When the Duke Found Love (6 page)

“Ah, there they are,” Charlotte said, smiling. “March, and Mama, and Aunt Sophronia. And of course your Lord Crump.”

“He’s not
my
Lord Crump,” Diana said automatically. “Not at all.”

“But he shall be,” Charlotte said with supreme confidence. “I’m certain we’ll be discussing a wedding date before long.”

Silently Diana prayed that “before long” would mean a long, long time in the distance. He stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, the one grim face in a room filled with gaiety. It didn’t help that he stood beside March, so effortlessly handsome and ducal that Diana didn’t wonder that Charlotte loved him so much. To be sure, Diana respected Lord Crump’s black mourning for his brother, but if he’d made the decision to attend Lady Fortescue’s rout and to join her family’s party here, then she wished he’d at least try to arrange his features more pleasantly.
If
he could; perhaps it was beyond him.

Oh, please,
please
, let him not ever be her Lord Crump!

“Here’s my little golden butterfly now,” Aunt Sophronia said, smiling as she presented her lined but rouged cheek for Diana to kiss. Aunt Sophronia was their father’s oldest sister as well as the dowager Countess of Carbery, and a fearsome force in London society. She was a prickly lady, not only in her manner but also in the number of sharp-edged jewels she always wore like a kind of glittering, gaudy armor. Yet she had always shown great fondness for Diana, her clear favorite among the sisters, and in turn Diana had never been intimidated by her the way Charlotte and Lizzie still were.

Now she took Diana’s hand, drawing her close. “I am so glad to see you here at last, my dear,” she said. “I have been having the most delightful conversation with your Lord Crump.”

“If you please, Aunt Sophronia,” Diana protested. “He’s not my Lord Crump.”

“Bah,” said her aunt with a wave of her strongly scented handkerchief. “Do not be modest about conquests, my dear. It’s not flattering to the gentlemen, especially one as fine and knowledgeable as Lord Crump. Do you know that he could tell the exact mine in India where my sapphires were found?”

She touched the large blue stones in her necklace as she beamed at Lord Crump. He did not smile in return, but merely bowed in grave acknowledgment.

“Lord Crump has interests in the East India Company, Diana,” March said, “which explains his expertise where sapphires are concerns.”

“You honor me, sir,” Lord Crump said. “Jewels are an excellent investment. I am familiar with many of the precious stones to be mined at present in India—sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and rubies—though perhaps I do not possess the expertise that you would credit to me.”

“Oh, yes, Lord Crump, you do,” Aunt Sophronia said eagerly. “Pay heed to that, Diana. A husband with a knowledge of fine jewels is a jewel himself.”

Everyone laughed, except for Lord Crump and Diana. How could she if he didn’t? Why didn’t anyone else understand that she’d much prefer a husband who smiled with her than one who could cover her with jewels?

“The musicians have returned,” Mama said, looking over her shoulder to the next room which had been cleared for dancing. “I can hear them beginning to tune again. My daughter is a graceful and accomplished dancer, Lord Crump. Perhaps you would care to lead her through the next set?”

“Mama, please,” Diana said, mortified. She’d never had to beg for a partner before, and she’d no wish to begin now. “If Lord Crump wishes to dance, then I’m certain he’ll ask me himself.”

“I’m sure he wishes it,” March said heartily, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder as if ready to propel him toward the dance floor. “What man wouldn’t wish to dance with a girl as pretty as Diana?”

“Forgive me, sir, but I do not dance,” Lord Crump said. “Dancing is a frivolous, idle pastime, requiring much practice for little purpose.”

“The purpose, Crump, is to please the ladies,” March declared. “There can be no more honorable pastime than that. The sooner you learn that, the happier your wedded life shall be.”

“Very well, sir,” Lord Crump said, visibly steeling himself. “If it pleases Lady Diana, then I shall. Would you care to dance?”

Diana took a deep breath, then took his offered hand. “Thank you, my lord, I am honored.”

He nodded, holding her fingers as lightly as was possible, and together they passed into the room where the dancers were gathering.

“I do thank you, my lord,” Diana said shyly when they were beyond the hearing of her family. It did please her that he’d agreed to dance; she hadn’t expected it. Even if he was not a skilled dancer, she’d do her best to help him along and make it easy for him. “For doing this for me, I mean.”

