"But you will do your duty, my boy. Incidentally, why did you not with Diana to know of this?"
He frowned. "I don't knowWell, actually, she would just stick her oar in and I would probably yell at her and ---"
"I understand, my boy, indeed I do."
"There is another reason, of course. Diana has grown up with slavery. Doubtless it is a way of life with her and she accepts it without a qualm. As does her father. I would probably box her ears were she to begin to defend that dreadful institution."
Lucia, who had not discussed slavery with Diana, had no idea of her stand on the issue, but she had drawn some conclusions. "You know, Diana is most friendly to my servants. Indeed, perhaps too much so. Needless to say, they would likely kill to protect her. Can you really doubt that she would be cruel to servants who just happened to have black skin?"
"But they are owned, Aunt. They cannot leave a cruel master or mistress. They have no choice."
"But they are given homes, medical care, and good food."
Both Lucia and Lyonel turned at Diana's words.
"A very short visit to the park," said Lyon.
"I just took a stroll around the house."
"They still have no choice," Lyon said.
"They would be helpless to make such a choice. If Father freed all his slaves, they would stand about looking helpless, which indeed they would be."
"That is absurd! Just because you insist upon keeping them ignorant and uneducated ---"
The fight was well on its way, Lucia thought, eyeing the two of them, now standing eye to eye, glaring.
To Lyonel's surprise, Diana said, her voice subdued, sad even, "I know. But you see, there are strict laws against education for the blacks. I think it is dreadful." She automatically raised her chin. "My father, however, is very fair, he ---"
"So he is smart enough not to abuse people who make his money for him?"
Lucia wouldn't have been at all surprised to see Diana punch her fist in Lyon's stomach. However, she dropped her jaw when Diana said, her voice intense, even pleading, "You must live there to understand. You must see what it is like, for everyone, not just the slaves. Now, I shall go upstairs. We are still visiting Lady Banderson this afternoon, Aunt?"
"Yes, we are, my dear."
Lyonel watched Diana hurriedly leave the drawing room. He felt guilty, damn her, for cutting up at her.
"Well," Lucia said, eyeing his stiff back, "I believe you have an answer of sorts."
"It still changes nothing."
"Fine, go to Tortola. Free all your --- yes, your --- slaves, Lyonel. Do what you believe best for them."
"I must find out more about the situation," he said more to himself than to Lucia.
"Then speak to Diana."
"I don't knowShe probably does know this Bemis fellow and how the Mendenhall plantation is run. However ---"
"Doubtless she does. Of course, she is just a silly young girl, probably doesn't really understand all the ramifications ---"
"Don't be a bedlamite, Lucia! Diana is no fool, she ---" He broke off, and his frown was ferocious.
Lucia smiled. Ah, Lyonel, she thought, your days with a mistress are numbered. Your warped belief that all women are like Charlotte is losing its grip.
Lyonel looked at his favorite relative. The old tartar was just that, but he knew that even though she ruled her estate in Yorkshire, only twenty miles from his, with an iron hand, it was with a velvet glove. She was never unfair. He didn't like the thought of having to step into her slippers. He never wanted Lucia to die.
"Have I told you, Lucia, that I am most fond of you?"
Lucia blinked and felt an overflowing of love so intense that for a moment even her sharp tongue was stilled. "Yes," she said, her voice soft, "you have, not recently, of course, but you have in the distant past."
"Allow me to apologize for my past relapses, and tell you that I am most fond of you."
"And I am equally fond of you, my boy. You really are a lot like your grandfather. He was quite a man, and a gentleman as well." She would have liked to tell him that she wished she hadn't been such a fool so many years before, that she would give everything now to have wed the fourth Earl of Saint Leven. Then Lyonel would be her grandson, not just her grandnephew. But life was filled with foolish decisions, and Lucia very rarely allowed herself to wallow in self-recriminations.
"How is your health, Lucia?" He'd blurted the words out and now looked appalled at what he'd asked, but Lucia understood. Death, even of an unknown relative, was a shock.
"I shall live to dangle your children on my knee."
"I should live that long," Lyonel said, acid back in his voice.
