When the Duke Found Love (23 page)

“As you wish, my lady,” Sarah murmured, yet still managing to make it clear that the black hat would definitely not be her own choice. It wouldn’t have been Diana’s choice, either, under ordinary circumstances, and she couldn’t help but grimace at her reflection as Sarah pinned the black hat with its single cockade in place. The black above the gray habit made her appear sallow and grim, but then sallow and grim would be far safer. Before she could have any second thoughts, she turned from the glass and pulled on her plain black gloves.

“There’s His Grace’s carriage now, my lady,” Sarah said, glancing from the window. “Exactly on time.”

Diana nodded, and deliberately took her time walking along the passage and down the stairs to the front hall. Lord Crump had admonished her for being too hurried and rushed, and she was striving to correct herself. But though she held her head high and paused for a second on each of the marble steps, her heart was racing almost painfully with anticipation, and it took all her will not to bolt down the stairs pell-mell as she used to do.

“Why, here you are, Diana,” Charlotte said, standing in the hall with a footman beside her. “I was just sending for you. Sheffield and Lady Enid are here for you.”

“I saw them from the window.” Diana kissed her sister’s cheek in farewell. “I’ll be back in time to dress before we dine.”

“I should hope so.” Charlotte’s curious glance took in Diana’s gray habit. “I wouldn’t wish you to play the gloomy gray lady at my table. Why so somber, Di? If ever there’s a gentleman who’ll appreciate a fancy hat, it’s Sheffield.”

“It’s what
I
wished to wear,” Diana said defensively. “I must go, Charlotte.”

She turned and hurried through the door, accompanied down the house’s front steps to the carriage by one of Charlotte’s footmen on one side and one of Sheffield’s on the other. Lady Enid’s round face smiled at her from the window above the gold-tipped crest on the carriage door, and Charlotte was saying something else to her from inside the house.

Whatever it was, however, Diana didn’t hear, because there, suddenly, was Sheffield himself.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Sheffield clambered eagerly from the carriage and came striding forward to take Diana’s hand and welcome her. To her dismay, there were few sights more glorious, nor more hazardous to her resolve. He was dressed as he always was for day, in cream-colored buckskins that fit close around his thighs, boots, a dark tailored jacket, his neckcloth tied with careless elegance, and his dark hair held back with a plain black ribbon—the same clothes that scores of other gentlemen in London and the country wore each day as well. Yet not one of those other men would look as he did now, like a veritable god coming to rescue her. He was so blindingly, sinfully handsome that she nearly gasped aloud, as if a bright light had flashed into her eyes in a darkened room.

Only two weeks had passed since she’d seen him last. How could she have forgotten his effect upon her?

And why, why, did she never feel the same when she saw the man she was to marry?

“Good day, Lady Diana,” he said, taking her hand.

She’d been imagining this moment since she’d opened the letter at breakfast, yet not like this. In the few seconds that it had taken him to leave the carriage and join her, everything had changed. That first anticipation she’d seen in his face, that eagerness, had vanished. Now his smile was exactly as it should be and no more, his expression pleasantly bland, and he didn’t even squeeze her fingers as he handed her into the carriage.

Perhaps the dull gray habit had done its task, she thought as she smoothed her skirts, or perhaps two weeks apart had been sufficient to cure him of whatever interest he’d once had in her. She told herself it was all for the best, that this was how things should and must be between them, and tried to congratulate herself on such a tidy conclusion.

Tried, and did not quite succeed.

But they’d barely driven half a mile before Diana sensed that much more had changed than simply Sheffield becoming disinterested in her. The joyful love that she’d remembered glowing from Lady Enid was gone, and though she again had made room for Diana to sit beside her, this time she seemed drawn, with unmistakable shadows of sleeplessness beneath her eyes.

“Forgive me for speaking plainly, Lady Enid,” Diana said gently, “but I cannot help but notice an, ah, uneasiness about you today. If you are unwell, then please tell me, so that we might turn about and—”

“Oh, no,” Lady Enid said swiftly. “No. I’m perfectly well, and I would not miss this drive for all the world.”