“His Grace asked me,” he said without looking at her. “I could not refuse.”

That stung, and it took considerable effort for Diana not to pull her hand free.

“Forgive me,” she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. “I thought you wished to please me, not March.”

His eyes widened a fraction with surprise. “But there should be no confusion, Lady Diana. Because of His Grace’s superior rank, I am bound to obey his wishes.”

She looked down, struggling to compose herself for the dance. “I do not understand, Lord Crump, how you can be so charming with everyone else, but so—so disagreeable to me.”

He sighed. “You are very young, Lady Diana.”

“I am eighteen, my lord!”

“Very young,” he repeated. “Not that I believe age is any hindrance in a wife.”

“No, no,” she said unhappily. “So long as I am
fecund
.”

Before he could answer, the music began, and the dance with it. Though the complicated minuets were done for the evening, this country dance was a cotillion, with steps and turns and changes that would make any further conversation impossible. It was doubly impossible for Lord Crump, who was insisting on dancing the steps as he chose, whether they were the proper ones or not, and stiffly blundering this way and that.

Diana watched him with ever-growing despair. At least the dance would soon be done, but a marriage—ah, that would be forever.

Sheffield could not recall the last time he’d been nervous before a woman—any woman. It simply did not happen.

Yet here he was standing in one of Lady Fortescue’s infernally overcrowded reception rooms, sweat prickling along his back beneath his shirt and his heart racing as if he were sixteen again. Brecon was making the introductions, and also standing ready to keep Sheffield from bolting. He was vaguely aware of other witnesses, the hazy faces of parents who were bowing and scraping and generally delighted to give their daughter to a duke.

But now at last, yet also too soon, the moment he could no longer avoid: here was the woman he’d been ordered to make his wife.

“Sheffield,” Brecon was saying, “Lady Enid Lattimore.”

She was curtseying low before him because of his rank, something he never enjoyed despite being a duke. Automatically he held out his hand to her to help raise her, and as she stood she finally lifted her face and looked him squarely in the eye.

He smiled and let out a great, gusty sigh of relief. Dressed in blue, she wasn’t exactly a beauty, but she was pleasing enough, with round, rosy cheeks, a snub nose with a dusting of freckles, and a determined chin. Perhaps a little too determined, now that he considered her more closely. She was not smiling—not even a hint of it—and he’d guess from the set of her chin that she was determined not to.

“Your Grace,” she said, and that was all. She wasn’t being shy or reserved; she was resentful, even angry.

It was not the most fortuitous beginning.

“I am most honored, Lady Enid,” he said with his most irresistible charm. He raised her hand and kissed the air over it, smiling up at her over her fingers. He’d never met a woman who didn’t melt at that.

Until now, with the woman he was supposed to marry. Instead Lady Enid remained stone-faced, her fingers tense in his hand, as if she were barely able to refrain from jerking them free.

“Why don’t you walk about with Lady Enid, Sheffield?” Brecon said, choosing to ignore the lady’s unhappiness. “Surely there are things you’d wish to say to each other without us listening. That is, if Lord and Lady Lattimore can be persuaded to part with their lovely daughter.”

“Of course, sir, of course!” Lord Lattimore exclaimed, patting his waistcoat-covered belly. “Whatever His Grace desires!”

With an endorsement like that, Sheffield had no choice but to lead Lady Enid away, holding her hand as gingerly as he could. In silence they made their way through the crowded room toward the tall windows that lined one wall. The spring evening and the crush combined to make the room so warm that the windows had been thrown open to the balcony, and guests strolled freely back and forth. Moonlight spilled over Lady Fortescue’s gardens, down to her private river gate and the star-dappled Thames beyond. Sheffield considered taking Lady Enid outside with the hope of the moonlight thawing her humor.

“It’s a lovely evening on the river, isn’t it, Lady Enid?” he said. “Would you care to step outside to view it?”

She glared at him.
“Docti viri es?”
she demanded.
“ Graece et Latine dicis?”

“Eh?” Sheffield frowned. He recognized that she was addressing him in Latin, but beyond that he was lost, his days of classical study at university a shaky memory at best. “
Docti
what?”

