Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(55)

“I wasn’t, not at first.” He chuckled, the low rumble sending a sizzle of something through Olivia’s body. “But then my father fell in love with them, Mr. Whiskers in particular, and it is such a delight watching him play with them. I don’t remember the last time he actually played. He does his globes, and he takes time to look at books, but he doesn’t seem to have unadulterated fun.”

“And you?” Olivia asked, looking up at him. He had gotten no less handsome since the last time she’d seen him—those dark curls moving on his shoulders, his strong nose and sharp eyebrows making him look as dangerous as he was. “Do you ever have unadulterated fun?”

His sudden intake of breath let her know she had hit a sore spot. One she couldn’t resist poking again. She was suffering through the pangs of her own unrequited love, she didn’t see why she couldn’t make him suffer as well, albeit for an entirely different reason.

“Fun. Like when you take a walk without knowing where you’re going, or sing your favorite songs until your voice is hoarse.”

“Hunting provides a certain sort of fun.”

She was nodding when the words hit her—“Hunting? What do you hunt?”

He shrugged, and she felt his gesture in her body as well. “Foxes. Well, the dogs hunt the foxes, and we chase after them.”

“Foxes? I know that farmers don’t like foxes because they steal chickens, I can understand that, but I hardly think you’re managing poultry here.” She looked around the hallway they seem to have stopped in, her gaze taking in the various paintings—all clearly originals—decorating the walls, the delicate chairs lining the walls, the thick carpet under their feet.

“No, no chickens here,” he replied in an amused tone. “We do have your favorite type of bird, however: ducks. There’s a pond at the back of the house we can go to see if there are any injustices being committed.”

“You’re laughing at me,” she said accusingly.

“As though you haven’t laughed at me?” he said, arching one of those dark eyebrows at her.

“That was different! Because—because—”

“Because it was you, and you are a duke’s daughter? A lady who should never be viewed as anything but a lady?” He stepped in close to her, so close she could see his dark pupils, see the faint lines at the edges of his eyes. “I see you as a woman, Olivia, like it or not.” His words skittered over her skin, making it feel as though he were touching her. Burrowing inside her. A woman. She didn’t know what it would be like to be just a woman.

He reached his fingers up and smoothed the hair next to her ear, his finger brushing her skin. She trembled. Not with his touch, although that was an element of it; but at his assertion that he saw her entirely differently from everyone else.

Was that why she had fallen in love with him?

“I am a woman,” she said, lifting her chin as she spoke. A movement that brought her mouth closer to his, which she wasn’t certain was intentional or not. “I am a woman who is more and less than a duke’s daughter.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “And I can’t believe nobody has ever seen me before. But you have.”

“I have,” he said, murmuring low, so softly she could barely hear him. “That’s why I wish you hadn’t come here. It’s—it’s impossible to see you, to be near you, without—”

“Without what?” she asked, now deliberately lifting her feet so she stood on her toes, enabling her face to get that much closer to his.

So what if Lord Carson was on his way here to propose? So what if Edward was the illegitimate son of a merchant who had the extreme good fortune of having good taste? What mattered was right here, right now.

“The library,” he said in a husky voice, nodding over her head. Before she did something stupid, like kiss him again. He doesn’t want you to kiss him again, a voice yelled in her head.

Mortified, she turned to see her sisters and Mr. Beechcroft within, Pearl and Ida standing over a desk that looked as though it was Mr. Beechcroft’s globe-making desk, and Mr. Beechcroft himself looking directly at them.

What would have happened if she had acted on her impulses and kissed him? Mr. Beechcroft would have seen, which would mean that Ida and Pearl would have seen, and then Edward would have had to propose, even though he didn’t want to, and she couldn’t allow him to. Lord Carson would be devastated, and her parents would never allow her to leave the house.

It was a very good thing he didn’t want to kiss her after all. That kiss might have entirely ruined her life.





Chapter 18




Say what you mean. Unless what you mean will upend your entire life. In which case, you should probably shout.

Lady Olivia’s Particular Guide to Being Reckless



Having her here, right beside him, was nearly too much. Nearly. She looked even better and brighter than he’d recalled, her expression constantly curious, her mere presence making it feel as though his world was off-balance. It was odd to see her here in his home; she’d visited the London town house, of course, but that wasn’t where he lived, the place that he felt connected to.

But he did feel that here. He’d been brought here after his mother died, when his father claimed him, and he’d come to know the place as home. It was large, it was extravagant, it was a physical display of his father’s business acumen, and he loved it.