Lady Be Reckless

by Megan Frampton

  “Mr. Whiskers is likely sleeping on my father’s chair, while Scamp is terrorizing my hunting dogs.” Edward sounded both indulgent and disgruntled, which made Olivia want to giggle.

  “I would like to see your library, sir,” Ida said bluntly. “And if Mr. Whiskers is there, I imagine Pearl and Olivia would like to as well.”

  “No tea, then?” Mr. Beechcroft said.

  “I need to rest,” the duchess said, standing up from her chair. Her lady’s maid, who’d been discreetly waiting behind her, bustled up to rewrap the duchess’s shawl around her shoulders. “I look forward to seeing what entertainment you have planned for tomorrow, Mr. Beechcroft.” She paused, a tiny frown creasing between her eyebrows. “You haven’t mentioned if the duke has arrived.”

  “Not yet, Your Grace,” Mr. Beechcroft said. Olivia felt guilty for being relieved he knew the correct way to address her mother, and then berated herself again for being a snob.

  “He might have stayed in the village. The Four-in-Hand Arms is quite a tidy little inn.”

  The duchess’s reply was a sniff, indicating much more than mere words could. Namely, that the duke would never stay at an establishment where common people could be found. Olivia wondered just how her mother had talked him into this trip. Or perhaps he, like her, thought they were going to the marquis’s estate?

  What if he was there now? She felt her eyes widen at the thought. If it was only Lord Carson here, he couldn’t properly propose, not without her father in attendance.

  She hoped her father was just as mistaken as she had been, although she felt for the poor staff at the marquis’s estate, which was not expecting anyone for a visit.

  But if it kept Lord Carson from making good on the implicit promise found in his having arranged this trip, she would try not to feel too bad.

  The duchess and her maid left the room, the duchess still remarking on how surprisingly nice she found Mr. Beechcroft’s estate.

  “Did she think we’d have workers on machines in the ballroom? Or perhaps piles of money lying around in the hallway waiting to be counted?” Edward said, low in her ear. She could tell he was joking, only—

  “It’s entirely possible,” she replied with a sigh. “Mother is not the most diplomatic of people.”

  “Duchesses seldom have to be,” he said. “But you didn’t think that. That’s all that matters.”

  No, I didn’t. But then again, I didn’t have time to think about it, since I hadn’t known we were coming here.

  Olivia waited as Mr. Beechcroft took Ida’s and Pearl’s arms to lead them to the library. She didn’t miss Mr. Beechcroft’s sly look as she stood beside Edward, and she wished she could tell him he was completely misguided. There was no way she and Edward would ever—he wouldn’t, he had his father to take care of, and not only that, her parents would never accept him as a suitor, and she—

  She loved him.

  No, wait. She loved him? Oh no, that was the worst possible thing that could have happened. She felt her knees buckle as her thoughts struck her, and he grabbed her wrist to hold her up before she fell.

  “Are you all right?” The concern in his voice—like when he had followed her out of the dining room after that embarrassing moment—made her want to weep. Even though she was not a woman who wept. That he was worried about her when he was the bastard, the one whom Society would never accept, the one who was being asked to marry, preferably a woman who wouldn’t look down on him.

  “I am fine, thank you, Mr. Wolcott.” Her throat felt thick with emotion. With love.

  Dear lord. What was she going to do?

  “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for the kittens.” He held her arm as they walked slowly down the hallway. He sounded sincere, which surprised her.

  “I got the impression you weren’t all that happy with me giving them to you,” Olivia replied, trying not to just say everything she was feeling—I think I’ve fallen in love with you, in fact I know I have—instead of talking about kittens and tea and perhaps later on the likelihood of rain.

  Exciting topics that were—except for the kittens—perfectly acceptable in Society.

  “I wasn’t, not at first.” He chuckled, the low rumble sending a sizzle of something through Olivia’s body. “But then my father fell in love with them, Mr. Whiskers in particular, and it is such a delight watching him play with them. I don’t remember the last time he actually played. He does his globes, and he takes time to look at books, but he doesn’t seem to have unadulterated fun.”

  “And you?” Olivia asked, looking up at him. He had gotten no less handsome since the last time she’d seen him—those dark curls moving on his shoulders, his strong nose and sharp eyebrows making him look as dangerous as he was. “Do you ever have unadulterated fun?”

  His sudden intake of breath let her know she had hit a sore spot. One she couldn’t resist poking again. She was suffering through the pangs of her own unrequited love, she didn’t see why she couldn’t make him suffer as well, albeit for an entirely different reason.

  “Fun. Like when you take a walk without knowing where you’re going, or sing your favorite songs until your voice is hoarse.”

  “Hunting provides a certain sort of fun.”

  She was nodding when the words hit her—“Hunting? What do you hunt?”

  He shrugged, and she felt his gesture in her body as well. “Foxes. Well, the dogs hunt the foxes, and we chase after them.”

