The Duke Sent Her His 3 Old Aunts for Winter — By Easter His Duchess Begged a Seat at Their Table

The Duke of Brackwell sends his three unmarried aunts to Coldharbour Farm with one trunk between them, boarding them on his tenant at four shillings a week each to be off his books by Lady Day. Maud Lowry, widowed six weeks and barely keeping her own roof, takes the sealed note in the rain and watches the eldest aunt faint on her step from hunger. That night, counting coins by the fire in her dead husband's coat, Maud decides the three old women will stay. Miss Dorcas cooks like a trained chef, Miss Prudence keeps accounts to the farthing, and Miss Winifred sings, and the four women turn a failing farm kitchen into the warmest table in the parish, feeding labourers, then the curate, then half the county for a penny a plate. The steward cuts their board money, and a stranded Twelfth Night party walks through snow to the only lit farm for miles. What will it take for the Duchess to beg a seat at a widow's table? A Regency romance about a grieving widow, three discarded aunts, and the household they built out of nothing. This is original fiction: every person in it is invented and a grown adult. Subscribe to Michaelmas Rent for more Regency stories.