The Earl's Design of Love: The Stenwick Siblings by Kirsten Osbourne, Morganna Mayfair Read Free Book Online

but my work is fetching a larger price with everything I make.  If my predictions are correct, I’ll be out of debt in about four years.”  He looked at her.  “Can you live simply for four years?  Not running off to London for every Season?”
    She nodded eagerly.  “I hate the Season.  One or two parties a year, if they’re important, I can stand.  The rest of them are just the same thing over and over.  The same women trying to trap the same men.  The same mothers trying to match their daughters to the same men their daughters didn’t want last week.  I would be happy to never go again.”   Diana truly hated the Season.
    “What about when our daughters are old enough to have Seasons of their own?”
    She blushed at the idea of having children with him.  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.  I hope to never have to put them through a London Season.  Maybe we can find them husbands some other way.  Don’t ask me how, but I don’t think any woman should ever have a Season forced on her if she doesn’t want it.”
    He kissed her cheek, liking how she thought.  “That sounds good to me.  The only time you may be required to go is if my sisters find men they want to marry.  I’d want you to see if they were compatible with their beaux.”
    Diana sighed.  “No more matching people the old fashioned way, I guess?  We’ll only do things the way you want to do them, which means I get to match up the entire world.”  She’d play along with him and tell him who would be good matches.  She just didn’t want to have to be the one to tell people who they must marry.
    Percy smiled.  “That sounds good to me.  The whole world would be so much happier if everyone only married people who were meant for them, and never married people they didn’t belong with.”
    She laughed softly.  “That may be true, but I think you’ll find people aren’t going to agree to marry who I think they should.”  She looked around her, seeing everything through different eyes as she held his hand and walked with him.  “I’ve really tried to talk to people about their choices in spouses.  I’ve talked until my face turned blue, but to no avail.  No one cared what a young girl had to say about who they were compatible with.”
    He looked down at her with a smile.  “It is rather hard to believe that you can look at a couple and see whether or not they should marry.”  
    “I know it is.  I’m glad you believe me though.”  She didn’t think she could marry him if he hadn’t known or understood what a burden it was to her.
    “I didn’t at first.  It’s when you mentioned the Lancasters that I knew.  He’s told me how miserable he is being married to her.  They fight constantly.”
    “They do a really good job of hiding it.”  She shrugged.  “Why did he tell you?”
    “We were roommates at Eton, and then again at Oxford when he was engaged to her.  He had stars in his eyes every time he mentioned her name.  I was his best man.  His father wanted the marriage, because she was an heiress, and at first he agreed, but long before they were married, he had come to dislike her.”
    “I didn’t know that!” 
    Percy nodded.  “He is the only one who knows that I’m working to support my family.  We share a lot with each other.”
    “I wish there were a way to match him with the woman he needs.”  She sighed.  She didn’t tell him that his sister, Charlotte, was the woman for his friend.  She had seen them talking together at a ball and had wanted to cry.  The pure purple had been beautiful, but he was a married man.
    “He won’t divorce her.”  He stepped into the gazebo and took a spot on one of the benches, patted the seat beside him.  She sat with him automatically, still holding his hand.  No one had held her hand that way since she was a small child, and she found it comforting.  “Is it hard for you to know that people don’t belong together when they