Too Wilde to Wed

by Eloisa James

  At that moment, she heard the tinkling clash of a handful of cutlery bouncing—or so she guessed—off the fire screen in the dining room.

  Prism flinched. Everyone in the castle was familiar with Godfrey’s naughty temperament. The servants loved comparing North’s childhood pranks to Godfrey’s.

  That always made Diana feel guilty, since the two had nothing in common except childish misbehavior. She was so tired of the fib that had brought her to the nursery that it would almost be a relief to leave the castle—if only the idea of leaving Artie wasn’t so agonizing.

  Diana had seen Artie’s first tooth and her first step. She’d stayed awake for three nights when Artie fell ill with a lung complaint; the duchess arrived from London to find her youngest daughter sitting up and asking for cake.

  Another handful of cutlery clashed into the iron fireplace screen. In a powerful display of butlerian nerves, Prism managed to ignore it.

  “Miss Belgrave, I wish to inform you that Lord Roland has arrived home and is currently with his valet, changing from his traveling costume. One would hope that Mr. Boodle will allow Lady Knowe to impart important information concerning the family.”

  From his disdainful air, Prism had no more faith in Boodle’s discretion than Diana had.

  Still, Diana felt a wash of relief, because now she had time to drink a cup of tea and rehearse what to say to North. It would take Boodle three hours at a minimum to wrestle his master into the luxurious garments of a future duke.

  Boodle couldn’t wait to dazzle the household once again with his valeting skills; he wouldn’t allow his master to leave the bedchamber until North shone like a prize pig.

  In Diana’s humble opinion.

  Whether in London or the castle, her former fiancé had always been impeccably attired—and that wasn’t to mention the times she’d been almost certain he was wearing lip paint. No man’s lips were that deep rose color.

  She folded her hands at her waist, the way her own governess used to. “Thank you very much for the warning, Mr. Prism.”

  “Inasmuch as Lord Roland does not know that you and Master Godfrey are in the household, he may be surprised,” the butler said, in a powerful understatement. “I wish to reassure you that His Lordship is a consummate gentleman, who will receive the news with equanimity.”

  Diana could attest to that, since at times she had felt as if she were engaged to a pasteboard version of an English nobleman . . . if pasteboard could bend at the waist and mimic all the airs and graces of a courtier. North was a gentleman through and through, and his emotions would be as muted as his clothing was extravagant.

  They both turned their heads at the sound of someone quickly mounting the stairs to the nursery suite. Diana’s heart jolted into a sickening rhythm against her ribs.

  No three hours’ respite.

  No tea.

  Prism was not a butler who would welcome being a witness to an uncomfortable encounter. “I shall speak to Mabel about her absence at morning prayers,” he said, heading for the nursery dining room.

  He was about to discover that the nursemaid had missed more than prayers, but Diana didn’t say a word. The butler’s horrified, “Miss Belgrave!” overlapped with North’s arrival at the top of the stairs. Diana didn’t respond to Prism, or allow herself to step back against the comforting wall. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on her former fiancé.

  North had changed. His face was leaner and more angular, with weary crinkles at the corners of his eyes, making him look older than his twenty-nine years.

  Surprising enough, he didn’t appear to be angry. But he always had a face that expressed little emotion, thanks to a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and the effortless nobility that made him look as if he were posing for a portrait.

  A portrait of a duke, naturally.

  As he strode toward her, his boots clipped the floor. Boodle hadn’t had time to transform his master into a future duke; North was still dressed for travel, his black riding frock splashed with mud.

  He stopped in front of her. If anything, he seemed faintly amused.

  “The last time we saw each other here, you were headed for the ladies’ retiring room,” he observed. “That must have been one of the longest visits in the history of the castle.”