“Of course she is well,” Sheffield said. “It’s not as if I’d force her to be here against her will. This is meant to be a pleasurable diversion, not torture in the Tower.”

Yet Lady Enid still wasn’t smiling, which made Diana wonder all the more. “Will we be driving through the park again?”

“Indeed we will,” Sheffield said as he leaned back against the squabs. “There is no better place than Hyde Park for us to be observed and remarked by the world, or at least the gossiping part of it.”

Diana nodded, for that was certainly true. “Will Dr. Pullings be joining us there as he did last time?”

“No,” Lady Enid said softly, looking down at her embroidered mitts, one folded back to display the meaningless amethyst betrothal ring. “Not in the park.”

Diana had sisters and friends enough to understand how much more must be hiding beneath those few words, and at once she placed her hand gently over Lady Enid’s to offer sympathy. “I am sorry.”

“Why should you be sorry for anything?” Sheffield asked, mildly incredulous. “There is nothing wrong, and certainly no reason for sorrow. We’ll drive once through the park, and then we’ll return to Sheffield House, where Dr. Pullings will be waiting for us. You needn’t be inventing grief where there isn’t any.”

“I wasn’t,” Diana said defensively. “Judging by Lady Enid’s demeanor, I guessed that she was not happy, and I offered my solace. Where is the invented grief in that?”

“There isn’t any,” he said with too-studied patience, “save for the threat of it hovering about this carriage like some marsh-born miasma.”

Diana pressed her lips tightly together, struggling to control her temper. She should not let him irritate her like this.

“Then there is no grief, no sorrow, no illness,” she said, each word crisp. “Except, that is, the vexation that you have this moment created.”

He sighed deeply, crossing his arms over his chest. “There is no vexation. Lady Enid expressed a desire to converse with Dr. Pullings in more privacy than an open park. I offered her the use of my home. She agreed.”

“Oh, yes,” Lady Enid said. “Sheffield has been most generous.”

But Diana had already forgotten grief and sorrow. How had she become so distracted that she hadn’t heard they were to meet Dr. Pullings not in the park but at Sheffield House?”

“We will go to your house, Sheffield?” she asked warily.

“We will,” he said. “It is, I believe, an agreeable place. Even you shall find it so.”

“I’m sure it is,” Diana said. Whatever her feelings might be toward him, he was a duke, and in her limited experience the London houses of dukes were more accurately palaces, rather than mere places, and she doubted Sheffield’s was any different. “But agreeability is not the issue. For me to enter your house as an unaccompanied lady—”

“You won’t be unaccompanied,” Lady Enid said quickly. “You’ll be with me.”

“But not for long,” Diana said, determined to be firm. “Once you leave me to converse with Dr. Pullings, then I shall be quite unaccompanied, save for Sheffield. It would be quite improper, and intolerable.”

She began to rise from the seat, intending to signal the carriage driver to return her to Marchbourne House.

“Please, Lady Diana, do not desert me now,” begged Lady Enid plaintively. She seized Diana’s hand, curling their fingers together to draw her back. “I beg you, for the sake of my love and happiness!”

Diana hesitated, swaying with the carriage’s motion and torn with indecision. “Forgive me, but I do not believe Lord Crump would approve if I were to—”

“Your Lord Crump will have absolutely no grounds for offense,” Sheffield said, pointedly gazing from the window and not at her. “It’s clear you have become completely devoted to that gentleman, with modesty and reserve now your guiding lights. I saw the change as soon as you stepped from March’s house. You have my word that I will respect you, and your virtue as well.”

Diana stood another moment, looking at him even if he would not look at her. Was she really so altered that he had seen it at a glance? Did she carry some sort of invisible brand that marked her as belonging exclusively to Lord Crump, something that all other gentlemen could see with such ease?

She really wished Sheffield would look back at her. As it was, she couldn’t tell if he meant this as a complement, or a jest. Sheffield being Sheffield, she could not tell.

Blast him, why wouldn’t he
look
at her?

“Please come with us, Lady Diana,” Lady Enid pleaded softly. “Please.”

Diana sighed, and at last sank back down onto the seat, her gray woolen skirts spreading around her.

“Very well, Lady Enid,” she said. “For your sake, I’ll come.”

