“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 said, 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.”
Her teary eyes widened. “Do you love another, too?”
“At present, no,” he said, feeling sheepish to admit such a thing. “But because I subscribe to the unfashionable notion of loving one’s bride for herself rather than her bloodlines, I would rather wait to marry until I do.”
She nodded eagerly. “Then come with me, sir, so that we might tell my parents, and end this foolish match now!”
“No, Lady Enid, I will not,” he said, holding her back. “Nor shall you. I may be a wastrel and a rake, but I also have a conscience, and I don’t wish anyone to whisper nonsense of you, or claim you were jilted.”
“Oh, sir,” she said softly, and he had the uneasy impression she was seeing him for the first time, there in the moonlight. “That’s most kind of you. I did not even think of it.”
“That’s because you’re a lady of virtue and honor,” he said wryly, unable to keep from repeating her earlier words to her, “and I live for scandal and intrigue. If you can bear it, let us continue as if we mean to obey our elders and wed. What better way to avoid matchmaking schemes than to have been matched already?”
“Can we do that, sir?” she asked uneasily. “Pretend that way?”
“I can if you can,” he said. “The ruse will benefit us both, at least until I can think of a respectable way for us to part.”
How exactly he’d manage that would be a puzzle. Thanks to Brecon’s influence, he really was a rake with a conscience, an uneasy combination if ever there was one. He was perfectly happy to pretend that he and Lady Enid were betrothed if it gave him a respite from other matchmaking schemes, and in fact he’d like to see her wed to her educated tutor, parsing Latin together forever and ever. If he didn’t want to marry without love, then he saw no reason she must do so, either, no matter what her father dictated. Besides, Sheffield rather enjoyed the notion of playing Cupid for such an unlikely couple, especially if it meant he would be free.
Clearly Lady Enid was thinking, too. “I’ll send word to Joshua to let him know the truth,” she said, “so he may stop worrying about me.”
“You remain in contact with him, despite your father’s wishes?” Sheffield asked, surprised. “You know where he resides?”
“I do, sir,” she said, the determined chin returning. “I will remain ever faithful in my love. He is here in London, serving as tutor to a thick-headed merchant’s son in Cornhill, the only position he could obtain because of Father.”
“Why, Lady Enid,” Sheffield said, liking her better after this declaration. “That sounds as if you’re conducting a bit of intrigue yourself.”
“I would do anything for Dr. Pullings, sir,” she said vehemently. “Anything. And thus I will pretend to be betrothed to you, sir.”
“Even that?” Sheffield asked, amused but also touched by her devotion. It wasn’t that he longed for her particular devotion—he didn’t—but when he considered all the ladies in his own past, he wasn’t sure any of them had been quite so loyal as this.
“Even that, sir,” she said firmly, and slipped her hand into his arm. “Shall we share our happiness with my parents?”
They walked back into the house, squeezing their way past the guests who’d gathered to watch the dancers. Sheffield glanced at them, too, his gaze irresistibly drawn to the sight of graceful women dancing. But one in particular caught his eye, a girl with golden hair and a gown of cream-colored damask with pink flowers, and this time he didn’t need Fantôme to find her.
“What is it, sir?” Lady Enid said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not quite,” he said, chagrined that she’d noticed. “But do you know that lady dancing in the white gown, the one with the fair hair?”
Lady Enid looked at the lady, then stared at him, incredulous. “You truly don’t recognize her?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I did,” he said. “Remember, I’ve been abroad, and a good many fair new faces have appeared in London since I left. Including your own, Lady Enid.”
She laughed. “An excellent recovery, sir,” she said. “But you should know the lady in white, for she’s practically part of your own family. She’s Lady Diana Wylder, and her older sisters are Lady Marchbourne and Lady Hawkesworth.”
“That’s Lady Diana Wylder?” he asked, stunned that London could be such a small place. How could it be that Fantôme’s lady in the wood was the same lady Brecon had mentioned as being a trial to her mother?
