Waking Up With a Rake Read Free Page B

child.” Olivia pulled out the fichu and let it drop to the floor. The gown was perfectly acceptable without it, especially since she had no bosom of which to speak. Her breasts were the size of carnation blossoms, and rather small carnations at that. It was bad enough she’d been yanked from the hothouse she loved before she’d had time to finish repotting her orchids. Having her mother try to dress her as if she were a china doll was an indignity that danced on her last nerve. “I’m not your poppet either. And I will not hurry just because the Duke of Clarence has sent another of his hounds.”
    “Hush.” Her mother put two fingers to Olivia’s lips. “Hounds, indeed. Must you be so vulgar?”
    “Well, what would you call it?” A lock of hair had escaped her lacy snood. Olivia tucked it behind her ear to forestall her mother reaching for it. “The duke is using the poor fellow exactly like a hunting dog to flush the quarry from the brush.”
    Her mother made a tsking noise. “Your father never should have taught you to shoot.”
    “He shouldn’t have taught me to do lots of things.” Like think for myself , Olivia added silently as she headed down the corridor toward the house’s grand main staircase.
    “I trust you’ll keep those unladylike accomplishments to yourself.” Beatrice Symon almost had to trot to keep up with Olivia’s strides.
    Not that Olivia was in a hurry to meet with the duke’s man. She simply knew she’d have no peace until the interview was over, so she might as well have done with it.
    “Don’t fret,” she told her mother. “It doesn’t matter a fig what I say to the man. I could be as dotty as a March hare, and it wouldn’t change a thing. The Duke of Clarence isn’t nearly as interested in me as he is in the forty thousand pounds Papa is settling on me.”
    “Don’t be silly. He’s a royal duke. What does he need with money?”
    “Maybe to pay his debts?” Olivia read every copy of the London Times her father brought home, and according to all reports, the Duke of Clarence—all the royal family, in fact—had amassed mountains of debt. “Perhaps Clarence is merely tired of trying to wrangle funds from Parliament and considers me a tidy little personal bank.”
    “It’s gauche to speak of such things.”
    Wonder if she’d rather I mention that I do, in fact, possess a virgin womb, which I know is the duke’s other main interest. The Duke of Clarence had managed to sire ten children on his mistresses, all of whom were received in Society and were granted the surname Fitzclarence. He’d proven his potency. Olivia was the eldest of six daughters, and large families ran on both sides of her pedigree, facts not lost on the royal duke’s advisors, she was sure. Her chances of being fertile were as high as her father’s pockets were deep.
    “Now promise me you won’t mention money to the nice gentleman,” her mother demanded as they descended the grand curving staircase together.
    Olivia rolled her eyes. “How do you know he’s nice?”
    Most gentlemen she’d met hadn’t been at all nice once one scratched beneath the surface of their courtly manners. She didn’t believe, as her mother apparently did, that “blood will out.”
    Olivia’s family boasted no blue blood, but her father, Horatio Symon, had returned from India with wealth to rival the most decadent maharajah. Despite being rich enough to buy all the trappings of the Upper Ten Thousand—the expansive country estate, a well-situated Mayfair townhouse, and the latest fashions and buckets of jewels for Olivia, her mother, and sisters—the Symons still weren’t considered “good ton” by the elite.
    But in some circles, well-moneyed trumped wellborn. More than one heiress had bought herself a title when a land-rich, cash-poor peer decided he’d overlook his bride’s pedigree in favor of her father’s purse.
    A royal duke was the largest of all possible noble prizes for a wealthy common girl