Page 23 of Her Duke by Accident (Fate & Circumstance #1)

Another year passed swimmingly at Garvey. It was time to prepare for a new Season, where the next generation of young women eagerly readied themselves for a spectacular debut into the ton. Countless opportunities laid waiting on the horizon for the young ladies of aristocrat society.

“I refuse to wear another white dress!”

All except one.

Alicia sighed, flattening down the layered dress her younger sister, Penelope, wore. It was simple and delicate, framing her nimble features rather nicely.

“At least try to be open to this one, Penny,” Alicia said.

“I cannot!”

“Why not?”

“Look at me!” The girl flung around, her back facing the wide mirror in the Caney’s Mayfair lodging. She looked delightful, with her sun-kissed hair pinned against her head.

Lucy, lounging lazily across Penny’s bed, raised a brow at her. “We are looking,” she drawled. “And you look splendid.”

Penny rolled her eyes. “You have to say that, you’re practically my sister.”

“I am your sister,” Alicia said, turning the girl to look herself in the mirror. “And I mean it when I say you look marvelous.”

“Can’t we convince Mother I don’t have to go?”

Alicia scoffed. “Mother isn’t the one you’d need to convince, and I’m not going to bother trying to fight against Owen.”

“Why not?”

“Do you not remember my own debut, Penny?”

Penelope giggled. “Of course I do. You practically fainted every hour.”

“Don’t fight Owen,” Alicia warned, “and you won’t be fainting into a duke’s arms to cause the largest scandal of your Season.”

Lucy let out a loud laugh. “I know a way to save you, Penny.”

The girl flung herself around. “Don’t joke, Lu.”

“I’m not!” Lucy rolled on the bed till she lay on her stomach, holding her head up with her palms. “Let me take your place instead!”

“Lucy,” Alicia said with a soft smile, “you’ll get your turn.”

She sighed, flopping on her back. “It can’t come soon enough.”

“You’re only fifteen.”

“And yet I’d rather go than Penny,” Lucy whined. “And she’s eighteen!”

“She can take my place,” Penny said.

“No, she cannot,” Alicia argued. “You’ve spent years preparing for this, Penelope, and perhaps you might enjoy it more than you think.”

“I can’t see myself enjoying one bit of it.”

“If you keep thinking this way, it might be the worst experience of your life.” Alicia wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders, making her face the mirror. “Look at you, Penny. You’re beautiful.”

Penny sheepishly lowered her head. “I am shy, Alicia.”

“That’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t,” she snapped. “Ladies don’t get suitors if they’re shy. All I want to do is be with my hounds, and a book. That won’t get me to where I need to be.”

“You sound like Owen.”

“He has said it all,” Penny murmured.

“Don’t bring yourself down before it has even happened,” Alicia said. She waved for Lucy to come over.

The girl bounded off the bed, wrapping her arms delicately around the primped dress. “You’ll be wonderful, Penny,” Lucy said quietly. “I’d only want to switch places with you because I know you’ll do so well.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

Alicia backed away, watching as the girls comforted each other without her help. It was charming, and healed a piece of Alicia’s heart that she didn’t know was broken.

The poor, sad Lucy who yearned for a connection outside of Garvey made it with the shy wild girl who ached to never leave the woods. They were quite the pair, and Alicia felt at ease to see them care for each other like real family.

A knock came from the door.

“Your Grace,” the nursemaid, rosy-cheeked and wide-hipped, called out from the doorway, “the babe cries for you.”

Alicia smiled. “Are you girls all right if I step out?”

“We are,” Lucy said as she fixed some of Penelope’s fallen strands of hair.

Leaving the room, Alicia followed the nursemaid through the halls of a place she once knew as her second home. As they got closer, Alicia could hear the muted cries of her baby, and it tugged at her chest to move faster. The nursemaid stepped out the way, motioning to the cracked door at the end of a hall.

Alicia crept over, stepping gently towards the sound of the baby’s cries which were softening to a coo. Peering through the door, Alicia pushed it open to see the duke leaning over the crib, his face filled with a toothy smile. She walked through the room, looking over his shoulder as he held the baby’s small hand, the tiny fingers grasping his own.

“You’re a natural,” she whispered.

Matthew flinched, glancing up at her with a grin. “He makes it easy.”

Alicia reached out, dragging a fingertip along the babe’s cheek. He cooed and waved his arms, meeting her eyes for a moment before he was coaxed back into a sleep. “He does,” she replied in a mumble.

Matthew took her hands, steering her a few feet away from the crib. “How is Penny faring?”

“Like you might expect.”

“Troubled?”

“I suppose,” she replied. “She’s got a fight about her, a piece that keeps her enjoying this.”

Matthew smiled softly, wrapping an arm around her waist. “It’ll come easier once she’s there.”

“You think so?”

He looked down at her. “Was that not how it happened for you?”

“No, my dear,” she mused, grinning at him. “Not at all.”

“Right,” he drawled, his own lip turning up in an amused smirk. “You found it easier to faint in quiet libraries.”

Alicia shrugged. “Only if there was a rich bachelor nearby.”

They laughed lightly together, hearing the sound of their baby gently breathing.

“She will fare well,” Matthew finally said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Look at us, Alicia. We started our life together on a foundation that barely held itself up, and it allowed us to build the strongest fortress.”

Alicia smiled. “Then you do not regret it?”

“Regret what?”

“How we began,” she said.

Matthew turned her to face him, pressing a hand on either side of her face. “Alicia,” he whispered, leaning down to drag his lips in a phantom kiss along her face. “How can I regret meeting the love of my life?”

A smile as bright as the sun engulfed Alicia, as though she was suddenly caught on fire. There was only warmth, only security, when he held her so tightly. She pressed herself into his chest, rubbing her face against him. Their baby breathed softly and quietly in his sleep. Matthew’s heartbeat rang like a drum against her ear.

Alicia’s smile widened. “You and me, Matthew,” she whispered against him.

“Always?”

“Always.”

The End