The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior by Megan Frampton Page A

but she needed Rose to know that she had an ally in the house. One without fur or buttons for eyes, but a friend, nonetheless.
    â€œI know we have just met, but I want you to
know that I will take good care of you. As your father will, as well,” she continued, making a promise that was not hers to make. But one she would enforce.
    â€œMm-hm.”
    It might not mean anything to the girl now, but it meant something to Lily.
    â€œRose,” she said, thinking about her own past, and how she wished just one person had asked, How are you feeling? “I know you just got here this morning. Did you get to ride in a carriage? I have never been in this part of London before,” except to walk through and envy its inhabitants, “and this house is so large. Will you help if I get lost walking around?”
    Rose nodded solemnly. Lily was opening her mouth to follow up with something else, something to help the girl feel more comfortable (besides a cat and a doll), when Rose spoke.
    â€œMama died this morning, and her friend said as how my papa needed to take care of me, and she put me in a carriage with two horses, one brown, one black, and then we were here.” She nuzzled her doll’s hair. “I miss Mama, but the duke said he would take care of me.”
    Lily knew she was the one who couldn’t speak now, her words choked in her throat. If only there had been someone who could have taken care of a younger Lily, she wouldn’t have had to find work in the only place she could. But her mother had just . . . drifted off after her father died, eventually dying, and there was no one else. Lily didn’t want
to drift herself. She wanted a purpose and joy in her life.
    Not to mention food in her belly. Rose was now engrossed in introducing Maggie to Mr. Snuffles, or vice versa, so perhaps she could sneak away for something to eat. “Will you be all right just for a few moments?” She was hoping she could locate the kitchen in no fewer than ten doors. If she was lucky. “And then I will return and we will discuss what we will be doing in the upcoming days.”
    â€œI won’t be alone, Mr. Snuffles and Maggie are here.” Rose said it as though it was perfectly obvious, they were right there, and they actually were, Mr. Snuffles now engaged in chewing on a strand of Maggie’s hair. It seemed the introductions had gone well.
    â€œOf course. I will return shortly.”
    As she opened the door, she spotted a maid dusting one of the many pictures in the enormous hallway and asked her to come sit with Rose, who accepted the maid—her name was Etta—with as much stoicism as she’d accepted being there at all.
    Relieved at solving that problem, she headed off to see if she could quell her starving stomach.
    She found the kitchen in fewer than ten doors, and was able to introduce herself to the cook and finagle a cup of tea and a scone.
    The cook, whose name was Partridge, was thankfully not nearly as stuffy as either the butler or the footman who’d brought the note. Partridge confirmed the duke telling her that Rose had just arrived and was his daughter by “one of them
fallen women.” And then the cook pursed her mouth in disapproval, reminding Lily once again what would happen if anyone discovered her own past.
    Not that she’d worked in a brothel, but if anyone heard “worked in a brothel” they would assume the worst. Because why would anyone look beyond that, to the woman herself? That all she had done was manage the accounts, as she did now for the agency, was beside the point.
    She had to make her own fortune, since her father had been so unfortunate as to lose everything he owned. The risk-taking fool. He hadn’t taught her anything about looking ahead to the future, or done anything beyond showing her just what kind of person she didn’t want to marry, much less be. The kind who just wanted to go off and do whatever he wanted,