Griply

Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter 10

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Imbecile

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Burt reclined happily in the long pleasure boat with grandmamma as her manservant gently guided them across the centre of the lake in the morning sunshine.

“So you talked to that idiot maid then,” said Grandmamma.

“Yes,” replied Burt. “I did.”

“And how did she take your kind guidance?”

Burt raised an eyebrow. Grandmamma was smiling playfully. His first instinct was to be snippy, say something like, You were right. She’s nothing but an ignorant lazy girl who doesn’t deserve a kind hand.

Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter 9

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Meeting the Earl

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The next morning Ann woke up outside.

She was lying in a ditch with her legs up the bank and her head and left arm in its dank muddy bottom. She raised her head and saw the half-dried vomit down the front of her shirt and on her trousers.

She chuckled to herself and struggled over onto her hands and knees getting even wetter and muckier. She got to her feet and sidestepped, losing her balance as she realised how drunk she still was then fell through the side of a gorse bush.

Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter 8

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Diverting Pastimes

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After breakfast, Burt was wandering through the duchess’s huge town house, simply enjoying yet another day off from mucking out the stables and lifting sacks of grain. He was convinced he had the better part of the deal he and his beloved Lady Ann had made, even if he had written her a note to give her the fortnight off.

It still seemed incredible to him that he’d been able to write that note – and sign it with her very own signature; but it wasn’t the only change he’d noticed in his education. He was finding it easier and easier to discuss the arts and culture with grandmamma – something he never could have done before; and he really enjoyed it. He thrived on the intellectual conversations he was having now if truth be told.

Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter 7

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From Head to Toe

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Anne woke up with a stretch and a yawn. The hotel she’d slept in was the best she could find in the scummier end of the city of York. It was a bit shabby but the bed was fifty times more comfortable than her pallet back at Griply manor and there were no gaps in the walls and window. It was probably the best night’s sleep she’d had since becoming Burt.

Since becoming Burt…

Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter 5

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“I Am Who I Am”

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Lady Ann woke up feeling extremely grumpy.

She’d just had what had to have been the worst night’s sleep of her life. She’d staggered home pissed in the early hours of the morning, vomiting several times on the way home and then had to make her bed up when she got back to the hay barn above the stable. As a mere stable hand, Burt wasn’t given proper lodging. Now she was living his life she literally had to roll out his thin straw mattress every night and put it away in the morning. It was hardly worth the effort. She could feel the joins between the floorboards through the flimsy thing!

She’d tossed and turned for the rest of the night feeling cold, uncomfortable and queasy. Try as she might, at three o’clock in the morning, feeling like death warmed up, she’d been unable to block the draft coming in from outside in numerous places. And it was spring! Imagine how much colder it would be for the real Burt when the weather really took a turn for the worse come autumn. She thanked God she’d be back in her own warm bed long before that.

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