Page 3 of A Lady, Her Lord, & Their Duke

Cressida sighed. “Before you start frothing at the mouth, Sir Kenneth has done nothing improper except be deliciously handsome, intelligent, kind, and worthy. He has his own funds. And excellent prospects. Some are saying he might be Home Secretary or even Prime Minister one day!”

“And what of…tender feelings?” Edmund asked awkwardly, still frantically trying to gather his scattered thoughts. “Does Lochore care for you?”

For perhaps the first time in her life, Cressida blushed. “He said he does. And I’m already in love with him. Why? I didn’t think that would matter to you.”

Because a loveless marriage is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

“I want you to be happy,” he said abruptly. “Wed to someone you can talk to about anything. To have children if and when you want. To have choices.”

His daughter nodded sagely. “Everything you didn’t have.”

Edmund’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, please,” said Cressida tartly. “I have eyes and ears. And I can count. Yours was a forced union; you and Mother were shockingly mismatched and thoroughly miserable. And it only got worse when Harry took so long to arrive.”

He made that wheezing sound again, flailing for solid ground when Cressida had so neatly shredded him with the truth about himself and his late wife. One raucous country Michaelmas festival had changed the entire course of his existence. He’d been celebrating reaching his majority, Lady Lydia Harrison was a rebellious young woman seeking adventure, and after sharing far too much apple wine, they’d briefly coupled in a stable antechamber. It shouldn’t have decided anything and it was certainly no foundation for marriage, yet she’d become pregnant and he’d been a husband and father at the tender age of twenty-two.

Neither he nor Lydia touched apple wine again. But understanding their vast differences, they’d vowed to do their duty then amicably live separate lives. Unfortunately, after conceiving Cressida so effortlessly, they’d waited a further eight long years for Denby.

Knowing they were both able, it had been a nightmarish cycle of bishop blessings, taking the waters at Cheltenham or Bath, and trips to Paris and Geneva to consult with expert physicians. Trying this bed, that position, a certain day or time. Drinking disgusting herbal tonics and eating bland food. While he and Lydia had never enjoyed a passionate marriage, it became a tortuous chore where they could scarcely look at each other. Not man and wife, but seed producer and womb. Yet finally the heavens showed mercy and Lydia triumphantly birthed the ducal heir. Alas, her victory was short lived compared to her efforts; she’d passed of a fever when Denby was four.

Edmund had not considered remarriage and he certainly didn’t want more children. In truth, even the thought of a mistress repelled him because once again it would be a loveless transaction, or someone vying for coin or coronet. Nobody saw Edmund the man. Just Stanforth the duke. But while his fate was an existence bereft of pleasure or genuine affection, of being alone…Cressida could have so much more.

“Do not speak of things you know nothing about,” Edmund muttered eventually.

“If the past is taboo, then I claim the future. You’ll make enquiries about Sir Kenneth?” asked Cressida, fixing him with a gimlet stare.

“If I consider it, you’ll leave my library immediately?”

His daughter beamed. “Yes. On one condition: you do the thing.”

Edmund sighed. “Surely you jest.”

“Never!” she hissed, marching over to haul him from his chair. Next, she escorted him to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf ladder and climbed up onto the second step. “Be sure to say the words. Unless you’ve forgotten them?”

Edmund raised a brow. An actual impossibility—he’d said them thousands of times. After bracing his hands on the ladder’s sturdy wooden frame, he called, “Onward, Pirate Princess!” and gave it a hard shove.

Cressida shrieked with delight as the ladder sailed on well-oiled hinges down the length of the bookshelf, until it bounced against the soft leather cushion at the end and came to a shuddering halt. Then she stepped off, shook out her skirts, and curtsied. “Until next we meet on the high seas,” she called, before hurrying from the room.

He shook his head. Not even on the rack would he confess his dread of the day Cressida shunned Pirate Princess, her favorite game for over a decade. But it was fast approaching. His firstborn was ready to marry.

Returning to his desk, Edmund stared blankly at the document pile. But not even picking up his quill helped.

Cressida wanted to marry Sir Kenneth Lochore. A Whig politician!

Preposterous.

Obviously he needed to discover everything about the knight. What lay beneath the man-of-the-people mask? Sure, Lochore might have conducted himself honorably at Waterloo, and was a gifted orator, but that meant nothing when it came to the future of Lady Cressida Vane. Did the man drink heavily? Wager unreasonably? Have mistresses? Possess a sharp tongue and sharper temper?

Someone would know.

Edmund tapped his chin as he pondered all ton men with a reformist bent. After discarding several known for indiscretion, he wrote down one name.

Lord Neville Carlisle.

His stomach fluttered. There was something altogether unnerving about the outspoken baron. Carlisle was assured, confident, and somehow grew more handsome as he aged. Even stranger among the ton: he openly adored his beautiful young wife, she openly adored him in return, and they completely ignored rebukes over their lack of children. Rumor said they even refused separate rooms—not for convenience, but because they enjoyed sleeping together!

What would that be like? Did they begin their day with sweet kisses and rough fucking? No doubt Carlisle made use of that agile tongue; his baroness would probably suffocate him with her magnificent breasts if he failed to pleasure her…