When the Duke Found Love (11 page)

That was her only hope now: that Lord Crump would have second thoughts and break off the match. A gentleman could do that, and though he’d be faulted for a while, he could still marry someone else. But a lady would forever be known as a jilt if she changed her mind and went back on her word, a reputation that would keep away all other suitors.

To be sure, it was a slender hope, and Brecon soon squashed it flat.

“Nonsense,” Brecon said briskly, leaving no further room for doubt. “What has the man to consider? A most delightful young lady has accepted his proposal of marriage. I’m sure he’s as proud as the day, and with every good reason, too.”

Mama leaned forward eagerly. “Most likely he was simply stunned by his good fortune, that was all. I saw not a hint of reluctance from him. But I thought that was why we should include him in our party tomorrow night. The sooner we welcome him into our family, the sooner he will feel at ease among us.”

Diana ran her fingers along Fig’s spine, ruffling her fur back and forth. “I’m not sure Lord Crump feels at ease anywhere.”

“Clearly he does in your company,” Mama said, resting her hand gently on Diana’s knee. “And no wonder, when you are being so very thoughtful and considerate for his sake. Oh, Diana, I am so happy for you!”

“We all are,” Brecon said. “I’m sure your head was spinning too fast to hear it, but there was nothing but praise for the match last night at Fortescue’s. It’s most satisfying to see such a creditable arrangement made between two young persons of rank.”

“That’s it exactly, Brecon,” Mama agreed, then turned back to Diana. “But it’s not only about having you become a marchioness, lamb. It’s that you have appreciated Lord Crump’s virtues in a mature and sober manner. You and I both know that you’ve often preferred a handsome face above all things, and I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am to see you put aside impulse and frivolity and make such a wise decision about your life.”

There was a little trembling in Mama’s voice that betrayed the depth of her emotions. Diana knew that if she looked up from Fig’s patterned fur even for a second, she’d soon be crying, too, not from emotion but from the truth.

She hadn’t made a wise choice, not at all. Instead she’d made the most important decision of her life based on exactly the kind of impulse and frivolity that Mama thought she’d outgrown. Worse still, she’d done it because of the handsome face of the Duke of Sheffield, and she’d acted entirely in reaction to his own announcement.

“The carriage is here,” Brecon said, glancing through the window as he rose to leave.

“The carriage can wait,” Mama said lightly, her hand still on Diana’s knee. “I’ll be there soon enough.”

Over and over Diana ran her hand over Fig’s fur, feeling the vibrations of the little cat’s purr beneath her fingers. She could still confess everything to Mama, from how she’d first met Sheffield and Fantôme in the park to how she’d kissed him last night, and most of all, how she despaired of ever being happy with Lord Crump for her husband. Last night, as she’d tossed sleeplessly in her bed, she’d imagined doing exactly that.

And if she did? There would be tears and unhappiness and abject misery, but in the end, likely nothing would change. Mama wouldn’t understand, at least not enough to make a difference. Instead Diana must be like every other lady of her class. She must be obedient, and she must marry Lord Crump, just as everyone expected, and make the best of it. All a confession now would accomplish would be to upset and disappoint Mama, and that Diana did not wish to do.

Perhaps, after all, she was more like Charlotte than she’d ever realized.

With a shuddering gulp, she forced herself to look up from Fig and meet her mother’s gaze.

“Thank you, Mama,” she said, determined to be strong. “I am grateful for your faith in me, however undeserved.”

“You deserve everything, lamb,” Mama said, slipping her arms around Diana to kiss her forehead. “You’ll see. You’re not as happy as you should be now, but in time, you’ll have the love and the life that you deserve.”

But as Diana buried her face against her mother’s shoulder, she didn’t believe she deserved anything at all.

Sheffield followed the servant through Marchbourne House with Fantôme at his side, his footsteps and the click of Fantôme’s claws echoing as they crossed the patterned marble floors. This was the largest of the town houses—it was really nearer to a palace—belonging to the cousins, and the grandest as well. The last time Sheffield had been here, soon after March and Charlotte had been married, the place still had felt like a bachelor’s residence. March, too, had absorbed the lessons of diligence and responsibility from Brecon, and this house had shared the same dull and dutiful air: beautiful, lavish, filled with exquisite paintings and furniture, but with all the cheer of a tomb.

