Do not allow yourself to waver from your goals. No matter how rakish the curls.
Lady Olivia’s Particular Guide to Decorum
For a moment, it seemed as though Mr. Wolcott was going to do something. Something like—well, something that wasn’t arguing with her or laughing at her or getting all offended when she said something thoughtless.
Something like kiss her.
Olivia had yet to be kissed; she’d been reserving that honor for Bennett. She’d hoped it would be on the occasion of their betrothal, but that hadn’t happened, so obviously the kiss hadn’t either.
And for a moment, Olivia had wanted him to kiss her. Him, not Bennett. She hadn’t thought of Bennett all morning if she were being honest with herself.
What was wrong with her?
She couldn’t address that now.
“Why did you bring that lady over here when it is so clear you dislike each other?”
Olivia bristled automatically, then relaxed when she realized he wasn’t necessarily criticizing her. He was actually regarding her with an expression of—curiosity? And a kind of warmth?
She hadn’t seen that expression from many people before. Most people looked at her with amusement, as he had, or with boredom. Usually when she was regaling them with details of someone less well off.
“Well, it is true that Lady Cecilia and I are not the best of friends,” she admitted. Even before she’d seen that lady trying to lure Bennett into her clutches. “But Lord Baxford is a friend of my father’s, and I know that he is a notable person to call an acquaintance. I do not like Lady Cecilia as you can tell,” she added.
It felt refreshing to share with Mr. Wolcott. To show him she was not perfect, although of course he already knew that, given that the first time they’d met she’d thrown something in the approximate direction of his head. She winced as she recalled it.
“What is it?” he asked, his tone gentle.
She glanced over at Pearl, whom she’d forgotten during this entire time. Thankfully, Pearl was still engrossed in sewing the next-to-last shift, her head bent over her work. She did not want to have to answer if Pearl asked her what she felt about Mr. Wolcott. Mostly because she didn’t know herself.
“I wish I hadn’t said what I did. When we first met.” She looked down as she spoke but tilted her face up when his fingers came under her chin.
She felt her breath hitch as she looked into his dark eyes. She couldn’t keep her eyes from drifting over his face, from his strong nose to his mouth. Lord, his mouth.
His upper lip had an indent right in the middle, and she could see the stubble just beginning to come in. She was glad he was clean-shaven, even though variations on facial hair were more in fashion. This way, she got to see the clean lines of his face, to admire how strong his jawline was. How he dragged his lower lip into his mouth and bit it when he was thinking.
He was doing it right now.
“It’s fine. You didn’t say anything everybody hasn’t thought.” That he was speaking the truth didn’t lessen how bad she felt.
“That’s almost worse. I’m supposed to be better than other people. To care more than other people. I do care more than other people, I know it is my purpose to fix things.”
He shrugged, his index finger sliding along her skin. Along the underside of her jaw. He must have removed his glove at some point—perhaps while they were feeding the ducks?—because his hand was bare, so she felt his skin on hers. Sending a prickling sensation through her entire body. “People aren’t perfect all the time, Olivia.” It was the second time he’d used just her name—was he even aware he was being so informal?
This was not the time to remind him of their respective positions. Not that she wanted to, anyway. She liked how her name sounded coming out of his mouth. “It’s more important that you recognize your imperfection and try to do better. That’s all we can do. Do better.”
She swallowed, letting the feeling of his words sink into her bones. Do better. Two words, deceptively simple. And yet so difficult to accomplish. But it was a distillation of everything she’d tried to be doing since she recognized the inequality of the world. That not everyone was born a duke’s daughter, so not everyone had the privilege she did. And that that privilege didn’t mean she had more of a right to basic survival.
“Now what are you thinking about?” His finger was still on her skin, stroking back and forth on her neck. Sliding from her throat to just under her ear and back again, as though she were a cat. She felt like a cat; she wanted to curl into his touch.
“Do better.” She shook her head in agreement. “That is all I can do. Do better.”
How had they come to this moment? Come to this place where his fingers were on her skin, and she wanted them there? To where she was thinking about leaning up, up toward his mouth, pressing her lips against his?
He took his hand away, and she swayed toward him, missing his touch already.
“Well, we should gather Pearl and go walking a bit more toward there,” Olivia said in a bright tone, trying to make it sound as though she were fully invested in walking and seeing and being seen rather than in how much she wished he had kissed her.
There. She’d admitted it. That meant, unfortunately, she would have to discuss it all with Pearl, who would probably say I told you so when Olivia revealed how she felt now as opposed to how she thought she’d felt only a few days ago.
She had to push that aside to focus on what needed to be done right now. Namely, introducing Mr. Wolcott to enough people who mattered so that when he next attended a Society function he wouldn’t be entirely shunned.
“Let’s go,” she announced, beginning to walk to the more populous area of the park. Leaving the ducks—and her conflicted feelings—behind as she continued on her current mission.
