It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,4

to do.

What remained, however, was a woman alone with memories, and regrets, and… nothingness.

When a woman was young? There were children to care for. And when those children grew up, they became men and women to help navigate the world of Polite Society until they found their own way.

It wasn’t until all those children were grown and gone that one found oneself alone, and then when a woman found herself widowed, the emptiness and loss that echoed in a solitary household were made all the more… acute.

Sprawled on the pink satin sofa in one of her many parlors, Lydia stared over at the wilting roses that filled the urn nearby. Painted upon that porcelain piece was a pair of young lovers. With their hands joined together, the young couple frolicked in the greenest of pastures, their heads angled up toward each other, their faces largely hidden but for the smiles revealed in their profiles.

Resting her cheek upon her palm, Lydia came slowly up and peered at the lady with her big skirts rucked about her knees and the gentleman in pantaloons. Each figure had been perfectly captured in midmotion as they raced through a field of red poppies.

She inched nearer the edge of the sofa to get a better look, her gaze locked in on that couple. She had never frolicked with Lawrence. He’d always been ever so serious; a dear friend whom she’d loved. He’d never resented her for the love she’d had for another…and had been more forgiving than any other husband would have ever been. Nay, they not enjoyed with Lawrence a passionate love. The kind she’d…once known, with another. But she’d cherished the bond they’d formed.

Now she wondered…why hadn’t they frolicked?

There’d been no races through wild fields or pushes upon swings or wild jests shared.

That hadn’t been his way.

Nay, that had been the way of the charming rogues, men like the Duke of Bentley.

She froze, perched at the edge of the sofa.

It had been so many years since she’d thought of him. That is, thought of him, without guilt. It had been the struggle of her life, banishing thoughts of him from her mind and memory.

Geoffrey. Her first love.

A wistful smile hovered on her lips. Geoffrey would have been a frolicker. He’d have been the wild one shucking his shoes and waltzing through the grass as the romantic couple upon the vase did.

Perhaps… that was what loss made a person do, reflect on past regrets, too.

Her smile slipped, and the pain, as fresh as it had been in the gardens when she’d broken it off with him. And as all her muscles seized in an agonizing grip, and her heart twisted, Lydia discovered the hurt of having to give Geoffrey up, lingered still.

She’d never believed she could be happy again after Geoffrey. But in time, she had been. In time, she’d come to love her husband in a different way, and… find happiness again. Afterall, the friendship she’d shared with Lawrence had been far greater than the majority of unions forged by members of the ton.

The door burst open. Startled, Lydia gasped and pitched sideways off the sofa, coming down hard on the floor. She grunted as she landed on her shoulder and hip, pain radiating from where she’d hit.

Frantic cries went up as one.

The questions of her maid, Joanna, and her two dearest friends in the world all rolled together.

“My lady!”

“My goodness, Lydia!” Dorothy, the Baroness DeWitt, cried. “You’ve been hurt.”

The three women formed a circle around her, all staring down.

Althea gave her a disapproving look and grunted. “She’s not one of those doddering sorts.” She tapped the bottom of the decorative cane she was never without, on the hardwood floor. “Whatever are you doing down there?”

“I fell,” Lydia mumbled from where she lay on her side.

“Yes, I see that,” Althea drawled. “Quite the tangle you find yourself in.” In one fluid motion, the viscountess unsheathed the thin sword from that clever cane she’d been carrying about as an accessory since she’d made her Come Out, and pinned the the hem of Lydia’s skirts.

Joanna wrung her hands together, her gaze moving frantically between the quarreling ladies. Yes, for everything there was a Society protocol for, what to do with powerful ladies who showed up and brandished a sword? She managed her first real smile that day.

Dorothy gasped. “You are going to ruin her skirts, Althea.”

“I’d be doing her a favor,” the other woman barked. “Black isn’t a color any lady should be in.”

“Do hush,” Dorothy