The Lady Is Daring

by Megan Frampton

  “Those determined Carson-hunters,” Alex said with a grin. “It’s the unfortunate side effect of being so damned charming, diplomatic, and handsome. See, if you were more like me,” he began.

  “An enormously tall rake with a penchant for blunt speaking?” Bennett finished, grinning at his brother.

  “Ah, but now I am a tamed rake. I am only rakish with my wife,” Alex said, his eyebrows wriggling.

  “Forget that,” Bennett replied hastily. He did not want to know anything about Alex and Eleanor’s happiness in the bedroom. “The worst part of Father’s request is that he is simply wrong. There is enough money, if he were to live reasonably, for me to take care of everything that needs to be done. Your marrying Eleanor brought the family her dowry, and that should have been more than enough.”

  “He’s deplorable,” Alex said in his usual abrupt way.

  Alex was right.

  His brother turned to regard him, a questioning look on his face. “What if you were to just leave? What would happen then?”

  Bennett blinked. Just—leave?

  “I owe you, Bennett,” Alex said, his voice low. “Our family’s survival is only due to your hard work and responsibility. Why not let me take over? Just for a little while?”

  The thought hit Bennett like a punch to the gut. A good punch to the gut, but a punch nonetheless. That someone would offer to do that. That he hadn’t considered anybody could possibly remove his burden. But that his brother had.

  Alex continued, “You can ease up, for once, and it has the added benefit of making our father absolutely furious.”

  Because the marquis thought his second son was worthless. Alexander had thought that for a time himself, until Eleanor and her love had persuaded him otherwise.

  “I can’t.” Bennett’s words were clipped.

  “You can. You should.”

  Bennett shook his head, the possibility of it making his shoulders feel lighter already. But only the possibility; he couldn’t truly leave. Leave all of his responsibilities? Just leave?

  Could he?

  “Think about it,” Alex said after a few moments. “Just think about it. It would be my honor to step in to assist. You know I can, it’s just—”

  “Just that Father has never allowed you anywhere near the family management.”

  “If you take the risk, Bennett,” Alex said in a determined tone, “I will ensure nothing bad will happen to the family or the business. That’s a risk you won’t have to worry about. You have my word. Just think about it,” he repeated.

  Bennett was thinking about nothing else when the two men returned to Alex’s house so Bennett could say hello to his sister-in-law. And avoid going home for another bit of time.

  “The ladies are in the salon, my lord,” the butler said as Bennett and Alex walked into the house.

  “The ladies?” Bennett questioned.

  “Yes, my lady has been joined by her sisters, Lady Pearl and Lady Ida.”

  “Come along then, Bennett,” Alex said, a humorous twist on his lips. “Let us go visit with the only women who could be said are definitely not aiming their marital arrows at your heart.”

  Bennett felt his mouth twist into a smile. There was no possibility the two remaining Howlett sisters would be Carson-hunters. Lady Pearl could likely not slow herself down long enough to be courted, whereas Lady Ida would likely lecture him on all the ways he was courting her incorrectly, citing treatises and obscure Latin lectures to prove her point.

  The thought, at least, made him smile.

  Ida was nearly comfortable with her brother-in-law, but she felt that familiar frozen feeling when she saw his brother, Bennett, Lord Carson, accompanying him.

  They’d met on quite a few occasions, although Ida wasn’t certain he knew entirely who she was. But of course she knew who he was, him with all that thoughtful handsomeness. And not having married two of her sisters.

  She’d dreamed, briefly, of him asking her to dance. Finding her behind the pillar and escorting her out to join the others.

  Even though she did not dance. Insisting that was the truth made it easier when she was not invited to do so anyway.

  But Lord Carson danced. And often. She’d watched him, all his sleek handsomeness, his long, lean form evoking thoughts of strength and purpose. When he said something, it was with such determination and authority that nearly everybody stopped and paid attention.

  And not in the way people paid attention when Ida spoke; then people would barely suppress sighs of impatience, and she was acutely and sometimes painfully aware that they were simply not interested.

