“I believed that she had jilted me for love of another man, with whom she had borne a child,” North replied. “My aunt employed her in my absence. Do you truly believe I would have allowed Diana to enter the servants’ hall if I’d known of it?”
Lavinia was fearless; his tone didn’t intimidate her at all, although it would have sent his regiment scurrying into formation. She looked him over, and finally her mouth eased. “I suppose I’m trying to blame you rather than myself.”
North nodded.
“I had better return to my mother,” Lavinia said. “I left her in Her Grace’s hands.” She paused. “North, I shall assume that you have encountered marriage-minded mothers before.” Then she said, as if to herself, “Well, of course you have. You must know Diana’s mother, Mrs. Belgrave.”
“Yes.”
“My mother traveled from France to rescue her niece, but I would be remiss not to inform you that she was delighted to discover that you are still in need of a wife.”
North managed to choke back a response, but his lips moved in a curse.
“I have to repair Diana’s reputation before we can take her away from Cheshire, thus we cannot leave directly.”
“We have to right her reputation,” North said firmly.
She eyed him. “I gather you are not holding a grudge over Diana jilting you.”
He shook his head.
“Or that she apparently allowed the world to believe that the child was yours.”
He shrugged. “I would have been proud to have fathered Godfrey.”
Lavinia put a hand on his arm and smiled at him. He was forgiven.
“In my opinion,” she said, “it would be disastrous if we were to leave before the rumor about Diana being a governess is quashed.”
“I agree,” North said, thinking that Lavinia would have made a good general.
“It would be enormously helpful with respect to my mother if you would play the part of a suitor of mine until we fix things up with Diana,” Lavinia said, straightening her hat. “Don’t worry; I won’t compromise you.”
“I’m not worried.”
“In that case, would you see me back to the castle? My mother will be looking for me, and it will warm her heart to see the two of us together.”
North looked around again, but Diana and the children were nowhere to be seen. “Do you subject your mother to your sardonic sense of humor?” he asked, escorting Lavinia to the pony cart.
“My mother does not understand subtleties,” Lavinia said with a sigh. “Leonidas, come over here!”
“You seem to know my brother very well,” North said, trying to delay in case Diana returned. Where had they gone?
“Of course. He’s too young for me, unfortunately.”
“Isn’t he just your age?”
“Yes, but I seem to prefer grumpy and older,” she said lightly.
Diana probably needed time to think over Lavinia’s reappearance. He doubted that she would cheerfully climb into Lady Gray’s carriage, return to London, and resume the life of a lady.
“I was going to hand the reins to Leonidas, since he made such a fuss on the way here, but why don’t you take them,” Lavinia said to North.
“She drives like a madwoman,” Leonidas said, jumping onto the seat. “Don’t allow her to drive unless you’re feeling immortal. We almost overtook a hare on the way down the hill.”
“It shouldn’t have been hopping down the lane like that,” Lavinia retorted. “I thought it was quite fun, and so did the pony.”
Diana was still nowhere to be seen, and North was wrestling with an unusual bout of . . . of emotion.
In the midst of the Battle of Stony Point, he had wrenched off a dead soldier’s coat, snatched the paper that identified the man as a Yankee, made his way through enemy ranks, dived off a cliff, and swum a mile to get help. The HMS Vulture had been unable to return in time to save the outpost, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Throughout, he had stayed as calm as if he were in a ballroom. It was only around Diana that he got these infuriating surges of emotion.
Lust. Anger. Frustration.
“You might as well drive,” he said to Lavinia. “My brother has overturned the cart more than once.”
“Not since I was twelve!”
All the way home, as Lavinia enjoyed herself by sparring with Leonidas, North tried to pull his thoughts together. He’d never experienced anything like last night. It had felt as if he and Diana were two halves of the same coin, fitting together perfectly. But it didn’t seem to have changed her mind.