“But not for mine,” Sheffield said, his voice carrying a world-weary resignation. “I take note of the exclusion, Lady Diana.”

He’d finally turned from the window, but his expression was so shuttered that he might as well have continued to look away. His blue-gray eyes were half closed, as if he could scarce be bothered to open them further: the perfect, handsome mask of a London gentleman determined to betray nothing.

And, without doubt, to infuriate her further.

But she could play that game as well. After so much time in Lord Crump’s company, she could match anyone at being excruciatingly polite.

“I am so grateful that you understand, Sheffield,” she said, smiling serenely. “I’m certain his lordship would be pleased by your assurances as well.”

He made a low grunt of agreement, or surprise, or disgust, or perhaps all three combined, and then turned back to whatever was so endlessly fascinating in the street outside their carriage. Lady Enid said nothing more, and Diana didn’t, either. What could she say in such an uncomfortable silence?

Clouds began to gather overhead as if to mirror their mood, and the spring afternoon that had begun with bright sun was now gray and blustery with a promise of rain. As they drove through the park, crowded with other carriages and riders on horseback despite the worsening weather, Diana was sure they must have appeared the most grimly unhappy party imaginable. If the point of the drive was to be observed, then they most certainly were, and she could well imagine the kind of gossip that would be spread through fashionable London later that evening.

Did you see the Duke of Sheffield this day with his intended, Lady Enid Lattimore? They neither of them spoke, not a word, and with Lady Diana Wylder sitting there, too, dressed all in drab and as solemn as a tomb!

One turn about the park was more than enough to accomplish their purpose, and Diana was almost relieved by the time the driver turned and headed toward Sheffield’s house. Diana knew his property lay to the north of the city, and from the window she watched as they passed Golden Square and crossed St. Giles to Great Russell Street, near Montagu House. At last they came to the tall, weathered brick walls that enclosed Sheffield’s land, and passed through the ironwork gate to the drive and the yard.

Unlike the lavish newness of Marchbourne House, Sheffield House was clearly much older, having been built on a slight rise when the land it stood upon was still open countryside, not part of London. But in the century since then, the city had grown and expanded around the thick brick walls, leaving the house and its gardens like an island in a sea of much newer buildings. To be sure, the neighborhood remained a prosperous one, with elegant town houses inhabited by titled families and the wealthiest merchants, but there was no question that the home of the Dukes of Sheffield rose proudly above them all, like an omnipotent older king surrounded by younger courtiers.

She’d quick glimpses of the house as they circled the yard before the steps: brick, white stonework, rows of tall windows. The carriage stopped precisely before the front door; the footman opened the door for Sheffield, who descended and then handed Lady Enid out first. Next it was Diana’s turn, and as she stood in the carriage’s doorway, she’d her first real view of the house, over Sheffield’s head.

She caught her breath with admiration, for truly this was the most perfect house she’d yet to see in London. It wasn’t the largest, the grandest, or the one with the most elaborate carvings. But to her eyes it was certainly the most beautiful: rosy brick walls framed by pale white stone pilasters, the exact number of windows to be most pleasing, and the handsomest doorway beneath a scrolled pediment. The hipped slate roof sat neatly across the eaves like a well-made hat, and stone urns with stylized flames like oversized finials crowned the corners. Even the gusting wind and gray sky only made the house more appealing as a sanctuary surrounded by old oaks.

It was, in short, an altogether charming, elegant house, and she couldn’t help but wistfully envy the unknown lady who’d someday be its mistress.

“You gasp and founder, Lady Diana,” Sheffield said dryly, still standing with his hand raised to help her. “Must I summon a surgeon, or else stand here the day long?”

“Oh, hush, Sheffield.” Belatedly she took his hand to step down, but held it only until the instant her foot touched the ground. “I cannot believe I’m the first guest to be awed by your house. It’s surely one of the loveliest houses in London.”

He smiled, the first genuine smile she’d had from him that afternoon. “I did say it was an agreeable place.”

“It’s far beyond agreeable,” she said, “and you know it, too, else you wouldn’t be so modest.”

He looked back over his shoulder at the house, his expression as fond as a father’s for a favorite child.