"Everyone makes mistakes, Lyonel. The trick is to accept them and continue on, not to condemn all of one's fellow men."
"Does that also encompass one's fellow women?"
"Don't be an ass."
"I believe that is one of Diana's compliments."
"Then you must work on a cure for the malady."
"What I shall do, Lucia, is take myself off."
He paused, then strode to her, bent down, and kissed her parchment cheek. "You old martinet, do not overtax yourself."
She grinned at him and he saw that several of her back teeth were missing. Age, he thought, damnable, inevitable age and death. He didn't like it. The devil, he wouldn't accept it, at least not with Lucia.
Lyonel was sitting apart at White's, lost in a brown study, when the Earl of March, Julian St. Clair, came upon him.
"What you need," his friend said, quirking a brow, "is a good fight at Gentleman Jackson's. Come along, I shall see to it myself. And I shall be most careful not to destroy your beautiful face."
"Go to the devil, St. Clair," Lyonel said, but he went and all thoughts of death, responsibility for a hundred human souls, were temporarily shelved in his mind.
Diana had not a bit of interest in any of the five gentlemen who were assiduously sending her flowers, inviting her to drive in the part, and otherwise making nuisances of themselves, at least in her young eyes.
"I want to go home, Aunt," she said one evening, a rare occasion when they were not engaged somewhere. "I do not belong here. I am still cold most of the time. My tan is fading and soon I will look like a white lily, like all of those silly debutantes. They don't like me, Aunt. They think I'm some sort of oddity. They have no conversation, except to go on and on about Lord This or Lord That. And as for the gentlemen, all they wish to do is spew compliments at me, as if I wanted to hear their nonsense, and try in the most ridiculous ways possible to determine how much money I will have upon my marriage. And," Diana finished up, triumphant with disgust, "when they don't think I'm noticing, they ogle my bosom."
So does Lyonel, Lucia thought, but she didn't hark to that. Instead she said, "Lyonel doesn't whisper nonsense in your ears."
"No, indeed he tries to burn them off with his insults. Oh, very well, he isn't like the others."
"So you no longer believe him to be too pale and unhealthy-looking?"
"Perhaps not entirely," Diana said, thinking back to the evening when he lifted her into his arms out of the carriage. She had felt his strength. It still made her feel mildly alarmed.
"You promised your father that you would remain six weeks, my dear."
"I know, and there are still three more to go."
"I did not realize that you were still so very unhappy."
Diana caught herself, realizing that she had inflicted hurt where none was intended. It was all Lyonel's fault, damn him. She jumped from her chair at the dining table and rushed to Lucia's side, easing down to her knees. "Please do not mind me, or my stupid tongue. You know that you are my favorite person in all of London. Indeed, my very favorite female relative."
"I am the only one, you pert-mouthed chit!" But she laughed and gently patted Diana's head. "You are a good girl and you have been most patient with all my old woman's vagaries. Now, get back to your dinner."
"As Lyonel w
ould doubtless say in his sardonic manner, 'Don't let your charms waste away.'"
"Yes, that is exactly what he would say." Lucia toyed with a bite of well-sauced chicken. "I have decided that Lyonel will escort you home."
"He will refuse."
"No, he won't. I see that you have already considered that possibility."
"NoWell, perhaps. It is a long voyage, Aunt, at least six weeks. Can you imagine the two of us copped up for that period of time?"
"You will either kill each other or ---"
"Or what?"
Lucia shrugged. "Well, you will just have to see, won't you? In terms of a chaperone, I am endeavoring to find a family who also plan to return to the West Indies. It will all work out, my dear, you will see."
"Ha!"
Lucia's expression was as bland as her vegetables. "Lyonel promised me he would come this evening to provide you with more dancing lessons."
"Lucky me."
Lucia merely smiled to herself, noting how Diana's hand immediately and unconsciously went to her hair to straighten any errant strands. She blurted out suddenly, "Aunt, he really doesn't like me, not a bit!"
"Bosh."
"He has a mistress and he sees more of her in one evening than he's ever seen us."
"I would imagine that he does," Lucia said, her voice dry.
"I didn't mean see precisely, I meantOh, drat the man, he is impossible! He will go to her as soon as he leaves us."
