It Had to Be the Duke by Christi Caldwell

Chapter 9

Following Geoffrey’s departure, Lydia’s visit with her daughters continued.

They discussed everything from how their spouses were doing—well, without much elaboration beyond—to the recent ton events they’d attended.

All very safe, very comfortable topics to discuss with one’s daughters.

“Lady Canterbury’s ice sculpture melted,” Miranda was saying, tears streaming from her eyes as she leaned into her younger sister, who was also besieged by laughter.

Her entire body shaking with mirth, Caroline waved her arms back and forth as if to ward off the hilarity that gripped her. “Water was everywhere, coating the floors, and then Lord Talbot’s heel caught a slick s-spot and—”

As they dissolved into another paroxysm of amusement, Lydia found herself smiling.

Not from the requisite response her daughters no doubt expected of their telling.

Lydia had been spared.

Given the circumstances her daughters had nearly caught her in, Lydia was eminently grateful and relieved to be spared the awkward discussion about her past relationship with Geoffrey and the embrace that had been cut altogether short.

Surely if they’d intended to remark upon how very close she’d been to Geoffrey, or how rumpled he’d been—and she was—they’d have done so immediately?

She stole a glance at the ormolu porcelain clock atop the mantel.

Her daughters were nothing if not predictable. When they visited, they came together, and when they stayed, they did so for no more than an hour.

It wasn’t anything that offended or hurt. They had their own lives. She was mindful of that. In the past, she’d always mourned those moments when they left, because then she was left with only her own thoughts and solitary company.

Today, however, given they’d arrived to find Geoffrey here, she found herself for the first time marking those moments. Because it would mean she was spared from—

“We should be going,” Miranda said, and Lydia jumped.

“Yes.” Lydia stood quickly. “You should.”

Both her girls stared back with befuddlement etched in their pretty faces. “Uh, that is…” Lydia quickly sat back down. “Of course, I’d love for you to stay, but you have your own lives and your own affairs to see to, and you certainly don’t wish to be here with me…”

Both Miranda’s and Caroline’s eyebrows came together.

“Not that you don’t want to be with me,” Lydia swiftly added. “Of course you want to be with me.” Stop talking, Lydia. She made herself go silent and offered her daughters a smile.

God, I’m as nervous as a schoolgirl, and with my own daughters?

She stole another peek at the clock.

“Are we keeping you from something?” Caroline’s query brought Lydia’s attention whipping away from the clock over to the duo staring back.

“Of course not,” she exclaimed quickly, too quickly. Two sets of eyes narrowed on her, and she trilled a laugh. “Why, whoever would you be keeping me from?” Making a dismissive motion with her fingers in the girls’ general direction, Lydia reached for her teacup.

“Caroline didn’t say ‘someone,’” Miranda said.

Lydia froze with her hand halfway to her half-empty cup. She cocked her head.

“I asked if we were keeping you from something,” Caroline elucidated. “Not someone.”

Lydia’s mind went blank. “I said that,” she blurted. “I said, ‘Whatever would you be keeping me from?’”

Her daughters shook their heads simultaneously. “No, you didn’t,” they said in unison.

“I…” Lydia straightened slowly and lifted her head. “Why, I’m sure of it?” As soon as she tacked on that accidental question mark at the end of her words, she winced inside.

“All right, Mother. Surely you realize at some point we are going to speak of it,” the eldest of her girls said gently.

Lydia’s heart dropped. “It?”

Oh, bloody hell. She resisted the urge to squirm under their stares. In fact, when had they developed those… mature stares? The ones that saw too much.

Oh, dear. Those stares were even more mature than she’d feared.

Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but Miranda lifted a palm and assumed the elder-sister role. “I refer to the fact that you were visiting with a gentleman.”

“Oh, that.”

Her daughters folded their arms across their chests, giving a glimpse of the terrifying mamas they’d one day be to the daughters they would have. “Yes, that, Mother,” Caroline said.

