For Zeus was determined to regain what he considered his, and if he had to forsake flipping coins to beddable, buxom dells and palm his staff night after night, he’d do it and gladly. And he’d tell his randy prick to quit offering up complaints each time a serving wench brushed against his arm, or parts decidedly lower.
Juliet had been married, under protest, to an old goat who spent more time grazing beneath her skirts than he did tending his tenants. More time prodding between her thighs than he did taking his place in Parliament.
More time barking orders at everyone in his household—including her—than following his doctor’s dictates.
So, when the esteemed—at least in everyone else’s eyes—Lord Letheridge collapsed in a heap after devouring his third helping of glazed duck, Juliet did nothing more than nod, finish her first serving, and ring for dessert.
Oh, who was she hoaxing with that version?
Though Juliet might like to wish she possessed such strength of character, in truth, upon seeing her soused spouse slouch face-first into his ravaged duck bones, Juliet had shrieked, rushed to his side, and screamed for the butler.
But all of Leth’s vices had stolen the vitality from his viscerals, rendering him nothing but a dustman. Rendering Juliet, she’d dimly realized, free of his fumbling. But not of his responsibilities.
Now, some fourteen months and as many assorted disasters later, Juliet remained determined not to let Fate or fatalistic happenings cast her down. And she’d certainly had a lot of practice, given how a carelessly placed candle caused her very home to go up in flames, and how her father recently attempted to wed her to yet another titled old codger with no advance warning (only this one had the good grace to expire on the journey up from Weymouth, thank the saints). And again when a series of tremors caused the well to cave in at another estate, a shockingly sudden occurrence, and her with no funds to hire someone willing to “dig” her out of the resulting predicament.
After the well ran figuratively and literally dry, she’d retreated to her last remaining option and current abode. As had happened with a number of the applicants, she’d learned what often presented itself well on paper didn’t always convey in person.
Set amidst a respectable copse of trees and a good distance from any neighbors, the century-old home she now inhabited might be greeting her with falling plaster and broken hinges each time she entered a room, but just as they’d learned to tack the roof tiles back in place (the ones they could locate, that was) and prop the working windows open on boards, Juliet took it upon herself to shore up the spirits of everyone around her. As “lady” of the manor, she was determined to right the wrongs Leth’s spendthrift ways had saddled her with.
To that end, once her viable options ran as dry as the well, Juliet turned to the unviable ones, consulting with Leth’s rather haughty but surprisingly helpful solicitor and ultimately placing her advertisement. Only to have the disasters continue, with her lady’s maid running off with the head groom (and taking the few remaining horses with them), the butler fleeing for greener (and irrigated) pastures, and herself, hosting the most recent adversity directly upon her person in the form of a broken bone in one of her lower limbs, thanks in no small part to an unintentional altercation with several uninvited barking barkers.
Dogs. She might have liked them once upon a dog day, but after hobbling around on one foot because of the four-legged fiends, her opinion of canines had taken a decisively downward turn. She now prayed Providence would do the opposite, take an upward turn and smile—instead of smirk—on her today by sending the right man into the sanctum of her sitting room.
Not a single applicant thus far had come close to reaching the vision she’d created of a respectable and worthy man intent on delivering them from penury. And her from another marriage not of her choosing.
But that’s what came with having the misfortune of being sired by a man still mired in medieval times, one who thought he had the right to command her obedience in all things, regardless of her age. She’d witnessed that enough times with how he treated her mother. Despite no longer residing under her father’s roof, Juliet had no doubt if she were unlucky enough to ever land there again, he would assume absolute power over everything she did, and that was not to be borne.
She might not be a worldly, wise widow similar to the ones who enjoyed a unique freedom in sophisticated places such as Brighton or London once their spouses were gone (even stashed deep in the country, she’d heard stories aplenty), but Juliet was determined to maintain her independence far away from her restrictive, remaining parent.
“We’re down to the last two Mr. Hastings scheduled.” Making her way to the back corner after restoring her dress to rights, Oliva, known affectionately as Wivy, edged past the cumbersome partition and glared down at Juliet. “Are you certain I cannot persuade you to halt this mad scheme? Did applicant twenty-three not illustrate the idiocy in continuing?”
“You mean failure twenty-three?” Juliet couldn’t stop the shudder that convulsed her shoulders. “Wretched man. Taking his irritation with me out on you. We’re well rid of that one, I vow.”
The bounder! Exasperated with questions Wivy required answers to on Juliet’s behalf and enraged at not being graced with her ladyship’s presence immediately upon his arrival, he’d had the effrontery to snag Wivy’s sleeve and jerk her toward him, his fist raised!
At the horrendous action Juliet could easily observe through the screen they’d worked to strategically place so she could see through it, though the men were “kept in the dark” about her presence, she had burst clumsily from her concealed corner, brandishing her homemade crutch. Her burly footman
