“It was very wrong of me to allow your family to believe that you fathered my child.” Diana was wringing her hands, and her cheeks had turned from rosy to red.
Indeed.
In his heart of hearts, he resented being jilted far more than discovering that his father had been supporting his supposed bastard.
“Where is the boy’s father?” he inquired.
“He’s dead,” she said, coloring even more. “But he—”
“I don’t want to know,” North stated. The boy had clearly been born before they met. It only made sense that the father had died. North could not imagine a man who had garnered Diana’s affections not keeping her.
The way she had concealed the child from him, from all society, bamboozling him into a proposal, sent a flare of anger down his spine—that instantly flickered and died. After his experiences in the war, who cared what she had done?
Not he.
She had probably done him a favor by drawing him into a scandal. It would hold off the marriage-minded mamas. He didn’t intend to seek a wife until the event was forced onto him by the need for an heir. He might even allow the title to descend through Alaric’s line.
“Does my stepmother know that Artemisia displays all the elegance of a grocer’s daughter?” he asked, deciding to lead the conversation toward the reality that Diana would have to leave the castle. He couldn’t have his former fiancée working in his father’s household. It wouldn’t do, as his own governess would have said.
“You must be very angry at me to refer to my grandfather,” Diana said, her eyes fixed on his. “You are one of very few people in polite society who never found reason to chide me for the audacity of having a grocer for a grandfather.”
“I apologize if you thought I was referring to your grandfather. I used the common phrase without thinking.”
“Why should the world consider a grocer more impolite than a cobbler?” she said with a rueful smile. “But so it is.”
North was rarely dumbfounded, but he found himself silenced by Diana’s smile, by her self-possession, by how different she was from the girl he’d pledged to marry. He couldn’t even remember what question he had asked her: Somehow they had ended up in a different place. Circuitous conversation was apparently a characteristic of hers.
“I am not ashamed of my grandfather.” Diana wrinkled her nose, a charming gesture. “Frankly, before I became a governess, I would have been appalled by Artie as well. That’s why children are confined to a nursery, you know. So that no one grasps how uncivilized they are. Or has to endure their company, more to the point.”
He did remember her smile. The first time he saw Diana, he had strolled into a ballroom and watched an unknown young lady say something that made the fellow she was talking to fall about laughing.
Diana had laughed along with him, the kind of unrestrained laughter that most ladies stifle before a sound passes their lips. North had registered that she was exquisite, with a heart-shaped face and a trim figure. But that wasn’t the important part. Her lips looked as if their natural curve was a smile.
From that moment, he had wanted her with a burning, intense focus that he had experienced only a few times. While trying to stay alive on a battlefield, for example.
“As for Artie’s manners, I’m afraid that she has the concentration of a canary and the temper of an irritated bull,” Diana said. “I did teach her to curtsy, but her legs are too plump to bend correctly.”
“Your description would cover all my father’s children at that age,” North observed.
Diana clasped her hands behind her back and looked him straight in the eyes. “I haven’t slept for many a night thinking how dishonest I have been to you, your family, and the household, all of whom have been nothing but kind to me.”
North was conscious that he didn’t like the way she referred to him, as if he were an elderly uncle, perhaps. A kindly parishioner. “What’s done is done,” he said. “But now—”
“This is why I never come to the nursery!” His aunt, Lady Knowe, appeared in the doorway, hand on her heart, glancing around the room. “Is that a chamber pot on its side? Yes, it is,” she answered herself. “And is that one of my beloved nephews, returned from dangerous shores and not come to pay me his respects? Why, yes, it is!”
North grinned and strode over to gather his aunt into a hug. Lady Knowe was tall and broad-shouldered, with an unfortunate resemblance to her twin brother, the duke. Those who loved her boisterous kindness didn’t give a fig about her noble nose. “I meant to change out of my traveling dirt before greeting you, Aunt Knowe.”