  “Foxes? I know that farmers don’t like foxes because they steal chickens, I can understand that, but I hardly think you’re managing poultry here.” She looked around the hallway they seemed to have stopped in, her gaze taking in the various paintings—all clearly originals—decorating the walls, the delicate chairs lining the walls, the thick carpet under their feet.

  “No, no chickens here,” he replied in an amused tone. “We do have your favorite type of bird, however: ducks. There’s a pond at the back of the house we can go to see if there are any injustices being committed.”

  “You’re laughing at me,” she said accusingly.

  “As though you haven’t laughed at me?” he said, arching one of those dark eyebrows at her.

  “That was different! Because—because—”

  “Because it was you, and you are a duke’s daughter? A lady who should never be viewed as anything but a lady?” He stepped in close to her, so close she could see his dark pupils, see the faint lines at the edges of his eyes. “I see you as a woman, Olivia, like it or not.” His words skittered over her skin, making it feel as though he were touching her. Burrowing inside her. A woman. She didn’t know what it would be like to be just a woman.

  He reached his fingers up and smoothed the hair next to her ear, his finger brushing her skin. She trembled. Not with his touch, although that was an element of it; but at his assertion that he saw her entirely differently from everyone else.

  Was that why she had fallen in love with him?

  “I am a woman,” she said, lifting her chin as she spoke. A movement that brought her mouth closer to his, which she wasn’t certain was intentional or not. “I am a woman who is more and less than a duke’s daughter.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “And I can’t believe nobody has ever seen me before. But you have.”

  “I have,” he said, murmuring low, so softly she could barely hear him. “That’s why I wish you hadn’t come here. It’s—it’s impossible to see you, to be near you, without—”

  “Without what?” she asked, now deliberately lifting her feet so she stood on her toes, enabling her face to get that much closer to his.

  So what if Lord Carson was on his way here to propose? So what if Edward was the illegitimate son of a merchant who had the extreme good fortune of having good taste? What mattered was right here, right now.

  “The library,” he said in a husky voice, nodding over her head. Before she did something stupid, like kiss him again. He doesn’t want you to kiss him again, a voice yelled in her head.<
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  Mortified, she turned to see her sisters and Mr. Beechcroft within, Pearl and Ida standing over a desk that looked as though it was Mr. Beechcroft’s globe-making desk, and Mr. Beechcroft himself looking directly at them.

  What would have happened if she had acted on her impulses and kissed him? Mr. Beechcroft would have seen, which would mean that Ida and Pearl would have seen, and then Edward would have had to propose, even though he didn’t want to, and she couldn’t allow him to. Lord Carson would be devastated, and her parents would never allow her to leave the house.

  It was a very good thing he didn’t want to kiss her after all. That kiss might have entirely ruined her life.

  Chapter 18

  Say what you mean. Unless what you mean will upend your entire life. In which case, you should probably shout.

  Lady Olivia’s Particular Guide to Being Reckless

  Having her here, right beside him, was nearly too much. Nearly. She looked even better and brighter than he’d recalled, her expression constantly curious, her mere presence making it feel as though his world was off-balance. It was odd to see her here in his home; she’d visited the London town house, of course, but that wasn’t where he lived, the place that he felt connected to.

  But he did feel that here. He’d been brought here after his mother died, when his father claimed him, and he’d come to know the place as home. It was large, it was extravagant, it was a physical display of his father’s business acumen, and he loved it.

  Thank goodness the suggestion to view the library had been made, or he would have taken her off to one of the numerous quiet corners in this behemoth of a house and kissed her senseless.

  It almost looked as though she wanted that too; her face had been lifted just so, and there was a sensual anticipatory gleam in her eye that made all different parts of his body react.

  But thank goodness he hadn’t kissed her—or her him—since his father and her sisters were all in plain sight.

  “The library, as you can see, houses a vast collection, from books on industry and business to my father’s collection of maps and globes and atlases.” Edward could see Lady Ida already eagerly pulling books off shelves and discussing them with his father.

  Mr. Beechcroft was a generally happy person, but his expression at this moment was one of delight. Edward was still livid that his father and possibly Bennett had enabled this surprise visit, but at least his father got some benefit out of it.

  He couldn’t think it could be anything more. He couldn’t become invigorated in her presence—even though he was—he had to believe the worst would happen, because if he even thought about it, he would begin to hope, and that way would lead to despair.

  “Mr. Wolcott, what books are your favorites?”

  Why did she have to engage him in conversation? Didn’t she know what she was doing to him?

  No, because he hadn’t told her. But he’d shown her, hadn’t he? Or were his kisses not passionate enough, or perhaps he’d kept his expression as guarded as he’d hoped?

  What would happen if he did show her? Explicitly, and with her full consent so she could make her own decision?

  The thought was appealing, and not just because it meant he would touch her soft skin. Kiss that mouth and caress her body. Feel how she responded to his touch, and how she made him shake when she was near.

  The thought was so appealing, in fact, that it took all of his will not to just walk over to her, pick her up, and hoist her up on his shoulders.

  As it was, he had to turn and pretend to examine a book so his erection wasn’t so obvious. And he had to spend weeks in the same house with her.

  “Mr. Wolcott?”

