Too Wilde to Wed

by Eloisa James

  “Turned up my apron,” Diana said, rather faintly. “He didn’t.”

  Mabel shrugged, her thumb up. “He watches you all the time. We reckon that if you put on a pretty dress, he might forget that you’ve been downstairs and kiss you or something, and then he’d have to marry you.”

  A memory of the “something” North had done to her hours before drifted through Diana’s mind.

  “Mr. Calico is in the village today,” Mabel finished. “If you buy some fabric, we will help you sew a dress, Mrs. Mousekin too, and you know she’s got a way with a needle.”

  Diana couldn’t help it; her eyes grew teary. She had thought that North was her only friend, but perhaps she just didn’t know what friends looked like. Maybe they came in the shape of somewhat lazy, sharp-tongued nursemaids, dignified butlers, and kindly housekeepers.

  “I take your five points, but Lord Roland and I would not be a good match. I will never be a duchess,” she said, her voice wavering a bit, “but I’m grateful for your advice and help.”

  “You did jilt him,” Mabel conceded. “It might sour the marriage. Still, I think a new gown will do it.” In an odd echo of Mrs. Belgrave, she added, “If you look like a duchess, he won’t be able to hold back. Now, since you’re awake, perhaps you wouldn’t mind finishing the dusting, because I should deliver an important message.”

  “To the dairy?” Diana gave her a hug. “Thank you.”

  After luncheon, Artie put on her peacock-feather headband and ran around the schoolroom in imitation of Fitzy.

  Mabel had returned from the dairy looking glum; now she rolled her eyes. “I’ve a headache like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I could take the children to the village, so you could take a nap,” Diana told her.

  “Don’t forget to buy cloth that looks as if it will rot by next Christmas.”

  “Why?”

  “You need a dress that will tear in a strong breeze,” Mabel said authoritatively. “Did Lord Roland really throw your shoes in the lake?”

  Diana nodded.

  “There you are,” Mabel said, satisfied. “I didn’t believe it of a grown man, but it’s just like any lad of seven who falls in love. I’ll nip down and say hello to Jack while you’re in the village. That will cure my headache.”

  “Lord Roland and I would not be a good match,” Diana said.

  “I want to go see the peddler!” Artie was hopping on one leg, holding Godfrey’s shoulder. “I shall buy a peacock for Fitzy.”

  “No room for a peacock in Mr. Calico’s cart,” Mabel told her.

  “We’ll find something wonderful,” Diana promised as she wrestled Godfrey into his nankeen coat.

  “No buying the children treats from your own money,” Mabel reminded her. “Mr. Prism said he wanted an accounting after what happened when the fair came through the village.” She looked down at Artie. “You were too small to care last year, but Mr. Calico carries wooden dolls in his wagon.”

  This time Artie’s shriek truly rivaled Fitzy’s. Mabel winced. “Tea,” she moaned. She moved in the direction of the door.

  “Shall we go?” Diana asked, holding out her hands.

  Artie’s and Godfrey’s eyes were shining with excitement. But: “Fitzy first,” Artie demanded.

  “Do you have your bread crumbs?” Diana asked.

  “Yes!” Artie held up a little cotton bag.

  Diana usually took the children through the library out to the south terrace, where Fitzy roamed the lawn. But it struck her that they might encounter North.

  Last night, he’d again asked her to marry him, and she’d refused.

  Though that wasn’t what was making her feel shy this morning. She had been completely exposed to him in all ways, body and soul. He had wrapped her up in warmth and safety. She had never felt like that before.

  Loved was one way to describe it. He’d said he loved her, and she’d felt it in his every touch and kiss.

  The idea made her feel dizzy.

  “Let’s go out the side door today,” she said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “After greeting Frederick and Peter, of course.”

  “Morning,” Artie shouted. She was much given to shouting. “No curtsy,” she reminded herself.

  “That’s right,” Frederick said, grinning down at her. “You don’t curtsy to me. Now if I was ‘Lord Frederick,’ what would you do?”

  “Curtsy!” Artie cried.

  Godfrey didn’t say anything, but he waved.

