by Joan Wolf
Diana’s situation was quite different. Since Lady Moulton’s purpose in inviting her was to give her brother a chance to get to know Diana better, the two often found themselves alone. Diana thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent with Lord Rumford. She loved being out of London and she liked it that Lord Rumford showed himself to be so at home in country surroundings. He talked to her about his horses, his art collection, what he was doing on his estate, and he expressed a desire for her to visit his home in Oxfordshire soon. She liked his quiet authority, his kind attentiveness, and his calm, blue-gray eyes. She and Lord Rumford cantered together along well-manicured rides through the woods, strolled up and down the paths of the garden, and fed the ducks on the river. He had an air of almost paternal protectiveness toward her that made her feel warm and comfortable and safe.
The day before they were to return to London, Diana and Lord Rumford took a last ride. It was a glorious day and they went along the river, with the sun glinting off the water, off the horse’s polished coats, and off of Diana’s uncovered hair. After a while, at Lord Rumford’s suggestion, they dismounted and tied the horses to a tree while they went down to the water to watch two swans that were floating along the opposite bank along with their offspring.
Diana held her face up to the sky. “It’s so lovely here,” she said. “I hate the thought of going back to London.”
“Most young girls having their first Season would never say such a thing,” he said.
She smiled at him. “I suppose I’m different, then.”
“Yes,” he said. “You are.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Miss Sherwood,” he said. “Diana. You must know how I feel about you. I think I fell in love with you the moment I first saw you in the receiving line at your come-out ball. I know I’m much older than you, but in so many ways I think we suit. You would love Aston Castle, I’m sure of it. You would have everything you want there—horses, dogs, beautiful surroundings. And I would do everything in my power to make you happy.”
She looked into his serious blue-gray eyes and felt everything inside her become very still. “Are you making me an offer, my lord?” she asked softly.
“Yes.” His hands slipped from her shoulders down to hold her hands. He was not nearly as tall as Alex, and their eyes were more on a level. “Will you marry me, Diana?”
It was as if her heart stopped beating. For the briefest of moments, Alex’s face hung before her eyes. She felt frozen, unable to move, unable to think.
“Diana?” Lord Rumford said gently.
His voice banished Alex’s picture and once again she saw the man before her. She lifted her chin slightly and said clearly, “I will be honored to marry you, my lord.”
His face lit with a joyful smile.
She steeled herself to say what had to be said. “Before we make any announcement, I have to tell you something.”
A faint, puzzled line appeared between his brows. “Yes?” he said.
Her nostrils flared slightly as she drew in a breath. Her hands tightened slightly on his as she sought for the right words. She forced herself to keep looking into his eyes. “This is hard for me to say, but you have a right to know. When I was seventeen, I fell in love. And…I behaved unwisely.” Her eyes dropped for a moment, but then she lifted them again. “I was young and stupid and I thought we would be married. It didn’t happen—he went away to join the army instead. So I am not a virgin, my lord. If that is important to you, than you should know now. It’s not something I would want you to find out on your wedding night.”
His own eyes had darkened as she was speaking. “He left you?” he said incredulously.
She found she couldn’t speak, so she just nodded.
“And you were seventeen and had no father to protect you.”
Tears sprung to her eyes. One of them trickled down her cheek. “No,” she said. “I had no father.”
“My poor girl,” he said. He held out his arms. “Well, from now on, you will have me.”
Diana stepped into the shelter of his arms and pressed her face into his shoulder. She struggled not to cry. “Thank you, my lord,” she said thickly. “You are so good. Thank you.”
He stroked her beautiful hair. “I will take good care of you, my dear,” he promised. “Nobody will ever harm you again.”
The words were like balm to her soul.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
She lifted her tear-stained face to his and he bent his head and kissed her.
Diana kissed him back. Behind her she heard the running water of the river and one of the horses snorted and pawed the ground impatiently. The sun was warm on her head and shoulders. She felt the buttons of his coat pressing into her flesh. At last he raised his head and looked at her.
“You have made me a very happy man, Diana,” he said.
She gave him what she hoped was a radiant smile. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Edward,” he said.
She reached up and laid her fingers on his cheek. He was such a good man. “Edward,” she said. And he kissed her again.
Alex thought he had been prepared to hear the news of Diana’s engagement, but still it came as a bitter blow. The thought of her marrying another man, of her living in intimacy with another man…his fists clenched and his blood rose at the mere thought of it. How was he to bear it?