  But everyone was interested in what Lord Carson had to say. She envied that.

  “Good afternoon, Bennett,” Eleanor said, rising from her seat to take both his hands in hers and present her cheek for a kiss. She spread her arms to indicate Pearl and Ida. “You have met my sisters?”

  “Yes, a pleasure,” Lord Carson said, and Ida had to marvel that it sounded as though he meant it.

  Was he pretending sincerity? Or was it a facet of his ability to persuade? After all, he’d managed to persuade two of her sisters not to marry him, which hadn’t been difficult in Eleanor’s case, but was most definitely in Olivia’s.

  “Bennett and I were just talking about escape.” Alexander’s expression was sly, and Ida saw Lord Carson react, just for a moment, as though he were annoyed.

  Interesting. So he couldn’t entirely mask his natural emotions.

  “What kind of escape, my lord?” Ida asked, her innate curiosity outweighing her potential mortification at being found too boring.

  Bennett shot another glance at Alexander, who merely laughed, going to sit between his wife and Pearl, engaging them in conversation.

  Lord Bennett sat beside her, stretching his long, lean legs out in front of him. He was immaculately garbed, of course, with a well-fitted dark green coat and buff-colored trousers. He was clean-shaven, showing the strong planes of his face, and his hair was smoothed back from his forehead.

  At first it seemed as though he might not answer at all, and then he folded his arms over his chest and turned to look at her.

  Had he ever looked so directly at her before?

  She didn’t think so. The prickly awareness she had of him when he was in the room became more intense than it had ever been.

  It was likely all due to the unexpectedness of it. Nothing else.

  Not his whiskey-colored eyes, or how one side of his mouth tilted up, as though he were constantly suppressing a smile.

  Not that at all.

  “My brother and I were talking about the allure of just leaving everything. Of escaping all one’s responsibilities.”

  Ida felt her eyes widen. “Alexander isn’t planning on leaving—”

  Lord Carson started, his eyes wide, taking her hand in a fierce grip. A sincere and unexpected gesture that convinced her he was earnest. “No, of course not. I apologize for startling you, my lady.” He gestured with the hand that still held hers. “Look at them, have you ever seen anything so—so—”

  “Disgustingly happy?” Ida finished as she looked at Alexander and Eleanor, who were sharing a warm glance that indicated they were thinking of things that were definitely not teatime conversation.

  He laughed, releasing her hand as he did so. “Yes, it is that, although I would never tell Alex.”

  “I am the sort of person who would say something,” Ida admitted in a rueful tone. Lord Bennett looked surprised, but then his mouth curled up into a smile. Relief washed over her; he hadn’t gone so far as to acknowledge her awkwardness, but he hadn’t been disapproving about her words.

  “I have noticed that about you, my lady,” he said in a wry tone.

  Ida felt alternately mortified and pleased that he’d noticed.

  “But if you’re not terrifying me about Alexander’s future plans, explain more about escape.” She couldn’t help how her voice sounded as though she were longing, almost plaintive, and she strai
ghtened in her seat to try to regain a measure of her equilibrium.

  Hard to do when the most handsome gentleman of one’s not-so-much-acquaintance was looking at you. And not as though you were an oddity.

  “Escape.” He made it sound just as much of a long-held desire as she had. Was it possible they had that in common? “There is something so intoxicating about the idea that one could just leave, just walk away from one’s responsibilities, forget who you are and what you are supposed to do, even if just for a short time.”

  The idea was intoxicating, as he’d said. Ida felt almost light-headed at the prospect. As though she’d drunk a glass of champagne very quickly.

  And then reality hit her.

  “Gentlemen are able to do such things,” she replied, hating how pedantic she sounded, but unable to stop the creeping tone of lecture in her voice. “Ladies are not. We aren’t even given a purpose beyond marriage and children, much less the opportunity for any kind of escape,” she finished.

