Page 12 of The Heartless Duke's Bride
“How can you say that?” she asked. “Of course, I care. And with your father gone, you know, I find it very important—more important than ever before—to stand in as a parent for you and your brother. It falls to me to safeguard the dukedom.”
“That isnotyour responsibility,” Edward said sharply. “It’s mine. And this conversation is over.”
He stood up to leave.
“Never forget,” Margaret called, “I should have been the one deciding on who the heir would be after you. That should have been my right.”
Edward was at a loss.
He didn’t want to argue with her about this. He didn’t want to tell her that she was wrong, that the child she had lost would never have come into the title.
Perhaps it would have. He had never meant to marry, and if Colin hadn’t wanted the title, who was to say what could have happened? What that baby would have eventually had if it had been born?
He didn’t like Margaret, but he couldn’t be cruel to her about the loss she had suffered.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” he told her shortly, deciding on the spot that this would be one of the rare nights he would join her at the table, and he walked away before she could say another word.
CHAPTERSIX
“The Dowager Duchess is coming to pay you a visit today,” Lady Haddington said to Lydia over breakfast. “And I expect you to be on your very best behavior, Lydia. This is your first chance to make a good impression on her.”
“She’ll be on her best behavior,” Lord Haddington said, a note of warning in his voice.
It was enough to make Lydia wonder what he would do if she were to step out of line, but she didn’t wonder enough to actually try it. There was no need to seek trouble. And besides, after her conversation with Nancy, she thought she might actually like being married to the Duke, and she was willing to cooperate.
“Father’s right,” she told her mother. “You have nothing to worry about from me.”
“That’s good,” Lord Haddington said. “I’m pleased to hear that you’re accepting your future so well. I wasn’t sure whether or not you could be counted upon. Thank you for not disappointing me.”
Lydia closed her eyes briefly. It was so very like her parents to talk about the idea of her being a disappointment even when she had done nothing at all to let them down. They couldn’t even pay her a compliment without baking an insult into it.
Well, that was fine. Today was not about them—it was about her budding relationship with the Dowager Duchess. Lydia did want to impress her. She had to admit that she wasn’t entirely sure what kind of impression she had left the Duke with, and if there had been any trouble on that score, today’s encounter should go a long way toward fixing it.
She waited for the Dowager Duchess in the sitting room after breakfast, too nervous to do much of anything. She considered picking up a book, but decided against that—what if she chose the wrong one? What if the Dowager Duchess saw her reading something and found fault with the selection? Worse yet, what if she turned out to be the type of lady who felt that reading was a pursuit for gentlemen only?
Lydia certainly hoped that wouldn’t happen. It would be awful to have to hide her reading from the people she was living with. Stopping, of course, was not an option. If the Duke and the Dowager Duchess couldn’t abide the idea of a duchess who read books, that would be a problem, but she wasn’t going to become the sort of lady who abandoned the things she loved to appease her husband. She did want to make a good impression and to make the pair of them happy, but there were limits to how far she would go.
Thus, it was that she was sitting unoccupied and gazing out the window when her guest arrived. She got to her feet quickly. “Your Grace,” she said. “Thank you for coming to meet me. It’s an honor and a privilege to have you here.”
“So it is,” the Dowager Duchess said imperiously. “Do sit back down, Miss Lydia. I don’t have all day, and the two of us have plenty of things to discuss.”
Lydia was surprised by how abrupt the Dowager Duchess had been, but she found to her surprise that she actually appreciated it. Better to have someone who wasn’t going to make her go to the effort of acting like the pair of them were friends or like they were seeing one another for social reasons. It sounded as if the Dowager Duchess wanted to get down to business, and that suited Lydia just fine.
“First of all,” the Dowager Duchess started, “I’d like you to call me Margaret.”
“You would?” Lydia asked, surprised. “I don’t know that my mother will like that very much.”
“I take it you’re worried that your mother would prefer we speak more formally to one another?”
“Well, I don’t think she’ll mind how you speak tome,” Lydia said, deciding to be frank, since that was what her guest seemed to want from her. “But she’ll think I’m being rude if I call you by your first name.”
“I quite understand,” the Dowager Duchess replied. “But you need to get used to that sort of thing if you’re to be the next Duchess.”
“What sort of thing? People thinking I’m rude or displeasing my mother?”
“Both, really,” the Dowager Duchess said. “Or—neither one, necessarily, but you must be aware of the fact that you’re going to be put in social situations in whichyouwill set the tone. It’s not only your right as Duchess to do this, but it’s your responsibility. Some people will agree with the choices you’ll make, and some won’t, but you need to recognize the title you’re going to hold and the role that gives you in every social situation.
“To apply that standard to this situation, you and I should decide how we’re going to relate to one another, how we’re going to refer to each other, without worrying about the input of someone we both outrank. I know you don’t outrank your mother yet, and I know this is a challenge because she’s your mother, but you must remember that you’ll be a duchess soon, and this sort of thing is for you to determine.”