Somehow Charlotte had managed to change that. Sheffield couldn’t begin to guess how, but just as she’d thawed March, she’d also done the same with Marchbourne House. The marble floors were the same, as was the army of servants, and the same somber ancestors stared down from the walls. But now there were fresh flowers in porcelain vases everywhere, and in the rooms they passed Sheffield saw how the chairs were invitingly cushioned and drawn close around fireplaces, and that there were smaller, more cheerful paintings of family pets and laughing children among the portraits of long-dead ancestors. Less tangible was the new sense of a family at home here, with four lively young children plus Charlotte’s mother and, most noteworthy, Lady Diana.

Would a wife make the same transformation in Sheffield House? His own London house was smaller, elegant rather than grand. Though it was all Sheffield’s, and had been for many years, in a way he still thought of it as his parents’ house, with everything virtually unchanged since his mother had arranged it. It was just as well that Lady Enid would not become the next duchess; she’d probably want to put busts of Homer and Virgil in every room and turn the ballroom into the library. He smiled, thinking of what his mother would have made of such additions.

“Through these doors, sir,” the footman said, opening them and standing aside for Sheffield to pass. “Her Grace will receive you by the pond.”

Sheffield stepped outside, blinking at the sunlight. He pulled a leash from his coat pocket and clipped it to Fantôme’s collar. He trusted the dog to behave with the children—Fantôme was by nature too lazy to do otherwise, and would patiently submit to every indignity from sticky small hands, including throttling hugs, pets and tugs on ears, and even being ridden like a short, stout pony—but the leash would reassure Charlotte and any overprotective nursemaids who might be lurking.

With his usual snuffling nosiness, Fantôme had found a dusty yellow ball, overlooked by both children and servants, beneath a lacquered Chinese chest-on-chest, and he trotted proudly with his prize bulging from one side of his mouth. At least they’d make an entrance, Sheffield thought wryly as they followed the footman. He expected the ladies to be in some sort of shaded summerhouse or garden folly, genteelly taking tea out of the sun the way ladies did.

What he found, however, completely and utterly surprised him.

In the middle of the garden was a large garden pond, really more of a canal, framed by neat marbled edging and close-clipped grass. The water was covered with small wooden boats, the kind that could be bought for a penny at the Bartholomew Fair. The boats were painted red, green, and blue, and their square paper sails were carrying them every which way like excited ducklings. Three small children—two lordlings and a little lady—in white gowns ran shrieking up and down along the grass, with three nervous nursemaids hovering to keep them from toppling into the water. Like a queen on her throne, Charlotte sat in an armchair at one end of the pond beneath a makeshift canopy, holding an infant in a cap and trailing gown in her arms as she called an endless, anxious stream of cautions to the other children by the water.

But the real queen of this penny armada ruled not from land but from the waves. In the middle of the pond stood Lady Diana, the skirts of her petticoat looped up through the pocket openings of her skirts. A wide-brimmed straw hat was pulled low to shade her face, and from exertion, the knot of her hair was frizzled and loose along the nape of her neck. The water wasn’t deep, perhaps a foot at most, and her slender, pale legs were bare to the knee—confound him, to the
knee
—as she waded through it.

Water splashed up onto her legs, droplets sparkling in the sunshine as they trickled down her bare calves. The hems of her petticoat weren’t tucked up quite far enough to escape the pond water, and the wet linen clung closely to the little hollow at the back of her knee. More water had splashed onto the kerchief around her neck, making a dappled pattern of near-transparency over the swelling tops of her breasts.

He stared, and stared some more. He’d never seen a lady like this. She held a long bamboo pole in her hands to help guide errant boats, leaning forward to prod them away from the shore, to the noisy encouragement of the children.

“Avast, you foul sea dogs!” she shouted with piratical relish. “Avast, me hearties, and pull to the lee!”

The children jumped up and down and shouted with her, and when she tipped the end of the pole into the water to flick droplets in their direction, they squealed and ran about with delight.

With so much activity, no one had noticed Sheffield’s arrival, forcing the discomfited footman to raise his voice over the din.

“His Grace the Duke of Sheffield!” he bellowed, loud enough to be heard clearly in St. James’s Park.

