The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(16)

What was wrong with that woman? She refused to give him a moment’s peace. She turned up like a shadow whenever he had the slightest opportunity to be alone with Lady Cassandra. She appeared to be doing it out of some misguided sense of friendship. Derek understood all about friendship, after all. Apparently, Lady Lucy believed she was being a bosom friend to Lady Cassandra, but if the bossy little baggage would only stop for one moment and actually think about what she was doing, she might realize that preventing her friend from being courted by a young, healthy, eligible duke—who wasn’t hard on the eyes if he did say so himself—was not perhaps in Lady Cassandra’s best interest. But Lady Lucy seemed so damn stubborn and sure of herself. He doubted she was interested in seeing things in any sort of a different light. It was maddening.

Derek had even considered approaching Lady Cassandra’s parents and informing them of Lady Lucy’s interference. Surely the earl and countess wouldn’t welcome Lucy’s plans to ensure their daughter did not marry a duke. But that didn’t sit well with him, either. He had the thought for the one hundredth time: If he couldn’t even handle one little spoiled Society miss, was he worth his title?

Perhaps it was true that Lady Cassandra was indeed in love with another man as they’d told him this evening, but that didn’t bother him. If the sop didn’t even have the wherewithal to court her, he stood little chance of winning her. No, it was Lady Lucy who posed the more dire threat. Derek stood, crossed to the sideboard, and poured himself two fingers of whiskey.

And to make it even more frustrating, Lady Lucy was too beautiful. The entire thing would be much easier to deal with if she had a plain face or a giant wart on her nose. Instead, when he verbally jousted with her, he was having thoughts that had nothing to do with wanting her to go away. Instead, they were more like thoughts about rolling around naked with her in his big bed. And that was altogether distracting. Not to mention inappropriate. Damn it.

He tossed back the whiskey. Tossed it back and allowed it to sink to his belly exactly as he’d done on countless freezing-cold nights sleeping outside a battlefield in a tent. He’d lived through war. One that had killed thousands of his countrymen. He’d led men through that war safely. No, it was not possible that he would be stopped by a stubborn little slip of a miss. Not possible at all. Regardless of the way she heated his blood.

If Derek knew anything it was military strategy. When waging war, you’ve got to know as much about your enemy as possible. He needed to discern what it was about him that Lady Lucy so objected to. He’d play her game on her terms for now, then turn the stakes against her. Obviously, he had to get past Lady Lucy to win Lady Cassandra.

And he knew just how he would do it.





CHAPTER TEN


Lucy made her way downstairs the next day to meet Cass and Jane in the drawing room. When she paused in front of the door, she couldn’t help but overhear a bit of her friends’ conversation.

“Please, Janie, you must help me,” Cass said.

“I don’t think it will work at all,” Jane replied.

“But I cannot possibly do it alone. I’m already forced to pretend that I’m a complete ninny.”

Jane snorted. “Yes. You’re even beginning to convince me.”

“I’m not certain how long I can continue to—”

Lucy pushed open the doors and strode inside. “Continue to what, Cass?”

Cass blushed and started at the sound of Lucy’s voice. Jane glanced away.

“Oh, Lucy, there you are.” Cass tugged on her gloves.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked. “You’re talking about the duke, aren’t you?”

“You could say that,” Jane offered, staring out the window as if the most interesting thing in the world were happening in the street beyond.

Cass gave Jane a stern look before turning back to look at Lucy. “Yes, we were talking about the duke. You’ll never believe what’s happened.”

Lucy crossed over to the chair to hug her friend. As usual, Cass was perfectly put together. She was dressed in a simple pale blue day dress with a matching pelisse, a white bonnet atop her head, and white kid gloves. “What is it, Cass? What has you so upset?”

Cass pressed her gloved hands against her pale cheeks, making solid impressions of pink. “I don’t know what to do. Truly, I don’t.”

Jane rolled her eyes.

Lucy sat across from Cass and patted her hand. “Calm down. Calm down. Now, what’s happened?”

Cass dropped her hands into her lap, bit her lip, and stared out the window.

“It cannot be all that bad. What is it?” Lucy prompted.

Cass squeezed her pretty blue eyes shut and then the words tumbled from her mouth in a tangled rush. “Mama told the duke that I’d go riding in the park with him this afternoon.”

Lucy snatched her hand away. “She did what?”

Cass tugged at her gloves. “I know. I know. He came to call and he was speaking so quickly and Mama was so enamored by him and … Oh, Lucy, all I know is by the time he left we’d all agreed that he would fetch me and a footman at six o’clock. What am I to do?”

Jane fluttered her eyelashes at Cass. “I suggest you tell him—”

“Shh,” Cass said, giving Jane another disgruntled look. “I need Lucy’s help.”