Lady Be Bad

by Megan Frampton

  That she did finally have an answer to. Me. I don’t want to marry him, I want to be happy. I want to be overwhelmed, I want to find my joy.

  I have found my joy. And he is going to ask me to marry him.

  “We will see what your father says about this,” her mother continued, speaking as though she were sputtering.

  “I will tell him myself. Even though I don’t actually care what Father has to say,” Eleanor replied in a low, quiet voice. “Just as he didn’t care what I had to say when he decided this.”

  She walked to the door and stepped outside without waiting for her mother’s reply.

  Hearing her mother’s screech as she walked to her room.

  “What happened?” Olivia asked when Eleanor opened the door to find her sisters in her bedroom. Of course. Cotswold was there, too, giving Eleanor a worried look. All four of these women just—caring about her in a way her mother never had, and never would.

  Eleanor took a deep breath, then smiled at all of them in turn. “I told her I wasn’t going to marry Lord Carson.”

  Olivia bounced on the bed, making Pearl and Ida bounce as well. It made Eleanor dizzy to look at. “Does that mean you are going to marry Lord Alexander?”

  “Well,” Eleanor began, only to stop as Ida interrupted.

  “She will marry him. Won’t you? You love him, and he loves you. It is a simple equation really.” And then Ida looked scornful, as though the math was far too easy for someone with her brain.

  “It is,” Eleanor agreed.

  A knock on the door made all five ladies’ heads turn.

  “Yes?” Eleanor said.

  The door opened to reveal the pursed lips and stern face of their butler. “Your father wishes to see you.”

  “Of course he does,” Eleanor said.

  “We are cheering for you!” Olivia said, punctuating her words with a wave of her hand.

  Pearl and Ida echoed the gesture, while Cotswold nodded.

  “Thank you,” Eleanor said, taking a deep breath as she stepped out of the room to walk downstairs. To where her father waited, determined to make her do what he wished, while she was just as determined to do what she wished.

  But she had the weight of the Howlett sisters on her side, and she would not be dissuaded.

  The duke was waiting for her at the entrance to his study. He didn’t speak, just held his arm out to direct her into the room. She walked to the chair facing his desk and sat, crossing her ankles and clasping her hands in her lap.

  She felt oddly calm. She was about to do something, say something, that was entirely unlike a duke’s dutiful, dull, and duty-bound daughter. She was going to, in her own way, do something as scandalous as Della had, albeit more quietly.

  She was going to make her own fate.

  The duke closed the door and walked toward her. Not sitting himself behind the desk, as she’d expected, but planting himself a few feet away from her, standing with crossed arms.

  “What is this I hear from your mother?”

  She wanted to ask him if that was a rhetorical question—of course he knew what she’d said. He just wanted her to say it to his face, since he likely doubted she would.

  “I will not marry Lord Carson.” She spoke simply and directly, not allowing any kind of fear or concern change her tone.

  His face purpled before her eyes, and then he spoke. But not spoke—thundered.

  “You will do as I say.” If words could flatten buildings, London had just been razed.

  She shook her head.

  “I will not,” she replied. “And what is more, if only you could listen to us, if only you cared about us, any of us, we would not be having this conversation. My sister Della, the one who caused all the scandal you are currently trying to stave, was so unhappy with the choices presented to her that she ran off with a man she knew was a blackguard just so she could get away. I want her back. I want her safe. But more than that, I want all of us to be happy, and we cannot be happy when you are dictating our choices in life. We need to make our own choices, no matter how wrong,” she said, thinking of Della, “or scandalous they might be.”

  She rose from her seat, tilting her head to look him directly in the eyes. “I will be making my own choices in life. I know you say you want the best for us, but the best isn’t whether or not we are able to afford clothing that suits our position. The best is when you find someone you love, who loves you back, and you decide you want to spend your lives together.” She stepped toward him, taking another deep breath. “I will not marry anyone whom I do not love.”

  “I can force you,” he said in a low voice.

  She shrugged. “You can try. But listen to this—I have been spending time alone with a gentleman, one to whom I am not engaged.” At least not yet. “And not only that, I have been engaged in the vulgar pursuit of translating works of a scandalous nature with the even more vulgar intent of selling those prurient works. I will not hesitate to tell everyone who will listen what I have been doing, should you try to force me into something I do not want.” She was trembling now, but she couldn’t let him see it. “And I will have no compunction in announcing my part in that endeavor should you try to do anything like you did to me to my sisters.”

  He just stared at her, his eyes wide, as though he didn’t recognize her.

  Likely he didn’t. He had long ago tagged her and put her in a box labeled “The Duke’s Eldest Daughter,” and to see that the person in the box was a person, and not a puppet he could manipulate was likely something he’d never expected.

  “I wish it had not come to this,” she said, touching his sleeve. Wishing he had ever shown her more than just a tolerant disdain. “If you want to get to know me, to get to know my sisters, we would appreciate that.” If he had, perhaps Della would still be home.

