When the Duke Found Love (16 page)

“Sheffield gave it to me this morning to mark our betrothal,” she said proudly. “That’s the goddess Athena carved in the stone. Could there be a more perfect ring?”

“It’s lovely,” Diana murmured as she dutifully leaned over the other woman’s hand. The amethyst and diamond ring wasn’t to her own taste—she didn’t care for purple, even in a precious stone—but Lady Enid clearly adored it, which was all that mattered. Or almost all: the choice of the ring had been so thoughtfully made with consideration for her interests that Diana was impressed. Clearly Sheffield’s aim had been to please Lady Enid, and he’d succeeded.

In comparison her own finger remained woefully bare, and she thought how Lord Crump would never be able to make a similarly appropriate choice. He knew next to nothing about her, nor did he seem interested in learning more, either. But then March had scarcely known Charlotte when he’d chosen her ring, so there was still hope.

“Yes, it is lovely,” Lady Enid said softly, then with a sigh covered the ring with her other hand. It was a curious gesture, peculiar for any lady who’d just been given such a ring from the man she was to wed.

But equally curious was Sheffield’s behavior. To begin with, he’d chosen to sit with his dog rather than with the woman he’d promised to wed. He was courteous to her, but nothing more. He didn’t even attempt conversation, which Diana knew was most unusual for him. Instead each of them stared from different windows, each lost in their respective thoughts. Diana wondered if they’d quarreled or had some other misunderstanding; yet there was none of the tension that usually accompanied such unhappiness, none of the ill will, and certainly no recriminations or name-calling. The three of them might have been strangers traveling in a post-road coach.

Fortunately, Marchbourne House faced Green Park, with St. James’s Park adjacent, and their drive to St. James’s gates was a brief one. Once inside, they joined the afternoon parade of carriages, and finally there was plenty to say. With the carriage windows dropped, the three of them nodded and smiled at the noble-born passengers of other carriages. Because Sheffield had been away for so long on the Continent and Lady Enid was indifferent to society, Diana was the one who identified the most faces. It became something of a game, with her not only spotting the owner of each passing carriage but supplying a scrap of identifying history, too, which Sheffield instantly embroidered. Before long the three of them were laughing uproariously together, and in every other carriage in St. James’s that afternoon the conversation inevitably included the charming high spirits in the Duke of Sheffield’s carriage, how handsome His Grace had grown whilst away, how remarkable Lady Enid Lattimore and Lady Diana Wylder were for their beauty, and how dreadfully ugly the dog was that stood on the seat with his paws out the window.

When they reached the farthest end of the drive for the third time, Sheffield drew an elaborate gold watch from his waistcoat.

“Is it time, then?” Lady Enid asked, her voice abruptly taut.

“It is.” Sheffield smiled and tucked the watch back in its pocket. “Nearly four o’clock.”

“Time for what, Duke?” Diana asked. “Must we leave so soon?”

“Not at all,” Sheffield said, signaling to the driver to stop. “I thought we should like to walk beneath the trees for a bit. One never knows whom one might meet in the shadows.”

Diana narrowed her eyes at him, for of course he must be referring to how they’d first met—not that she would say so before Lady Enid.

“True enough,” she said instead. “All manner of rascals can be found lurking in the shadows.”

“Not so long as the sun is with us,” Sheffield said, letting Fantôme jump down from the carriage first. “But I’ll grant you that no one of fashion walks at this hour. Other than the nursemaids walking with their charges, we’ll have the trees to ourselves.”

They climbed down and soon left the carriage behind, the two women walking together and Sheffield slightly ahead, letting Fantôme wander. He’d been right about the hour, and there were few others walking beneath the elms and the oaks, their shadows stretching long in the dappled sun. It seemed to Diana the perfect time to walk, but beside her Lady Enid seemed strangely agitated, looking anxiously about in every direction as if fearing some giant lion or other beast would leap from behind the next tree.

“You needn’t worry, Lady Enid,” Diana said, wishing to calm her. “His Grace is right. I’ve walked here scores of times before at this hour, and we’re perfectly safe.”

