Too Wilde to Wed

by Eloisa James

  Ever since Rose’s death, she had spent a good deal of time thinking about blame. Whom does one blame, when life isn’t as one wishes?

  She could blame her mother. Or Archibald Ewing, for anticipating his wedding vows. Or the drunken coachman who overturned the Ewing carriage and killed Archibald and his father. Or . . . it was endless.

  The one person she couldn’t blame was North, and it was time to tell him the whole truth.

  “Godfrey isn’t your child, but he isn’t my child either,” she said, feeling a wash of pink traveling up her chest. “He is my sister Rose’s child.”

  His eyes traveled slowly over her face. “Your sister’s child.” The words thumped down into the room, as if susceptible to gravity. “Illegitimate, I presume.”

  “Yes,” Diana said flatly, adding, “Rose died of a fever, two days before we were due to leave for the betrothal party.”

  “Your tears,” he stated. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  She gave him a crooked smile.

  “I will admit that I’m relieved to know you were not weeping over our proposed marriage. Is that why your mother didn’t accompany you to the party?”

  She nodded.

  “I have no wish to take your grief lightly,” he said, his voice dry as dust, “but the news that you jilted me in order to care for a child who wasn’t your own seems tailor-made to knock down my ducal arrogance. Couldn’t you have simply told me of the boy’s existence, either before or after your sister passed away?”

  Diana shook her head. “My mother felt that adding a besmirched sister to a grocer grandfather would make me persona non grata among the ton. Certainly not duchess material.”

  “That suggests that I am as shallow as the leaders of the ton,” he observed. His face didn’t show a hint of emotion, but she had the odd impression he was hurt.

  “You are not simply you,” she said, fumbling to explain herself. “You are the future Duke of Lindow.”

  She saw that strike home. He would have married her, because he was an honorable man. As yet for the future head of one of the oldest and most august families in all England, a lady with a besmirched sister ought to be out of the question.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I came to say goodbye before leaving England? You knew what conclusion I had reached.”

  Diana tried to summon up another smile and failed. “It seemed kinder to let you think that I was . . . that Godfrey was mine.”

  An ominous darkness crossed his eyes. “Because I would pine for you, unless I thought myself betrothed to an arrant whore?”

  The last two words were spoken mildly, but they stung.

  “I was ashamed to have jilted you without explanation.” Her fingers were quivering again, but she didn’t let her chin drop, kept holding his gaze. “I deserved to have you hate me. You should hate me. I mean, you probably already did, because—”

  “I could never hate you,” North said evenly.

  Diana gulped. “That’s—that’s very good to know.”

  “So you let me believe the child was yours to spur my dislike.”

  “It was an impulse,” Diana whispered. “A very stupid one.” She cleared her throat. “I was determined not to accept help from you, and if you knew Godfrey was my sister’s you would have felt compelled to . . .”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “To be the hero,” she said in a rush. “I deserved to be the villainess, don’t you see?” She couldn’t tell if he was incredulous or just plain scornful.

  He gave a short bark of laughter. “Bloody hell, you were trying to save me, weren’t you? You thought I was in love with you, and so I would fight to make you my wife.”

  Her fingers twisted so hard that she winced. “I thought that you had made a promise to marry me, and you would insist on seeing it through. I couldn’t allow that to happen.”

  North threw back his drink, leaned over, and pulled the bell cord that summoned Prism. “I think they’ve left us alone long enough, don’t you?”

  “Prism has certainly been gone quite a while,” Diana said, steadying her voice.

  “My aunt likely has him tied to the balustrade.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, not for erotic purposes, but so that he can’t interrupt our deep and meaningful conversation. You hadn’t noticed that you have made a conquest of my Aunt Knowe? She’s hoping that I’ll be overcome by the dregs of passion and compromise you.”

  The dregs of passion . . . She deserved that.

