Too Wilde to Wed

by Eloisa James

  North paused in the door, rubbing his chin. His stubbly chin.

  “Come, come, my lord!” Boodle exclaimed, waving his hands in the air. “We have no time to waste. Lady Knowe will become tetchy if the meal is delayed more than a couple of hours, and I have the challenge of a lifetime in front of me.”

  He was vibrating with the excitement of a man facing a heated battle.

  North was not.

  Chapter Three

  Diana soothed Mabel’s aggrieved feelings, played with the children, fed them supper . . . and all the time her fingers trembled as if she were an aspen tree in a storm. When the children were in bed, she retired to her private chamber, a luxury for which she’d never been more grateful.

  Mabel was a terrible gossip, and responding to her prying questions with dignity had taken a terrific act of will. Once alone, Diana sank onto her bed and stared at the wall.

  Something about North’s face bothered her. In plain fact, he had been no more than an acquaintance when they were betrothed; a ring hadn’t made them friends. They had scarcely spoken to each other. Still, he didn’t seem—she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, though she kept going round and round.

  Something had changed. Lady Knowe had seen it too; her eyes had lingered on North’s face. He’d lost weight, but that wasn’t it. His face was more spare, more grim. Yet his natural expression had always been severe.

  It wasn’t her concern, Diana reminded herself. She had to make plans to leave, perhaps in the next day or two. The thought of leaving Artie made Diana drop her head in her hands—not just because the idea broke her heart, but for Godfrey.

  Her grandfather would have told her that all good things must come to an end. A jolly, plain-spoken man, he had watched with astonishment his daughter’s efforts to shove her children up the social ladder.

  Even thinking of her grandfather’s whiskery kindness made her feel better. He would have understood why she had returned to Lindow Castle. Any port in a storm, he would have said.

  The thought made her calmer, and her fingers stopped trembling. The storm had passed. She had saved money from her salary. And now she knew how to work hard. That was a blessing. Prism would give her a reference, as would Lady Knowe.

  She stood up and began unpinning her apron. Lady Knowe maintained a large correspondence, so perhaps she knew someone with a position open. Diana could be a companion to an elderly lady, for example.

  Or she could work in a shop.

  She could picture herself behind a counter selling lacy fripperies. Taking off her gown and washing at the basin, she imagined herself in Hinshcliffe & Croft in Covent Garden, presiding over the best muslins, painted nankeens, and dotted chintzes.

  Her mother had always overseen her wardrobe, but along the way Diana had silently formed opinions about how a lady ought to dress. In her estimation, her wigs had been too high, her jewels too shiny, her spangles too glittering.

  She would be good at advising young ladies; she could steer them away from the anxious mistakes her mother had made. Put them in dresses that would flatter a young lady, rather than demand to be praised in their own right.

  That thought led directly to her own plight. She had exactly three gowns to choose from, none of which was flattering.

  Thinking of the indifferent look in North’s eyes during her feverish apologies, she longed for one of the magnificent dresses she used to wear. Preferably one that made the most of her bosom.

  Her choice was between three plain, black gowns. Diana had been in mourning for her sister Rose when her mother threw her out, so she hadn’t protested on being informed that she could not take the exquisite confections in which she debuted.

  Only later had she realized that she could have sold them. She had been close to her last shilling when Lady Knowe found her.

  Like elderly crows, all three gowns showed signs of wear. With a sigh, she chose the least dingy. She hadn’t a drop of powder to cover her disreputably colored hair, or the spray of freckles over her nose.

  Her mother had shuddered over Diana’s hair—and decided to marry her to a Scotsman, who would presumably be less repulsed—but it was her freckles that were the bane of Mrs. Belgrave’s existence. At one point Diana’s entire nose had peeled after her mother applied yet another poultice designed to whiten skin. The freckles were still there a week later. After that, Diana grew to be an expert in the art of applying white paint followed by clouds of rice powder.