  “No bow,” Artie told him. She turned back to Frederick. “We’re going to see Fitzy, an’ then the doll man.” She started hopping up and down, causing her feather headband to slip over one eye and then fall off. She looked so funny with her fluffy yellow curls and startled eyes that all three boys started laughing.

  “No laughing,” Artie cried. When Godfrey just laughed harder, she darted over and tickled him. He writhed, giggling madly, until Peter rescued him by swinging him up onto his shoulder.

  Diana managed to hold Artie still long enough to retie her headband so the feather stood up tall behind her head.

  “Master Godfrey isn’t ready to go,” Peter said sadly. He was holding Godfrey upside down by his ankles, and the little boy was twisting around, giggling madly and trying to grab the footman’s waist.

  “Peter,” Diana said with some alarm. “Remember that he had breakfast not too long ago.”

  “Oh, he won’t—Lord Roland!” Peter nimbly turned Godfrey right side up, and put him on his feet.

  “Good morning, Peter.” North turned to Diana. “Miss Belgrave, children.” He had that severe look again.

  He wasn’t severe, Diana reminded herself, hugging the knowledge inside herself. He had slept with his legs tangled around hers, one hand on her bottom.

  He had slept.

  “Good morning, Lord Roland,” Diana said, dropping a curtsy. “We are going to say hello to Fitzy before walking to the village.”

  “Mr. Calico is visiting Mobberley,” North said, nodding. “I shall accompany you. He is one of my favorite people in the world.”

  Artie leaned back, hands on her hips, staring up at her brother. “To see Fitzy?”

  “Absolutely,” North said. “Are you a peacock?”

  “Yes,” Artie told him. “’Cause Fitzy is lonely. Bread.” She held up her cotton bag.

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  Diana caught Godfrey’s hand. “Lord Roland, we wouldn’t dream of distracting you. I’m sure you have much work to do.” Which was a gracious way of saying, Please withdraw your offer.

  North ignored her and turned to Artie. “Artie, would you like a ride to the lawn?”

  “No,” Artie said, grabbing Godfrey’s other hand.

  “No, thank you,” Diana prompted.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, dancing up and down. “Fitzy will be hungry!”

  When they reached the terrace, Fitzy was waiting for them, though given his magnificent girth, his appetite was debatable.

  Over the last year, he had grown used to seeing the three of them every morning. He cocked his head and looked suspiciously at North.

  “Please stay back,” Diana said. “Fitzy is not fond of men.”

  “He doesn’t dislike us,” North remarked. “He’s just a competitive beast by nature.” But he obediently backed away.

  “Come, come, Fitzy,” Artie crooned. Slowly the peacock advanced on his spindly legs, his great tail dragging in the damp grass. “You’re a good peacock,” Artie told him, holding out a fistful of bread crumbs. “The best peacock ever!”

  Godfrey had no interest in Fitzy, and began attempting to hop the entire length of the terrace without putting down his right foot.

  North moved until his shoulder bumped Diana’s. “Why is Artie so much nicer to that bird than she is to her own brother?”

  “She’s known him all her life,” Diana reminded him. “She scarcely knows you.”

  “Friends should feed each other.” His voice was ripe
with innuendo.

  “Good Fitzy,” Artie said, gently patting the peacock’s beak. They’d discovered that Fitzy didn’t care to have the top of his head touched, perhaps because of his magnificent crown of blue feathers.

  The children skipped ahead as they headed across the south lawn toward the path to the village. “Do you like peacocks or dukes better?” North asked idly.

  “Isn’t it an overlapping category?” Diana asked, giving him a mischievous smile. “I enjoy the absurdly dressed, though I’d rather not be one of the flock. London would be very tiresome without the odd peacock to gawk at.”

  “I find clothing to be a matter of indifference,” North said, an unmistakable ring of truth in his voice. He bent closer. “Unless I’m trying to capture one particular woman’s attention, of course.”

  The path leading to Mobberley was an easy ramble between two meadows. The moment they were out of sight of the house, North tucked Diana’s arm into his elbow. His eyes dared her to say something. When she didn’t, he pulled her closer.

