It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,16

for that,” she murmured. “I’ve enjoyed playing matchmaker for my children,” she confessed. And then, realizing how that sounded, she grimaced. “That is, not that I forced them into a match.” As her parents had done. As they’d denied her the man now seated across from her and instead coordinated a union between her and her late husband. “But… Society has this way of making a woman think she must be a certain way and wed a certain person, and I wanted them to be happy in their choices.”

“And are they?”

“Yes.” She paused. Except… Her brow dipped. Were her daughters happy happy? As in passionately in love with their husbands? Or did they feel the comfortable love Lydia had known with her own husband? “I… hope so. They seem as though they are.”

And yet, in those earliest days and months of her marriage, Lydia, too, had worn the perfect smile meant to deceive the world into believing her happiness. She chewed at her lower lip. She’d never questioned whether there were certain other men for whom her daughters had developed affection. What if there’d been someone other than the safe, dependable men they’d married? Wild rogues or rakes they’d thought to reform with their love?

And where it hadn’t mattered to Lydia’s parents, it certainly would have mattered to Lydia. Not to Lawrence, though. He’d always expected he’d known what was best for their children… and her.

“What is it?” Geoffrey asked, and she jolted, her body and thoughts jarred to the present.

“What if they aren’t? Happy, that is?” Unease formed a pit low in her belly. “It was just so… wonderful that one of my daughters made a match with one of Althea’s sons, but what if I did the same thing my—?” She blanched. The freedom that had always come in speaking to this man also had made her forget exactly what she was saying.

“What if you did the same thing your parents did?” he murmured.

Lydia searched out for a hint of the bitterness and harsh resentment that had existed in those gardens all those years ago when she’d informed him of her decision to wed Lawrence. This time, however, there was a gentleness as they spoke about her union to the man with whom he’d been friends.

She gave a hesitant nod. “Do you think I did the same?” Her voice emerged as a fear-laden whisper. Except, once more, the words and questions kept tumbling out as she barely squeezed in so much as a breath of pause with which he might interject an answer, and mayhap it was cowardice, a fear of what he might say that accounted for her ramblings. “I’ve always thought I was different from my parents, in how they attempted to shape me into a proper lady who only undertook ladylike ventures and activities. I never did that with my girls. I didn’t balk when they donned breeches and went riding. I thought it was fabulous when they’d sneak off to swim.” Even when her husband had been horrified and fearful that they might come to harm, or that they might be discovered and their actions scandalize the world. “But when they made their debuts, I… steered them to their matches, Geoffrey.” Lydia pressed a fist to her breast. “Althea and I, we coordinated meetings and encouraged them.”

“Because you meant well and wished to see your daughters content and securely settled,” he said.

“But can the same not be said for my parents?”

“Did you dissuade your daughters from matches they might have otherwise been inclined to make?” he countered.

She paused and then shook her head.

“Did you set conditions on them, tying their decisions to the happiness of one of the others?”

“No!” That denial exploded from her. Because no matter how content she’d been in her marriage, no matter how much she’d come to love Lawrence, there’d always lingered an unshakable reminder of her family’s influence in her union. “I would never have done that.”

He smiled. “And that, Lydia, is how you know you aren’t your parents.”

“But neither did I encourage them to consider that there are… were other options. What if they didn’t find their soul mate?”

“Did you?” he asked, yet again giving Lydia pause.

Lawrence.

She’d loved him.

So very much.

And she’d miss him until she drew her last breath and met him up in the great beyond that awaited them all. “I used to think a person could only love one person.” Him. She’d once believed she’d never love another. And she hadn’t in quite the same

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024