  It didn’t matter what she wore tonight, because the spray of freckles over her nose was about as easy to overlook as a leopard’s spots. North would take one glance and recognize how lucky he was to have escaped the marriage.

  She owned only one piece of jewelry, a locket with a miniature of her sister’s face tucked inside. To most people, Rose’s smile would seem improbably sweet—and yet the miniature had been accurate.

  Rose had been far prettier than Diana, socially graceful, lovable in every way. Mrs. Belgrave hadn’t needed to point out that she’d lost the worthier daughter.

  With the skill of long practice, Diana banished her mother’s complaints from her head and kissed Rose’s nose.

  She slipped the locket inside her bodice and set off downstairs.

  While stripping off his clothing, North kept thinking about the fact that Diana was in the castle. In the months after he went to war, still raw from being jilted, he had imagined encountering the bastard who had got her with child and knocking him down the stairs.

  War had an uncomfortable way of stripping away a gentlemanly mask, and soon enough he graduated to dreams of killing the debaucher with his bare hands.

  But that man was dead, and Diana had been thrown out by her mother, two circumstances that he hadn’t imagined. Thank God Aunt Knowe had found her.

  The thought of Diana’s hardship made him restless, and he stepped into the tub, sat down, and picked up a ball of soap that smelled strongly of flowers and pineapple.

  “I’d prefer plain soap,” he said to Boodle, holding it up.

  His valet gaped at him. “That scent is specially blended for you, my lord. Chosen after four hours in the perfumery.”

  “You spent those hours, not I,” North reminded him.

  “As soon as His Grace reported that you were returning to England, I spent days, not hours, refreshing your perfumed goods and accountrement.” Boodle waved his thin fingers toward the dressing table, covered with glass bottles and boxes of patches. “Your scent is guaranteed to be sold to no one other than yourself for a period of ten years!”

  “Plain soap,” North repeated.

  He tossed the wet ball of soap in the air, and Boodle managed to catch it. He raised the soap to his nose and took a sniff. “Exquisite! Magnificent! Everyone agreed that the Marquess of Saltersley will smell better than—”

  “If you recall, Boodle, I do not use that title,” North observed, an edge to his voice. His brother Horatius had been the marquess, and while North had no choice about taking on the dukedom, he had refused the courtesy title. “Fetch another soap, if you please.”

  Boodle scuttled into the corridor, muttering to himself.

  Lying back in the tub, North forced himself to face the truth: He still wanted Diana. Perhaps he wanted her even more than he had when they were betrothed. If he started kissing her now, the way he had at their betrothal party, he wasn’t sure he would stop.

  It was an unpleasant discovery. It made no sense that he found her more sensual when wearing a drab servant’s dress and a tired muslin cap.

  Likely his desire was a natural response to her intrinsic beauty, indicating nothing more important than the fact he was alive and male.

  Boodle came back with a ball of soap that smelled of honey. Good enough. North began scrubbing off the dirt of the trip from London to Cheshire, made in three days instead of five.

  It was to win Diana that he had first hired Boodle, who had tutored him about patches, powder, and wigs. His valet’s handiwork had transformed North i
nto a fashionable dandy, a perfect consort to Miss Belgrave in every detail except his refusal to wear face paint. He had dressed in French finery, danced endless minuets, even cut back on billiards to take up archery, her favorite sport. Never mind the fact that he had a constitutional dislike of shooting arrows merely to hit a bull’s-eye.

  Boodle snatched up a scent bottle and waved it in the air. “This holds your personal scent,” he cried, opening the stopper and taking a loud sniff. “The bottle is rock crystal and gold leaf. It came with this cunning travel pouch, which will enable you to refresh yourself before entering a ball, or if you find yourself in a crowd of odiferous persons.”

  “No,” North said, keeping it simple.

  “No?” Boodle’s voice rose. “Why not? I spent hours preparing for your arrival. I even ordered you a frock coat with the new narrow cuffs!” He squinted at North. “I hope your shoulders are not as large as they appear to be, or the coat will not fit. Mr. Hawkes necessarily cut to your previous measure.”

