and began loading it up.
“Oh, I am sure we shall be reunited soon enough. Foxleigh must be buying a few gifts for our boy.”
Katherine took the full bucket and, resisting the temptation to spill it on Marie, stomped outside to dump it behind the building.
“Stay!” Marie retrieved a miniature painting from her pocket and followed Katherine, holding it out for inspection. “This is a likeness of our little darling. He is a real growing concern—so bright and full of vivacity. Foxleigh simply adores him, as you can imagine.”
Katherine turned to go back to the coop for another bucketful and the proffered image caught her eye. Though she avoided looking closely at it, it was obvious at a glance that the child was fair haired and blue eyed. He looked nothing like either Marie or Foxleigh. Katherine could not help snorting with disgust. “Do you mind stepping away? I may have to deal with another bucket of chicken filth, but I do not think I can stand one more load of your brand of fertilizer.”
Just as though Katherine had said nothing, Marie continued to follow her around, pressing a kerchief delicately to her nose, but prattling on. “Yes, he quite dotes on the child. We are planning a winter wedding you know—so romantic.” She clapped her hands together in a contrived gesture of rapturous joy, almost dropping her kerchief. “To be wed at Christmas, especially as there is all this snow—lovely!”
Katherine contemplated knocking the woman into the chicken poop, but merely filled her bucket in silence. Surely even a desperate harlot like Marie would eventually tire of the stink and leave.
But the woman followed her back out of the barn. “It will be like God is casting white rose petals on the bridal path!”
“Well, Dog has cast some yellow rose petals in your path already.” Kat immediately wished she had not warned the odious woman, who deftly evaded the pee.
She did not wish to hear another word about their wedding plans. But why should it bother her? Everything was over for her and Foxleigh. She had her own life to attend to. Yet it did bother her. She was getting very close to going back to the house to fetch her pistols. Instead, she took a deep breath of cold air and set her shovel and bucket beside the coop, returning to the path. She would simply lock herself in the cottage and wait for Marie to finally leave.
The insufferable woman followed.
Katherine swung around to face her pursuer. “I do not know how either your plans or the duke’s could possibly concern me. As I have no acquaintance with you that can conceivably warrant your intrusion here, I ask that you leave and never return.”
“I only came looking for my betrothed. Surely that is some justification for the small inconvenience.”
“If you wish to catch up with the duke, you are welcome to try, but when I last saw him, he did not speak or look like he had wedding plans on his mind.”
Marie’s smile was crooked, but her syrupy tone of voice persisted. “Oh, he is a very private person. He is sure to be thinking of me and his child and making arrangements to get back to London.”
“He rather looked like he was trying to get away from London, or else I do not know how he would end up around here.”
Katherine thought that Marie’s brittle façade of complacence might be about to break, but right at that moment, the duke emerged from around the corner of the path, a look of incensed disgust evident on his features. “She is quite right. I was trying to get away from London. And I find that the countryside agrees with me. Until very recently it had, among its many charms, the supreme advantage of being far away from you.”
Marie’s face turned very red. She was