“Sheffield!” Charlotte rose at once, thrusting the baby to one of the nursemaids and hurrying around the edge of the pond to greet him. “Good day to you! Pray forgive us for this shambles. My only excuse is that I never thought you’d appear before the afternoon.”

“Forgive me for disturbing you,” Sheffield said, smiling as warmly as he could. “If this in an inconvenient hour, then I can return another time.”

He liked Charlotte, a beautiful, witty lady with lovely eyes and an excellent humor despite being married to March. Under any other circumstances, he would have enjoyed conversing with her. But now all he could think of was how her wide hat and hooped silk skirts and fluttering lace shawl were blocking his view of her sister, still standing in the pond. At least he guessed she must be; he hadn’t heard any untoward splashing to indicate that she’d left it, and there was no honorable way he could crane his neck to peek around Charlotte to be sure.

No, Lady Diana must still be in the pond, with her skirts clinging wetly to her thighs and the water trickling slowly down her shins and her dampened kerchief half untucked from her bodice and—

“It’s not inconvenient at all, Sheffield,” Charlotte was saying, reaching up to pat his shoulder. “You are March’s cousin and a member of our family, and always welcome here, whatever the hour. Is this your dog?”

Abruptly Sheffield dragged his thoughts back, blinking in a way that must have been so obvious as to be reprehensible. Blast, let Charlotte not have read his thoughts, or rather, let his thoughts not have showed so readably on his face.

To be certain, he knelt down beside Fantôme, grateful for the diversion—and also grateful for the wide sweep of Charlotte’s gown, hiding even a hint of the distracting Lady Diana.

“This is Fantôme,” he said, rubbing the dog’s broad chest until he closed his eyes and made a low grumble of contentment. “Do not mistake his ugliness for fierceness. He’s as mild as a lamb.”

As if to prove it, Fantôme gave one final rumble and collapsed over onto his side, the yellow ball still crushed to one side of his jaws, his eyes closed, clearly begging to be further petted. Charlotte laughed, but still Sheffield lightly coiled the leash around his wrist as her children came forward. As much as he trusted Fantôme—which was to say completely—it was always better to be safe around small, erratic, noisy creatures.

“Jamie, Amelia, Georgie, here.” Charlotte and the nursemaids steered the children into a shuffling line before him. “This is His Grace the Duke of Sheffield, and he is your uncle Sheffield. Now come, present your honors to him.”

“That’s not necessary,” Sheffield said quickly, but Charlotte insisted. The older boy and the girl managed to bow and curtsey reasonably well, but the younger boy needed prodding and whispers before he managed a stiff little bow. Sheffield stood and nodded in acknowledgment, feeling at least a hundred years old before the wide-eyed children.

“Well done,” Charlotte said proudly. “My sister Diana is here somewhere. I know you two met last night. Diana?”

She turned, and at last gave him a clear view of Diana. Surrounded by the little boats, she was still standing in the pond with the bamboo pole in one hand and her other cocked on her hip, making no move to join them. She didn’t smile, either, but as soon as she saw him watching her, she bent low into the water in a beautifully executed curtsey—beautiful, that is, until she rose, water streaming from her skirts.

The children laughed uproariously. “Look at Aunt Diana,” one of them said. “She’s all
wet
.”

“Yes, she rather is, isn’t she?” Sheffield agreed. She was, and he couldn’t look away. At his distance, he couldn’t judge her mood. At first he’d thought she was embarrassed to be caught in such dishabille, but that couldn’t be it, not since she’d made no move to cover herself. Was she not smiling to be playfully serious, or was she truly unhappy with him? He hadn’t given her any reason for displeasure. She couldn’t possibly be angry at him for announcing his betrothal to Lady Enid, since she’d done exactly the same thing with hers to Lord Crump.

Lord Crump. How could a lady as delightful as this wish to wed a man like that?

“Is your dog sleeping?” asked the little girl.

“Ah, no,” Sheffield said, reluctantly looking away from Diana as he tried to remember what her name was. Amelia, that was it. “He’s simply lazy, Lady Amelia, that is all.”

“He’s
fat
,” said the older boy, scowling, the same one who’d announced that Diana was wet. “
And
he’s stupid-looking.”