  “No perfume.” North glanced at the bed. “No yellow coats, Boodle, especially with all that embroidery.”

  “Yellow? It is not yellow. It’s saffron.”

  North just shook his head.

  An expression of extreme distress wrinkled his valet’s face. “It’s because of her, isn’t it?”

  “Her?”

  “She’s shamed and humiliated you, and thus you are hesitant to reenter polite society. I sympathize, my lord. I felt as much when I was on Bond Street, but I braved it out. I turned up my nose at anyone asking impertinent questions about you.”

  North stopped soaping and watched with bemusement as his valet threw a clenched fist in the air. “The solution is not to hide in Cheshire. No! We must order an entirely new wardrobe and be seen everywhere, talking to everyone! Courage, not retreat!”

  Bloody hell. His valet was more passionate than the men in his regiment had been. “I feel no hesitation to go into polite society,” North stated. Not that he meant to waste any time doing it.

  If nothing else, service in the military had taught him the value of time.

  Boodle didn’t appear to have heard him. “From this vantage point, it is hard to remember that Miss Belgrave did appear to be a desirable match—barring the unfortunate circumstances of her ancestry.”

  That would be the grocer.

  “Yet blood will out,” Boodle said, shaking his head. “We see it over and over. Were Miss Belgrave on the stage, she would be an actress of some renown.”

  That seemed to imply cunning on Diana’s part, as if she had wanted to be a duchess. She might have acted the part of a demure maiden during their courtship, but in North’s opinion, she’d wanted neither him nor his title.

  “I do not blame you for being taken in, my lord. I understand your shame. Who could have imagined the consequences . . . ah, the consequences!”

  North was struck dumb.

  “To be frank, it is only because I am the most loyal of creatures that I have awaited your return,” Boodle said, turning to the bed and patting the saffron-colored coat. His mouth pulled so tight that it resembled a rosebud. “As the scandal grew and grew in your absence, I considered the reputation I had gained from transforming you into a gentleman of fashion. Your father offers no challenge to my creative genius. More than once, I contemplated not returning to your service, but if a valet is not loyal, what is he?”

  It seemed to be a rhetorical question. “I gather you are vexed that Miss Belgrave returned to the castle with her son,” North said.

  “Had I refused to return to your service, it would have confirmed to England—nay, the world, because my reputation extends to the French court—that the scandal was justified. It would have confirmed the shame that has fallen on the Wildes as a whole.”

  North’s mouth had fallen ajar, so he snapped it shut.

  Boodle spun to face him, striking his chest with his fist. “If I left you, I, one of the most famous valets in all England, it would have confirmed the rumors that you took Miss Belgrave by force.”

  North let go of the soap and sat up so sharply that water sloshed out of the bath. “What in the hell did you just say?”

  “I would have thought someone informed you. There are those who say that you despoiled your fiancée.” Boodle sniffed haughtily. “I have always denied it, and I shall to my dying day. I consider myself both loyal and discreet.”

  For the first time since he heard of the scandal, anger heated North’s blood.

  “You are the son of the Duke of Lindow,” Boodle explained. “Had you been overcome by passion, it would not be for one such as her.”

  “There are no circumstances under which I would be overcome by passion, unless the lady shared my feelings,” North said.

  “I said as much! A future duke has no need to force his attentions on any woman, from the highest to the lowest in the land.”

  North stood up and grabbed the length of toweling before the valet could hand it to him. Boodle started babbling about his reputation again.

  His reputation?

  It was North who had apparently been accused of rape, though he could scarcely believe that nonsense.

  “The prints have done the most damage,” Boodle was saying. “The sellers are like beetles, hiding under every rock. His Grace no sooner confiscates an actionable print than another is circulating the country.”

  His brother Alaric, the author Lord Wilde, had been plagued by etchings that depicted him wrestling a giant kraken and fighting pirates. Neither of which his brother had ever done.

