How To Distract a Duchess Read Online Free Page B

mother’s belief in them hurt even more. “Those who know me can attest to my faithfulness to my husband, my dutiful mourning of his passing and that my bed has been cold as a nun’s ever since.”
    Artemisia didn’t feel the need to add that her marriage bed had been nearly as chilly as her widow’s bower.
    “Honestly, dear, you might temper your speech.” Her mother’s brows lowered. “Have a care for your sisters’ delicate ears.”
    “And have them go to the marriage bed as ignorantly as I went to mine?” Artemisia shook her head. If not for the frantically whispered explanations from Rania, her beloved Indian ayah , the mercifully brief coupling with her elderly husband would have been horrifying instead of just painful and embarrassing. “Knowledge of the world is the best defense against it. Delia and Florinda deserve better.”
    “Listen to you,” Constance said with a forced laugh. “As if marriage was a thing to be guarded against. You did well enough for yourself by it, Your Grace .” Her mother’s tone dripped acid.
    Despite the four-decade difference in their ages, Theodore Pelham-Smythe, the Duke of Southwycke, was considered quite a catch for a girl with nothing but precocious artistry and her father’s impressive fortune to her credit. Southwycke had gained a badly needed infusion of funds and Angus Dalrymple’s eldest became a “by-God Duchess.” Few could cross the chasm from well-moneyed nabob to the lofty heights of aristocracy, but the canny Scot had managed it by arranging his daughter’s splendid match. Artemisia looked upon the marriage as a sort of last request from her father and went willingly, if unenthusiastically, to the altar.
    “If you’ve no thought for my peace of mind,” Constance said with pursed lips, “you might at least guard your behavior in order to allow your sisters their chance at a titled match.”
    “There’s more to life than a title,” Artemisia said with a shudder at her wedding-night memories.
    For form’s sake, His Grace had visited her boudoir once a week. Those hours were most often spent playing companionable chess before her fire. Sometimes Artemisia read the latest installment of Dickens aloud while Theodore slipped into the light sleep of advancing years in his easy chair. The duke became simply “Teddy” to her in those quiet moments, and she mourned his passing as she might a distant uncle.
    “I’ll happily settle for Lady before my name, thank you very much,” Delia said with a dramatic flourish that was an unaffected imitation of their mother’s theatrics. “What more is there?”
    “W-well, what about l-love?” Florinda stammered.
    “I suspect love is over-rated,” Artemisia said. Love she was prepared to do without, but lust was another thing altogether. Artemisia was determined never to marry again and lose the freedom of widowhood. However, Rania assured her that the duke’s unsatisfactory performance was no measure of all men. Intrigued, Artemisia was giving serious thought to acquiring an experienced lover, especially since her session with Mr. Doverspike that morning left her with a flutter in her drawers that wouldn’t settle itself.
    Now at twenty-five, even with her title and fortune, Artemisia was firmly on the shelf, especially since her step-son, Felix, would come into his majority in little over a year. Once Felix took a wife, Artemisia would be known as the dowager duchess. That dour title fairly reeked of Epsom salt and stale breath.
    Would any man, say even a man like Thomas Doverspike, want to bed a dowager?   
    But until Delia and Florinda were suitably wed, her parents and siblings would remain in residence. And Artemisia preferred to take a lover to her bed without having to sneak him past the room where her mother and her increasingly delusional father slept.
    Since histrionics obviously weren’t swaying Artemisia into a more biddable frame of mind, Constance abandoned the pretense of tears and