The Unexpected Duchess (Playful Brides #1)(55)

Setting his wine glass aside, Lord Berkeley moved forward on the edge of the chair and placed his folded hands on top of the desk. “I wanted to … to ask you f … or a f … favor, Your Grace.”

Derek took a drink. “A favor?”

“Yes, Your Grace. It’s involving Lady Lucy Upton.”

Derek breathed in deeply through both nostrils. “Lady Lucy? What about her?”

“Well, Your Grace.” Berkeley straightened his cravat. “I am … you c … could say that I am quite interested in c … courting Lady Lucy.”

Derek narrowed his eyes on him. Where exactly was he going with this? “Go on.”

“I’d like v … very much to c … court her formally, Your Grace, and I … I n … need your help. If you’re w … willing to give it, that is.”

Derek downed the entire contents of his glass in one swallow. “You want my help courting Lucy?” Blast, he’d just made a mistake hadn’t he? He shouldn’t be calling her Lucy in front of Berkeley.

“Y … yes, Y … Your Grace.”

Derek eyed the younger man carefully. Seemed Berkeley had a bit of a speech impediment. It must have been difficult for him to come here and ask for his help.

“What exactly do you think I can do to help you?” Derek asked.

“Lady L … Lucy, she seems quite taken w … with your p … penchant for w … wit, Your Grace.”

Derek furrowed his brow. “She does?”

“Y … yes, Y … Your Grace. She’s mentioned it to me m … more than once. H … how you and s … she banter.”

Derek arched a brow. “She has?”

“Y … yes, Y … Your Grace.”

The man was going to have to stop calling him “Your Grace”; it was just too excruciating to listen to, poor devil. “That still doesn’t answer how you think I may be of help to you, Berkeley.”

Lord Berkeley pulled his hands back into his lap and stared down at them. “I was h … hoping, Y … Your Grace, that y … you w … would h … help me say the things I cannot say. That y … you w … would agree to write a letter to Lady Lucy. As if it were from me.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX


Derek took a deep breath before he knocked on the door of Upton’s town house the next morning. His meeting with Berkeley continued to play through his head. In the end he’d agreed to help the man. Perhaps he felt sorry for the poor bloke, perhaps he was in a good mood, or perhaps he’d decided that encouraging Lucy’s courtship by another man was exactly the sort of thing he should do to rid himself of his constant thoughts of her.

If Lucy married Berkeley, this entire twisted mess he’d got himself into might resolve itself and everyone would be happy. At least that’s what he’d told himself when he’d heard himself say yes and then plucked out a piece of parchment and scribbled down notes based on the things Berkeley told him he would like to say. The man may have attended Oxford, but apparently he couldn’t string together a witty line when it came to wooing a lady of his choosing. Poor bastard.

Regardless of why he’d agreed to it, Derek had finished the letter while Berkeley waited and sent the man off with the thing, all the while calling himself seven kinds of fool. And now he was standing here, with a fistful of flowers for Lady Cassandra, ready to knock on the door and get his own courtship back to rights.

Rap. Rap. Rap.

The door swung open. Upton’s butler ushered him into the drawing room. Derek presented the flowers, asking the man to deliver them to Lady Cassandra’s sickroom.

The butler showed him into the nearest drawing room where Derek paced, waiting for a note of reply. Flowers had been a good idea, hadn’t they? Ladies were in favor of flowers, were they not? His mother had always smiled brightly on the few occasions his father had presented her with a bouquet.

Lucy came tripping into the room, a wide smile on her face, intently reading a letter she held in her hands.

She glanced up and jumped. “Der … Your Grace?” The letter dropped from her fingers. She quickly bent down to retrieve the sheets of parchment that had scattered across the floor. Derek strode over to assist her.

He picked up one of the pages. Just as he’d suspected, it was the letter he’d written for Berkeley. Hmm. It had made her smile. That was something. Better than flowers?

She’d gathered the rest of the papers and he handed her the other. “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked in a shaky voice he’d never heard from her before.

“No. Not at all. I just sent some flowers up to Lady Cassandra and I was hoping—”

The butler returned just then and presented Derek with a folded crisp white note sitting upon a silver tray. “From Lady Cassandra,” the butler intoned.

Derek plucked the note from the tray, unfolded it, and read it while the butler took his leave.

“What does Cass say?” Lucy asked, hugging her letter to her chest and biting her lip in a most fetching display.

“She says the flowers are lovely and she regrets being unable to accompany me today. We’d planned a picnic.”

“Oh, yes. That’s really too bad.” Lucy buried her face back in her letter and turned as if to leave, but Derek’s next words stopped her.