“I asked Your Grace if you were a learned gentleman,” she said, unable to keep the triumph from her voice. “I asked if you read Latin and Greek.”

His frown deepened. “Why? And why ask me in that ancient mumbo-jumbo?”

“Quia nunquam a dominus qui non nubunt,”
she answered in the same mumbo-jumbo, then helpfully translated. “I could never marry a gentleman who couldn’t. Read Greek and Latin, I mean. Clearly you cannot, sir, and therefore I cannot marry you. I will
not
marry you.”

“I can speak, read, eat, and sleep in both French and Italian, Lady Enid,” he said, unable to keep irritation from creeping into his voice. He could do a good many other things in those languages, too, not that this grim bluestocking would ever wish to experience them. “Do those account for nothing by your reckoning?”

“No, sir,” she said firmly. “French and Italian are frivolous modern tongues, without rigor or tradition.”

Sheffield’s smile had become a grimace. Blast Brecon for getting him into this, and blast His Majesty, too. He cleared his throat, blatantly buying more time to think.

“Lady Enid,” he said finally. “Lady Enid, there seems, ah, to be a certain misunderstanding here.”

“No misunderstanding, sir. None.” Her face had become so red that Sheffield feared she’d burst into tears. “I understand everything, sir. Despite what Father says, I am a lady of virtue and honor, and I could never resign my happiness to a gentleman who—who is a wastrel and a rake, and who cannot read one word of Latin!”

“Where the dev—that is, who told you that?” he demanded, taken aback. “Your father?”

“Not Father, no,” she admitted. “But everyone else speaks of it. From the servants clear to His Majesty. Everyone knows you live for scandal and intrigue and—and low, faithless women.”

“For a lady who considers herself so virtuous, you’re remarkably well informed.” Swiftly he steered her through the nearest door out onto the gallery, not for the romantic moonlight but for the privacy that this peculiar discussion required.

“Where are we going, sir?” she asked, flustered and trying to wriggle away from him. “What do you intend?”

“Not one blasted thing, Lady Enid,” he said, “except to learn exactly what is behind this sermon of yours.”

“It’s not a sermon, sir, but the truth,” she said, her voice becoming less strident and more squeaky. “Father says I must marry you because you are a duke and very wealthy, sir, but I say you are no gentleman, and I will not do it.”

Sheffield sighed. He should be insulted and angry, even furious, at being rejected with such vehemence. He was a duke with royal blood, and dukes were supposed to be proud and ever mindful of their rank and position.

But while his knowledge of Latin might be lacking, his experience with women wasn’t. As soon as he saw how her determined chin had begun to tremble, he understood.

“Come, Lady Enid, tell me the truth,” he coaxed. “You love another, don’t you?”

“Yes!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, he’s such a fine, learned gentleman, not at all like you!”

“I’m sure he is,” Sheffield said dryly. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “But despite the fellow’s many qualities, your father does not approve.”

“How—how did you guess, sir?” she sobbed, and blew her nose into his handkerchief, directly onto his embroidered ducal crest and coronet. “Joshua—that is, Dr. Pullings—is the most perfect gentleman imaginable, yet because he is only an ordained minister and scholar without any fortune instead of a fine lord, Father would never consider him fit for me.”

“What earl would?” Sheffield, hoping he sounded sympathetic. He was, too. Weren’t they both trapped on the same high-bred marriage-go-round? “How did you come to fall in love with Dr. Pullings?”

“He was my brother’s tutor,” she said, “and I was permitted to join them for lessons. Even though I was a female, Josh—Dr. Pullings, that is—took an interest in my education … and in me. And though we did not wish it, we soon fell in love.”

Could there be a more predictable tale? “But your father refused to listen to your poor vicar’s suit.”

Fresh torrents of tears spilled down her cheeks, and as she shook her head, they scattered over the front of her gown. “Father grew angry, cast out Dr. Pullings without notice, refused to give him the parish living he’d promised, and ordered me to marry you instead, and I—I will not. I will
not
!”

“You needn’t be quite so forceful about it,” he said, and with resignation offered his second handkerchief, always carried in the event he encountered weeping ladies such as this one. “Not that I wish to sound ungallant, but I have no more interest in marrying you than you do me.”