The Unexpected Duchess(63)

The man was going to have to stop calling him “Your Grace”; it was just too excruciating to listen to, poor devil. “That still doesn’t answer how you think I may be of help to you, Berkeley.”

Lord Berkeley pulled his hands back into his lap and stared down at them. “I was h … hoping, Y … Your Grace, that y … you w … would h … help me say the things I cannot say. That y … you w … would agree to write a letter to Lady Lucy. As if it were from me.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX



Derek took a deep breath before he knocked on the door of Upton’s town house the next morning. His meeting with Berkeley continued to play through his head. In the end he’d agreed to help the man. Perhaps he felt sorry for the poor bloke, perhaps he was in a good mood, or perhaps he’d decided that encouraging Lucy’s courtship by another man was exactly the sort of thing he should do to rid himself of his constant thoughts of her.

If Lucy married Berkeley, this entire twisted mess he’d got himself into might resolve itself and everyone would be happy. At least that’s what he’d told himself when he’d heard himself say yes and then plucked out a piece of parchment and scribbled down notes based on the things Berkeley told him he would like to say. The man may have attended Oxford, but apparently he couldn’t string together a witty line when it came to wooing a lady of his choosing. Poor bastard.

Regardless of why he’d agreed to it, Derek had finished the letter while Berkeley waited and sent the man off with the thing, all the while calling himself seven kinds of fool. And now he was standing here, with a fistful of flowers for Lady Cassandra, ready to knock on the door and get his own courtship back to rights.

Rap. Rap. Rap.

The door swung open. Upton’s butler ushered him into the drawing room. Derek presented the flowers, asking the man to deliver them to Lady Cassandra’s sickroom.

The butler showed him into the nearest drawing room where Derek paced, waiting for a note of reply. Flowers had been a good idea, hadn’t they? Ladies were in favor of flowers, were they not? His mother had always smiled brightly on the few occasions his father had presented her with a bouquet.

Lucy came tripping into the room, a wide smile on her face, intently reading a letter she held in her hands.

She glanced up and jumped. “Der … Your Grace?” The letter dropped from her fingers. She quickly bent down to retrieve the sheets of parchment that had scattered across the floor. Derek strode over to assist her.

He picked up one of the pages. Just as he’d suspected, it was the letter he’d written for Berkeley. Hmm. It had made her smile. That was something. Better than flowers?

She’d gathered the rest of the papers and he handed her the other. “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked in a shaky voice he’d never heard from her before.

“No. Not at all. I just sent some flowers up to Lady Cassandra and I was hoping—”

The butler returned just then and presented Derek with a folded crisp white note sitting upon a silver tray. “From Lady Cassandra,” the butler intoned.

Derek plucked the note from the tray, unfolded it, and read it while the butler took his leave.

“What does Cass say?” Lucy asked, hugging her letter to her chest and biting her lip in a most fetching display.

“She says the flowers are lovely and she regrets being unable to accompany me today. We’d planned a picnic.”

“Oh, yes. That’s really too bad.” Lucy buried her face back in her letter and turned as if to leave, but Derek’s next words stopped her.

“She also says she’s asked you to keep me company while she is ill.”

Lucy froze. She slowly turned around, the hand that held the letter falling to her side. “Yes. Yes. That’s right. She did.”

He gave her a sidewise smile. “She says that you agreed. Though I must say I find it difficult to believe.”

Lucy barely met his eyes. “I’d do anything for Cass.”

“Anything like going on a picnic with me?”

Lucy blinked. She pointed at herself with her free hand. “You want me to go on the picnic with you?”

Derek folded his hands behind his back and braced his booted feet apart. “The food has all been prepared and the basket packed. It would be a shame for it to go to waste.”

Lucy nodded. “I am a bit peckish.”

He grinned. “So, what do you say?”

She winced a bit as if the words pained her. “Very well, Your Grace. I’ll go on a picnic with you.”

* * *

They assembled their little feast near a garden just south of the Upper Crescent. It was an idyllic scene, with sweeping views of the hillsides beyond town and the sweet smell of summer flowers wafting toward them. Two of the duke’s footmen readily rolled out blankets, unpacked the meal, and poured two glasses of sweet red wine before taking themselves off a considerable distance to allow the pair their privacy.