“I took Lady Olivia and Lady Pearl driving today.” Edward paused to rub the nose of one of the horses on display. She wasn’t the biggest horse or the fastest, but she was looking at him with an almost earnest expression that tugged at his heart.
He had persuaded Bennett to stop his incessant work for just a few hours to accompany him to Tattersall’s. He had Chrysanthemum here, and more horses in the country house, but if he were going to make a showing for himself, he’d have to be suitably equipped in town beyond his mare. He needed horses for the carriage; the ones he’d driven out today were adequate, but not what anyone would expect from him, given his reputation as a gentleman who knew horseflesh.
And he well knew that any indication that he wasn’t the absolute best at what he was supposed to be would mean he would be lessened in everybody’s eyes. Never mind that there were often extenuating circumstances; nobody would accommodate them because of his birth.
“How do you decide?” Bennett asked, nodding to the filly, who was shoving her nose into Edward’s hand.
Edward stopped to think, chewing on his lower lip as he did when he considered something. “It’s a variety of factors,” he began, continuing to rub the horse’s soft nose. Her breath was warm on his skin. “It’s how fast the horse runs, what it looks like, its breeding. And something I can’t quite explain, just that I can tell when a horse is a good, biddable animal.”
Bennett regarded him with a wry look in his eyes.
Edward stiffened. “It’s not like choosing a bride, no matter how similar it sounds.”
Bennett shook his head, laughing. Edward resisted the urge to punch him.
The two men continued to walk down the line of horses in the pens for sale.
“How will you choose a bride, then?” Bennett’s tone was sincere, and Edward felt himself relax. He couldn’t blame Bennett for making light of the situation; he was only doing it to try to make Edward feel better, and Edward did appreciate the effort.
“I suppose it is similar, once I stop and think about it,” Edward admitted. He stooped to run his hand down a gelding’s leg, feeling how the horse reacted under his touch. “It just sounds so . . . unfeeling to consider breeding, appearance, and biddability as the primary aspects of a wife.”
Someone he’d spend the rest of his life with. Who would bear his children, be his partner in so many things, even though that was not what was traditionally accepted in marriage. It was what he wanted.
He didn’t want to have to worry about what he might say, or act like, in front of his wife. He hoped that, when he found the woman he might love, or come to love, that she would be someone who would be his partner. His equal.
Not considering herself his superior because of who he was. God save him from that type of female, even though he strongly suspected most—if not all—of the ladies his father would wish to see him with would view the circumstances of his birth as beneath them.
There had to be someone out there in all of Society who wasn’t entirely biased against someone because of how they’d been born.
Although likely not. Look at Olivia, the most passionate arguer for equality he could imagine existed. And yet she too had called him a bastard. And then felt terrible about it, but the thought had been in her mind.
“That is how most of the people in my world—now yours—see marriage. As a likely match between buyer and product for sale, with marks awarded in beauty, personality, and ease of doing as they’re told. Wit, if the buyer is more open-minded.” Bennett sounded as disgusted about it as Edward felt hearing it, but it didn’t make his words any less true.
“What about you?” Edward asked his friend. They were almost done with the row of horses; there were three other rows to get through, but Edward knew Bennett would make an excuse to leave before Edward had entirely finished. “What type of lady will be able to wrest you away from your constant work?”
“Since my brother stole my betrothed out from under my nose?” Bennett retorted. He didn’t sound bothered by it, and having seen Lord Alexander, Bennett’s brother, and his wife, Lady Eleanor, Edward could tell it was a love match. And Bennett, by his own admission, had no time for love. But there had to be something, someone, who could get Bennett’s attention more than the latest Parliamentary proceedings could.
Perhaps that was why Bennett hadn’t even considered Lady Olivia. They were too similar, both fiercely determined to right wrongs and balance injustice. There would be no respite from their respective causes if they were married. It would be relentlessly moral, and not at all the kind of relationship either one of them would truly want, despite what one of the two might have to say.
“I suppose I will have to get married someday. I am my father’s heir, after all.” Bennett tilted his head to the side in thought. “I would like a lady who is gentle. Soft, almost. Someone who will be a comfort and a pleasure to return to after a long day.”
Someone entirely unlike Lady Olivia, Edward thought.
“But that is a long time from now,” Bennett said in a weary tone. “There is too much to be done for me to consider anything so frivolous.”
Edward had often envied his friend—namely, his friend’s legitimate birth—but he had just as often felt sorry for him. That he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders, that his father didn’t seem to care much about anything, let alone his eldest son. Edward was eternally grateful that Mr. Beechcroft had been such a remarkable father to him, even though the law would say he wasn’t his true father.
“Well, then let’s be frivolous for just a bit longer.” Edward gestured to the next row of horses. “Give me your opinion on which filly would make the best bride.”
Bennett laughed, shaking his head at Edward’s nonsense.