The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(54)

Jane almost hid her smile behind the edge of Wollstonecraft.

Lucy pointed at Jane. “Why can’t Jane do it?”

Jane pulled the book away from her lips. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who has history with the man. We can’t confuse him by tossing a third lady into the equation.”

Cass leaned back against her pillow and sneezed into her handkerchief. “Lucy, you know he’s used to you.”

Lucy gulped. You could say that.

“He’s been around you as much as he’s been around me,” Cass continued.

Uh, he’s been a bit more around me, to be honest.

“You two may not be friends, per se, but I think he’d appreciate you keeping him apprised of my condition. We’d talked about going on a picnic. Seeing the ruins. Things like that.”

Lucy tapped on the embroidery frame. “And you can do all those things, Cass. Just as soon as you’re feeling better.”

Cass smoothed a hand over her bed-mussed hair. “It’s most unfortunate that I’ve been taken ill. I feel horribly guilty about it.”

Guilty? Lucy swallowed. She knew all about guilty. “What have you to feel guilty for, Cass?”

Cass shook her head. “The way I treated the duke up till now. I’ve been so rude.”

Lucy leaned forward in her chair and rubbed her hands over her eyes. “No, I was the rude one.”

“But only at my request.” Cass sneezed daintily into her handkerchief.

“It doesn’t matter, Cass. I’m certain he’s pleased that you’re willing to speak with him now,” Lucy replied.

“But I’m worried that he’ll become disinterested,” Cass replied. “Find someone else to court if I’m ill for too long.”

“If he finds someone else to court, he doesn’t deserve you,” Jane added. “Remember, Mary Wollstonecraft said, ‘Women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions which men think it manly to pay to the sex, when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.’”

Lucy nodded. “Absolutely. Jane’s right. Perhaps it’s better if you let him go.”

“I know. I know,” Cass agreed. “But after the way I’ve treated him, I’d feel so much better if you’d agree to keep him company, Lucy. Please? Besides, it can’t hurt Lord Berkeley to believe he has a bit of competition.”

Lucy glanced at Jane and gave her a pleading look. Lucy couldn’t say yes to this. Couldn’t put herself in the path of more temptation with the duke again. Could she? Was she strong enough?

Jane shrugged. “You might as well agree to it, Luce. Something tells me Cass doesn’t intend to stop until you do.”

“No,” Cass agreed, a smile on her face. “I won’t.”

Lucy nearly whimpered. “Very well, Cass. I’ll keep the duke company for you.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


Derek was sitting in the study going over ledgers. The accounts for the lands he’d been granted as part of his dukedom were a bloody mess. Someone with absolutely no head for figures had been handling them to date. Derek had already dismissed the steward and hired a new solicitor to help him run things, but he intended to work through every single figure himself. Damn noblemen and their damn unwillingness to manage their own affairs. Why, the last owner had been robbed half blind. But far be it from an aristocrat to actually see to his own business. Derek would see to it, and put it all to rights before he allowed anyone else to so much as touch a page of the ledger.

A knock at the door made him glance up. “Come in.”

Hughes stood there, his back ramrod-straight as usual. “Your Grace, you have a visitor.”

A visitor? Was it Lucy? Somehow he doubted it, but just the thought of having her in his house again made him shift uncomfortably in his suddenly too-tight breeches. “Who is it, Hughes?”

“A Lord Berkeley, Your Grace. He asks for a moment of your time.”

Derek tossed his quill atop the ledger and sat back in his chair, clasping both hands behind his head. Berkeley? What the devil? That made no sense at all. “Is he alone, Hughes?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Show him in.”

Derek narrowed his eyes on the far wall of his study. What could Berkeley possibly want with him?

Hughes returned in a mere minute with the man in question. After ushering him into the study, the butler pulled the door shut.

Berkeley bowed to Derek. “Your Grace, thank you for seeing me.”

“Come in, Berkeley. Have a seat.”

Berkeley made his way over to Derek’s desk and sat in one of the two large leather chairs in front of it. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Derek stood and strolled over to the sideboard where he splashed a bit of brandy into a glass. “Care for a drink, Berkeley?”

“No, thank you, Your Grace. I don’t consume spirits stronger than a bit of wine.”

Derek arched a brow at the sideboard at that news. “You don’t mind if I have a brandy, do you?”

“Not at all.”

Good. He could tell he was going to need it. He swiped the glass from the tabletop, tossed a bit of wine into another glass for Berkeley, handed it to him, and crossed back over to his desk where he took a seat. “Tell me, Berkeley. What brings you here?”