"I imagine you are right about that."
"I don't like him, Aunt, and as for him, he can barely tolerate my company."
"My lord Saint Leven," Didier said from the doorway.
"Good evening, ladies. Still dining?"
"As you see, Lyonel," said Diana.
"I shall enjoy your conversation, then. Perhaps I shall even improve upon it. Don't mind me at all."
"A glass of port, my lord?"
"Yes, thank you, Didier. Now, my dear Diana, what is all this about my being impossible? Am I not here to instruct you as I promised? Does not that prove that I can tolerate you and your feet well enough?"
Didier personally handed Lyonel a crystal goblet filled with Lucia's finest port.
"I don't really want your wretched instruction."
"In that case, it appears I was misinformed. Shall I leave, Lucia?"
"You move, dear boy, and I shall have Didier plant you a facer."
"Lucia, I am shocked! Such language, particularly in front of our innocent here."
"I will plant that facer if you do not at least pretend to gentlemanly behavior. And I am not an innocent."
"Are you not?" Lyonel toyed with the stem of the goblet, and Diana's eyes, despite herself, were drawn to his long, graceful fingers. "I shall have to keep that in mind."
"Why?"
"One never knows when such insights might prove advantageous."
"I believe, Aunt, that my feet hurt."
"You cannot find slippers large enough for her, Lucia?" He sighed. "I shall instruct you in your stocking feet then. At least when you tread on my toes, the agony shouldn't be quite as bad."
Diana struggled valiantly for a retort to put him in his wretched place. Unconsciously, her fingers tightened about the stem of her wineglass.
"Don't do it, Diana."
She blinked up at him.
"No wine on my clean linen, if you please. Kenworthy --- my valet, you know --- he would be most distraught. You wouldn't wish for him to take you into dislike. No indeed."
"Dandy."
"Thank you. Shall we drink to that?"
"Fop."
"Diana, my dear, I do believe it best to desist now. Lyonel, let us go to the music room. Didier!"
An hour later, Diana had mastered the cotillion and two country dances, and she was laughing.
Jamison knocked on the music-room door, then slithered in, his eyes darting toward Didier.
"Yes?" Lucia asked.
"'Tis one of my Lord Chandos' men, my lady. He claims he must speak to Lord Saint Leven."
"The marquess's man?" Lyonel asked, releasing Diana.
"Yes, my lord."
"Excuse me, Lucia, Diana." He strode out of the music room, leaving the women and Didier to stare at one another.
"Who is this marquess, Aunt?"
"The Marquess of Chandos, my dear. A very old friend and the father of Lyonel's dearest friend, Hawk, the Earl of Rothermere."
"Hawk and Lyon? I begin to believe that English nicknames are absurd."
"Perhaps. Hawk's formal name is Philip and he is married to Frances. They own a huge racing stud near Yorkshire. I wonder what the devil is going on."
They found out not five minutes later when Lyonel strode into the room, saying, "I must be off, Lucia. It's Frances. The marquess just got word from Hawk that she is in labor, several weeks early, and is in a very bad way."
"This is her second child. I would have thought that it would go more easily with her this time."
"Evidently not."
"Poor girl."
"I am off. I will keep you informed ---"
"Nonsense, my boy. I will accompany you."
"I as well," said Diana.
"Really, Lucia ---"
"You are wasting time, Lyonel. Have your carriage back here within the hour. Diana and I will be ready."
They arrived at Desborough Hall the following afternoon, the horses blown and the two ladies exhausted. Lucia got one look at the marquess's drawn face and felt hope plummet.
"She is still holding her own," the marquess said quickly. "Lucia, I am glad you came. Lyon, my boy. Go to Hawk. He is in a very bad way. And who is this?"
"I am Diana Savarol, sir."
"Charmed, my dear. Come along."
"I wish to see Frances," Lucia said as she trailed behind the marquess into the hall. "And speak to this doctor of hers."
Diana's first glimpse of Philip Hawksbury, the Earl of Rothermere, made her blink. He was of Lyonel's size, dark-featured, his eyes a brilliant green, and he was trembling, his large hands clutching Lyonel's shoulders. "Nearly three days, Lyon, dammit! Oh, God, what am I to do?"
