Page 4 of Her Heartless Duke
“And,” Aunt Joana added with an approving smile, “he is possessed of one of the finest estates in all of England. Really, Daniel. The girls would do very well to marry someone like Lord Willoughby.”
“He is also a notorious gambler who is going through his family fortune at an unprecedented rate,” Daniel revealed. He looked up to find three faces looking at him in shock. “Mark my words—in a few years, you shall not find any cause to envy Miss Mary Wilton’s sister at all.”
Aunt Joana visibly paled at that revelation. There was nothing worse than a gambler, except perhaps a gambler who keptlosingmoney. No mama in her right mind would consider such a man as a suitable match for her daughter—even if he hadtwoof the finest estates in all of England.
“Well,” she finally managed to choke out. “A gentlemanisprivy to things us ladies most often are not. It is a good thing then that we have Daniel looking out for your best interests.”
At Olivia’s side, Fiona dipped her head and whispered, “Well, Idosay that he is exceedingly handsome, but who would have thought that he would have such a side to him?”
“Everyone has their secrets,” Olivia murmured. She sawed at a piece of beef with her knife and hoped no one noticed the slight tremor in her movements.
“Everyone?” her cousin wondered. “Including you?”
Olivia smiled wanly at her. “I never did tell you that I found Sir Connelly a dreadful bore, did I?”
“But everyone thought he had such dazzling wit!”
“Not I.” She shook her head and whispered to her cousin. “I thought that he had the most unfortunate tendency to talk about himself for hours on end.”
Fiona nearly choked on her laughter, drawing the attention of both Daniel and her mother, who managed to admonish her with a simple glance. She sent a scathing glance at Olivia, who appeared to be oblivious to her predicament and blithely carried on with her dinner.
“Ah… we were just talking about Lady Willow’s dance competition, that is all,” Fiona explained. “I thought it would be nice if Olivia and I could participate in it.”
Olivia stilled at her cousin’s words. A sweet memory surfaced in her mind—that of a gentle voice telling her about that one, glittering night when her mother won that same competition in her youth and her father’s heart on that same night.
“Mama,” she had asked as a young girl. That night, her mother had yet to become severely ill and she had crawled onto her lap, eager to hold off her bedtime for another hour or two. “What was it like for you when you met Papa?”
Her beautiful Mama had smiled at her so gently as she pushed the wayward golden locks from her round face.
“Oh, darling,” she had told Olivia. “It was simply the most beautiful night of my life. I had just won a dance competition when your Papa walked into the ballroom, looking as handsome as he always does.” She smiled wistfully at her daughter and pressed a kiss to her small nose.
“When we danced,” she told her daughter, “I knew then that I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with him…”
But Olivia did not care much for romance—only the promise of making that one, beautiful memory that she could happily hold on to for the rest of her life.
“What dance competition?” she heard her brother snort dismissively, snapping her out of her reverie. “Young ladies such as yourselves need not bother with such a vulgar bid for attention. There will be opportunities enough to find a suitable match for the both of you. Besides, the competition will be held towards the end of the Season, and most gentlemen will have found their matches by then.”
“Oh.” Fiona looked a little glum. “But then again, as you said, there will be balls and soirees aplenty.”
Olivia reached out to squeeze her cousin’s hand in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “Perhaps by that time, you will have found your match as well.”
“That is correct. So, it would be best to focus your efforts on those instead.”
“The Earl is right,” Aunt Joanna interceded with a stern smile. “You may still join the competition if that is your wish, but there are many other events to consider—ones that may even be more important. And not everyone will be joining the competition, anyway. It should be the least of your concerns.”
“Did you not join it yourself, Mama?” Fiona murmured.
Olivia thought she saw a hint of pink creep up her aunt’s cheeks.
“Well, I did once, but it was not so memorable for me as everybody claimed it would be...” Lady Bennet stammered.
Fiona gave her mother a sympathetic look. “Perhaps because you did not dance as well as you thought you should?”
Olivia nearly choked on her potatoes at her cousin’s blunt but innocent remark. Color flared up Aunt Joana’s cheeks and she feared her aunt would throttle her cousin from over the dining table.
“That is enough from you, Fiona!” she reprimanded her daughter. “I swear, if you do not learn to curb that tongue of yours, we will end up with more trouble than we bargained for this Season!”
“I apologize, Mama,” Fiona muttered in misery. “I shall do my best to speak as nicely as I can.”