“We knew one another when we were younger. He was a… friend of your father’s.” Until he hadn’t been. Until Lydia had married Lawrence, and the two men had ceased speaking.

“Was he… a friend of yours?” Miranda ventured hesitantly.

Was he a friend of hers?

Lydia’s eyes slid closed. A memory tripped forward.

Her gay laughter filtering around the gardens belonging to Lydia’s now in-laws as Geoffrey had pushed her on a wood-plank swing.

I want to be your friend, your lover, and your partner through life, Lydia.

The echo of Geoffrey’s voice, that deep timbre that had rolled like warm chocolate, came as clearly as it had when he’d first spoken those words aloud.

She’d always loved him. They’d been childhood friends…and then, more. But in that moment, with his profession, she’d fallen—literally and figuratively. Flying forward off the swing, she’d come crashing down, but she hadn’t felt pain and had been overwhelmed only with a dizzying joy and the love—

“Mother?”

Caroline’s quiet prodding brought Lydia’s eyes flying open. “We were friends, too,” she managed to say, her voice hoarse.

“Were you more?” Caroline asked.

So much more.

Lydia flew to her feet and moved to put the rose-inlaid table between her and her entirely too-astute daughters. “You needn’t worry about me,” she said curtly. “I am a grown woman, and I’m capable of handling myself in a way that is respectable and decent. Geoffrey merely came to speak with me about a personal matter involving… his family.” She took care to keep Geoffrey’s confidence. The decision of when to make public the existence of his children was his to make. “There was nothing improper or untoward.” Aside from the kisses and… more they’d engaged in these past two days. “He came to me for guidance on a personal matter, and that is it.”

That was it.

And of all the vagueness she’d settled on with her daughters, that much had proven true. She had an overwhelming urge to cry because of it. Because she enjoyed being with him. Because she felt alive with him. She always had.

Miranda stood and drifted over, and Lydia stiffened. “Mother, I know a rumpled dress and a rumpled gentlemen when I see them,” she murmured.

Lydia felt her face go hot, and she opened her mouth to speak words of denial—lies—but a denial, nonetheless, when Miranda held her other hand up, stopping her.

“We aren’t intending to lecture you on how you conduct yourself.”

“That will fall to Johnathan and Benedict,” Caroline added under her breath.

Miranda pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Please, as if our two, elder, unmarried, roguish brothers have any leg on which to stand when it comes to matters of propriety. They certainly conduct themselves in their personal lives without consulting Mother, why should Mother—”

“She shouldn’t,” Caroline said.

Lydia’s eldest daughter gave a firm, decisive nod of her head. “Precisely.”

“You aren’t… upset that I was… That we were embrac—”

Miranda winced even as Caroline slapped her palms over her ears and hummed a noisy tune aloud to blot out the remainder of Lydia’s question.

“I’d see you happy in your love life, but we needn’t get specific about exactly what you were doing,” Miranda said dryly. Her daughter’s smile faded as she moved closer, and bringing her hands up, she rested them upon Lydia’s shoulders. “Mother,” she began softly. “Do you truly believe Caroline or I wouldn’t want you to be happy?”

“Of course not,” she was quick to answer. “I never doubt your love or desire to see me happy, and yet… your father.”

Miranda lightly squeezed her shoulders. “I miss him every day. He was a wonderful husband and father. But Papa is gone, and you are here, Mother. You shouldn’t stop living. You deserve to live. You deserve to be happy and… not be alone. If there is someone who brings you happiness, then you should be with him.” She paused. “That is, if he is good and worthy of you.”

“He is a good man.” Despite the scandals that surrounded his name and the children he’d sired and only recently learned of. He sought to be a father to them. And he’d forgiven her for passing him over and had wished her happiness anyway. “But… he asked me for help with a matter. I’m not even certain he wants more.”

