The Duke Bargain: an Age Gap Enemies to Lovers Historical Romance by Eve Pendle

Author:Eve Pendle [Pendle, Eve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Beckett had intended to spend Christmas day assessing the ruin his father had made of the Metford finances and not bothering the servants too much.

As it turned out, he both failed and succeeded on both those counts. The servants were not bothered by making a far more elaborate luncheon than he usually had, instead they seemed delighted. Carter hurried both Lily and him upstairs after their walk to change into more formal attire, and had taken Lily’s presence as an excuse to decorate every room with copious amounts of holly, pine boughs, and mistletoe. It made the house smell delicious, and put temptation in every doorway.

How was he supposed to not pull Lily into his arms for a kiss when there was a seasonal prompt at every turn? Truly, Beckett was not gentleman enough to deny such an opportunity. And Lily, for her part, didn’t seem unhappy, kissing him back until it had to be him who adhered to some level of decorum so the servants didn’t catch them like young lovers.

As for the assessment of his father’s treatment of the estate. He had strangely achieved that too. It was uncomfortable but necessary to rearrange one’s opinions when the evidence changed. And the fact was, Lily was correct.

It did seem a disturbingly plausible reason for his father’s behavior. That, and that he might have loved his mistress. Feeling an intense emotion that gripped his chest for the first time, he could see why his father had shunned his mother. If he’d felt half of what Beckett felt for Lily, he’d have sacrificed everything to be with Caroline Peterson and gain her approval.

That wasn’t quite how his mother had represented it. But perhaps his parents had never been in love. Perhaps his mother had been bitter over nothing, or worse, over his father’s genuinely held beliefs. It was easier to continue to think that his father had been a wastrel and a womanizer, rather than that they were both trapped in a loveless marriage. He could see why that would be a convenient lie. But thinking clearly for the first time about his father’s relationship with Caroline Peterson, and the good that they did together, gave Beckett the uncomfortable sensation that there had been more to his father than he’d ever seen.

Obviously it was too late to repair the connection now.

He observed Lily, still in her elegant, borrowed dress. At his request they were in the rooftop solarium, and Lily was showing him the stars.

They’d spent the day debating and discussing, kissing under the mistletoe and catching each other’s secret smiles. She’d told him about her neglectful family and how she’d found a new family at Banton University. He’d listened to her stories of her friends. The female medical doctor, who had finally been accepted by the profession. The botanist who had gained her post honors doctorate and was now studying leaf surfaces and was married to a duke she’d shared a laboratory with.

It didn’t matter what Lily was saying, her care, compassion, and understanding shone through.

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