  “I should never have left without breaking our betrothal in person, or at least writing you a letter,” Diana said, words she had longed to say for almost two years tumbling out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry, North. I’m just so sorry. I behaved terribly, and—”

  She broke off as Prism reemerged from the dining room, his cheeks drawn as tight as those of a boy sucking lemons. “Lord Roland,” he said, bowing. Turning to Diana, “Where is Mabel?”

  “In the dairy,” Diana said. “She’ll return soon, Mr. Prism.”

  “Mr. Prism?” North repeated. His eyebrows locked together.

  Boodle must have told him she was employed as a servant; did he think that Diana could continue to address the butler the way a lady might? What was proper for a guest was insolence in a servant.

  “I shall send Mabel back to her post,” Prism said, ignoring North and fading toward the stairs as only a butler could do.

  Diana turned back to North, trying to decide if she should move on to the subject of Godfrey, or repeat how apologetic she was to have jilted him in such a public fashion.

  “Who is Mabel?” North asked.

  “She’s the nursery maid. I’m the governess,” Diana explained. “I’m really more of a nanny, but Lady Knowe was kind enough to give me the title. Mabel has fallen in love and is often absent from her post.” She hesitated, and added, “I apologize again for the graceless way I ended our betrothal.”

  He didn’t shrug, but his expression made it clear that he couldn’t have been more uninterested. It was ancient history to him; she was the one who couldn’t forget her bad behavior.

  “Diana,” North said, “what are you doing in my home?” A hint of ironic humor lurked in his eyes, but mostly, he just seemed tired.

  That look he used to give her? The one that promised secret delights?

  Gone without a trace.

  Of course, it was gone. She wanted it to be gone.

  “I might add that my valet is under the impression that I fathered your child,” he said, his voice even.

  “There wouldn’t have been time for that,” she blurted out. “Not between all those lectures you gave me about the duties of a duchess.”

  With an inward groan, she added that sentence to the list of stupid things she had instantly regretted saying. Some days the list grew hardly at all. Others . . . Well, other days she embarrassed herself fifty times before bedtime.

  Genuine surprise crossed North’s face. Of course, he believed she was the meek creature whom her mother had tailored to a nobleman’s specifications.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she added quickly. “I seem to have forgotten the rules of being a lady, let alone a future duchess. Servants tend to be much more direct. More to the point, I didn’t bring it up as a defense for my behavior.”

  “I was trying to ease your entry into the peerage,” North said. He didn’t raise an eyebrow, but somehow he managed to give his words a sardonic air without moving a muscle. “I apologize if I made you uncomfortable, or bored you.”

  “Imagine, you almost married a woman whose heart belongs in the servants’ hall,” Diana said, offering him a tentative smile. “You should be on your knees thanking me for running away.”

  “As I recall, I didn’t kneel when I proposed to you,” North remarked. “I think we both agree that we are better unmarried, at least to each other.”

  He was right, so it was absurd that his comment stung. It wasn’t what he said as much as the indifferent look in his eye. Whatever affection he had felt for her was gone.

  She had behaved appallingly. Not worth his . . . his affection, if that’s what it had been.

  His earlier sentence sank in, and she said with a little gasp, “
You didn’t tell Boodle the truth?”

  “I am a gentleman, Diana. I judged it best to inquire about your intentions as regards my supposed son.”

  As she stared at him, a crash sounded from the dining room—and this time, it wasn’t knives and forks, but china. Experience told her that Godfrey had managed to crawl onto the table and was now throwing plates over the side.

  She turned and raced down the corridor. Artie might be in the path of shattered dishes, and the housekeeper had been threatening to deduct breakage from her wages.

  Behind her, North barked, “Diana!”

  Skidding into the room, she found Godfrey sitting in the middle of the table, Artie beside him, wrestling over a plate. Diana felt another stab of panic at the idea of separating them. Artie was Godfrey’s tie to the world, the only person who really understood him.

  “DeeDee,” Artie shouted, dropping her side of the plate and waving her hands in the air. “Free is throwing things again.”