She put her hands on his cheeks and looked him in the eyes. “Are you sound in limb and mind, my dear?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping it short, because he hadn’t lost a limb, but he’d lost something. Not his mind; at least not entirely. His ability to sleep was gone. His enjoyment of food and women.
His aunt’s hands fell from his face. “It’s a fruitless war, and I’m confounded that the asses in Parliament can’t see it. Your father has done his best to persuade them, but to no avail.”
North had made his feelings clear to the Ministry when he sold out. But the fools he spoke to hadn’t spent time in the colonies. They didn’t understand how committed to freedom American soldiers were, nor how wily their general was. Far away from the blood and smoke of battle, a herd of asses—to borrow his aunt’s word—arranged and rearranged regiments with all the concern of boys playing with tin soldiers.
“At least you’re out of it,” his aunt said, wrinkling her nose. “Diana, my dear, what is that appalling odor?”
“I apologize, my lady,” Diana said, dropping into a deep curtsy.
Before he thought about it, North reached out and pulled her upright. “Stop.”
She turned a little pink. “I am a member of the household.”
“No, you are not,” he stated. While he was at it, he plucked off the large muslin cap that belonged belowstairs, not on a lady’s head. “Whether or not you have spent an inordinate amount of time in the nursery, you will not address my aunt—or Prism, for that matter—as if you were a servant.”
“I am a servant.”
At the same moment, Lady Knowe said, “She’s as stubborn as a mule, North. You won’t have any more luck than I did.”
North frowned at Diana. “I refuse to allow my fian—my former fiancée to become part of the household.”
“I already am,” Diana said. “Everyone is used to it.”
“That’s not quite true,” Lady Knowe put in. “If you haven’t yet heard Boodle’s thoughts on the subject, North, you will.”
“You cannot remain in this position,” he said, pointing out the obvious.
An expression passed Diana’s eyes so quickly that he couldn’t read it. “I agree. And I’m sorry.”
What was that, the seventh time she’d apologized? He had the feeling she would happily keep repeating it all day.
“I do believe that Diana worries she broke your heart, North,” his aunt said, her eyes twinkling.
“Allow me to reassure you; I doubt I have that capacity,” he said, adding wryly, “My consequence was dented, which was probably beneficial for my character.”
“Undoubtedly,” his aunt said, chuckling.
Surprising him again, Diana laughed as well. “I lost any consequence I had the day I donned that cap, and I truly believe it’s been good for my soul. I just wish that I had been honest about Godfrey.”
North was trying to decide whether Godfrey was the man with whom Diana consorted, or the boy she hadn’t introduced him to, when his aunt changed the subject.
“This room is a disgrace,” she announced. “North, I should like you to escort me to my chamber, after which you must change out of your travel-stained clothing. I haven’t seen you so disheveled since Alaric tipped you into the horse trough.” She turned to Diana. “He was wearing the family suit of armor, the one that lurks quietly in a corner of the entrance hall.”
“I’m impressed,” Diana said to North. “It looks as if it’d be very difficult to walk in.”
“More so now that its joints have rusted,” his aunt said. “I shall ask Prism to send up a maid immediately, Diana. My nephew is immaculate compared to the hearth rug.”
“Thank you,” Diana said, dropping a curtsy. “I curtsied to Lady Knowe when I was a visitor to the castle,” she said, in response to North’s scowl.
“I begged Diana to join me as my guest,” his aunt chimed in, “but she refused. Come along, North. The two of you must stop quarreling, because it’s only in melodramas that a duke falls in love with a governess.” She managed to appear amused, mischievous, and satisfied, all at once. “I shall expect you to join us for supper, Diana.”
Diana opened her mouth, clearly to protest, but his aunt held up her hand. “We need to make plans for your welfare. No important conversations should be conducted in a room as malodorous as this one. Moreover, when there is rough ground to be covered, a glass of wine does not go amiss.”
North bowed.