Lady Enid only shook her head, not daring for an instant to be less vigilant and look at Diana. “I have no fear of outside attack, Lady Diana, but rather I fear my own weaknesses and lack of fortitude, which might keep me from the happiness that—oh, forgive me, I must go to him!”

Abruptly she abandoned Diana and began to run away, heedless of how her skirts flew about her legs or her hat bumped on her hair.

“Lady Enid!” called Diana, beginning to follow her. “Come back, I beg you!”

But she’d only taken a few steps when, to her astonishment, she saw a soberly dressed reverend gentleman step from a tree and hurry toward Lady Enid. He swept his black hat from his head, holding his arms out to her, and she flung herself into his embrace, holding him as tightly as was possible. The next instant they were kissing with as much passion and devotion as a man and woman could, while all Diana could do was watch with complete bewilderment.

“Who is he?” she demanded when Sheffield joined her. “I don’t understand at all, Duke. Who
is
he?”

Sheffield watched them, too, his smile broad. “That’s the Reverend Dr. Joshua Pullings, the gentleman Enid intends to marry.”

“Marry?” Now Diana stared at Sheffield. “But I thought
you
had promised to marry her.”

“Oh, I have,” he said easily. “She’s duly promised to marry me as well, but Dr. Pullings will be the one who will actually become her husband.”

Diana shook her head, unable to find any logic in this nonsense. “That’s impossible,” she said. “Lord Lattimore would never condone it.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” he agreed. “In fact, he has expressly forbidden that match, and much prefers the one between Enid and me. Lattimore will be furious when he learns the wrong man has won his daughter, but then, he didn’t count on love, did he?”

Lady Enid and Dr. Pullings had stopped kissing now and were talking. Though they stood too far away for their words to be overheard, it was clear from how they smiled and gazed upon each other, how she rested her palm so trustingly upon his chest and how his arms circled her waist with such tenderness, that their conversation must be nothing but the sweetest endearments and promises. The difference in their fortunes and stations didn’t in the least concern either of them. All that mattered was love. It was one of the most romantic sights that Diana had ever seen, and as confused as she was by exactly how it had come about, she still couldn’t help but wish she’d a measure of the same tenderness and devotion from Lord Crump.

“People like us don’t marry for love,” she said wistfully. “It’s not permitted.”

“It will be this time, because I’m doing the permitting,” Sheffield said. “Or at least the arranging. Come, let’s grant them their time alone, and I’ll explain.”

He offered her his arm, and when she didn’t take it immediately, he gently took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm to lead her away. She sighed and followed, matching her steps to his.

“You’ve a great deal of explaining to do, Duke,” she said. “You say that they are lovers who will wed, but how did they come to know each other? How did they fall in love without Lord Lattimore hearing of it? Tell me all, sir, tell me now!”

He chuckled, clearly enjoying the role of storyteller as they walked away from the paths and across the lawns, with Fantôme racing in big looping circles around them. “You’re quite demanding,” he teased, “and you ask a great many questions.”

“I am, Duke,” she said, unashamed to admit it, “and I do. I know ladies are supposed to be demure and accepting, but how else is one to learn anything if one does not ask questions?”

“A fair point,” he said. “Very well, I’ll answer your questions, on the condition that you’ll cease giving me the respect due to a doddering uncle. I give you leave to forget that I’m a duke, and recall instead that we’re practically family. Call me Sheffield instead, and I shall call you Diana.”

She did not agree at once. To leave off his honorifics as he requested was wickedly familiar, just as strolling about the park unattended except for Fantôme as their chaperone was far too familiar as well. True, they were practically family, but while Charlotte could call him simply Sheffield because she was a duchess and equal to him in rank, Diana had no such privilege.

“Call me Sheffield,” he said again. “It’s wonderfully easy, a single word. Please, Diana.”

“Very well,
Sheffield
,” she said with dramatic emphasis. She adjusted the brim of her hat and peeked out from beneath it, liking how she had to look up to meet his gaze. It was hardly Lord Crump’s fault that he was much the same height as she was, but she did enjoy walking with a man who was taller. “Now tell me everything, as you promised.”

“It’s not that long a tale,” he said. “Dr. Pullings was tutor to Enid’s brother. Because she showed a prodigious interest in learning, she was permitted to share the lessons. Soon the shared interest turned into love, and she and Dr. Pullings asked for Lord Lattimore’s blessing.”

