“Diana, my love,” he began again. “If I have hurt you, by all that’s holy, I—”
“No, Sheffield,” she said, looking everyplace except at him. “No.”
She was buttoning her bodice with furiously swift fingers, putting herself back together with a haste that women rarely possessed. He buttoned the fall on his breeches and retrieved his waistcoat and coat from the floor. He pulled his handkerchief from his coat’s pocket and handed it to her.
“If you would like to, ah, tidy yourself,” he said. “There’s no washstand in here, I know, but let me send for—”
“No servants,” she said quickly. “We haven’t time. The others will be waiting for us.”
She found her hat from where it had fallen on the floor, and pinned it back onto her head, pushing stray locks of hair back under the brim. She stood, briskly shaking out her skirts and smoothing them down before she headed toward the door. It wasn’t that she was angry with him. She’d been angry before, but this—this was different.
“Diana, look at me,” he said. “Look at me.”
She stopped but did not turn.
He took her arm, pulling her back, and at last she looked up at him, her face enough to break his heart.
“Listen to me, Diana, I beg you,” he said gruffly. “You can’t pretend this hasn’t happened. I love you, and you love me, and that’s enough—”
“Please don’t, Sheffield,” she said, and though her eyes were dry, he heard the tears in her voice. “I can’t listen to you, not now, not after I—after we—oh, a pox on it all!”
“Everything will be fine and right, Diana,” he said firmly, bending over to kiss her, and prove to her it was. “You’ll see. I’ll make it so.”
But instead she twisted free, stepping backwards away from him, her arms crossed over her chest as if to comfort herself.
“You can’t, Sheffield,” she said, shaking her head. “No matter what you wish, you can’t change what has happened. I do not blame you, for I was most willing, but—”
“And where is the sin in that?” he demanded, following her. “Diana, listen to me, and—”
“It’s all my fault,” she said, her voice breaking. “Everything, and—and—oh, if only I did not love you so!”
She threw open the door and hurried into the hall, her steps so fast she was nearly running.
Running from him. No one did that.
“Diana,” he said, matching her strides. “If you love me, then there is no problem, because I love you, too. Diana, please. You must hear me.”
“No,” she said, staring straight ahead and quickening her pace even more as she ran down the stairs. “I must sort this out for myself. I have listened far too much to you, Sheffield, and no more, not now. No more.”
They were at the library now, and a waiting footman instantly opened the door for them. At once Lady Enid and Dr. Pullings rose, turning to face them. Sheffield couldn’t help but notice how Pullings had his arm protectively around Lady Enid’s shoulder, and how she pressed against his side, trusting him completely.
The way Diana should be with him.
“Pray forgive us for keeping you so long,” Diana said, forcing herself to smile for their sake, not his. “But Sheffield was showing me his family’s paintings, and we lost all sense of the hour.”
Automatically Sheffield glanced at the gold clock on the mantel. Hell, it was nearly six: they had lost sense of the hour, and everything else, too. Now he’d have to contend with an angry Lattimore, and likely March, too, for keeping the ladies out so long.
“I’ll have the carriage brought,” he said curtly, nodding to the footman who remained at the door.
“Thank you, Sheffield,” she murmured, finally glancing his way, and pleading in silence to keep the truth their secret.
Secret, hah, he thought glumly. Anyone who looked at her would know what she’d been doing, and it wasn’t looking at pictures, either. Beneath her hat, her gold-streaked hair was a tangled mess that no decent lady’s maid would claim. Her skirts were crushed into telltale creases, her mouth was ruddy from his kisses, and despite her inexplicable misery, she had the sated glow of a woman who’d recently been well pleasured. She’d never looked more achingly lovely to him, nor more desirable, plaguing both his heart and his cock.
She could deny it all she wanted, but she felt it, too. The devil take him if she didn’t. If she’d really been so determined to cast him aside, she wouldn’t still be looking at him now, her blue eyes wide and unwilling to break their gaze. Almost imperceptibly she shifted; whether she’d admit it or not, she was likely feeling the traces of their lovemaking on her thighs, as fine a memento as he could ever leave her with.