  “Behave yourself,” she warned. “So you don’t care about clothing. What do you care about?”

  “A beautiful woman who manages to look regal in a worn black dress.”

  “Pooh,” Diana said. But she let the compliment warm her heart. The children were galloping ahead now, Artie occasionally swerving to pick a flower and add it to a messy handful.

  “Almack’s is full of women who would happily be my duchess,” North said musingly. “Like an ocean of perch trying to leap into my net, and the one fish I want swims as fast as she can in the opposite direction.”

  “You are terribly arrogant,” Diana said.

  “Would you say my observation is inaccurate?”

  Diana chose not to answer that.

  “When one becomes a reluctant heir to a dukedom, fish with shining scales try to jump into one’s boat, so many that one could easily capsize.” He glanced at her, but she held her tongue. “I was savaged by a trout in the first year after Horatius’s death. You might know her better as Lady Catherine Weathersby.”

  Diana snorted. “You were ‘savaged’?”

  “She locked us in her father’s library and did her best to compromise me.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “She had not envisioned a gentleman leaping from the window, which I did.”

  “That is,” Diana said, trying to find an appropriate word, “regrettable,” she concluded.

  “I managed to keep my virtue, such as it was,” North stated, a smile playing around his mouth.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Diana said. “Artie, please don’t go into the ditch! You’ll get your pinafore dirty.”

  “It’s already dirty,” North said.

  That was undeniable.

  “Do you mind my asking why my sister sticks out so far in the front?”

  “She carries her doll, Hortensia, in a bag slung around her neck under her gown. Hortensia has been lost several times.”

  “Right,” North said, nodding. “Let’s return to the fish and peacocks. I’m lost in a welter of comparisons, but my main point is that unless I fall overboard and am eaten by a shark with a wig, I plan to marry neither a fish nor a bird.”

  “Really?” Diana asked. “You want to add a shark into the mix? I think they aren’t fish, by the way.”

  “Yes, they are fish. Did your mother consider marine life as unladylike as pounds and ha’pennies?”

  “Yes, but I am learning. I’ve been reading aloud to Godfrey from a book about animals that I found in the library.”

  “Must have been Horatius’s,” North said, guiding her around a rabbit hole in the path. “He was always thinking about birds and the like. A shark would have interested him.”

  “What sort of books did you read as a boy?”

  His mouth flattened. “You’ll find a collection of books about classical architecture somewhere on those shelves. I meant to design houses.”

  “Really?” Diana was startled. She knew that houses had to be designed—sometimes architects were knighted by the king for their work—but not by noblemen.

  He glanced at her with a rueful smile. “What should I have done with my life?”

  “Noblemen don’t do things,” she said, without pausing to think. “No, that’s not quite true. They pay calls in the morning, and go to their clubs in the afternoon. They bet on horses. They go to the opera in the evening, or to a ball. They attend court now and then.”

  “Noblemen run this country,” North said in a measured voice. “It could be that, in the future, the House of Commons will take a greater role. But at the moment, the House of Lords is vital to every decision the Prime Minister makes. We are judge and jury in many parts of the country, we muster militia, we send our men to war, we employ thousands of people.”

  “I stand corrected,” Diana said. And she meant it.

  The children had reached Gooseberry River, the small watercourse that separated the duchy from the village. They were seated on the low stone bridge, legs dangling, looking down into the water.

  “Hell,” North said, drawing her to a halt. “I just lectured you, didn’t I?”

  “I am woefully ignorant when it comes to the aristocracy,” she said. “Always better for a lecture, or at least, so my mother believed.”

  “The cruelest cut of all,” he groaned. “You are likening me to a woman who discarded her daughters and stole their dowries.”

  Diana frowned. “My father’s will merely requested that she provide for us. No dowries were specified and, in any event, I haven’t married.”

  “She is not providing for you. You are working.”

  “It was inappropriate to compare you to my mother, and quite unfair,” she said, not answering his point.

  “I was trying to tell you,” he said, walking her to the bridge in order to join the children, “that I know you aren’t one of those women who flutter their eyelashes and fan out their plumage. That doesn’t stop me from wishing you would.”

