The Lost Duke of Wyndham Page 0,45

heart, somewhat fair-minded.

"Just afternoons," the maid said. And she leaned forward, looking first to her left and then her right, as if there might actually be someone else in the room who could hear her. "I think she does it just because she knows that Miss Eversleigh is not partial to mornings."

Ah, now that did sound like the dowager.

"She gets twice as many afternoons," the maid went on to explain, "so it does even out in the end."

Jack nodded sympathetically. "It's a shame."

"Unfair."

"So unfair."

"And poor Miss Eversleigh," the maid went on, her voice growing in animation. "She's ever so kind.

Lovely to all the maids. Never forgets our birthdays and gives us gifts that she says are from the dowager, but we all know it's her."

She looked up at him then, so Jack rewarded her with an earnest nod.

"And all she wants, poor dear, is one morning every other week to sleep until noon."

"Is that what she said?" Jack murmured.

"Only once," the maid admitted. "I don't think she would recall. She was very tired. I think the dowager had her up quite late the night before. Took me twice as long as usual to rouse her."

Jack nodded sympathetically.

"The dowager never sleeps," the maid went on.

"Never?"

"Well, I'm sure she must. But she doesn't seem to need very much of it."

"I knew a vampire bat once," Jack murmured.

"Poor Miss Eversleigh must adhere to the dowager's schedule," the maid explained.

Jack continued on with the nodding. It seemed to be working.

"But she does not complain," the maid said, clearly eager to defend her. "She would never complain about her grace."

"Never?" If he had lived at Belgrave as long as Grace, he'd have been complaining forty-eight hours a day.

The maid shook her head with a piety that would have been quite at home on a vicar's wife. "Miss Eversleigh is not one for gossip."

Jack was about to point out that everyone gossiped, and despite what they might say, everyone enjoyed it. But he did not want the maid to interpret this as a critique of her current behavior, so he nodded yet again, prodding her on with: "Very admirable."

"Not with the help, at least," the maid clarified. "Maybe with her friends."

"Her friends?" Jack echoed, padding across the room in his nightshirt. Clothing had been laid out for him, freshly washed and pressed, and it did not take more than a glance to see that they were of the finest quality.

Wyndham's, most probably. They were of a similar size. He wondered if the duke knew that his closet had been raided. Probably not.

"The Ladies Elizabeth and Amelia," the maid said. "They live on the other side of the village. In the other big house. Not as big as this, mind you."

"No, of course not," Jack murmured. He decided that this maid, whose name he really ought to learn, would be his favorite. A wealth of knowledge, she was, and all one had to do was let her get off her feet for a moment and into a comfortable chair.

"Their father's the Earl of Crowland," the maid went on, nattering away even as Jack stepped into his dressing room to don his clothing. He supposed some men would refuse to wear the duke's attire after their altercation the day before, but it seemed to him an impractical battle to pick. Assuming he was not going to succeed in luring Miss Eversleigh into a wild orgy of abandon (at least not today), he would have to dress. And his own clothes were rather worn and dusty.

Besides, maybe it would irk his dukeliness. And Jack had judged that to be a noble pursuit, indeed.

"Does Miss Eversleigh get to spend time with the Ladies Elizabeth and Amelia very often?" he called out, pulling on his breeches. Perfect fit. How fortunate.

"No. Although they were here yesterday."

The two girls he'd seen her with in the front drive. The blond ones. Of course. He should have realized they were sisters. He would have realized it, he supposed, if he'd been able to tear his eyes away from Miss Eversleigh long enough to see beyond the color of their hair.

"Lady Amelia is to be our next duchess," the maid continued.

Jack's hands, which were doing up the buttons on Wyndham's extraordinarily well-cut linen shirt, stilled.

"Really," he said. "I did not realize the duke was betrothed."

"Since Lady Amelia was a baby," the maid supplied. "We'll be having a wedding soon, I think. We've got to, really. She's getting long in the tooth. I don't think her parents'll