He could, grudgingly, understand why she wouldn’t want to speak to him right now. Everything had happened so deucedly fast, she was bound to be somewhat confused. He had to remember that, as impudent as she could be, she wasn’t another of his customary lovers, but an earl’s daughter and a virgin. Rather, she was still an earl’s daughter, but she certainly wasn’t a virgin any longer. But because of Lady Enid and Pullings, he’d have until June to persuade Diana that they truly did belong together. He’d woo and win her properly, the way an earl’s daughter deserved—or, actually, how he was pretending to woo Lady Enid.
Except with Diana, and with luck, he’d be able to intersperse that wooing with a few more afternoon interludes like the one they’d just had.
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. And though she steadfastly didn’t smile in return, she did blush, which was almost better.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” Pullings said. “But there are things that must be said.”
“Then say them,” Sheffield said, still intent on Diana. He’d never think of the Sultana Room in quite the same way again. She was his sultana now, and never was a sultan more blessed. “You’re free to speak, Doctor. No one’s stopping you.”
Pullings cleared his throat, seldom a fortuitous sign with a preacher.
“First, Your Grace,” he began, “Lady Enid and I wish to express our boundless gratitude for your most magnanimous generosity toward us in our plight, both in spirit and in action. We shall never be able to repay you for the kindness, the possibilities that you have seen fit to lavish upon us.”
“It is nothing, Pullings,” Sheffield said, only half listening, his thoughts still on Diana and the Sultana Room. He’d especially enjoyed how she’d hooked her knee over the back of the settee. He’d have to ask her to do that again. “Recall that you’ve obliged me as well.”
He was obliged, too, more obliged than Pullings could ever guess for that gift of time. Diana was sure to come around by June, sure to realize that they belonged together.
Pullings bowed deeply. “You are too kind, Your Grace. Second, Lady Enid and I beg to thank you for your munificence regarding your offer of the living on your estate.”
“You’re most welcome,” Sheffield said. Perhaps he’d bespeak a sultana’s costume for her, with those filmy full breeches the heathen ladies in harems favored. He could just imagine Diana in those, parading about and being queenly like a proper sultana. He wished he could ask her now, but likely he should wait until they were wed.
“Truly you have extended a haven to us, Your Grace,” Pullings was droning on. “A salvation, a refuge in our hour of need, and—”
“Yes, yes, Pullings,” Sheffield said, striving to hurry him along. “The parish will never have been so well served.”
Pullings bowed again. “You honor me, Your Grace. Third—”
“Joshua, please,” Lady Enid interrupted gently. “If you cannot bring yourself to tell His Grace and Lady Diana, then I shall. I know it was agreed that Dr. Pullings and I would wed in June, but regrettably, that is no longer possible, and our little masquerade must come to its end.”
“Oh, no, Enid, no,” Diana said with sympathetic dismay. “Surely you have not had a change of heart?”
Blushing, Lady Enid smiled shyly and shook her head. “I�
��m with child,” she said. “Joshua’s child. We mean to wed as soon as can be arranged.”
Sheffield was stunned. Enid was with child, she and Pullings meant to wed, the masquerade was done. The amusing house of cards he himself had contrived was about to collapse into an unsavory welter of scandal, and as soon as the world—his world, anyway—learned of it, he’d become the butt of every cuckold jest known to raucous mankind.
But worst of all was knowing he’d lost his excuse for seeing Diana alone.
Hell. Hell, hell, hell.
“Where are my sister and mother?” Diana asked even as the Marchbourne House footman was closing the door after her. “Are they at home? Are they dressing?”
Not waiting for his answer, she hurried across the hall toward the stairs, leaving him to follow after her.
“Her Grace and her ladyship are in the nursery, my lady,” the footman said, calling after her as she raced up the stairs. “Shall I send for your maid, my lady?”
