The Duke Spoke French to Mock Her Before His Guests — She Smiled and Replied in 3 Languages

📚 Our first trilogy is here — three complete novels + audiobooks, written for our listeners: https://timelesslovebooks.com Sophia Bowwood had three languages, and nobody in England who wanted a single word of them. Widowed young and come home from Oporto with little but a copy-book in her own hand, she took a place at Falconcroft as companion to a nine-year-old orphan girl — and learned, in five months, that her chief duty in that house was to stand in a doorway holding a workbasket and say nothing at all. Then gentlemen came down from London, the table wanted a fourteenth, and she was sent for. Over the second course the Duke of Farringham — cornered by his own guests, and reaching for the one person at that table whose skin nobody would defend — told the company not to trouble themselves to include her. The woman had been abroad half her life, he said, and had come back with no language at all. The table laughed. And Sophia, seated at the far end by a deaf man's ear, set down her glass and smiled, and answered him in French. Then in Italian. Then, very quietly, in a third language she did not translate for anyone. What she said that night cost her more than she knew. For there were papers in that house concerning the child — a marriage in a foreign parish, a sworn translation, a name a great family had decided not to give — and Sophia was the only soul in England who could read them in both tongues and see what had quietly been done. What she found would carry her to a hearing in a cold London room, with everything she had left in the world laid open on the table, and a duke listening to every word. A tender regency tale of a woman whose one gift was the thing nobody valued, and the proud man who learned, far too late to be clever about it, exactly what he had at his own table. Sit back, relax, and let this story carry you to the candlelit ballrooms and great houses of old England. ▶ If you love slow-burn regency and historical romance and dramatic period stories, subscribe and turn on the bell so you never miss a new tale. 💬 Tell us in the comments: which city are you watching from, and how did Sophia's story make you feel? #regencyromance #historicalromance #perioddrama #dukeromance #broodinghero #slowburnromance #cleanromance #regencyera #widowromance #forbiddenlove #wrongedheroine #historicalfiction #lovestory #romancestory #narratedstory #bedtimestory #truelove #regencyhistorical #secondchance #oldengland Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events are entirely fictional and the product of creative storytelling. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental. This story and its narration are produced with the assistance of AI tools for entertainment purposes only.