The Bachelor Bargain (Secrets, Scandals, and Spies) by Michaels, Maddison (short books to read TXT) 📕

now appeared murderous rather than simply annoyed. Of course, her aunt was saying such things on purpose to see how far the girl could be pushed, and she had warned Charlotte that is what would occur. But she somehow got the sense that Charlotte had forgotten her warning.

“Good,” her aunt declared. “Be sure to convey the urgency of the requirement for new clothes, and that it is I who is requesting it be so, though I daresay when Madame Arnout sees the girl’s dress she will completely understand the urgency of creating a wardrobe for her.”

“There is nothing wrong with my dress, Your Grace!” Charlotte ground out from where she stood on a pedestal in the middle of the room, as if she were on exhibit, which Livie supposed she was. “Perhaps you need your monocle prescription checked?”

Demelza turned to face Charlotte, her back ramrod straight and her hands resting on the top of her cane, which she deliberately held in front of her, tapping the tip of it on the marble floor with a crack. “What did you just say?”

Livie knew that tone of voice, and it was not a good sign. When the Dragon Duchess used that tone, she usually flayed alive the person she was speaking to.

“I don’t mean to be rude.” Charlotte smiled tightly. “Though, if you can’t hear me properly, either, then perhaps you also need to get your hearing checked along with your eyes. Age can deteriorate a person’s senses greatly.”

It was now Livie’s jaw that was hanging open. Oh dear. This did not bode well for her bargain with Sebastian. If Demelza reneged, then the gazette would be dead in the water before it even began.

“You are a most impertinent gal!” Demelza sniffed aloud.

“And you are rude to so severely criticize someone,” Charlotte retorted. “It’s un-Christian of you, Your Grace.”

For a moment it had seemed as if Demelza’s jaw had opened for a second, but it was hard to tell, as now her lips were pursed and her eyes narrowed into thin slits as she stared at Charlotte. “Un-Christian of me… No one has ever dared call me that before!” Demelza’s voice rang through the house like a cannon.

“Perhaps not to your face,” Charlotte replied. “But if you speak to others the way you are speaking to me, then they most certainly would have called you that, and worse, I’d wager, behind your back.”

There was utter silence in the room, as everyone stared at the duchess, awaiting her reaction. Most of the servants were cringing in anticipation of what was sure to be a tongue-lashing Charlotte was about to endure, yet some appeared as if they were at a boxing match, completely drawn to the spectacle of who would win the round.

“Are you always this bold?” Demelza peered at Charlotte as if she were from the stars.

“I do try, my lady,” Charlotte answered in earnest. “One has to be bold to enter the domain of medicine. A domain dominated by men.”

A crackle of laughter emerged, almost rusted in sound, from Demelza.

Livie couldn’t remember the last time her aunt had laughed. One didn’t normally attribute laughter to the Dragon Duchess.

“Good!” Demelza declared after her laughter had subsided. “You will need to be bold to become a diamond of the first water.” Demelza glanced over at Livie. “She’s got spirit, this one. I like her.”

“I knew you were up for the challenge, Aunt.” Livie smiled at her.

“Humph. We shall see.” She pointed her cane at Charlotte. “You will attend here at precisely twelve o’clock every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, where I shall teach you etiquette lessons. Now both of you get to the modiste and leave me in peace for today.”

Demelza kissed Livie on the cheek, and then with her cane in tow, she swept from the room.

“Well, you were right,” Charlotte said, stepping down from the small pedestal. “She really is a dragon, but I actually like her.”

“I think you and I will be the only ones in Society who do.” Livie wound her arm through Charlotte’s. “Come along then, you heard what she said. You need an entirely new wardrobe and a particularly stunning ball gown for my godmother’s ball. It’s time to go and spend a considerable amount of your brother’s fortune.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“She’s dead.”

Sebastian glanced up from the paperwork on his desk, his whole body automatically clenching at the pronouncement. Rowan stood at the entrance to his office with a look of clear upset and frustration on his features. “Who the devil is dead?”

“The maid, Mary. And it weren’t pretty.” Rowan strode over to the side table and began pouring some whiskey into a glass. “Want one?”

Letting out a breath, Seb nodded as Rowan held up the bottle. He damn well needed a stiff drink after hearing those words. The same words he’d heard when his mother’s bruised and battered body had been discovered on the river’s edge. Abandoned but left on display to send a message to Seb.

He hated those words.

And for a split second after Rowan had uttered them, images of Livie had swam through his mind, a flicker of dread accompanying them.

Shaking his head free of the dark thoughts, he took the outstretched glass from Rowan’s fingers. “Tell me what happened.” He swallowed the amber liquid in one quick gulp, enjoying the warmth as the fluid washed down his throat.

“Lance received word she might be at Jeremiah’s barracks on the south side,” Rowan began. “So, me and a couple of our men went down there to find her. But we were too late. Someone had already paid the girl a visit and left her with a bullet in the brain.”

Seb carefully put down the glass on his table before rubbing his temples, mounting frustration starting to cause a headache. “And no journal, I’m guessing?”

“No. The place had been ransacked before we got there.”

“Of course it had.” It seemed all Seb had been doing of late was playing catch-up. And for Seb, such a thing was