“How on earth did His Grace arrange for the performance to travel to Cheshire?” Willa asked.
Her husband shrugged. “He told me he was having the production closed down as a wedding present. I suppose he paid them enough to make the trip worthwhile.”
It was true that in the days after Alaric’s wounding, she had paid no attention to anything beyond his care. Still, a whole theater troupe had arrived without her notice.
“Good evening,” she heard a man say. She looked up.
It was North, but not the same North. For one thing, he wasn’t wearing an extravagant Parisian wig, but the sort a doctor, or a man indifferent to fashion, might wear. His plain black coat emphasized the shadows under his eyes, but his bow was as elegant as any courtier’s.
“I didn’t realize you had returned from London. Please do sit beside me,” she invited. “Prism just informed us that His Grace may not be able to attend the performance.”
“Ophelia is all right, is she not?” North asked, taking the chair she indicated.
“Tetchy as hell,” Alaric said, leaning forward to speak around Willa. “Doesn’t like the doctor’s prescribing lying in, and is keeping Father dancing at her beck and call.”
“As it should be,” Willa pointed out. She strongly believed that Nature’s rule that only females carried children was unreasonable.
“Should it be that way all the time, or merely during delicate times?” North had a frightfully charming smile.
“In a just world, women would birth female babies and men would birth males,” Willa said firmly. “Some male babies are far too large to be carried with comfort.”
North looked past her at his brother, his mouth a lopsided smile.
“Yes, I am lucky,” Alaric said, grinning.
North’s face closed like a trap.
“Bloody hell,” Alaric said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Did you find Diana?”
“No, and her mother informed me that she is no longer my concern.”
From behind the green velvet curtain came the sound of a few violins being tuned. Alaric leaned forward and gripped his brother’s knee.
A beaming Lady Knowe arrived and took the seat on the other side of North. “I’ve seen this play twice already, and I am agog to see it a third time!”
“You do remember that it was authored by a woman who was as mad as a March hare?” Alaric asked.
“And responsible for no little actual drama?” Willa chimed in, curling her hand around Alaric’s arm. She still woke up at night, shaking with fear.
Lady Knowe shrugged. “Whoever claimed that Shakespeare was sane? Do you know that he left his wife nothing but his ‘second-best bed’?”
“That sounds like a commentary on his marriage, not his sanity,” Willa pointed out.
A moment later, the ballroom fell silent when a boy emerged from the curtain and paraded across the stage holding a large pasteboard placard which read,
WILDE IN LOVE
OR,
THE TRAGIC STORY OF
THE BEASTS OF THE WILD
AND THE
MISSIONARY’S DAUGHTER
Willa wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but she patted Alaric’s knee instead. A helpmeet, she reminded herself, should offer succor in times of distress.
The boy reached the far end of the stage, turned his placard, and marched back the way he’d come. The sign now read,
The Final Performance
This brought on another wave of chatter from the audience, only hushed by the sound of violins rising in a crescendo.
A gentleman emerged from behind the curtains and stepped up onto the low stage.
“Oh God, don’t tell me he’s supposed to be me,” Alaric groaned.
“He is not so terrible,” Willa whispered.
The actor didn’t resemble her husband in the least. He had a narrow patrician face, a carefully powdered lavender wig, and a figure that seemed to have been created specifically for the current slim-waisted fashions.
“I am wearing a corset,” Alaric hissed, outraged, in Willa’s ear.
“Hush!” she whispered back. But she couldn’t help laughing.
The gentleman—who was indeed “Lord Wilde”—launched into a long speech about his passion for the wilderness, while Alaric sat back and glared, arms folded over his chest.
It seemed that the presence of the actual Lord Wilde made the actor nervous, because he fairly rattled out a soliloquy that explained his voyage to “wildest Africa.”
He concluded with a flourish, proclaiming that one hadn’t truly experienced life until one had lived among wild animals. At that point, Alaric’s expression grew ferocious, and one could definitely have described the poor man’s exit as a flight.
North leaned over. “I’d forgotten what a jolly good play this is. I daresay Fitzball could give you some hints about dress, Alaric.”
“Fitzball?”
“The actor,” North clarified, his expression positively gleeful. “Quite a star already. His soulful performance of Lord Wilde did much to increase your fame.”
Alaric’s response to this was a rude gesture, so Willa gave him a gentle kick, reminding him there were children present. Then, since they were family now, she kicked North as well. “Behave yourselves!”
“Ouch,” North rumbled.
At this point, the missionary’s daughter burst onto the stage, and Act One was off. As the play proceeded, Willa discovered that her assessment of the play was different from North’s. For one thing, there was far too much reliance on throbbing sentences. For another, the missionary’s family was given to blessing each other right and left, which grew tiresome.
She did enjoy the scene in which the missionary’s daughter fell into the deep river (adequately represented by rippling blue cloth). Her mother shrieked and moaned, casting blessings on the head of her drowning daughter.