  Godfrey threw the plate into the wall at the precise moment North arrived at her shoulder.

  Diana swept Godfrey off the table and put him on the floor, crouching before him. It was hard to ignore North’s presence behind her, but she had learned that Godfrey only listened to her directly after he was disobedient. A delayed reprimand was the same as approval.

  “Darling,” she said, holding his eyes, “you must not break plates. It is very naughty, and it makes Mrs. Mousekin angry at both of us.”

  North had stepped up to the table. “You must be Artemisia,” she heard. “I’m your oldest brother. We haven’t met since you were a newborn.”

  “My name’s Artie,” his sister informed him.

  Diana focused on Godfrey’s face. He never spoke, but she was certain that he thought deeply. She had the idea that he might be smarter than the average child.

  “Please promise me that you won’t throw any more plates off the table or at a wall?” She had to be very specific when reprimanding her nephew.

  Godfrey’s limpid blue eyes were as sweet as an angel’s as he planted a squishy kiss on her cheek. Her arms wrapped around him for a moment, and she set him free.

  Artie swung her legs over the edge of the table. “Down.” She lifted her arms to North.

  The courtier Diana remembered, the man who wore violet-colored silk embroidered with silver thread, would have avoided a sticky child.

  “She’s a Wilde, all right,” North muttered. He picked up Artie with no sign of distaste.

  As he put her down, Mabel ran through the door. “You needn’t have tattled on me to Prism—” Her voice choked. “Forgive me, my lord. I didn’t know you were here.” She curtsied, head bent.

  “Are you responsible for the condition of this room?” North asked her.

  Diana followed his gaze and saw that yellow liquid had soaked into the hearth rug from the overturned chamber pot. No wonder Prism had been so anguished. “No,” she said quickly. “Mabel is not in charge of the children’s manners; I am. So if you are going to scold, you should address me.”

  “Take the children elsewhere,” he said to Mabel. Diana had forgotten his utter assurance. North ruled his world and every person in it, except his father and stepmother.

  Another reason to be happy their marriage hadn’t taken place, she reminded herself. She had always dreaded the moment when her fiancé discovered that subservience didn’t come naturally to her.

  “Certainly, my lord,” Mabel murmured, adding in a dulcet tone that Artie and Godfrey rarely heard, “Come along, my dears.”

  North watched them leave the room before turning back to Diana. “My sister is sucking her thumb,” he stated, clearly appalled. “She did not greet me properly. I’m not sure she knew how to greet me. Are you really her governess?”

  Diana choked back a wayward giggle. It made odd sense that she saw strong emotion on his face only when it came to deficient etiquette. “Didn’t Boodle inform you of my position?”

  “My valet told me you were living in the castle along with a son of mine, and I could find you in the nursery. It did not occur to me that a woman who was to be my duchess might be employed among the domestics,” he said, adding dryly, “I was preoccupied by the miracle of my fatherhood.”

  Diana’s heart started thudding so hard that her chest hurt, but it would be too revealing if she rubbed it. “There is nothing shameful about having employment,” she managed. “It’s a good deal more respectable than spending one’s life drifting around a parlor.”

  At the same moment she realized that military service to His Majesty’s army was scarcely drifting around a parlor, he apparently decided that her remark was beneath his notice.

  “You are the castle governess? Where are my other siblings?” North asked, glancing around as if his brothers and sisters might jump out of a corner at any moment.

  “Viola, Betsy, and Joan are in London with Her Grace, as the Season is in full swing. Before you say anything, I have been an excellent governess to the girls, on those occasions when they were home from their seminary.”

  “What about the boys? Are you telling me that you are fit to tutor them in Latin?”

  Diana certainly was not, since her mother had actively avoided teaching her anything other than ladylike skills; Mrs. Belgrave had been certain that lords preferred ignorance so they could tutor their wives. Frankly, North’s repeated efforts to instruct her on the strictures of polite society had proved her mother’s point, though it wouldn’t be politic to point it out.

