Page 55 of Better Than a Duke
“If we called her Meow she might figure it out.” Becks shrugged. “Whiskers could be a man with a beard. She’ll never guess it’s her.”
Laughing, Edmund leaned forward to pat Flintlock on the neck. “We have our secret names, then. Now all we need is a plan.”
“We’re in the plan right now. Look at them.” Becks gesturedahead of them. Her papa and Mama were chatting, and he was making a motion of tilting a bottle up while she laughed.
Edmund grinned.Bonaparte’s farts. Itwasworking.
“You ride well,” Beckett noted, giving Iris an appraising look.
“I used to ride all the time, a lifetime ago.” Perhaps longer ago than that.
“I’m sorry you had to stop.”
Iris narrowed her eyes at him. Edmund would say her feathers were getting ruffled, but in the grand scheme of things this was barely a puff of air. “I’m not looking for pity, Beckett. Riding is great fun, but it isn’t food, or a roof over my head. It’s a luxury.”
“There’s a difference between pitying someone and sympathizing with them. As someone who enjoys riding myself, I’d give it up if I had to, but I wouldn’t particularly like doing so.”
“So if Lady Pauline announced that she’s terrified of horses or something, you’d give away Charles?”
“I… She isn’t terrified of them, is she?”
The look of dismay on his face made her laugh. “I have no idea. Perhaps you should ask her before you propose.”
“I will, now.” He shifted, glancing over his shoulder at the children clomping along behind them. “What about the duke?” he resumed, facing her again. “I’m certain he doesn’t ride any longer. Will you do so?”
“I’m more concerned that Edmund be able to do so.” Another opportunity she couldn’t have offered him on her own.
He lifted his eyebrows as if he wanted to argue, but after a moment he nodded. “I know you don’t want my advice, but I’m going to say it again anyway: get everything put into writing and witnessed. Your monthly stipend, upkeep for Flintlock and Delilah, the number of hours each week where you’re not to be at Trent’s beck and call. Everything.”
Was he giving her the mare? Good heavens. “I have been a wife before, Beckett.” She took a breath, pushing back against the rush of nerves that went through her every time someone mentioned her and Trent and marriage in the same conversation. “I did a great many things wrong, but I’d like to think I’ve learned from my mistakes.”
He nodded, his sharp gray eyes catching hers again. “I feel the same. No more believing in love at first sight, or that love conquers all. The importance of understanding that my spouse is who she is and will not be altered whether I wish it or not. No—”
“No leading with my heart,” she took up. “No ignoring the obvious simply because it’s unpleasant.”
“Finding someone with whom I can carry on a damned conversation,” he said, turning them into Hyde Park.
“And with enough sense to know what’s important.” It was moments like this when she could see it, the two of them together. They were very similar in the way they looked at life, at being a parent, and marriage, even. Waking up to see him every morning, hearing his voice in the house, chatting and laughing with the children, feeling his arms around her every night…
“Papa, will we be able to trot? I want to trot.”
Beckett twisted in the saddle. “Trotting? When we get to Rotten Row I’ll confer with Parsley and Mrs. Silbern.”
“Trotting,” Iris muttered, shaking all the madness out of her thoughts and hoping she wasn’t blushing. “It seems like yesterday that Edmund couldn’t walk without holding on to my skirts.”
“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” With a half-amused scowl Beckett faced forward again. “All of our resolutions aside, if you could have any future you wished, anything at all, what would it be?”
“A boardinghouse overlooking a pond that has fish in it,” she answered, pushing back against the abrupt vision of warm nightsand sunny mornings with Beckett, “and enough income to see Edmund educated and able to make a good life for himself.”
“Yes, that’s well and good for Edmund, but is that what you would choose if you could haveanything? To run a boardinghouse?”
Iris gazed at him. “I don’t see the point of daydreaming,” she said, attempting to convince herself. “Aunt Margaret has declared that Uncle Harold will not lend me the funds to purchase a cottage. That has left me no choice but to agree to wed Trent if he should deign to ask me. In my actual life, my best wish would be to have that boardinghouse.”
“Iris, if that’s truly what you want, I could lend—”
“No,” she broke in. “You couldn’t.”
Now he looked offended that she wouldn’t let him throw money at her. “Why not?”
