The Duke Has Done it Again (THE DUKE’S ESTATES #6) by Jane Ashford EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: Jane Ashford
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 7 MB
- Price: Free
Sir Gavin Keighley stood at the top of a swell of ground and looked down
over Yerndon Manor—house, stables, outbuildings, and a bit of fenced
pasture in the midst of lands that flowed out over the Yorkshire moors. The
place had a grim look. Dark and weathered and overgrown, it had been
untended for years. The former owner had willed the manor to a distant
cousin, who had received it with indifference and left it to rot. The waste
and arrogance of it made Gavin grit his teeth. Estates, and the people on
them, should be cared for by those who knew how. He felt this as strongly
as anything in his life.
He looked at the landscape stretching out all around the dip in which the
manor lay. Some said the moor was lonely or barren, even frightening, but
he didn’t see it. He’d lived here all his twenty-six years. He’d run free on
his pony as a boy, camped out under the stars as a stripling, done his duty to
his heritage as a man.
Gavin loved this country in all seasons. Now, in late March, it was
stirring. Not the sweeping purple bloom of the heather that came with
summer, but smaller wakenings. Secret flowers and hidden dens. Asphodel
near the bogs, bracken on the slopes, juniper and cloudberry, nesting birds
and wild ponies. He didn’t see how anyone could call it empty and bleak.
He and this land belonged to each other. No outsider would ever understand
that sort of bond. That was why willing Yerndon to some sneering
southerner had been such a calculated insult.
And then there it was—a luxurious traveling coach was driving slowly
up the bumpy lane. As Gavin’s mother had heard, the fellow was arriving
today, the absentee owner deigning to show interest at last. This was not the
sort of vehicle they usually saw in this area, where one might break an axle
on a stone. There was a crest on the door panel. A liveried coachman drove
with a man sitting beside him. Did the usurper think he needed a guard in
Yorkshire? Well, maybe he wasn’t far wrong. Gavin had to admit he had a
fine team of horses, though.
The vehicle stopped before the house and a richly dressed lady got down
and went in. The carriage continued to the stables. Gavin watched and
waited. He’d been here all morning. A bit longer wouldn’t hurt.
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