  “It’s impossible to compromise a governess,” Diana observed, desperate to talk of something other than their personal history. “Once a lady accepts a wage, she is no longer a lady.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case.” He frowned. “My governess, Miss Raymond, had a voice like a frog and an unfortunate tendency to grow hair on her upper lip, but no one would have said she was less than a lady.”

  “The condition of being a lady is complicated, like the five hundred pounds that a lady must pay out of her dowry to excuse her indiscretions, even though a gentleman has no such requirement,” Diana explained. “I can assure you that a woman can’t be compromised—which implies marriage—by a man who pays her wage.”

  North’s brows snapped together. “A gentleman who treats a lady with injudicious attention has compromised her, and must offer his hand in marriage.” That was a growl. Diana decided not to remind him that the hour they just spent together would be considered fodder for a forced marriage proposal by any rule of polite society that she’d heard.

  “It’s different with us,” North said, apparently reading her face.

  “Oh, why?” She smiled into her glass; good manners dictated that a lady shouldn’t smirk at a gentleman.

  And she was still a lady, albeit one with a wage.

  “We are old acquaintances, and my aunt will join us any moment,” he said stiffly.

  Diana wasn’t impressed, and let him know it with a roll of her eyes. “If you return to polite society with that naive attitude, you’ll be compromised before you know it. Actually, you’re lucky my mother doesn’t have a third daughter, because you’d be snapped up in a second.”

  “I disagree.”

  “You easily fell for her wiles the first time,” Diana insisted. For some reason, she truly wanted to warn him. He deserved better than a wax doll like herself, a woman cowed into silence. She leaned forward and closed her hand around his. “Be careful choosing your duchess, North.”

  He turned over her hand, his thumb rubbing over calluses resulting from being a governess—not a lady. “You are offering me advice on how to succeed in high society?”

  She withdrew her hand, feeling pink rising up her neck again. “Only from personal observation. My mother was driven by the notion of marrying me into the nobility. Sometimes I felt sorry for . . .” Her voice trailed off at the incredulous look on his face.

  “You felt sorry for me?”

  “Not sorry for you alone, but for gentlemen who have no idea how—how Machiavellian mothers can be.”

  “Do you know what ‘Machiavellian’ means?”

  His incredulity made her bristle. “My mother believed that duchesses should be well-read in classical philosophy in order to facilitate conversation around a dining table.”

  He shook his head. “Your mother sounds like a general.”

  “I have often thought that she might have rivaled General Washington, if given a chance,” Diana said. “You know better than I, but from what I read in the newspaper, he is a wily man who engages in thorough advance planning.”

  He said, his voice hard, “It seems the British newspapers have a better understanding of the war than does the Ministry.”

  Prism bustled in the door, followed by four footmen, each holding a silver platter covered by a dome. Lady Knowe came last, chattering loudly. She seemed to understand that Diana, for one, had talked enough of serious matters. Instead, North’s aunt held forth with a flow of gossip about the family that
had Diana in fits of laughter.

  If she hadn’t laughed . . . she would have cried, thanks to the ache in her heart. The way she’d ruined her life as well as North’s. And her sister no longer had a life.

  Rose and North would have been perfect for each other. Absolutely perfect. Her sister had been sensitive and sensible, incredibly smart, and conversant in every courtesy. Rose had been beautiful too, with hair the gleaming color of corn silk.

  If only Diana hadn’t stubbornly refused to marry Archibald, Rose would have had her Season, married North, and been alive today. Lady Knowe would have adored Rose. Godfrey would have been better off; that went without saying. If he had a real mother, he’d be speaking by now. And North wouldn’t have—

  She pulled her mind away from that thought and fixed a smile on her face.

  At the evening’s end, Lady Knowe pushed herself upright and proclaimed, “We shall make a plan for you, Diana, but not until the duke and duchess arrive. We must wait for my brother’s advice.”

  “I fail to see why my father should be part of a discussion addressing my former fiancée and her nephew,” North stated, rising to his feet.