  “I’m your daughter. I love you,” she said in a soft voice. And she did, and she knew he loved her, but that he didn’t know her. Because there had to be love there to get him to bestir himself to try to salvage the family’s reputation. Even though she also knew that he was concerned for his own. But still. There was some love there; she just had to figure out how to get to it.

  “I know you care about us. I know you don’t want us to be unhappy. I know you never thought I would be unhappy being married to a perfectly fine gentleman. But he is not the right gentleman.”

  Finally, he spoke. “Have you—have you found the right one, then?”

  He didn’t sound furious. He didn’t sound thundering. He just sounded—curious.

  Maybe there was hope for him, and her sisters.

  “I have.” She smiled as she spoke, wondering if he was standing out there in the rain waiting for her even now. Wondering how her blunt lover would ask her to spend her life with him, nearly giggling as she thought about the myriad ways he might ask.

  “You should find him and tell him, then,” her father said slowly.

  “I will.” She drew up on her toes and kissed her father on the cheek, then walked swiftly out the door, ignoring the offer of an umbrella from the butler and stepping outside where he waited.

  Standing outside in the rain, drops clinging to his face, his jacket, making his hair deliciously disheveled.

  “It’s raining,” Eleanor said as she descended the stairs to where he stood.

  “It’s perfect,” Alex corrected. He took her fingers in his, holding her hand tightly, as though she were going to bolt or something. “It’s perfect for what I want to do.”

  “Do what?” she replied, glancing up at him slyly.

  “Not that, Dejanire.” He took a deep breath then lowered himself onto one knee, directly into a puddle. He withdrew something from his jacket pocket and held it up to her before she could expostulate about his trousers or the damp or anything.

  “Eleanor, I am overwhelmingly in love with you. I want to be with you each and every day of my life from now on. I want to be with you as you see things for the first time, to gamble on our happiness forever
, knowing we will always win. I want to walk in the rain with you. I want to kiss you until you forget your own name, and mine.”

  He held the ring up a little higher. “Will you marry me?”

  She nodded her head, lowering herself down into the puddle as well, her only thought one of yes, yes, yes.

  “I love you too,” she replied, holding her hand out for him to slide the ring on. “I want to marry you. You have shown me my joy.” She paused as she considered it. “And many other things,” she said with a grin. “I want to gamble on all of it with you. I want you to tell me whatever it is you’re feeling each and every day. Especially if it is ‘I love you.’”

  “Thank goodness,” he said, rising and taking her hand to rise also. “Now let’s go confirm our betrothal in the carriage.”

  “And how do you propose we confirm—” she began, before he swept her into his arms and kissed her until she couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.

  Her last coherent thought was that now her sisters would be able to find their joy too.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Myretta Robens, Louise Fury, Lucia Macro, and Liz Maverick, all of whom made this book better.

  An Excerpt from Lady Be Reckless

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next sexy story in Megan Frampton’s Duke’s Daughters series,

  LADY BE RECKLESS

  Coming in winter 2018.

  Lady Olivia’s Particular Guide to Decorum

  It is not proper for a young lady to propose to a gentleman. Unless, of course, the gentleman has a deep and abiding (and silent) love for the lady, and he is not aware she reciprocates.

  Chapter 1

  “Olivia!” The duchess’s call could be heard from two floors away. And Olivia was seated in the same room, in full view of her mother.

  “Yes, Mother?” she replied in an aggrieved tone. She had promised to deliver no fewer than ten shifts within a month’s time to the society for Poor and Orphaned Children, and she was only on the second one, since her needle skills were not as good as her skills in promising things she might not be able to deliver, apparently.

  Not for the first time, she wished that things were as she wished they should be so she wouldn’t have to constantly be trying to improve things. Her needle-pricked fingers would no doubt wish that also.

  “I cannot deal with Cook today. You will have to,” her mother announced, not paying attention to what Olivia was already occupied with. As was usual.

  Olivia merely nodded. Her mother had said the same thing, or a variation thereof, in the year or so since Olivia’s eldest sister had married Lord Alexander Raybourn. The Duchess of Marymount hadn’t always been so helpless; but once their sister Della had run off with the dancing master, and Eleanor had refused to marry the gentleman their parents had chosen for her, the duchess seemed to have given up all the duties she’d previously handled, leaving her remaining three daughters to handle everything. And since Olivia’s twin, Pearl, was shy and preferred to be outdoors, and their sister Ida was too busy reading and looking down her nose at everyone else, it was all left up to Olivia.

  Olivia did not flinch from doing what was necessary to make things right. Hence the shift-making.

  “Olivia, are you listening to me?”

  “Of course I am,” Olivia replied, frowning at the knot in her sewing. She had to admit to being a terrible seamstress. “You want me to speak with Cook, and you probably also want me to review the guest list for next week’s dinner party to be certain all the invitations went out properly. And to remind Cook that the Marquis of Wheatley does not like green beans.”

  “Hmph. Well, yes,” her mother replied in a grudging tone.

  The guest list for the dinner party included Lord Carson, the marquis’s son, and the gentleman whom Eleanor had refused to marry.

  Leaving him free to marry Olivia, something she had wanted since the first moment she saw him. She sighed as she thought about him. He was handsome, and kind, and very, very busy. Olivia wanted to help him, and she could tell, from how he spoke to her, that he wanted her to help him also. It would be a perfect match.

