To Break the Rules (Girls Who Dare Book 3) by Emma V Leech

Author:Emma V Leech [Leech, Emma V]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Green Park, with Montagu?

What on earth was I thinking?

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Matilda Hunt to Her Grace, Prunella Adolphus, Duchess of Bedwin.

14th July 1814. The home of Mrs Edwina Manning, Old Burlington Street, London.

After dinner, the ladies left the men to their drinks and gathered to make small talk.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucia said, taking Matilda’s arm. She’d felt wretched ever since she’d allowed Montagu his lie. “I panicked. I could hardly deny the arrangement without calling him a liar and making a scene, and changing it would have made me look rude and… and I just—”

“It’s all right,” Matilda said, giving her a warm smile Lucia did not feel she deserved. “Montagu knew damn well he’d put us in an impossible situation, and manipulating people is what he does best. Damn, but he looked smug when he asked me if I should like to change my mind. I wanted to stab him with my fork.”

Lucia couldn’t help but notice the odd note in Matilda’s voice, however, and wondered if she was as annoyed as she pretended. Lucia still felt bad, though. Montagu was obviously set on having Matilda for himself, and marriage was not likely to be a part of the deal. That Matilda was drawn to the man despite her better judgement was not something to which Lucia was blind.

Mr Burton, was another matter, an honourable man who’d already made his interest clear. Matilda could be happy with a man like that, surely? He would offer her security and a home, family, he could make her happy. Perhaps she would lose her place in society, but the ton had already made their feelings clear about her tarnished reputation. In Lucia’s view, there was little to lose and a great deal to gain.

If only her own situation was so cut and dry.

“What just happened?” Kitty demanded, hurrying to stand beside them.

“Don’t ask me,” Matilda asked, smiling. “Montagu is no doubt pulling all our strings, if we but knew it.”

“He scares me to death,” Kitty admitted. “I would never have accepted but for the fact I knew it would put that odious creature in a pelter.”

“What had been going on, Kitty?” Lucia asked. “You’d all seemed to be getting on marvellously.”

“And so we had,” Kitty admitted, with a shrug. “I’d thought Miss Craven rather nice, until Mr Richards….”

She blushed a little and trailed off as Lucia grinned. “Until Mr Richards decided he liked you better than Miss Craven and flirted a little too openly?”

Kitty’s lips twitched and she shrugged a little. “Not quite that perhaps, but… well, yes,” she said, blushing and grinning all at once.

“He’s a very nice young man,” Lucia said, approving the match as Matilda nodded.

“Very eligible.”

Kitty shrugged and looked uncomfortable, and swiftly changed the subject. “Lord Cavendish seems very taken with you, Lucia.”

Lucia returned a noncommittal smile and moved away from her friends to inspect a painting a little further down the room. As if Kitty had conjured him by speaking his name, the men returned after finishing their port, and Lord Cavendish sought her out at once.

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