“No—yes,” she stammered, even though his question was the most natural in the world. “That is, yes, thank you.”
She was lucky, ridiculously lucky, that Mama and Charlotte were in the nursery with the children and not in one of the downstairs rooms as they often were at this time of the afternoon. She never would have escaped them otherwise. She would have been called in to share her afternoon, to tell whom she’d seen and where she’d gone and what she’d done, the usual ritual in her family. But this afternoon she couldn’t have begun to tell what she’d done. Most likely she wouldn’t have had to: Mama’s eyes, sharp for signs of misbehavior, would have seen it all at once, and then—oh, Diana did not want to consider what would have happened then.
Even now, as she ran down the long hall to her own bedchamber, she was acutely aware of how wrinkled her clothes were and how her hat was barely pinned to her tangled hair. She’d been in such haste to dress that she hadn’t realized she’d left behind a garter, and her left stocking had sagged and shimmied its way down her leg to end up as a grubby wad around her ankle. But the worst was feeling the stickiness of Sheffield’s seed between her thighs with every step, making her remember every thrust, every caress.
Not waiting for the footman who had stepped forward to open the door to her chamber for her, she threw the door open herself and then latched it closed. She didn’t bother to light candles, relying instead on the last dusky light of the fading day through the windows and the embers of the fire in the grate. She tore off her hat and rushed to the washstand in her dressing room, pouring water from the pitcher into the bowl. She’d only have a few moments of privacy before Sarah appeared to dress her for supper, and as quickly as she could she did her best to clean away the last traces of Sheffield’s lovemaking. Yet no amount of water and lavender-scented soap could clean away the reality of what she’d done, and with a little whimper she sank down on her dressing table bench.
Like countless other girls before her, she’d let herself be led and seduced, swayed by pleasure and the promise of love. Worse yet, she’d been nearly as eager as Sheffield, shamelessly embracing the pleasure he’d offered like the lowest Covent Garden trollop. If she’d jumped feet-first from the center of Westminster Bridge, she couldn’t have behaved more rashly. Sheffield could speak all he wished about love and marriage, but every warning she’d ever heard about men from her mother, her aunt, her sisters, told her he couldn’t mean it. To gentlemen like Sheffield, love was only another sport, pursuit and chase and capture, and then on to the next quarry. He’d made lofty vows to marry only for love, and then the next moment he’d boasted of how cleverly he contrived his pretend betrothal to Lady Enid to free himself for more pursuits. Hadn’t her family warned her of the danger of his charming ways, even before she’d known who he was? Yet she hadn’t listened, she hadn’t heeded, and now, because for a few false moments when she’d let herself believe he truly loved her, she was ruined.
Ruined. Of course she’d heard the single word, whispered by ladies in horror behind open fans, but she’d never thought it would mean her. The women in her family bred with remarkable ease; both of her sisters had conceived their first children within the first month of their marriages. The notable fertility of the Wylder sisters had in fact been her greatest attraction for Lord Crump. But he wished for an heir of his own blood, not of the Duke of Sheffield’s, and she could not imagine being so reprehensible as to try to pass Sheffield’s child off as Lord Crump’s. Besides, they were not to wed until the autumn, and if she was with child, by then all the world would know of it.
No. Her betrothal to Lord Crump would be broken with some excuse that would fool no one, and she would be sent abroad, banished into discreet seclusion to bear her bastard. The child—her child—would vanish forever from her life, to be raised by well-paid caretakers. In time she might return to England, but she would never marry. No honorable man would have her. Instead she’d wither and fade into lonely, outcast spinsterhood, pitied and scorned and ultimately forgotten.