Diana might call herself a governess if she wished, but he had never bowed to a domestic before. He made his bow a trifle deeper than it might have been, to make a point.
“Well, this is a pretty business,” his aunt said, when they were out in the corridor. “I find you crossing swords in the nursery with my favorite member of the household. There are dark circles around your eyes. You’ve managed to become alarmingly muscled and gaunt at the same time.”
“Nonsense,” North said, pushing away an image of the maggoty rations his soldiers were allotted in America. “What does Prism make of Diana’s presence?”
“Prism’s great gift as a butler is to know what the family wants before they do,” his aunt said. “Diana refused to dine with me until Prism convinced her that I would take the children to Bath out of pure loneliness, leaving her behind. As if I would go anywhere with babes in tow!”
“I am surprised that my father agreed to employ Diana. Surely you didn’t believe the boy is mine.”
“Of course not, darling. I presented it to the duke as a fait accompli,” his aunt said, gripping his arm as they began descending the stairs. Lady Knowe was fond of heeled slippers that made steep wooden staircases like this one somewhat perilous.
North was torn between aggravation at the situation, and frustration at himself for feeling even the slightest attraction to Diana. “How on earth did you learn of her situation?”
“I know you. Something had happened just before you left the country, and Diana was the obvious answer.”
North’s mother had died when he was too young to remember, but Aunt Knowe had always been in the castle. “It took me months to find Diana, as Mrs. Belgrave refused to tell me her address. How did you manage it?”
“I barged straight into the woman’s sitting room and threatened to eviscerate her,” his aunt said cheerfully. “An utterly repellent creature, I might add. She had the audacity to inform me that her daughter had stolen a fortune in emeralds.”
“Prism returned Diana’s jewels and clothing to her mother,” North said, remembering his incredulity when Prism gave him back his betrothal ring.
“Diana is no thief. When I found the poor girl, she had scarcely a ha’penny to her name. I actually had someone investigate Mr. Belgrave’s will to make certain that her mother hadn’t stolen Diana’s inheritance.”
“Mrs. Belgrave disowned her?” An uneasy memory of the shabby little house in which he found Diana came back to him.
“Her foolish father left only a proviso directing his wife to dowry their daughters,” Lady Knowe said, nodding. “From what I hear, the woman is racketing around town, allowing herself to be courted by fortune hunters, no doubt draped in the very jewels she accused Diana of stealing.”
North assumed that Diana had chosen a poor man over him. But her lover had died before North had met her, in light of the fact that her child was three or four years old. “Bloody hell,” he said, his voice grating. “I rode away and left her there.”
“Understandably,” Aunt Knowe said, patting his arm. “I had to bully her dreadfully before she would agree to return to the castle. In the end, Diana came only on the condition that she be employed. Unfortunately, neither of us envisioned the outrage that would result.”
North shrugged. “It’s not as if the Wildes are unfamiliar with scandal.”
“I shall miss her,” his aunt said, pausing at the bottom of the nursery steps. “She was such a gloomy creature when you first brought her here that I wondered at your judgment, but now she can keep me laughing all evening. At least, on those occasions when I convince her to dine with me.”
His aunt sounded lonely, to North’s surprise. He always envisioned Aunt Knowe buzzing happily around a castle full of guests.
“Have my father and stepmother been spending most of their time in London?”
“The House of Lords, and the war,” she said with a sigh. “In addition, dear Ophelia has to find husbands for the girls. Betsy is in the process of taking London by storm and yet she turns her nose up at every offer. Ophelia misses Artie terribly.”
“Why doesn’t she simply take Artie to London?”
“I never took you to London as a boy, did I? Children don’t thrive in coal dust. Your father’s second duchess took Joan to London, and the poor babe developed a bronchial complaint within the week.”
“Why would she have taken Joan to London? I don’t remember ever seeing that particular duchess in the nursery.”