“Which Lord Lattimore most certainly refused,” Diana said. None of her own little romances had ever progressed so far, but she could sympathize entirely. “Oh, poor Lady Enid!”

“Poor Enid indeed,” Sheffield said wryly. “She was ordered to marry me, while equally poor—or perhaps literally poor, considering he’s a parson without an income—Pullings was dismissed without references. Fortunately, I’d no more wish to marry her than she did me, and thus we came to our agreement.”

“To pretend to be betrothed?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling proudly. “I agreed to help her meet Pullings with the aim of them finally marrying, while I am free of the meddlesome matchmaking of others who wish me married. It’s quite ingenious, isn’t it?”

But Diana shook her head and stopped walking to meet his gaze.

“No, it is not,” she said firmly, removing her hand from his arm and slipping it instead into the muff. “You’ve encouraged her to defy her father and follow after an unsuitable man who will ruin her and their children, no matter how much he loves her. You’ve offered the two of them empty hope, and that you’ve made them
lie
so that you can continue to amuse yourself isn’t brilliant at all. It’s low and deceitful, and—and
appalling
.”

“Appalling?” he repeated, surprised. He bent down, took the stick that Fantôme offered, and hurled it off across the grass. “That’s putting a rather harsh face on it, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t just Lady Enid and Dr. Pullings,” she said. “You’ve made me part of your duplicity, too. If Lord Crump had come with us, then you wouldn’t have dared do this. He wouldn’t have tolerated this, not for a moment.”

“I know Crump,” he said, pointedly looking out at the dog and not at her, “and knew he wouldn’t squander his time coming to the park, even if he were asked a thousand times.”

That stung, especially from Sheffield, for she was sure she’d heard an unspoken implication that Lord Crump simply didn’t care to come to the park with Diana. She scowled, her chin dipping lower over the front of her cloak.

“But you knew that
I
would,” she said, anger and bitterness mixed in her voice. “You believed that if I rode in your carriage like a—a
chaperone
, everyone would take note that the three of us had been in the park.”

“It was never that calculated,” he began, but Diana had heard enough.

“You thought I’d oblige you and be complicit with your plans,” she said, fuming. “You were certain I’d become one more liar and help you keep your precious bachelor freedom intact. But I won’t, sir, and I mean to put an end to this directly.”

She turned away and headed off in the general direction of Lady Enid and Dr. Pullings. She didn’t exactly run, because the curved heels of her shoes kept sinking into the grass, but determination made her move at a brisk pace, her arms swinging at her sides. She would tell them she wanted no part of this whole ruse, and she’d demand that—

“Diana!” he shouted. “Halt, blast you!”

She heard him come after her, but she didn’t turn, and she certainly wouldn’t stop after being addressed in that way.

“Diana!” He grabbed her arm to make her stop. His hand tightened on the swansdown muff on her wrist, and when she instinctively pulled her arm away from his grasp, she slipped free of the muff and of him, too.

She looked over her shoulder just in time to see him staring down in disbelief at the fluffy white muff in his hand. Any other time, she would have laughed—would have, at any rate, until he threw the muff away in frustration. At once Fantôme came racing on his short, stocky legs, every stick, branch, and squirrel in the park forgotten in favor of the delectable white muff.

The thought of that lovely muff crushed in Fantôme’s jaws and covered with dog slobber stopped Diana more sharply than Sheffield could. She wheeled around, barely seizing the muff from the grass before it became Fantôme’s prize, and leaving him whining and disappointed at her feet.

“Come with me,” Sheffield said, taking her firmly by the upper arm. “I mean to give those two excellent people their time together, and I’m not going to let you interfere.”

“Why should I do anything you say?” she demanded as he forcibly led her away.

“You’ll do it not because I say so but because it’s the proper thing to do,” he said, stopping before a bench shaded by a large oak with smaller trees round it. “Now sit, so I may talk to you in a civilized manner, and not as if you’re some raving bedlamite.”

He released her arm. She didn’t sit, but she didn’t run away again, either.

“I’m not Fantôme,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “You cannot order me to sit as if I were.”