Lyon felt helpless and angry. He'd hopedOh, God, how he'd prayed every cursed mile northward that Frances would have delivered the child and Hawk, a smile on his lips, would have yelled and clapped him on the shoulder in delight.
"Diana, my dear," Lucia said quietly, "there is Grunyon, Hawk's man. Tell him who you are and he will take care of you. I am going to see Frances now."
Diana nodded numbly. She looked toward the short, plump man, but he paid her no attention, his eyes on his master, his own face pale and drawn. She slipped into the library, unseen, and settled herself on a sofa. Until she heard the scream. It was high, broken, and filled with such agony that she sucked in her breath.
She heard pounding feet and rushed to the doorway. She saw both Lyonel and Hawk racing up the stairs. "God, I shouldn't have left her!"
Lyonel happened to look back at that moment and saw Diana, white-faced, standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Stay there," he yelled at her.
The two men burst into the master bedchamber. Lucia was beside the bed, bending over Frances, the doctor and a midwife on the other side. The doctor was speaking, wildly gesticulating, but Lucia was ignoring him.
"Frances!"
"Hawk." Lucia looked briefly up at him. "Come and help me. Lyonel, get this idiot out of here, now!"
It was the marquess who took the doctor's arm and pulled him away.
"Now, I've managed to turn the child into the proper position, despite that fool of a doctor. I want you to press down on her belly, Hawk, now. Frances, child, look at me! Frances, listen! I want you to push down with all your strength. Do you hear me?"
Frances groaned. She heard the words, recognized Lucia's voice, and stared blindly up at her husband.
"Get those covers off her, Hawk. Now, push, Frances!"
The wailing, thin cries made Lyon tremble. He saw Hawk pressing down on the huge mound of Fra
nces' belly. He saw Lucia motion to the midwife and the two of them lifted Frances' legs and parted them. He saw Lucia's hand plunge into Frances. He closed his eyes, a prayer on his lips.
"Push, Frances! Hawk, press down, harder!"
Lyon heard Frances gasping, her hoarse voice rending the silence of the room. "Oh, God, please," he whispered.
"The babe --- I have his head! Again, Frances. Come on, girl, again, as hard as you can! Push, Hawk, 'tis the only way you can help her."
Lyon opened his eyes to see Lucia's hands receive a small, dark head. "I've got the babe's head. Stop pushing, Frances."
Lucia grasped the tiny shoulders, gently pulling the babe from its mother. "A girl, Hawk, 'tis a beautiful little girl you've got."
The room was chaotic for the next few minutes. A woman Lyon hadn't noticed rushed forward as the babe let forth a loud wail. Lyon saw Frances' head fall back against the pillow. She was unconscious. Hawk was just standing there, frozen.
"You've a girl," Lucia said again, her eyes on Hawk. But Hawk was bending over his wife, his hands gently cupping her white face.
"She will be all right," Lucia said. She motioned to the midwife and they rid Frances of the afterbirth. Lucia straightened and Lyon was so proud of her that he wanted to yell.
"Hawk, you may leave now. I will take care of Frances. She will be all right. Do you understand me? Lyon, take him out of here."
Lyon strode forward and grasped his friend's arm. "Come, Hawk. If Lucia says she is all right, she is. You need a drink."
Lucia said calmly, "Now, Mrs. ---"
"Miniver, my lady."
"Yes, Mrs. Miniver, let us get this bleeding under control, then we will bathe her ladyship and make her comfortable."
"What if she bleeds to death?"
"Stop it, Hawk! She will be fine. Lucia doesn't lie, you know."
Still Hawk didn't move.
"Let us find that damned doctor. You can personally boot his fat butt out of here."
"Yes," Hawk said, straightening. "I should like that." Lyon could barely keep up with him. He saw Diana at the foot of the stairs and called out, "All is well, Diana."
The doctor, unfortunately for him, was arguing vociferously with the marquess. He turned when he saw the earl bearing down on him, and tactlessly, he said, "She is dead, is she not? I told you not to let that old woman near her, I ---"