Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(51)



“Coming here. Bennett and the duke and duchess and Lady Ida and Lady Pearl and—” And her. “And Lady Olivia,” he finished.

“Yes, all of them. I am going to leave it up to you what entertainments we offer to the young ladies. I will take the duke shooting, and then we can have a hunt.”

His father punctuated his words with a nod, placing his hands over his stomach in apparent satisfaction.

I am not satisfied, Edward wished he could say. You have invited them here, her here, and she is the last person I want to see. Mostly because she is the first person I want to see, and yet she is not for me. No matter what you might think.

But his father was only following his own internal reasoning, and likely it seemed to all make sense inside Mr. Beechcroft’s brain: an attractive eligible young lady appeared to be intrigued by Edward, and so the two of them must be put into the same general vicinity so things could progress.

That was how Mr. Beechcroft thought about industry and workers, after all. And that strategy had worked in his business, at least.

But this was the business of the heart, to use his father’s phrasing.

“When do they arrive?” Edward was surprised to discover his voice sounded almost as it always did. If a bit more strained.

“A week or so, perhaps. Lord Carson wasn’t certain about the arrangements.” Mr. Beechcroft shrugged, the nonchalant gesture belying the crafty look in his eye. “I told him we would be here, no matter when they came. Since I have to stay here under the doctor’s care, as you told me.” His blasted father then had the temerity to grin slyly, as though he knew just how he had bound Edward up with his own worries.

Not for the first time, Edward stood in awe of his father’s prowess as a skilled negotiator. Albeit now he was negotiating with his son’s future, and Edward suspected that the results would not be to Mr. Beechcroft’s liking.

Nor to his—seeing her married to his best friend, having to watch as they exchanged vows, had their first kiss (although not her first kiss, after all), bore children, spent holidays and social events with one another.

Thank goodness he would be able to sequester himself in the country so that there was no possibility Bennett could invite him to any proper event. Though he knew Bennett—and Lady Olivia, for that matter—would refuse to bend to Society’s strictures and still invite him.

Damn it all. And not only was she about to invade his tenuous peace, but his father had orchestrated it.



“Lord Carson will no doubt enjoy seeing you in that shepherdess costume we packed,” Olivia’s mother said, beaming as she looked at her daughter.

They had spent three days preparing for the trip to the country, Olivia being called on to manage everything from deciding whether or not they had to bring the silver (“You know how I hate stirring my tea with a tablespoon”) to how many changes of clothing they all needed (“No, we don’t need our warmest clothing. It is spring, after all”).

She had been run ragged as Pearl played with the kittens and Ida looked on, unamused.

And now they were in the carriage, heading to the marquis’s country estate where Lord Carson would be waiting.

Waiting to tell Olivia he’d changed his mind? That he wanted to marry her after all?

What would she say?

“You’re thinking about it again,” Pearl said in a quiet voice, leaning in so that neither their mother nor Ida could hear. “You don’t know he’s changed his mind. You don’t know how you’ll feel if he does change his mind. You don’t know anything.”

And that was the problem. That, for once in her life, Olivia didn’t know anything. Not a thing. She didn’t know how she felt about Bennett, she didn’t know how he felt about her, she didn’t know whether or not she would get married before Pearl, she didn’t know what she felt about Mr. Wolcott. Edward.

Although she did almost sort of know. And that was something she couldn’t even admit to herself.

She felt so topsy-turvy as to be almost seasick.

“But why would he arrange this if he didn’t want to marry me?” Olivia asked Pearl for perhaps the hundredth time. “What other reason could there be for him to have his family leave London and go to the country if not to propose?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. Not that Olivia was looking at her twin to confirm that, just that she heard the huff of air that always accompanied Pearl’s eye rolls. And then there were her words. “Not everything is about you, Olivia. Lord Carson is very engaged in politics and the government and Father does have some say in things, even if what he says are mostly grunts.” And then Pearl giggled, and that made Olivia laugh too, and she forgot—for the moment, at least—all about whether or not Lord Carson was going to make her most ardent wishes of a month ago come true.

Even though those were not the wishes she had now.



“Well thank goodness we’ll be there soon,” the duchess said, sounding as aggrieved as if she’d spent ten days traveling in a farmer’s hay-filled cart rather than two days in a carriage upholstered in silk. “I am fatigued to death of all this bouncing around. You’d think they would have smoothed out the roads or something, how is this even civilized?” And then she glanced around at her daughters, all of whom were in varying degrees of trying not to laugh. Even Ida.

The duke had taken a separate carriage, since the ladies took up all the room in one. But he would have done that even if there had been plenty of room—it was clear he did not like spending time with the ladies of his family, which begged the question as to why he had brought so many of them into the world.

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