  It stung, to say it so directly. But Ida had never shied away from a truth, no matter how unpleasant, and she wouldn’t begin now, no matter to whom she was speaking.

  He regarded her with a thoughtful expression. Not as though he were judging her, or wishing she would stop talking, or even thinking of ways to rebut her statement.

  Just as though he were . . . thinking about it. As though he were thinking about her.

  Oh. That prickly feeling was like a monsoon of prickles. Not that that was an apt descriptor—it was a fairly poor one, if she were to be honest—but it felt that way.

  “Ladies are not given the same sort of consideration gentlemen are,” he replied at last, eliciting an unexpected snort from Ida.

  She hadn’t snorted. Had she? Damn it. She had.

  Wonderful. She’d snorted at him, which was almost as bad as lecturing him for hours on scientific method, the efficiency of gas lighting, or how she wished that for once people could eat dessert before their main course.

  Just because no one could predict the future. And desserts were more delicious than what preceded them.

  Because if someone could predict the future, if she could, she would have run from the room rather than emitting some sort of embarrassing sound in his general direction.

  He didn’t reel back from her in horror, however; in fact, his mouth twisted into another grin, and she felt an answering warmth inside at the sight.

  He really did look good, she had to admit. No wonder two of her sisters had at least considered him as a husband.

  “It was an asinine comment,” he said, a half smile on his mouth. “Forgive me?” he asked, and she nodded.

  And he could admit to a mistake.

  “But if you could escape,” he continued, this time in a lower, quieter tone, “where would you go?”

  Words and images flew through her head in a tumult, so fast she couldn’t even manage to speak for a few moments.

  Where wouldn’t she go if she could? If she had the same kind of freedom a gentleman had?

  First she would find Della. And then she could escape, free from any obligations. Far away from the constrictions of Society, from feeling as though hiding behind a pillar was an acceptable response to mingling with people.

  Honestly, it said a lot about how constrained she was now that even this conversation felt like an escape. A refuge from the usual discussions of the weather, a topic that always irked Ida; the only reason to discuss the weather was to decide what to wear or what to do, and most people in her world wouldn’t stop going to parties and dancing and drinking tea with one another no matter what was happening outside. So what was the point of talking about it?

  “I find that I am very interested in your answer, my lady,” he said, making her realize she had yet to respond. “You have the rare ability, in our world at least, to speak the truth.” He hitched his chair a fraction closer to hers, his eyes intent on her face, the expression in his gaze so obviously interested, and not judging, that her usual awkwardness slipped away, leaving her grateful for the relief.

  When he’d first met her, he hadn’t paid much attention to the youngest of the duke’s daughters. She was bookish, and firmly opinionated, and he had been too busy not marrying her sisters to notice her hardly at all, he had to admit.

  Plus there was her tendency to declaim on complicated topics in polite Society.

  But now those crises were safely averted, and now he couldn’t help but notice her implacable, disconcertingly direct stare. Her opinions, which were given without her apparently worrying if they would be well received.

  The way she made an inelegant noise in response to his ridiculously privileged comment. It was so unexpected, it was almost . . . adorable.

  Just once, he wished he could behave like Lady Ida was now and say something without having to parse it through his own internal critic. To be so open about what she wanted and how much she longed for something.

  What would it be like to long for something rather than long to escape from something?

  “I think, my lord,” she replied slowly, as though considering his question as thoroughly as possible, “that I would go somewhere that doesn’t exist.” Her eyes looked past him, dark in thought. “A place where it is acceptable to do what one wants. As long as you don’t hurt anyone,” she continued, her tone wistful, “it would be lovely to just be. It doesn’t matter where, just as long as it wasn’t—”

  “Here,” he said, finishing her sentence. “That sounds like a remarkable place, my lady.”

  “The thing is,” she continued, “we’re all trapped. And we know it, and we can’t get out of it. If we’re lucky, like Eleanor and Alexander and Olivia and Edward, we fall in love.” She shook her head. “But that happens so very rarely. It certainly won’t happen to me.”