Diana went her own way, despite what society would think. What’s more, she was impulsive, and her spontaneity was only matched by her determination. He would have imagined himself falling in love with a woman of tact and composure, not one who turned fiery red when she embarrassed herself, which seemed to happen with alarming regularity.
Yet North would happily spend his life fishing her out of the corners she fled to, luring her to their bedchamber, and making her turn rosy red for a different reason.
After they reached the castle, they found Lady Gray and the duchess taking tea in the drawing room. He managed to sound enthusiastic enough about Lavinia’s visit that he caught his stepmother eyeing him. Then he sought out Lady Knowe.
His aunt had her own sitting room, a messy, comfortable room crammed with books and curiosities Alaric had sent her. Since she didn’t leave the castle very often, his adventuresome brother tried to send the world to her.
She looked up and smiled, waggling her quill to show that she had to finish her missive.
North went to the window. Like his bedchamber, Lady Knowe’s sitting room looked east, over Lindow Moss. In winter the bog was often covered with a thin sheet of ice that delicately outlined every blade of cottongrass that hadn’t been flattened by rain. Now, in late spring, the grass spread like a rolling sea, if oceans were greenish-brown and full of life.
At this distance, he couldn’t distinguish the fluffy tufts of hare’s-tail cottongrass or the darker green clumps of maidenhair moss. He couldn’t see the midges dancing over the surface, or hear the warning gurgle of an underground stream.
“That’s done!” his aunt said cheerfully. Following the death of his mother—the first duchess—his aunt had never been precisely maternal. She had never made any obvious attempt to be a mother to her nephews, but all the same, she had become the fulcrum around which their days turned.
He bent over the desk and kissed her cheek. “Good morning, Aunt.”
“How are you getting along with Lavinia?” she asked, her eyes twinkling. “I’m so happy she and her mother have come to pay us a visit. I do believe she’s one of the most direct people I’ve ever met. She says exactly what’s she’s thinking, but with utmost tact. I adore her.”
“Lady Gray is of the opinion that Lavinia would make an excellent duchess,” North said.
“She has every possible air and grace; she’s absurdly beautiful; she knows how to run a large household. You could do much worse.”
North nodded.
His aunt waved at a tall stack of letters. “I’ve been attending to my mail. My correspondents can be divided into two camps: those who feel that an appropriate betrothal with any young woman of quality will mend your invidious reputation, and those who think you are irremediably beyond the pale.”
“According to Lavinia, my reputation is on the mend.”
His aunt’s eyebrow flew up. “How so?”
“Polite society has learned that Archibald Ewing fathered a child on a daughter who was disowned and died shortly thereafter. It would seem that disowning one daughter is acceptable, but two is criminal; Mrs. Belgrave is being shunned.”
“Excellent!” Lady Knowe cried. “I couldn’t have wished for a better bout of gossip.”
There was something about her face . . .
“Aunt,” North said. “What did you do?”
She grinned. “Nothing much.”
“
Aunt Knowe.”
“I blackmailed Boodle,” she said, chortling. “Told him to gossip all he wanted, and to make sure that the news reached the right ears, because otherwise I would have to inform the sheriff of his light-fingered ways. I wrote to some friends myself, but I haven’t had replies to those missives yet.”
“My dearest of aunts,” North said, “did you ever read the fable about the frog who gossiped so much that he burst?”
“I’ll look it up when I next find myself at leisure,” she promised, twinkling at him.
“So you didn’t actually blackmail Boodle?”
“Not unless you count a promise not to prosecute,” his aunt said. “With that hanging over his head, I expect he scurried around London as quickly as he could. On a different subject, I have decided to throw a ball in honor of Lavinia’s visit, during which we shall make it clear that Diana has been in the castle as a dear and honored guest ever since you left for the colonies.”
“Who would possibly believe that? The prints depict her as a scullery maid.”
