Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(29)

He shrugged, his index finger sliding along her skin. Along the underside of her jaw. He must have removed his glove at some point—perhaps while they were feeding the ducks?—because his hand was bare, so she felt his skin on hers. Sending a prickling sensation through her entire body. “People aren’t perfect all the time, Olivia.” It was the second time he’d used just her name—was he even aware he was being so informal?

This was not the time to remind him of their respective positions. Not that she wanted to, anyway. She liked how her name sounded coming out of his mouth. “It’s more important that you recognize your imperfection and try to do better. That’s all we can do. Do better.”

She swallowed, letting the feeling of his words sink into her bones. Do better. Two words, deceptively simple. And yet so difficult to accomplish. But it was a distillation of everything she’d tried to be doing since she recognized the inequality of the world. That not everyone was born a duke’s daughter, so not everyone had the privilege she did. And that that privilege didn’t mean she had more of a right to basic survival.

“Now what are you thinking about?” His finger was still on her skin, stroking back and forth on her neck. Sliding from her throat to just under her ear and back again, as though she were a cat. She felt like a cat, she wanted to curl into his touch.

“Do better.” She shook her head in agreement. “That is all I can do. Do better.”

How had they come to this moment? Come to this place where his fingers were on her skin, and she wanted them there? To where she was thinking about leaning up, up toward his mouth, pressing her lips against his?

He took his hand away, and she swayed toward him, missing his touch already.

“Well, we should gather Pearl and go walking a bit more toward there,” Olivia said in a bright tone, trying to make it sound as though she were fully invested in walking and seeing and being seen rather than in how much she wished he had kissed her.

There. She’d admitted it. That meant, unfortunately, she would have to discuss it all with Pearl, who would probably say “I told you so” when Olivia revealed how she felt now as opposed to how she thought she’d felt only a few days ago.

She had to push that aside to focus on what needed to be done right now. Namely, introducing Mr. Wolcott to enough people who mattered so that when he next attended a Society function he wouldn’t be entirely shunned.

“Let’s go,” she announced, beginning to walk to the more populous area of the park. Leaving the ducks—and her conflicted feelings—behind as she continued on her current mission.



“I took Lady Olivia and Lady Pearl driving today.” Edward paused to rub the nose of one of the horses on display. She wasn’t the biggest horse or the fastest, but she was looking at him with an almost earnest expression that tugged at his heart.

He had persuaded Bennett to stop his incessant work for just a few hours to accompany him to Tattersall’s. He had Chrysanthemum here, and more horses in the country house, but if he were going to make a showing for himself, he’d have to be suitably equipped in town beyond his mare. He needed horses for the carriage; the ones he’d driven out today were adequate, but not what anyone would expect from him, given his reputation as a gentleman who knew horseflesh.

And he well knew that any indication that he wasn’t the absolute best at what he was supposed to be would mean he would be lessened in everybody’s eyes. Never mind that there were often extenuating circumstances; nobody would accommodate them because of his birth.

“How do you decide?” Bennett asked, nodding to the filly, who was shoving her nose into Edward’s hand.

Edward stopped to think, chewing on his lower lip as he did when he considered something. “It’s a variety of factors,” he began, continuing to rub the horse’s soft nose. Her breath was warm on his skin. “It’s how fast the horse runs, what it looks like, its breeding. And something I can’t quite explain, just that I can tell when a horse is a good, biddable animal.”

Bennett regarded him with a wry look in his eyes.

Edward stiffened. “It’s not like choosing a bride, no matter how similar it sounds.”

Bennett shook his head, laughing. Edward resisted the urge to punch him.

The two men continued to walk down the line of horses in the pens for sale.

“How will you choose a bride, then?” Bennett’s tone was sincere, and Edward felt himself relax. He couldn’t blame Bennett for making light of the situation; he was only doing it to try to make Edward feel better, and Edward did appreciate the effort.

“I suppose it is similar, once I stop and think about it,” Edward admitted. He stooped to run his hand down a gelding’s leg, feeling how the horse reacted under his touch. “It just sounds so—unfeeling to consider breeding, appearance, and biddability as the primary aspects of a wife.”

Someone he’d spend the rest of his life with. Who would bear his children, be his partner in so many things, even though that was not what was traditionally accepted in marriage, it was what he wanted.

He didn’t want to have to worry about what he might say, or act like, in front of his wife. He hoped that, when he found the woman he might love, or come to love, that she would be someone who would be his partner. His equal.

Not considering herself his superior because of who he was. God, save him from that type of female, even though he strongly suspected most—if not all—of the ladies his father would wish to see him with would view the circumstances of his birth as beneath them.