  “Because we need a governess to replace Diana,” his aunt said, adjusting the silk shawl that hung around her shoulders.

  Diana suddenly noticed that the lady hadn’t turned a hair on hearing that Godfrey was no relation to North. “You knew that Godfrey was not your relative,” she gasped. “And that he is not my son!”

  Lady Knowe snorted. “Child, you are many things, but a mother is not one of them. I am not a mother either, but I am well aware that a few months’ acquaintance with a gentleman does not result in a baby that age. Furthermore, the boy doesn’t resemble you.”

  “Why did you bring me here?” Diana gasped, her mind reeling.

  “To my mind, you were almost one of us. I could not allow you to live in that hovel and you refused to allow me to help you financially. Granted, I didn’t imagine that your stubborn insistence on being employed would cause such a fuss amongst the prudes who rule the ton.”

  Clearly considering the subject closed, she turned to North. “Our governess cannot leave us without a word of warning. Ophelia will need time to find a replacement. Artie is attached to Diana, and loves her like a second mother.”

  “I had no intention of throwing Miss Belgrave out the door,” North said, his tone stiff.

  His aunt rapped him on the shoulder with her fan. “Don’t give me that pent-up mongrel glare. I remember you in nappies. I might remind you that you’ve been addressing Diana by her first name throughout the meal; it’s too late for formality.”

  Diana was wrestling with a familiar wave of desperation at the idea of leaving Artie—and an unfamiliar one at the idea of living another day under the same roof as North.

  The former North? The lord in a wig, patches, and red heels? She wouldn’t have turned a hair.

  But the North who’d thrown his wig onto a chair and never bothered to retrieve it? Whose eyes considered her face with such thoughtful interest? Who smelled like honey and sunshine?

  He was dangerous to her in all ways.

  “I will remain in the castle for two weeks to work out my notice, which will give Her Grace time to choose a replacement for me.” She curtsied. “Good evening, Lady Knowe. Lord Roland.” She emphasized the last name slightly because it was not too late for formality, and she had to remember that.

  “Good night, my dear. We shall expect you at dinner tomorrow night,” the lady said, nodding.

  “I dine with you, Lady Knowe, when there is no one else in the castle. You and Lord Roland have much to discuss, I’m certain.”

  North’s jaw tightened. He might have been grinding his teeth.

  “I suppose I can’t force you,” Lady Knowe said, disappointed.

  North didn’t say anything, merely bowed in farewell. But the way his eyes glinted when she addressed him as “Lord Roland,” and when she declined to join them for dinner?

  She had a feeling that her wish had just come true: She’d seen North in a rage.

  But she had done the right thing.

  She had disliked North when they first met, because he was so stern and courtly. If he had revealed the raw masculinity he’d displayed tonight, she would not have fled their betrothal party.

  All the same, their marriage wouldn’t have been a success, because he had been attracted to a false version of her. From his own description, he chose a perfect lady, on the basis of her wig and clothing.

  They were ill-matched, like white and black chess pieces trying to play on the same side.

  She was happy as a servant, pleased to earn a wage, and she had to preserve her sense of contentedness. The evening had been enjoyable, but the experience was dangerously seductive.

  No more North.

  Chapter Five

  Later that night, in the castle kitchens

  “What on earth are you doing here?”

  Diana’s voice startled him. North had just emerged from the pantry into the moonlit kitchen to find her standing in the doorway, a tray in her hands. He felt such a leap of desire that it was a good thing his shirt was hanging over his breeches.

  “Reminding myself of the castle,” he said. “Why didn’t you summon a footman to fetch that tray?”

  She glanced down as if she’d forgotten what she held. “I was setting the schoolroom to rights.”

  “At this hour?”

  “It’s my responsibility.” She wore a thick flannel wrapper tied tightly around her waist. Her copper hair was bound in a braid that fell over her shoulder.

  “It’s well after midnight,” he pointed out.