  “Spartacus and Erik are at Eton and in no need of tutoring,” she said, leaving it at that.

  “Diana, allow me to ask you once again: What are you doing here? You left me, which was certainly your prerogative. Whether owing to my sermonizing on the duties of a duchess or not, we have had no child together.”

  Diana swallowed hard. Her second impulsive decision had come home to roost. “Lady Knowe came to see me shortly after you left for war.”

  His frown deepened. “She neglected to mention that visit in her letters.”

  “She found me desperate,” Diana said, clutching her hands together so hard that her knuckles turned white. “My mother had thrown us out, and I had almost no money. Lady Knowe assumed the child was yours and shamefully, I allowed her to believe it. I am deeply sorry for that.”

  She searched his face. He still showed no signs of rage, but he didn’t appear forgiving either. Forgiveness was not something one could ask for, she reminded herself. She had learned that lesson from her mother.

  “I have taken no support from your family,” she said, a hint of pride entering her voice—because she was proud of being employed. It was about the only thing she was proud of. “The castle was in need of a nanny, so I took the position. It was your aunt’s idea to hire me as a governess.”

  “Why?”

  “A governess is one of the upper servants,” Diana explained. “Lady Knowe thought it would be easier for the household to accept my presence, as governesses are often ladies. She was also being generous, as a governess earns a larger wage.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then, “I would imagine there are those who have concluded that I forced my fiancée into a menial position so she could support my bastard.”

  “That is true, I’m afraid, but it never occurred to me, nor to Lady Knowe,” Diana said, with complete sincerity. Her hands were visibly shaking so she wound her fingers together. “I have regretted that rash decision so many times since then. I would have left and found another position, but Artie . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I love your sister. I didn’t want to leave her.”

  Not leaving the castle had been a grotesquely selfish decision, in retrospect. “I didn’t do anything with malice,” she added, with a little gasp. “I promise you that.”

  “I know.”

  She’d underestimated him when they were betrothed. North lived by an ethical code of conduct—a gentleman’s, if you will—that meant he would never be unkind. He weighed every de
cision for good or ill before making it. She threw herself into hot water and hurt people along the way.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

  “You’ve made that point.”

  “I feel like a condemned prisoner desperate to express remorse.”

  “Do I feature as the executioner, or the judge? Will your head be chopped off with a sword, like one of King Henry VIII’s wives, or will you be sent to the gallows, like a thieving servant?”

  “You have every right to play the executioner, North. I’ve treated you reprehensibly. Horribly.”

  Chapter Two

  If North had ever bothered to inventory the worst days of his life—he hadn’t—he would have ranked the day his older brother Horatius died at the very bottom. The battle of Stony Point and Diana’s flight from their betrothal party would have vied for second-last.

  Those three awful events were bad enough.

  But this day was likely to join their ranks. He had forced himself to stop thinking about Diana, and it gave him a sense of vertigo to see her now. When they’d first met, she’d reminded him of an exquisite porcelain statue of a French lady-in-waiting, her face whitened with rice powder, her lips tinted crimson, a patch worn high on one cheek.

  Now she was wearing a muslin cap tilted to one side, and bundles of thick, dark red hair fell down her back. Red hair?

  In view of her penchant for powdered wigs, he had had no idea her hair was red. Her eyelashes matched her hair, and her cheeks had a rosy glow. She looked messy and delicious, as if she had just climbed from bed.

  The thought made him recoil.

  More importantly than her hair color, he didn’t remember her saying much during their betrothal. She certainly hadn’t responded with more than murmured agreement to his attempts to ease her into the life of a future duchess. But now she couldn’t stop talking. She had a way of going at a subject sideways, but she was being very clear about her apologies.

  He didn’t need or want them, but her earnestness was soothing. It had galled him that the woman he had chosen to be his duchess didn’t have the courtesy to inform him in person that she was breaking their engagement.