“No one would dare gainsay myself, the duke, or the duchess to our faces. If we say she has been our guest, then that is the case. Mrs. Belgrave will still be blamed, but frankly, my dear, she deserves no less. I’ll invite everyone for miles around. All they need to do is meet Diana in her current incarnation—albeit properly gowned—not as the miserable girl who first arrived here.”
North grunted. Of course they would love her. Diana—when she was being herself—was irresistible.
“I was prepared for trouble when I brought her and Godfrey to Lindow,” his aunt said, “thinking the household would dislike a lady living below-stairs. But my fears were unfounded: She won them all over, even Prism, who is far more straightlaced than we are.”
“Whoever heard of a duchess who was happier in the servants’ hall?”
“The question is, my dear, what do you mean to do about it? I should add that, considering Diana’s disinclination to marry you, she will appear at the ball as a dear family friend. You will have to bestow your charms on Lavinia in order to quell gossip.”
North nodded. “She told me the same, though her goal was to soothe her mother.”
“You wooing Lavinia, while Godfrey is freely acknowledged to be Diana’s nephew rather than her son, will kill the scandal like cold water on embers.”
“Paying court to Lavinia in order to entice Lady Gray into a longer stay in the castle is one thing, but I dislike the idea of wooing her in public view.”
His aunt was never interested in remarks that disagreed with any of her plans. “I have a letter from Willa here.” She poked around in the piles that covered her desk. “Here it is! She and Alaric are very happy and well. She says they might pay us a visit before traveling to India; wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Do you think that the scheme will raise false expectations in Lady Gray?” North asked, ignoring her attempt to distract him.
“Lavinia has no interest in marrying you. By the way, I am writing to Parth to insist that he pay us a visit.”
“He won’t come,” North said, startled. “He hates balls.”
“And he dislikes Lavinia with a passion. What’s more, the feeling is mutual,” his aunt said, looking delighted.
“Then why . . .”
“For interest, my dear boy. To liven things up around here.”
“I asked Diana to marry me again, and she refused.”
“I thought as much.” His aunt rose and touched his arm, in fleeting sympathy. “Frankly, darling, she’s not fitted for the role. I’ve never seen a woman more at the mercy of her impulses. If Diana took on the title, she’d have to change. I worry she’d be flattened.”
North cursed silently. His aunt was right, of course.
What had he done, making love to Diana last night? He had thought he could change her mind. If she realized she loved him, she would agree—but that wasn’t good enough.
His aunt was right.
The idea presented itself with some force. The rebellious, loyal, stubborn Diana whom he’d come to know?
She wouldn’t want to open the townhouse in London for eight months of the year to host elegant dinners for political allies and opponents, as Ophelia did. Or if she did, she’d probably have the politicians shouting at each other within half an hour.
These weren’t the things he had lectured her about when they were betrothed. He had talked about knotty problems of etiquette, such as how to respond if a member of the royal family was profoundly drunk.
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t understand her reluctance to be a duchess. Cold hopelessness had replaced his grief after Horatius died. Back when he remembered how to sleep, he used to have fitful dreams about the estates, the Duchy of Lindow, the House of Lords, the hundreds of dependents. Not to mention the beautiful, clean lines of the houses he had dreamed of designing.
He had to let her go. He loved her too much to snare her in the same trap he was mired in.
“Mr. Calico was in the village,” he said. “I bought you a present.”
His aunt clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” She untied the twine wrapped around brown paper, revealing a length of glimmering blue silk.
North had the sudden impulse to snatch it back from her and give it to its rightful owner.
His aunt stroked her hand over the shining threads. “What a beautiful piece,” she said. Then she looked back at North. “My dear nephew, this fabric will never suit me.”
“Why not?” North asked, keeping it short because obviously he’d made a mess of things.
“It’s for the young. This silk is meant to flutter and flow around delightful feminine curves. It’s meant to drive men mad. That is not an honor to which I ever aspired.”
