Lady Bridget's Diary (Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #1)(44)

Bridget tried to take a page from his book and adopt what she hoped was an inscrutable expression. Darcy and Lady Francesca were perfect together: they knew all the rules of society and had no trouble obeying them. But she wondered what Francesca would think of Darcy visiting with her misfit family. How would Francesca feel if she knew her intended was kissing another woman . . . a girl like her. She probably wouldn’t like it at all.

“Pardon me if I will refrain from gossiping about my personal affairs,” he said diplomatically, which only fanned the flames of Bridget’s curiosity.

“I ask only because I have three girls to get married off,” the duchess said, as if it were the cruelest hardship imaginable.

“I will never marry,” Amelia said dramatically.

“What happened yesterday?” Claire asked.

“Nothing,” Amelia declared. “Everything.”

Well, that summed it up quite nicely, Bridget thought.

Things I dislike about Dreadful Darcy

I can never tell what the man is thinking. This is especially vexing after our passionate kiss. But then again, I don’t even know what I am thinking! Why, I’m still in love with Rupert . . . right?

Rupert, who might have spent the whole day gallivanting and doing God knows what with my sister.

Lady Bridget’s Diary

Darcy had taken his leave of the ladies when he encountered the duke in the foyer. He’d just been out for a long horseback ride and invited Darcy to join him for a drink.

They settled into the library, a masculine space with chairs of the proper size, unlike the delicate twigs and pillows called chairs in the drawing room. The late duke had left an excellent whiskey and they enjoyed it now.

“I came to see how yesterday’s situation resolved,” Darcy began.

“Amelia returned on her own last night,” Durham answered. “She’s fine. Cut her hair.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I hadn’t either. But all the women did and there was a fit of hysterics about it. Which is something I happen to be used to. It’s why I have aged beyond my years.” The duke took a sip of his drink and closed his eyes. “You don’t have sisters, do you?”

“Just one brother.”

“Thank God that you don’t have sisters,” the duke said, though Darcy had the distinct impression he adored his. “They are a plague upon a man’s sanity.”

“I can imagine,” Darcy murmured, thinking of how Lady Bridget was a plague upon his sanity and self--restraint.

“One minute they are begging you to take them to England so they can wear pretty dresses and be called lady and be fancy. And once you bring them halfway around the world, one of them runs away and all of them want to go back to America.”

Lady Bridget wanted to leave England? It made sense; she had struggled to fit in, thanks to people like him who had resented their difference because it made him examine his own behavior. Darcy sipped his drink and refused to consider why he felt something that might be labeled alarm at the prospect of her leaving.

“What does it matter what they want?”

“Spoken by a man who does not have sisters,” the duke said, laughing. The dukedom might be an awesome responsibility, but he imagined it paled in contrast to shepherding three beautiful, unruly sisters through life.

“I see that you care greatly for them.”

“I’d do anything for them.” He sighed. “And that’s the problem.”

Darcy understood perfectly. Too perfectly.

He thought of his own brother, and the delicate and dangerous situation he found himself in. Blackmail for unnatural acts was no laughing matter, and it wasn’t something that could be swept aside easily, like trifling gaming debts or arriving drunk to Almack’s.

They would stop the blackmailer. And they would have to stop any rumors. A wife was the perfect cover. Especially a wife like Lady Bridget, whom Rupert did care for and who adored him.

Never mind that Darcy was stricken with the urge to say no and slam his fist down when he thought about it. He had kissed her and it had done something to him; it had unlocked the box where he ruthlessly shoved anything like feelings, and now they threatened to burst out, spill over, and wreak havoc on his life.

And he could not imagine a greater torture than seeing her as his brother’s wife. His brother, who would probably never kiss her the way Darcy had done.

But he wouldn’t stop the match either.

From their earliest days, Darcy always looked out for his younger brother. It had always been his role to explain away the problems, or take the punishment for his little brother, or help him in whatever scrapes he got into as a young man. That bond and those roles had only strengthened as the years passed. Rupert was his only family.

That would not change now.

“I hope your brother is not as much trouble as my three sisters,” Durham said. He had no idea.

“Not for lack of trying,” Darcy said dryly. “How are you settling in?”

“I think you’re the only person to ask me that who is interested in a truthful answer. This duke business is something else. Complaints from tenants I’ve never met, repairs needed on estates I’ve never been to, absurd social rules that I need to know, the pressure to wed—-and not for pleasure but for business. Much more complicated than horses.”