  It won’t happen to me. Bennett had to wonder why she was so certain, but then again, Lady Ida appeared to be certain about everything. She should have been born a man, or at least given the freedom to do and say what she wanted, like a man.

  She could escape, and snort, and have the freedom to move as she wished, freedom he took for granted.

  He was surprised to discover he liked Lady Ida. What was more, he admired her, which felt much rarer than mere liking; she said what she meant, and she didn’t seem to care when her words—or her inarticulate noises—bothered people.

  She was also severely and gloriously beautiful, almost too lovely to look at directly. How had he never noticed that before?

  Her hair and eyebrows were as dark as her lashes, and her skin was ivory white, while her lips were dark red. Like the fairy story his mother had read to him when he was little about Snow White, before his mother had lost her energy.

  She wore a gown that was lovely, he had to admit, but it just didn’t suit her. It was white, and tasteful, and bland. She was vibrant, and fierce, and anything but bland.

  There was something so enticing about her, beyond her beauty, even as everything about her seemed determined to push people away. Maybe that was the allure; to be the person she let into her closely guarded space. As she was letting him in now.

  “You’re lost in thought, my lord. Are you considering your own escape?”

  Her voice intrigued him also; she didn’t speak in the same high-pitched breathy way that other young ladies did. Her voice had a dark, smoky quality, like the best kind of brandy drunk late at night after a satisfying evening of some sort of indulgence.

  “Envying yours, my lady,” he replied, feeling almost vulnerable by making such an honest statement. One that, were she one of the Carson-hunters, would be tantamount to an invitation to chase him across London’s landscape.

  But he knew she had no interest in him that way.

  Thank goodness. It was the only way he could allow himself to open up to her.

  “Even though I am a lady, and so that kind of escape is impossible.”

  “I am sorry,” he replied, meaning it. He had never really considered what it might mean
for a young, curious lady to have to be so constrained.

  “My lady?”

  It was the butler, who’d walked into the room holding a silver salver. “A letter has arrived. I thought you would want to see it at once.”

  Eleanor gestured to him to bring it over. “Thank you, Mullins.” She plucked it from the tray, her brow knitted as she turned it over. “It doesn’t—oh!” she exclaimed, unfolding the paper. “It’s from Della!” She glanced up and waved her sisters over. “Come, sit, we can read it together.” Ida and Pearl sat on either side of their sister, their heads clustered together. He heard Ida take a deep breath, her finger pointing to something in the letter, and she raised her head to look at her sisters.

  “That changes everything, doesn’t it?” She sounded as though she’d made a great discovery.

  The three were staring at one another as though in shock, Ida’s expression one of triumph and fierce determination.

  “We should go,” Ida announced, getting up and pulling Pearl up with her. “Eleanor, we’ll see you later.” She curtseyed to Bennett. “A pleasure to see you, my lord.”

  “And you, my lady,” Bennett replied, knowing he spoke the truth.

  “Good day,” she said as she and Pearl darted out the door, calling for their cloaks.

  Bennett was most definitely intrigued—by her, by the conversation, and by whatever was in that letter.

  Chapter 3

  Open the door for adventure. It will always surprise you.

  Lady Ida’s Tips for the Adventurous Lady Traveler

  “Let me see the letter again,” Pearl said. They’d hurried home from Eleanor’s soon after it had arrived, wanting to discuss what they’d found without the Carson gentlemen present. Of course Eleanor would tell Alexander, but it felt disloyal to discuss Della with anybody but the sisters.

  Not to mention the distraction of Lord Carson’s handsomeness making Ida all prickly, and unable to concentrate.

  Ida took the letter out from her pocket, where she’d tucked it for safekeeping. They were in Pearl’s bedroom—formerly Pearl and Olivia’s bedroom, before Olivia escaped the house through marriage—hiding out from their mother, the duchess, who was entertaining the good-natured, albeit not so bright, Lord Bradford in her sitting room.