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down into the Gooseberry River. As one might expect from the river’s name, the water was a curious pale green. Thick incursions of mare’s tail made a low-flowing stream even slower.

  “Thank you,” Diana finally said, because it was that or kiss him in public, which would be frightfully improper, and she was trying to curb her impulses. She was tired of being a person who spoke or did things first and thought better of them later.

  She crouched between Artie and Godfrey and peered at the water. “What do you see down there?”

  “I can’t see fish. Godfrey can,” Artie said.

  Diana had no idea how Godfrey conveyed his opinions to Artie. “I can see the peddler’s wagon,” she said, and nodded toward the village square.

  The children scrambled to their feet and ran off the other end of the bridge.

  Mr. Calico’s wagon was painted bright green, and had yellow lathe sides on hinges that, when raised, revealed shelves crowded with wares. He himself was a thin, elderly gentleman wearing a wondrous coat that sparkled in the sunlight.

  As they neared, Artie hung back, holding Diana’s hand, but Godfrey ran straight over to him and bowed in an abrupt up-and-down motion, waving his hand at the peddler’s coat.

  “It’s covered with pins,” Mr. Calico told him, “shiny pins from all parts of the world. Good morning, Miss Belgrave.”

  “Good morning,” Diana said, smiling at him. “May I introduce Lady Artemisia? She is very excited to meet you.”

  Artie performed a credible curtsy without taking her thumb from her mouth, a skill one didn’t see in Almack’s.

  North stepped forward and bowed as respectfully as if he’d met a local squire. “Mr. Calico, it is a pleasure to see you once again.”

  The peddler bowed with a flourish. “I am happy to see you returned safe and sound from such a perilous adventure, Lord Roland.”

  “War is no adventure,” North said dryly.

  �
��I’ve heard the same from other acquaintances,” Mr. Calico agreed. He turned to Godfrey and Artie. “My young friends, I have something to show you.” He picked a large basket from a shelf in his wagon and placed it on the ground.

  Artie fell on her knees. “Dolls!”

  Godfrey’s whole being reverberated with approval. He reached out and picked up a horse that had a raised foot and an open, crimson mouth.

  “What do you lack, Miss Belgrave?” Mr. Calico asked, gesturing toward the shelves lining the side of his carriage. “I’ve everything a lady might desire: pins, powder, lace, even a wig or two, and lengths of fabric.”

  “Miss Belgrave has been suffering from a melancholy complaint,” North said, his eyes clear and innocent. “Perhaps you have a tonic. Cod liver oil is thought to be an excellent remedy, is it not?”

  Diana couldn’t halt her startled little puff of air.

  Mr. Calico’s thick eyebrows jerked up and down. “I have just the cordial for the lady. No fish oil, but a mixture of herbs with the power to soothe the most wicked of beasts, or elevate the saddened spirits of a young lady. I have one bottle left.”

  He walked to the other side of his caravan and began rummaging about, causing a great tinkling of bottles.

  “Revenge,” North whispered in her ear.

  “I did nothing to incur such a terrible fate!”

  “You pointed out what a tedious, lecturing bastard I am.” His eyes held hers.

  Diana caught her breath. His expression made warmth boil up in her belly, all the way to her fingers and toes. She felt dizzily happy. The perfume of a jasmine bush growing next to the church drifted by, and she could hear Artie’s happy stream of talk as she supplied both her side of the conversation and Godfrey’s.

  But in reality the only thing Diana was registering was North.

  “We noblemen are prone to terrible revenge,” he went on.

  A monologue coming from the other side of Mr. Calico’s wagon indicated that perhaps he had sold that last bottle of miraculous elixir.

  Just as well, because although Diana had money in her pocket, she preferred not to buy a cordial with it. “You’ll have to drink it, if he finds it,” she informed North.

  “I’ll give it to Aunt Knowe. She maintains that Mr. Calico always has the perfect treasure in his wagon for the deepest desire of your heart, which—in one example—was a riding hat she didn’t know she needed, but realized on inspection was precisely what she had been longing for.”