Accidental Duchess

Chapter 1

London, 1866
Rachael O’Leary’s teeth chattered painfully as she pressed against the
driving snow decking London in a foot-high blanket of dense white.
Wondering why it was taking forever to reach the corner of Knightsbridge,
she looked up and discovered she’d inadvertently traveled in the dark into a closed-end mews.

“This cannot be happening.”

Her heavy portmanteau slipped from her frozen fingers and landed with
a soft thud in the middle of the dark, deserted roadway. As she collapsed
onto it, her brain screamed, Get up before you freeze! but her legs would
have no part in it. Her heart agreed with her legs.

No one would grieve if she were found frozen here come morning,
certainly not her last employer who’d discharged her without a reference
and only a few shillings to her name.
Since being tossed out of the Viscount’s stately mansion four days ago,

Rachael had spent her few coins on a shoddy tavern room as she applied for
every governess position posted in the London Times only to have door
after door slammed in her face.

Now, with her purse and pockets empty and her limbs numb, she questioned her wisdom in believing—clinging to the
fragile hope—that the tavern keeper would have taken pity on her and
allowed her to stay on. The hope had only gotten her lost.

And despite her current state, she still couldn’t bring herself to regret
hauling the Viscount’s wretched son by the ear down two flights of stairs
after she’d awoken Monday and found half her hair gone.

Nor could she understand why the viscount hadn’t sided with her when she’d brought his coddled boy before him.

Fresh tears spilled then froze half way down Rachael’s wind-blistered
cheeks.

Her poor hair.

Her once waist-length auburn tresses had been the only thing about her
person she’d thought the least attractive, but now they were gone, and all because she’d made a vengeful eleven-year-old study.

She’d wept as she cut her remaining strands in the hopes of appearing
presentable before going on her interviews, only to learn the Viscount hadmade good his threat; he’d made sure her undeserved reputation as a child abuser had arrived before her.
  
A dog barked, startling her out of her reverie. As she spun toward the
sound, the snow accumulating on her hunched shoulders landed with a soft
thud in her lap.
Relieved to find no dog, that the street was still empty, she brushed the snow from her coat with painful fingers and noticed that her footprints had already been obliterated by the storm. A sob shook her.

She’d done nothing wrong. Nothing, at least, to warranted dying a beggar’s death on a deserted street.

She’d worked hard to become a well-schooled governess, to keep from
living her mother’s hopeless charwoman life. To have her first position lost because of one spoiled child made her so furious she wanted to scream into the hushed night, into the amber glow generated by sulfur-laden coal burning in hearths all around her.

Hearths she’d kill to cuddle before.
Putting her back to the buffeting wind, she studied the stately houses
sending rectangular splashes of lamplight across the snowdrifts.

The homes appeared so comfy with their glowing windows and puffy white clouds rising from multiple chimney pots.

All looked so inviting except for one.
   
So where was that family on this miserable night? At the theater or
with friends? She’d lay odds they were warm and well fed wherever they
were.

And if they were only away for the evening, why hadn’t the staff
swept the stairs and kept a few fires burning to keep the house warm?
Her heart stuttered. Why, indeed.