Lord Wilde beat his chest, raging up and down the riverbank while lamenting that his terror of the water prevented him from saving “the sweetest maiden who ever walked the savannah.”
The reaction of the audience to this dramatic crisis was divided unevenly between those in the front rows—the Wildes—who were howling with laughter, and the rest, who were howling in terror and suspense.
Happily, it was revealed that the young lady knew how to swim, because she wiggled across the blue cloth and made it to the riverbank, ending Act Two.
“I can’t believe this nonsense,” Alaric said, in the interval before Act Three commenced.
“It isn’t very good,” Willa agreed, “although I thought the mother played her part with a great deal of spirit.”
“ ‘Dead! Dead! Never to call me Mother again,’ ” North said, deadpan.
Further along the row, past Lady Knowe, Lavinia and Parth had somehow ended up seated beside each other. Willa just caught Lavinia’s retort, “Just because you have no understanding of art—”
Act Three opened before Lavinia could complete her sentence.
The heroine’s near death had caused Lord Wilde to see at last that she was the dearest treasure of his heart. Their stolen “moment of delight,” represented by feverish kisses, was greeted with approval by the audience, especially the youngest Wildes, whose encouraging hoots could be heard over civilized applause.
The locket made its appearance, and was dropped by the heroine into her bodice; a nice touch, Willa thought.
After that, high emotions came thick and furious. The missionary and his wife uncovered Lord Wilde’s perfidious seduction, leading to much gnashing of teeth and wailing about God’s providence: “Branded with infamy! Shunned! Degraded! O, my daughter, my daughter, what will become of you!”
Before anyone could answer that riveting question, the cannibals made their attack, though it was conducted behind the scenes. To the front of the stage, Lord Wilde ate a leisurely breakfast, unaware that his lady love had not only been cast off by her parents, but had been captured by bloodthirsty cannibals, and was a
bout to become their breakfast.
A few rending screams shook the curtains, followed by the pushing of an enormous papiermâché cooking pot onto the stage, “fire” wadded underneath. A woman’s hand was draped over its rim, the locket poignantly tangled in its fingers.
Even the children held their breaths now, waiting for Lord Wilde to finish his ham and eggs, turn around, and discover the tragedy.
He leapt to his feet with a fine roar of fury. There was nothing he could do other than fight off the cannibals and rescue his beloved’s body in order to return it to her family. But he kept the locket, falling to his knees and crying out, “Never shall I love another woman!”
A satisfied sigh echoed around the ballroom.
Until Alaric broke the mood by bursting into laughter.
Fitzball threw Alaric a withering glare and swept from the stage.
“I will credit Prudence for getting one thing right,” Alaric said, rising to his feet.
Willa looked up at him inquiringly.
“I will never love another woman,” he announced. He pulled her up, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. The audience roared with appreciation.
Willa returned his kiss, because there are rare occasions on which propriety should be ignored, and this was one of them. “Love you,” she murmured, her voice almost silent against his lips. “And you?”
“Don’t you dare,” he murmured back.
She choked back laughter because, after all, it was unnecessary to point out that he was, indeed, Wilde in Love.
The whole castle knew it.
Chapter Thirty-six
Three months later
A country cottage in Lancashire
North knocked on the door of a small, dreary cottage with a sense of profound disbelief. His exquisitely fashionable fiancée was living in a tiny house with two rooms at the most?
With a fraying thatched roof, and a fence so rickety that his horse might bring it down by a twitch on his reins? Curtains at the windows that looked as if they’d been sewn from flour sacks? Blindingly white flour sacks, but still …
Impossible.
Her favorite wig wouldn’t even fit through the door.
There had to be something wrong with the directions he’d been given. And yet, once he had bribed Mrs. Belgrave’s butler with a handful of guineas, this was the address he’d been given. No matter how often he asked, Mrs. Belgrave flatly refused to share the location of the daughter she had disinherited.
All for the crime of jilting a future duke.
It was North’s fault, the whole of it. If only he’d been perceptive enough to see that Diana didn’t love him—in fact, loathed him—he would never have proposed. She would still be in a London ballroom, perhaps dancing with a man whom she could love.
And he?
He wouldn’t have spent over a year in yellow heels and towering wigs, trying to match her elegance. Showing off his finery as if he were Fitzy, the family’s peacock.
He knocked again, more loudly.
“I’m coming!”
Her voice gave him a sudden sense of vertigo. The sickening part of it all was that Diana may have preferred exile to marriage—but he didn’t seem to be able to stop loving her.
That hopeless love had driven him to this visit. His courtship had ruined her life, and he had to make amends before leaving for war.
He would take her out of this pitiful cottage, for one thing, and make sure that she was never destitute again. He would have to phrase it in such a way that Diana was able to accept his help—with the understanding that there were no strings attached. That he would never bother her again.
The door swung open, and there she was.
When North first saw Diana Belgrave laughing on the side of the ballroom, he thought she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
But now?
She was wearing an unfashionable bonnet that framed her face. Her eyes were outlined not by black kohl, but by long eyelashes. Her lips were a natural rose.