His father’s second duchess had been fertile—giving him four children in six years—and adulterous. She’d run away with a Prussian count shortly after Joan was born, and Parliament had granted the duke a divorce with unheard-of speed.
“Joan is the youngest, and has a Slavic appearance,” his aunt said bluntly. “I suspect her mother meant to take her abroad, but Joan was lucky enough to get a cough and begin wailing night and day, so she was dispatched back to the castle.”
“That’s appalling,” North said, taken aback. It would have been devastating for all of them if Joan had been taken from their family.
“Your father would have gone after her,” Aunt Knowe said. “He would never have allowed one of his daughters to be taken off to the continent by a mother who couldn’t remember the child’s name from one moment to the next.”
“Yet Joan is not his child?” North asked, not certain how they got on to the subject.
“What I am saying is that child rearing has nothing to do with blood. My brother is Joan’s father, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I see.”
They had reached the door of his aunt’s bedchamber; her hand tightened on his arm and fell away. “Poor Boodle pined like a heartbroken milkmaid while you were gone. It’s time to allow the man to have his way with you.”
North groaned. He’d managed very well in the army without a valet. “I’m surprised he didn’t leave for another position.”
“Your father needed a valet, and of course, Boodle enjoyed the consequence of serving a duke. But you are his masterpiece,” his aunt told him. “The moment we had news of your imminent return, he found another valet for your father. In his mind, you hired him to take you to the heights of fashion, and he dreams of future glory.”
“This is not going to end well,” North said.
“He’s hoarded a collection of prints of French courtiers and broods over them like a hen with golden eggs,” his aunt said. “I shall expect to see you glittering from head to foot in a few hours.”
When North didn’t answer, she chuckled. “What was it that my father used to say? Ah, yes: ‘Distance lends enchantment.’ I think he was talking about the company of women, but it applies to valets and their masters as well. Poor Boodle, he’s forgotten what a stubborn mule you can be.”
“‘No man is a hero to his valet,’” North said wryly, capping her proverb with his own. “He’ll remember shortly, if he’s forgo
tten.”
Lady Knowe pushed open the door to her bedchamber and paused. “I forgot to ask! I assume you saw your father and Ophelia before you left London?”
“Only briefly,” North said. He had planned to spend time in London, but the city’s raucous noise threatened what little sleep he got these days. “They will bring the family as soon as they’re able.”
His aunt’s shrewd eyes searched his face, no doubt grasping his inability to stay in London for more than a few hours.
All she said was, “Until they arrive, we will take our meals in the small dining room.”
He bowed, but she kissed him in lieu of a curtsy, and held him for longer than etiquette demanded. “I’m glad that you’re home, dear,” she said in a rough voice. “We missed you so much.”
North’s bedchamber was in a different wing. Lindow Castle had begun as a medieval fortress, but various dukes had made their mark by adding a tower here, or a wing there . . . Now it was an eccentric hodgepodge of a building.
As a boy, he had spent years designing and redesigning a light and airy country mansion, with bathing chambers and dressing rooms attached to bedchambers, and a nursery wing at the top of a steep staircase. With architectural ambitions in mind, he had given the money he inherited from his mother to his boyhood friend Parth Sterling, who had tripled it in value.
He had the money to build another castle, if he wanted.
But at twenty-three he had become the duke’s heir, and someday this castle would be his. The most he could do would be to add a turret to a structure that already had three too many, in his opinion. He pushed open the door to his bedchamber with more force than needed.
“There you are, my lord!” Boodle cried. His valet was a tall, thin man, powdered and plucked and bewigged. He stood beside a bath of steaming water scented with bergamot. Shaving tools were arranged on a length of toweling.
A mustard-yellow coat embroidered with bunches of cherries and a pair of matching breeches were lovingly laid out on the bed. The waistcoat was cream silk dotted with cherry twill, and the shirt’s lace-ruffled cuffs would graze his knuckles. Three pressed neckcloths awaited, in case the first attempts were not entirely satisfactory.