  “Truth to tell, I forgot to put the schoolroom in order, and had to get out of bed when I remembered.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “I was thinking over what I ought to have said to you before dinner, the way one does.”

  Deep in his body, almost in his bones, he felt one word, over and over. Mine. Mine. Mine.

  Ridiculous. The lady had soundly rejected him.

  He leaned back against the battered wooden table that ran the length of the kitchen and crossed his legs before him. “What should you have said?” He kept his tone pleasant, as if he didn’t give a damn about anything that had happened between them.

  “I was so distraught over Rose’s death . . . that’s why I didn’t write you a note when I ran away.”

  North didn’t like hearing sadness in her voice. He shrugged. “If it ever happens again, just remember that when jilting a man, a woman explains her motives in writing.”

  “There’s a protocol?” A smile eased her face. “Put it down to my poor education.” She set the tray down on the kitchen table. “I am rubbish at making change, bathing a baby, jilting a man.”

  He straightened, because her smile made him even harder, and his breeches were pulling uncomfortably. “You really don’t know how to make change?”

  It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but she looked to be turning pink. “I can make a pressed-flower arrangement, and play the harp. My mother felt strongly that practical activities should be performed by servants, and never taught to ladies.”

  “Was the art of jilting too practical to learn?” he asked, enjoying the way Diana’s lower lip was deeper in the middle, echoing her heart-shaped face.

  “Actually, I wish someone had taught me the art of running away,” she said, with a wary smile. “I was such a fool. I took nothing with me but a hatbox.”

  “What was in the hatbox?”

  “A chemise, some money, a pair of gloves. I’m not sure why I brought the gloves along. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  “How much money did you have?”

  “A little more than a pound.” She grimaced, and a streak of protectiveness went through him. “I had spent most of my pin money on gifts for my cousin Lavinia and Willa Ffynche, your sister-in-law.”

  “You fled the castle with one pound?” The dismay he felt was unnervingly deep.

&nb
sp; “I was that much of a fool,” she admitted. “Luckily, I was wearing emerald earrings. I gave one to the innkeeper in Mobberley, and he bought me a ticket on the post all the way to London.”

  “I’ll bet he did,” North said, emotion boiling under his breastbone. “Your earring was undoubtedly worth far more than a ticket. Where did you go after you arrived in London? I went straight to your mother’s house. You were not there, and I had the pleasure of telling Mrs. Belgrave of your flight.”

  “I know! It must have been awful. I’m so—”

  He held up a hand.

  “I had gone directly to the Foundling Hospital to look for Godfrey,” Diana said. With a shake of her head, she added, “My mother had sent money with him, so he could be apprenticed at the proper age.”

  “You went to the Foundling Hospital?” North asked hollowly. No wonder he had been unable to find her. She had ventured into one of the worst areas of London, with nothing but a hatbox.

  “First I went to Christ’s Hospital, but they take infants only if they are legitimate. It took me another two days, but I found my way to Bloomsbury Fields and the Foundling Hospital there.”

  He felt sick.

  And even sicker, once she told him about giving the hospital her other emerald in order to buy her nephew back. Taking the baby to her home, only to find her mother in hysterics after North’s visit. “It was unnervingly like being in a bad play,” she said, trying to smile and failing.

  North fought his own stuttering breath, unable to find words. It was deeply ironic that the only woman who had no interest in his estate or title was the one he felt a deep, visceral urge to protect.

  He had failed her.

  “I hadn’t been thinking properly since my sister died.” Diana’s fingers twisted together. “I tend to leap before I look, and my flight to London was one of my more idiotic moments in a life filled with lunacy.”

  He crossed the distance between them in a single stride, put his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her into his arms. “You did what you could to keep your nephew safe,” he bit out. “There is nothing idiotic about that.” She gazed up at him, her eyes wide, her eyelashes spangled in the moonlight. “When your mother threw you out, where did you go?”