“You look fine,” he said. “We’re only going downstairs long enough to send them away, you know. March and Charlotte are excellent company, but I would rather have you alone.”
“And I you, March.” She reached up and kissed him, running her hand lightly down his chest to the top of his breeches in a way that made him very nearly toss her back on the bed, March and Charlotte or not. But instead she broke away and briskly threw open the door.
Then stopped and gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth. He followed, curious to see what had so stopped her.
The door to the neighboring room with the noisily amorous couple had just opened, too, and the noisily amorous couple were hurrying from it, in much the same disheveled state of dress.
“Mama?” Diana gasped, staring at her mother. “Mama? Here?”
But Sheffield was looking past Lady Hervey to where Brecon stood, fastening the buckle on his neckcloth.
“My God,” Sheffield said. “Brecon. I never thought—”
“Diana!” exclaimed Lady Hervey. “Oh, my own daughter, what are you doing here? Where’s Lord Crump? Why are you here with—”
“Sheffield,” Brecon said. “What in blazes are you doing with Lady Diana?”
“We are married,” Diana said, thrusting out her hand with the ring. “This morning, with a special license. But you, Mama, you—”
Brecon put his hands on Lady Hervey’s shoulders. “Your mother has just agreed to marry me,” he said. “We are to be wed early next month. We would have announced it today, at your wedding. At your, ah, other wedding.”
“You are married to Sheffield,” Lady Hervey said, bewildered, as she looked at the emerald ring. “Diana, Diana, of all I thought for you, I never guessed this.”
Slowly she began to curtsey, bowing her head. “I congratulate you on your marriage, Your Grace.”
“Oh, Mama, please don’t,” Diana said, pulling her mother up to embrace her. “If you marry Brecon, then you’ll be a duchess, too. We’ll all be equal, and then—”
“Sheffield!” thundered March as he came up the stairs with Charlotte hurrying after him. “How dare you dishonor Lady Diana, you wretched—”
“He hasn’t dishonored her, March,” Brecon said. “He’s married her instead.”
March and Charlotte stopped at the top of the stairs, staring at them all.
“I told them you were married, Your Grace,” said the keeper, standing behind March. “But they’d have none of it, and wouldn’t believe me.”
“There is, it seems, a great deal to believe, as well as to explain,” Brecon said. “Let us all go below and sort this out properly over brandy.”
Over brandy and breakfast, they did indeed sort things out, to the satisfaction of everyone. The gentlemen shook hands, and more brandy was drunk by way of toasts, to the considerable improvement of the general mood.
Yet still Diana found time to pull her mother aside in the hall, dodging the servants carrying dishes from the inn’s busy kitchen. “Faith, I still can scarce believe it, Mama,” she said. “You and Brecon!”
Mama laughed ruefully. “Meaning that you cannot believe a lady as aged as your mother would fall in love again?”
“No, no, not that at all,” Diana said, and in truth Mama’s cheeks were so pink and her face so filled with happiness that she did indeed look young enough to be another sister. “But however did you contrive such an—an—intrigue without us guessing?”
“Apparently in much the same fashion that you did with Sheffield,” Mama said with a tinge of regret. “I suppose we all saw what we expected, and no more beyond. If I’d only paid more heed to you and less to my own affairs—”
“No, Mama,” Diana said firmly, linking her fingers into her mother’s. “You gave up everything when Father died to look after us. If you have found love again now, it is only what you deserve. And Brecon is such a charming gentleman, how could you not?”
“Thank you,” Mama said, her eyes bright with tears. “I didn’t intend to fall in love with Brecon. I’ve known him for years and years, while your father and Brecon’s wife still lived, though it wasn’t until this spring that we began to see one another in a different light.”
“Oh, Mama, don’t cry,” Diana said, even as her own eyes filled with tears, too. “I want you to be happy with Brecon.”
“And you, lamb.” Mama blotted her eyes with her handkerchief. “I’ll tell you the same that I’ve already told Sheffield: that if he doesn’t keep to his vows and make you every bit as happy as you deserve, then he’ll find he must answer to me directly.”
That made Diana smile, for Mama was surely the least menacing lady in all London. But the love behind such a rash declaration was real enough, and with a fresh rush of emotion, all Diana could do was hug her mother and hold her tight.
“What has happened?” Sheffield asked with concern as he squeezed into the busy hall beside them. “What is wrong?”
“Not a thing.” Wiping her eyes with her fingers, Diana disentangled herself from her mother. “Mama was just wishing us to be happy together.”
Sheffield was not entirely convinced. “You don’t look happy,” he said. “You’re both crying.”
Diana smiled at his wariness, though his worried frown was nearly enough to set her to weeping again from sheer joy. “I am happy, Sheffield,” she said, slipping her arm around his waist. “Perfectly, perfectly happy.”
“You have much to learn about wives, Sheffield,” March said philosophically as he joined them, with Charlotte and Brecon close behind. “They only cry like this when they are happy. Do you and Diana wish a place in our carriage back to town?”
“There’s room enough,” Charlotte said, “even with Mama and Brecon, too. We’ll be quite a party.”
But Sheffield shook his head, tightening his arm around Diana. “I think not. I believe I’d much rather stay here with my wife.”
“Oh, the scandal,” Brecon said drily. “You do realize that you shall likely be the first true husband and wife in the Green Turtle’s history to do so?”
Diana glanced up at her new (and true) husband. “I am the Duchess of Sheffield,” she said, grinning even as she strived to look both serene and aloof. “I am above idle tattle and scandal.”
“Then come upstairs with me, duchess,” Sheffield said, kissing her upturned face, “and prove it.”
She did: and together they swiftly returned upstairs to the fine room with the fine bed and the looking glass, too. There they made long, luxurious love to each other, sleeping only to waken and make love again, exactly as newlyweds should.
“My own Diana,” Sheffield said softly as she lay across his chest. “My own duchess, my own wife. What would I have done if I hadn’t found you?”
“But you did, love,” she said, kissing him again. “You did, and it is … perfect.”
For my two favorite
eighteenth-century duchesses,
Sarah Woodyard and
Abby Cox,
with thanks, regards, and affection
Acknowledgments
Many thanks are in order to:
Junessa Viloria,
blessed with the most awesome
of editorial superpowers.
Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey, agents extraordinare.
Janea Whitacre, Mark Hutter, Sarah Woodyard, and Doris Warren of the Margaret Hunter Shop, Colonial Williamsburg, wise in all matters of eighteenth-century dress and decorum.
And last but certainly not least,
my fellow nerdy-history-girl, Loretta Chase,
supreme possessor of sanity, good humor,
and bargain-hunting prowess.
BY ISABELLA BRADFORD
When You Wish Upon a Duke
When the Duchess Said Yes
When the Duke Found Love
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