Especially not now. When a small part of her wanted this more than she cared to admit. How could she live the rest of her life on the smallest scraps of affection the duke was willing to give? She couldn’t. “One more test, Penelope. Miss Morgan was the wrong woman. That is all. We will conduct one more test. I think the most likely location to push the two of them together would be at my family’s ball next week. I’ll make certain she is on the guest list. We need to make a plan, but this time I need to be far from the duke when he meets her.”
Penelope groaned. “Why don’t you just ask him about her?”
“Because Lady Plymton won’t help his social causes, not like I would. He won’t allow his heart to rule his head, and even Miss Morgan knows that about him. If I speak to him, he will just use that head of his to explain everything away. Seeing her again will open his heart.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“If it doesn’t, then I will have a terrible decision to make.”
Penelope raised her eyebrow in a question. “What decision?”
Mercy sighed. “Whether or not I can be happy married to a man who I think I might one day fall in love with, when I know he won’t ever feel the same about me.”
“But—”
“I know what you are going to say, and please just don’t. I’ve seen you and Lord Yolten together, Richard and Rosalind, Lord and Lady Bryant, my parents. I know what love looks like. And what the duke and I have isn’t even close.”
Penelope dropped both of her hands to her side in defeat. She heaved a heavy sigh and then dragged one of her hands down the front of her face. “This is such a terrible idea.”
“And that is why you are the only person I trust to help me with it.”
Chapter 22
Nicholas had just finished orderingthe flowers he was sending to Lady Mercy’s family in anticipation of their ball the next day when he heard a knock at the front door. It was probably a woman come to see Mama, but there was a chance that woman could be Lady Mercy, wasn’t there? He pushed aside his order form and reached for his cravat. It was still starched and perfectly in place. A few moments later, there was a soft knock at his study.
His lungs filled with air. Lady Mercy had come to visit him, for the first time without him inviting her. He called out for the door to be opened.
McCarthy stepped in and handed him a card.
The deep breath of air he’d inhaled when he thought Lady Mercy was calling froze in his lungs.
The card was from Lady Plymton.
“This woman is here, now?”
“Yes.”
“Does she have a companion with her?”
“No, Your Grace, she is alone.”
“Did you send her to the drawing room?”
McCarthy didn’t answer right away. “I wasn’t certain it would be prudent to, as I didn’t know if you would want to receive her.”
“Well done, McCarthy. I don’t want to see her. You may tell her I’m not available.”
A small smile tugged at McCarthy’s lips. He’d worked his way up to butler over the past few years, but he’d been a part of the household before Nicholas served in the army, and no scandals ever escaped the servants’ notice. Apparently he wouldn’t mind putting Lady Plymton in her place. “I’ll do that.”
Nicholas held the edge of his desk and listened for the sound of a door shutting and a carriage pulling away, but neither happened. Instead, a few moments later, there was another knock at his study door.
“Come in.” Nicholas sounded gruffer than he meant to be, but having his hopes of a visit from Lady Mercy be dashed by a visit from Lady Plymton had him on edge.
McCarthy stepped in. “The lady requested to wait in your drawing room until you became available. When I told her it could be hours and waiting in the drawing room was not possible, she said she would wait in her carriage instead.”
“Is that exactly what she said?”
“I believe what she actually said was that she would be happy to leave her carriage, marked with the Plymton seal, outside for hours while she either waited inside the house or the carriage.”