  “I gather the depictions of me are not as heroic as those portraying Lord Wilde,” North said dryly.

  Boodle snorted.

  “What do they show?” Frankly, he didn’t care if he never received another invitation to an event in so-called polite society. Not that he, as a future duke, would be shunned.

  A weary inner voice told him that even if he had committed something as terrible as rape, many people would forgive him. Manage to forget. Decide to pretend it had never happened.

  “There is one in which you are emerging from a trunk in a lady’s bedchamber, supposedly that of Miss Belgrave. A scene taken from a Shakespeare play, I believe.”

  North frowned. “A trunk? I wouldn’t fit in a trunk.”

  “That is hardly the point. It had an offensive title: Lord Roland Seduces an Innocent, or the Despoiling of Virtue. From what I am told, it has proved extremely popular and sold copies throughout the country.”

  North suppressed the curse that rose to his lips. He saw no point in fighting the fascination people had with buying prints of the Wildes, not after his father’s battle to eradicate images of his brother Horatius struggling in the bog that took his life.

  Who in the hell would buy that print? Or one of a woman on the point of being “despoiled”?

  He tossed the toweling over a bedpost and picked up the shirt laid out for him. It was exquisitely ironed and starched; Boodle was not wrong in lauding himself as one of the best valets in all England.

  But its lace cuffs would fall over his knuckles.

  “No,” he said, dropping it back on the bed. “No lace. Rip off the cuffs or give me another shirt.”

  “That is not the best lace,” Boodle observed, a note of cunning entering his voice. “It was made in your friend Mr. Sterling’s factory. I judged that you would want to wear his product, as his reputation would be enhanced if the Marquess—if Lord Roland was seen wearing it.”

  “No lace, Parth’s or otherwise,” North said, holding up the saffron-colored breeches. It wasn’t a color he liked, but he thought Boodle might faint if he suggested wearing his riding breeches to dinner.

  After wrenching it up his legs, he managed to do up the placket. Glancing down at his front, he decided that he wasn’t entirely against the idea of Diana seeing him in these breeches.

  Yellow silk stretched so tautly over his crotch that everything he had was on display. Some dark side of him wanted her to
compare him to the man she had before him.

  “Your thighs are monstrous,” Boodle moaned, concentrating farther down North’s legs. “As big as gourds. It’s all very well to pad one’s calves—but thighs shouldn’t look like that.”

  North and his men had spent weeks fortifying Stony Point fortress with logs cut and dragged into position. He’d known it was a fool’s errand, but the commander wouldn’t listen to him, and it was better to do something than nothing.

  When the fort was conquered in a mere fifteen minutes, it wasn’t for lack of logs. Just lack of intelligence, forethought, and soldiers.

  It wasn’t as if he’d been in that one battle only. But that was the one that stuck with him, that he revisited in the middle of the night.

  Lucky him.

  Boodle knelt at his feet, reaching out to button the breeches below his knee, but North reflexively stepped backward. “I’ll do it.”

  Alas, he no sooner bent over than a loud ripping sound indicated that the saffron-colored breeches had split from stem to stern.

  To do him credit, Boodle didn’t shriek or curse. He rocked back on his heels and let out a sigh. Without a word, he stood up, turned to the wardrobe, and pulled out a pair of breeches that North used to wear for hunting. They were plain buckskin, worn to just the right softness in the rear.

  “I might do damage to Parth’s reputation by being seen wearing his lace,” North suggested, taking up the buckskins. “People might call it the lace of louts and loose screws.”

  The breeches were tighter than they used to be, but still comfortable. Even better, they weren’t saffron-colored nor silk.

  “Shall I tear the lace off the cuffs?” North asked, nodding at the shirt.

  “No!” His valet gathered the garment to his chest with the protectiveness of a mother bear. “Don’t touch it! The cuffs are removable and I shall unpick the stitching tomorrow.” He picked up a sturdy shirt that North had worn under his uniform. “You can wear this, I suppose,” he said sourly. “It’s not as if anyone in the castle matters.”