  Not to mention it would mean she was able to run more things as she wished to. Including Lord Carson.

  But it wouldn’t be a match at all if the dinner party wasn’t absolutely perfect, which meant she should go straightaway and speak to Cook.

  Olivia dropped the fabric and thread on the table beside her as she prepared to take care of things. Again.

  The door to the sitting room flung open and her twin, Pearl, launched herself inside, her eyes wide.

  “Olivia, you have to come quickly!” Pearl said in an urgent tone.

  “What is it?” she asked as she rose to her feet.

  “The gardener next door, he’s—” And then Pearl stopped, shaking her head.

  Olivia marched out of the sitting room, Cook and sewing forgotten, shoulders squared, as she went to right whatever wrong it was that made her twin so upset.

  “He found some kittens in the shed and now he says he’s going to—Oh, Livy, you have to save them!” Pearl said, her voice wavering in her emotion.

  “Indeed I will,” Olivia declared, brushing past a few startled servants to the back of the house.

  She felt herself start to burn with the righteous fury that had become her constant companion over the past few years, since she’d realized that the world was not entirely just and that there were, indeed, terrible people who existed in it.

  She hadn’t been able to eradicate all the terrible people in the world, but she could acknowledge to herself—privately, not wishing to draw attention to her deeds—that she had made the world a slightly better place in the time since she’d come to her senses.

  Only a few years ago she’d been equally consumed with parties, and balls, and pretty dresses. And Bennett, Lord Carson, whom she still had to admit to being consumed with.

  She still enjoyed those things, of course, but they couldn’t derail her from her purpose in life: to help people.

  And, apparently, kittens.

  “Sir!” she said as she stepped outside into the garden. She glanced around, Pearl on her heels, until she spotted the man in the Robinsons’ garden, who was holding a small, wriggling thing in his hand.

  “Sir!” she said again, louder, so that he turned and looked at her across the fence that separated their properties.

  The two families had been neighbors for as long as Olivia could remember; the children had grown up together, but now the only Robinson left in this house was the matriarch of the family, a terrifyingly proper woman who had always looked at Olivia as though she knew she was thinking of parties, and balls, and dresses when she should be thinking of better things.

  I’m thinking of better things now, Olivia thought as she stomped toward the fence, swinging her arms furiously. Namely saving small helpless animals from your ogre gardener. “What are you doing?” she asked. Then she shook her head as she planted her fists on her hips. “Never mind, I know what you are doing. Although I can’t fathom why you would want to harm such precious little creatures,” she continued, her voice softening as she saw the tumble of kittens at the man’s feet. There were three more down on the ground, all looking small enough to fit in her hand, all bumbling in and around each other in an adorably confusing way. Their mother was nowhere in sight, which likely meant these kittens would be dead if they weren’t taken care of soon.

  That furious anger heated.

  “These precious creatures are living in the shed, making a mess everywhere,” the man said, shaking the kitten in his hand for emphasis. The kitten in question was a grey tabby with, it seemed, one bent ear and whiskers that were nearly as long as the kitten itself was wide.

  Olivia unlatched the gate separating the properties and launched herself through until she was able to remove the kitten from his hand.

  The kitten promptly clawed her, but it was all part of the ongoing battle. Every war has its wounds, she’d told Pearl
often enough. Usually when Pearl was complaining of a hand cramp after Olivia had wrangled her sister into helping her with her latest charity project. Pearl was a much better seamstress than Olivia, after all.

  “I will inform Lady Robinson of your behavior today, and I will be removing these animals myself,” she declared, holding the struggling kitten up to her chest.

  The man shrugged. “The lady don’t care. And as long as they aren’t living in my shed, I don’t care either.”

  Olivia opened her mouth to tell him just what she thought of his behavior, but decided it wasn’t worth it to waste her breath. Not when she could be speaking out about injustice, or helping poor families find a better way in the world, or sharing her most fervent desire with Lord Carson. Bennett.

  “Pearl,” she said instead, turning her head back to address her twin. Pearl had already anticipated what she was going to say, and had retrieved a basket their own gardener used for roses, its handle slung over her arm.

  “Good, take this one,” Olivia said, putting the kitten into the basket, and then bending down to gather up the remainder in her arms. They were so tiny they all fit, their tiny claws shredding the fabric of her gown, not strong enough to draw blood, but stinging. The three looked similar enough to the first one to be siblings, and Olivia felt a swell in her heart as she thought about what would happen if she and her sisters were just as lost as these little mites, one of whom had just begun to bite her wrist.

  Just another wound in service, Olivia thought as she placed each kitten in the basket, taking it from Pearl when all four were contained.

  “If you find any other helpless creatures,” she said as she marched back over to their property, “please send word so I can rescue them from your evil clutches.”

  The hero in The Notorious Noose, the latest penny dreadful she and Pearl had read, had used those same words. Olivia found it useful—not to mention entertaining—to read those books for language she could borrow to make her points. She had found people responded better to hyperbole rather than plain facts.