  She’d come to stand next to him, her face tilted up to his, her expression guarded, but also mischievous. As though she were baiting a bear. A bear named Edward.

  “Yes, Lady Olivia. My favorite books.” He took her arm and led her over to one of the corners of the room, the one that offered the most privacy. “Why do you ask?”

  Because if she was just taunting him, poking at the bear inside him, he needed to know now so he could shut down whatever feelings were swirling inside.

  “I want to know more about you,” she said in a quiet, sincere tone. “I know who you think you are. I know who you appear to be. But I don’t know you as well as I wish to.”

  “And why do you wish it?”

  He froze as she opened her mouth to respond, snapping it shut after a moment.

  “Why are you here?” he asked after what seemed like an eternity of silence.

  “I didn’t know we were coming!” she said in a very non-Olivia type of squeak. “Mother said, and I assumed, that we were going to the marquis’s estate. Not here.”

  He felt as though she’d punched him in the chest.

  “But I didn’t want to go there either,” she continued, the color in her cheeks rising. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  And she sounded so unlike the sparkling blazing Lady Olivia that he grabbed her hand and dragged her back out into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.

  “Where are you taking me?” she squeaked again as he pulled her down the hallway, not caring if Olivia’s sisters were aghast in the room behind them.

  He knew how his father would respond, so he didn’t have to worry on that score.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting her into one of the rooms where his father’s business managers came for meetings. He closed the door quietly, so nobody could hear where they were.

  It was a small, sparsely decorated room, suitable for meetings with people who might otherwise get overwhelmed at the genteel opulence on display in the rest of the house.

  He sat down on the chair where the managers usually sat and hauled her onto his lap, curling his hand possessively over her waist, holding her in place. Even though she could get up at any time—his holding her was mostly for him.

  Because she knew he wouldn’t do anything she wasn’t willing to do herself.

  “Well,” she said, exhaling so gustily a piece of hair flew up into her eye. “That was unexpected.”

  He grinned at first, and then burst into laughter. “It was. I think I am taking on the more unfortunate habits of that forceful duck. Taking what I want no matter what is fair. I know this isn’t fair,” he said. “And I know that you are greatly concerned with fairness.”

  She swatted his arm, and then leaned against his chest. It felt too good. “It’s fair if there is an equal give and take.”

  “I don’t think it will be fair if I sit on you,” he said, arching his brow.

  “Not that,” she replied, sliding her hands around his neck. “But this.”

  How many times had she kissed him? It had to be at least three now, though it would never be enough.

  This time, though, wasn’t outside on a terrace or in a hallway. They were in their own private world, albeit a world inside his house with their relatives only a few yards away. But still, the door was shut and they were alone, and her mouth was on his, and her hands were moving in his hair, sliding along his scalp, making him want to have her touch him everywhere.

  Especially there. The part that was standing up and taking notice of her actions. The part she was sitting on.

  He drew her close and kissed her, pulling her closer against his chest, shifting her so his cock was just under her delectable bottom.

  She had to feel it. She had to know what she was doing to him.

  And then she leaned closer, her breasts pushing against him, his cock throbbing in delicious agony. She placed one hand on his chest, sliding it under his jacket, over his waistcoat, her fingers beginning to work the buttons free.

  He broke the kiss, gasping, and moved his hand to the bottom of his waistcoat, undoing the buttons furiously, meeting her fingers in the middle. Within seconds, he’d managed to shrug off his jacket, tossing it to the ground, his waistcoat following, and then they were both tugging on his shirt. She drew it up over his head and he was momenta
rily blinded, and then saw her face as she threw the shirt in the air, heedless of where it would land.

  She was grinning, and he smiled back, and then—thank God—her hands were on his skin, her palms sliding all over him, her gaze focused on his face, on his reactions.

  She slid her fingers over his nipple and he closed his eyes, letting the sensation of her touch be all that he felt.

  “That seems as though it is particularly interesting,” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice.

  “It is, Olivia, and you should never stop doing it.”

  The words came out before he could think, and then he felt her reaction as she withdrew her hands and shifted, then got off his lap entirely.

  Fuck. He shouldn’t have reminded her about it, that this was something that not only should they not be doing now, but that it was something they would never be doing in the future.

  Because, according to her, she would be married to his best friend, and this would all be a painful, embarrassing memory.

  “I should go back.”

  He opened his eyes, wincing as he saw the look on her face. A look he couldn’t entirely gauge, but looked suspiciously like regret, anger, and shame.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—this is entirely my fault.”

  She raised one of her eyebrows in that proud Olivia look he couldn’t help but admire. Even if she was currently staring him down, not an errant duck or a snobbish lord.

  “I had just as much to do with all of this as you. To say it is your fault is to deny my part in it, as though I am just a puppet for your—your lustful behaviors.” The color was high on her cheeks, and he felt himself starting to laugh, but smothered it.

  But of course she noticed.

  “And now you are laughing at me—again, might I say?” She planted her fists on her hips and glared at him, but he could see the glimmer of humor in her eyes.