North cracked a smile, despite himself. “Aunt Knowe, if you wished to make men mad, you could certainly do so.”
“Yes, I think I agree,” his aunt said, grinning back. “I oversee the medicinal herb garden after all, and you’d be surprised how a pinch of henbane can scramble the wits. My point is that you didn’t buy this cloth for me.”
She pushed it toward him.
North sighed. “Perhaps I should give it to Lavinia.”
“You could always cut it in half, the way Solomon threatened to do with the baby.” His aunt rose, her eyes dancing with laughter. “I shall be most interested to see who appears in a silk gown at the ball.”
His aunt was built along such generous lines that North scarcely had to bend his head to give her a buss on the cheek. “Are you certain that you don’t wish to fashion it into a gown for yourself?”
“Absolutely,” she replied. “Willa will be so sorry to have missed all these interesting developments! I shall have to write her daily now that Lavinia has arrived.”
“I can’t imagine what you write about,” North said.
“Certainly not about my personal life. I attempted a diary once, and had to fill it with lies in order to keep myself interested.”
North burst out laughing.
“I shall write of you,” his aunt said. “You and darling Diana and the lovely Lavinia. And Parth, of course.”
Chapter Sixteen
Fitzy’s new mate didn’t care for her leash. The bird kept flapping its wings, very nearly jerking Diana’s arms from their sockets. Even worse, Mrs. Fitzy tried to peck Artie, which led to Godfrey hitting it on the beak with his toy horse.
After that, Diana kept the children well away. By the time they got back to the castle, they were all hot and tired. Artie and Godfrey were gray from head to foot because Mrs. Fitzy liked to stop and scratch the ground, sending billows of dust into the air.
The only clean spots on Artie’s face were the two tearful streaks leading from her eyes to her chin.
As they made their way into the courtyard, the door was opened by Prism. His eyes moved from Artie to Godfrey to Diana . . . to Mrs. Fitzy. “Goodness me!”
Artie trudged forward. “Mr. Prism,” she said, sn
iveling a little bit. “I’m tired.” She leaned her dusty cheek against his immaculate white stockings.
Prism bent down and picked her up. “I assume that this bird is an addition to the castle aviary?”
Diana was so exhausted she couldn’t marshal words and merely nodded. Artie put her dirty thumb in her mouth and said indistinctly, “Fitzy’s wife.”
Prism frowned; perhaps he felt that the castle didn’t need another such bird. But he didn’t admonish them; instead, he turned to his footmen. “Frederick, take the bird to the stables. Peter, we need hot water in the bath in the nursery, as well as in Miss Belgrave’s chamber.”
Diana handed the rope to Frederick with a feeling of acute relief. “There are sores around her neck; perhaps the stablemaster could apply some salve.”
The bad-tempered bird took one look at Frederick and stopped scratching the ground, which was insulting.
North was working in the library, and he had kept an ear out for Diana and the children’s return from the village. More than once, he had almost called for the pony cart to be brought around again. What could be taking them so long?
What if . . .
But then he thought about Diana’s firm chin, and that she didn’t need or want him to follow her about.
All the same, he bolted from the library when he heard the front door opening. He reached the entry hall just as Prism entered, carrying Artie in his arms. Diana followed, clearly exhausted. Her face was dirty, and her hair had come loose and was falling down her back. Both it and her dark dress were noticeably dusty, and there was a smear of blood on her cheek—
“What happened?” he thundered. “Were you attacked?” Fear and anger beat inside his chest. He shouldn’t have left them; he shouldn’t have listened to Calico. He rubbed his thumb across the smear on her cheek. “How were you hurt? Artie? Godfrey?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Please stop making a fuss, Lord Roland. I have to bathe the children.”
“Diana.”
She met his eyes with obvious reluctance. “It’s just a scratch.”
He waited until she uncurled her right hand; a wicked, red-raw laceration crossed her palm. “What happened?” His voice was deadly quiet.