Even if she miraculously did not conceive, she could be equally ruined if Sheffield let slip so much as a whisper of what had happened. It wouldn’t even have to be a whisper, really. If he simply looked at her again before others the way he’d looked at her when she was leaving his house—why, even a simpleton would guess what they’d done. The gossip in London about Sheffield and the married Frenchwoman had been gleeful enough; it would be a hundred times worse if the Earl of Hervey’s youngest daughter were discovered to be the guilty lady. The result would be nearly as dire as if she’d borne Sheffield’s bastard. She might be slightly less ruined, if there were degrees of ruination, but not by much. Surely Lord Crump would break their betrothal, and be applauded for it, too. No peer desired or deserved a bride who was not a virgin, while she—she would become a pariah, an outcast from her class, and a spinster.
Fig sleepily appeared from beneath the bed to rub against her leg. Diana gathered the little cat up and settled her in her lap, where she promptly closed her eyes, curled her tail around her feet, and began to purr. Nothing disturbed Fig, and as Diana held her close, she wished that she, too, could find peace with such ease.
She had told Sheffield she never wished to see him again, but it was already too late. She loved him. She loved how he smiled and laughed and how he could make her laugh, too. She loved his kindness and she loved how much he cared for fat, lazy, ugly Fantôme. She loved how generous he’d been to Lady Enid Lattimore, and how he’d offered a living and a church to Joshua Pullings. She loved how he’d kept the flower he’d plucked from her hat, and she loved that he’d noticed the hat in the first place. She loved how he respected his parents’ memory. And she loved how he kissed her, and how he’d touched her, and how he’d made her body sing with joy in ways she’d never imagined, and how he’d held her and told her he loved her, and given her the shared intimacy that had been the most glorious moment of her life.
Oh, yes, she was ruined. For how could she ever love any other man after she’d loved Sheffield?
“Diana?”
That was Charlotte’s voice, in her bedchamber, and quickly Diana set Fig down and began unfastening her bodice as if she’d been undressing all the time.
“Here you are,” Charlotte said, coming to join her in her dressing room. She might have been in the nursery earlier, but she was already dressed for evening in a gown of deep blue silk brocade with serpentine trim, her favorite pearls around her throat and swinging from her ears. “Why are you undressing yourself here alone in the dark? Where is Sarah? She should be here with you, not dawdling belowstairs.”
“She’ll be here soon, I’m sure,” Diana said swiftly, wishing to save Sarah from Charlotte’s ire. “I’ve only just returned home.”
“So I was told,” Charlotte said. She poked at the fire to make it flame enough to light a taper, which she used in turn to light the nearest candlesticks: remarkable independence for a duchess. More duchess-like, she then sat gracefully in an armchair, spreading her skirts
with a silken shush. “Why were you so late?”
Pulling the remaining pins from her hair, Diana turned on the bench to face the looking glass and the window. Outside, grooms were climbing ladders to fire the high lanterns that hung at the house’s gates and on either side of the door, just as maidservants inside would be moving through the halls and rooms to draw the curtains and light the candles against the coming night. Lanterns lit and curtains drawn, Fig in her lap and Charlotte’s pearls: strange how the routines and habits of life continued without pause, while for her, nothing would ever be the same.
“There were a great many carriages in the park today,” she said, which was true. “And then it rained so suddenly, and you know how the streets become.”
“Impassable,” Charlotte said, agreeing. “At least you’d fine company to pass the time. How does Lady Enid?”
“Well,” Diana said, again offering careful truth, “she seems very happy about her coming marriage.”
“I’m certain she does,” Charlotte said. Fig rubbed against her leg, and heedless of her blue silk, she lifted the little cat into her lap. “But what of Sheffield? Brecon swears he’s changed completely, that he’s become the perfect, tamed bridegroom, but I cannot conceive of it. Not Sheffield. I’ve always thought that of the four dukes, he is the only one who seems to have inherited the old king’s roguish taste for variety in his ladies.”
Diana prayed she didn’t blush as she tried to guide her sister away from the topic of Sheffield. “You should be grateful March didn’t inherit such a quality.”
“I am,” Charlotte said, lightly stroking Fig’s ears. “Mightily glad. But do you believe that Lady Enid has reformed Sheffield, as Brecon says?”
When the Duke Found Love Page 21