She was exquisite.
He lost the ability to speak and just stared at her.
Finely drawn brows drew together. “Lord Roland, what are you doing here?” Her eyes swept down his body, and froze. “What are you wearing?”
He glanced down. After months of military training, he no longer noticed his dark crimson coat with its standing collar, plain breeches, and sturdy, beautifully made boots. Or if he did, it was only to thank God that he didn’t have to squeeze his shoulders into tight, embroidered coats meant to bedazzle Diana.
“I’ve bought a commission,” he said flatly. “I’m leaving for the war in America.”
To his surprise, her eyes filled with horror. “No!” She reached out and caught his sleeve. “You mustn’t, North! Is it too late?”
Stupidly, his heart thudded in his chest at her touch. Gently he disengaged his sleeve. “I command a regiment that leaves directly. I came to say goodbye but, more than that, I want to apologize.”
Her face had lost all color. She looked as shocked as if she’d really cared for him.
“I spoke to your mother several times over the last week,” he said, trying to ease into a discussion of her circumstances.
She shook her head. “A waste of words.”
That was true: her bloody-minded mother had actually detailed the money she’d made by reselling Diana’s gowns. “I may not be able to convince Mrs. Belgrave to accept you as her daughter,” North said, “but the least I can do is ensure that you don’t suffer due to my courtship. Why did—”
But he made himself cut off that question. It didn’t matter why she had accepted his proposal, or why she jilted him, for that matter.
If possible, she had turned even whiter. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
“Tell me what?”
Sunlight loved her, he thought numbly. It lit the perfect cream of her cheek, the shadow cast by her fringe of eyelashes. Deluded fool though he was, he found himself memorizing every detail so that he could take it with him into war.
Diana didn’t want him or love him, but her disdain hadn’t killed his idiotic passion for her.
She opened her mouth, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Lord Roland.”
“You called me North a moment ago.”
Just then, he heard a thump from behind her, in the shadowed cottage. As if someone had dropped an object.
Diana’s eyes widened, and she shifted to block the cottage interior from his sight.
The truth of it seared down North’s body. She had a lover. She had told him that she hadn’t—and he had believed her—but obviously she lied.
Likely she fled to the country with someone whom her mother would never accept. A footman, or a grocer, like her grandfather. Mrs. Belgrave had cast off her daughter for that sin; it had nothing to do with him.
She didn’t need his help. She had chosen another man, and all those lies she had told were … lies. Just lies. No different than the words she spoke when she promised to marry him.
A sensation of pure emptiness filled him, a chilly wave of nausea in its wake. “I beg your pardon,” he said, stepping backward. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Another thump came from inside: something wooden tumbled off a table and rolled across the floor.
“I must be on my way.”
She swallowed so hard that he saw the lump in her throat. “I never wished to hurt you,” she said haltingly.
North bowed his head. What was he supposed to say? Thank you for small blessings? She watched silently as he swung up on his horse. He was about to say goodbye when another thump came from behind her, this one followed by a wail. The voice was high and young, full of tears.
A baby.
Diana had a baby.
Epilogue
Eleven years later
An unnamed and uncharted island in the West Indies
Two young boys ran across the white sand and threw themselves into turquoise water as joyou
sly as otters.
Miss Katerina Wilde looked up from her book and squinted. She had inherited her mother’s imperfect eyesight, and the distinction between the cool, shady palm and the glaring sun made it impossible to see, especially with her spectacles on. “Don’t go too far out!” she shouted at Benjamin and Shaw.
Their nursemaid, who was infatuated with one of the footmen, was nowhere to be seen.
A footman was a strange creature to find on a West Indian island. But their mother insisted on a proper evening meal, which meant the Wildes traveled with footmen, linen, silver, and china. A cook and a butler.
Katie’s brothers had spent the last four months turning brown as nuts, cavorting in the warm water of the Caribbean. Katie preferred to lie around under a tree wearing a pair of breeches so she could dash into the water to cool off. Their mother spent her days studying sea turtles, making delicate watercolors of their eggs.
Their father worked on his next book, of course.
Every night the whole family donned proper clothing and cut their goat stew with silver utensils.
Their mother wouldn’t have it any other way.
Katie let her book slide to the ground as she lay back, hands behind her head. Her beloved cat, Sweetpea, was curled up next to her, purring loudly. Sweetpea was the daughter of her father’s favorite cat, and named after her mother’s favorite pet—but she loved Katie better than anyone else in the world.
Looking up into the waving palm fronds, Katie decided that she was probably the luckiest ten-year-old girl anywhere in the world.
Just this morning, her father had said she was old enough to edit any scene he’d written in which she appeared. Even delete it, if she wished.
Not that she would. She loved Lord Wilde’s stories of their family’s adventures as much as the rest of England did. Well, England, and France, and even America, now. Father was trying to talk their mother into traveling to New York City next.
Katie gave the palm fronds far above her a happy grin. She meant to marry a man as big and handsome as her father. They would travel the world, returning to England every once in a while.