“It is, sir,” Lady Enid answered, laughing again at his astonishment. “But I wonder that you do not know her for her history alone, for truly you must both be cut from the same scandalous cloth. Her name has been linked with several of the most unfortunate men, from a ne’er-do-well Irish officer to a Covent Garden actor. She’s said to be quite … impulsive.”
“I’d no notion,” he murmured, watching the girl with renewed interest. No, not merely renewed: doubled, or even tripled. He’d already been intrigued by her beauty and her laughter (and her breasts—he’d an undeniable male interest in those), as well as the mysterious circumstances of finding her unattended in the park. But to learn that she was also the same girl whom Brecon had forbidden him to see—ah, perhaps that interest had grown tenfold.
“Actors and Irish officers,” he said. “What better way to a dubious reputation?”
“Indeed, sir,” Lady Enid said, with perhaps more relish than he’d expected. “It’s said that Lady Diana would be considered quite ruined by now if Lady Marchbourne weren’t her sister.”
“Who’s that sorry-looking fellow in black dancing with her now?” Sheffield asked. The man was grim and awkward as he dragged her about the floor, not even bothering to attempt the proper steps. Lady Diana in turn was trying hard to make the best of the dance, and of him, but her misery was clear enough. Even from across the room he could see that her smile was too fixed, her eyes too bright, for real happiness. “He can’t possibly be an Irish officer.”
“Oh, no, sir,” Lady Enid said promptly. “That’s Lord Crump, her betrothed, or at least he will be her betrothed any day now. It’s said that he’s the only unwed lord who’s stern enough to offer for her hand.”
So this was the man she’d meant when she’d said she wasn’t free, there beneath the trees. In Sheffield’s estimation, Lord Crump had no business at all offering for Lady Diana’s hand, despite how stern he might be. Or rather, because of how stern he was. Sheffield couldn’t believe that Brecon had encouraged this foolishness. A spirited girl such as
Lady Diana deserved to be amused and charmed, not broken like a recalcitrant nag.
“It’s considered a most favorable match for them both, sir,” Lady Enid was saying. “She’s very beautiful and well-bred, and he’s likewise titled and wealthy and willing to overlook her indiscretions for the sake of heirs.”
More overheard gossip and scandal: yet this time Sheffield heard the unmistakable wistfulness in Lady Enid’s voice, a wistfulness that drew him sharply back from his thoughts of Lady Diana.
“Not so very different from our own situation, is it?” He patted her fingers on his arm, determined not to be a boor. “But ours will have the happier outcome, Lady Enid, I’m sure of that.”
She only sighed, her gaze following Lady Diana.
That would not do; there were few things more depressing than one woman mooning after the lot of another.
“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres,” he said solemnly.
She looked at him in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres,” he repeated. “That’s Virgil, you know.”
“ ‘All Gaul is divided into three parts,’ ” she translated. “It’s Julius Caesar, not Virgil.”
“It’s also the complete sum of the Latin I can recall from school,” he said. “All the proof you require regarding me as a possible husband. You deserve a gentleman like Dr. Pullings, Lady Enid, one who will appreciate you for who you are. I swear to do my best to arrange it, too. You have my word.”
“Audentis fortuna luvat,” she said softly. “That is Virgil.”
He tipped his head quizzically to one side. “Meaning exactly what?”
“ ‘Fortune favors the brave,’ ” she said. “Meaning that I thank you for everything, and that I hope you find your lady to love, too.”
She smiled up at him, full of trust and gratitude, and she was smiling still when they rejoined her parents.
“How joyful you two look!” Lady Lattimore exclaimed with a great measure of joy herself. “Your Grace, I have never seen my daughter more delighted.”
“We were parsing Latin, Lady Lattimore,” Sheffield said, purposely bland. “I have never before met a lady-scholar like Lady Enid.”
When the Duke Found Love Page 5