“What about what you want, Mother?” Caroline asked at her shoulder, and Lydia glanced over. “If he is what you want in life, and he makes you happy, then I suggest you take your happiness. You make it your own.” A tremulous smile tilted Caroline’s lips up. “Father would have wanted that for you. To be happy.”

Tears filled Lydia’s eyes. “Please, don’t cry,” Miranda implored, brushing at her cheeks.

“I’m not crying.” Lydia sniffled and turned her cheek into her elbow. “All right, I am a bit.”

But hearing her daughters speak of Lydia reaching out and taking the future she’d always wanted beckoned. It tempted. For the first time since the day when she’d said goodbye to Geoffrey and set aside the hope of a future with him, the dream stirred, flickering to life.

She wanted him.

She wanted a future with him.

And why, if he wanted that, too, should they not have a future together?

Then reality reared, as it invariably did.

Because you betrayed him.

Because you hurt him.

Her hope flagged.

“What is it, Mother?” Caroline nudged.

“I broke his heart.” Unable to meet either of her daughters’ eyes, Lydia stepped away and wandered back toward the table and stared blankly down at the teacup she’d made for Geoffrey. She picked it up and stared at the delicate porcelain he’d briefly sipped from, drawing it close to her chest before catching herself. “He wished to marry me, and I…” She stumbled. “I chose your father over him.” She left it at that, choosing to omit the details of her severed relationship with Geoffrey.

No daughter need hear that one’s mother’s match was not the one she’d wished for, but had, rather, been born of obligation and tears and sorrow. Nay, it would be far better if they believed the choice had been Lydia’s and that the union had always been one born of love and joy.

“Why can you not begin again?” Caroline suggested. “Start over?”

“We’re old.”

“Yes, but even older people are deserving of happily-ever-afters,” Miranda piped in.

Lydia flashed her daughters a droll smile. “You were supposed to insist I’m not that old.”

Her daughters spoke in swift unison. “You are not—”

“Oh, hush,” Lydia interrupted, waving a spare hand at them. She softened that dismissive gesture with a wink, earning a round of soft laughter from her girls.

A knock sounded at the door, and they looked to the front of the room as Glenn stepped inside. Clearing his throat, the old butler swept over, a missive extended. “Forgive me, my lady. This arrived a short while ago, and I was told to deliver it at once, as it is a matter of urgency.”

Lydia’s eyes immediately connected with the familiar gold seal. A crest of a lion rearing on its hind legs in midroar.

Her heart danced even as she took that page with a word of thanks, and Glenn bowed and rushed off.

Feeling her daughters’ eyes upon her, Lydia wandered away, presenting her back to them.

Lydia,

I’d ask to speak to you.

Will you be so good as to meet me to discuss a matter that is long overdue, and in need of attending, this evening?

Ever yours,

Geoffrey

A matter that is long overdue and in need of attending.

Lydia turned the note over in her hand. That was all.

He wished to speak about his newly discovered children. Of course. And while she was both touched and grateful that he’d not only confide in her and allow her to help him as he did, she’d selfishly wished his note would be about… more.

“What is it?” Miranda asked at her shoulder.

Folding the missive, she turned back and faced her daughters. “It is… nothing,” she said, unable to fight the deflated feeling. “He wishes to speak with me about business he requires assistance with.”

“Well, neither does that mean his dealings with you need just be about… whatever important business he requires your assistance with,” Caroline, the most optimistic and always lightest of her children, piped in. So very much the hopeful girl she’d been. “It can be both.” Younger sister looked to elder. “Isn’t that true, Miranda?”

“Absolutely,” the older girl said without missing a beat.

Lydia ran her fingertips over the folded line of the missive several times, creating a perfect crease. “No. Of course not.” She stopped that distracted movement with her hands. For Lydia couldn’t keep back the voice niggling at the back of her mind that neither did any of these past several days mean Geoffrey wished for them to pick up where they’d once left off.