I have to bear it, he told himself grimly. I’ve already done enough harm to Dee. I have to let her think that I’m happy for her.
He could only hope that his mother’s and Sally’s obvious delight would cover up his own more restrained reaction.
Mrs. Sherwood had concerns about her daughter’s future marriage. “Are you sure that this is what you want, darling? He’s a very nice man, but he is old enough to be your father.”
“It’s what I want, Mama,” Diana said positively. “I really think I will be happy spending the rest of my life with such a man. He’s everything I could want in a husband.”
Her mother was silent for a moment. Then she asked quietly, “What about Alex?”
They were sitting together in Diana’s bedroom, side by side upon the four-poster bed.
Diana stiffened. “Alex and I are finished, Mama. I thought you understood that.”
“Are you sure, darling? Alex loves you. And there was so much between you once….”
“It’s precisely because of what was between us that I can never marry him,” Diana said. She stared down at her sprig muslin skirt. “I told him, Mama. I told him about the baby. So he understands how I feel. He told me that if I could find happiness with Lord Rumford, then he wished me well.”
“I see,” Mrs. Sherwood said quietly.
“I told Lord Rumford about Alex,” Diana said next. At her mother’s sharp intake of breath, she added hastily, “Not by name, of course, but I told him I was not a virgin.”
She turned to look at her mother, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “He was so kind, Mama. He said that I had not had a father to take care of me then, but that I was not to worry, that he would take care of me from now on.” She blinked away the tears. “He’s a wonderful man. I am very lucky to have found someone so caring and so strong.”
Mrs. Sherwood looked at Diana for a long moment, then she put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “He does sound like a fine man, darling. Perhaps this is the right thing for you to do.”
“And you will come to live with us, as well. We talked about that, and he expects you to come and live at Aston Castle with me.” Diana hugged her mother. “It’s all so perfect, Mama. I am very happy.”
Mrs. Sherwood put her cheek against her daughter’s smooth one. “You deserve happiness, Diana. Life has not been easy for you, I know. I am so happy for you, darling. I am so happy.”
Lady Standish sent the notice to the Morning Post and by the time the family arrived back in London, the news was all over the ton. All of a sudden, Diana’s status was transformed. As the future C
ountess of Rumford, she now counted in the upper echelons of London society. Matrons who had heretofore ignored her, now went out of their way to be pleasant. She was no longer Diana Sherwood, poverty-stricken hanger-on to the Standishes. Now, she was the future wife of the Earl of Rumford, a title that had stood in English society for centuries. People might privately have thought that Rumford had been caught by a pretty face, but Diana’s family was respectable at least, and the match, though surprising, was certainly not unprecedented. High-born nobles long before Lord Rumford had married for beauty. Look at the famous Gunning sisters, everybody said. One of them had actually caught two dukes!
The Longwood family was infuriated. And frightened.
“How could this have happened?” Viscount Longwood raged at the breakfast table as he read the notice in the newspaper. “She’s a nobody and Rumford actually is going to marry her?”
Jessica’s eyes were red. “I thought he had chosen me, Papa. I really did. But once he saw her, it was as if I didn’t exist anymore.”
“What are we going to do?” Lady Longwood said. “Once our financial situation becomes known, no one is going to want to marry Jessica. And we have no funds! We’re fast going through the money you borrowed to come to London. Once that is gone, we’ll have to return home to Longwood, and there isn’t even enough to live on there.”
“I would like to kill Gerald,” Jessica said viciously. “You shouldn’t have paid his gaming debts, Papa. You should have let him go to debtor’s prison.”
“We’ll come about,” the viscount said. “This isn’t the end. I’ll think of something.”
“I haven’t got another suitor,” Jessica wailed. “Everyone thought I was going to marry Lord Rumford!”
“What about Standish?” Lady Longwood said. “He’s even more wealthy than Rumford. He’s danced with you, hasn’t he?”
“He’s danced with me a few times, but he’s only being polite,” Jessica said. “He’s not interested. He spends more time with Caroline Wrentham than with anyone else.”
“The Stowes have plenty of money. They don’t need Standish the way we do. Perhaps we can come up with a way to bring you more to Standish’s attention,” Lady Longwood said hopefully.
“I don’t see how. I’m not beautiful, like Lady Caroline,” Jessica said mournfully.
“We only have a short window of time,” Lord Longford said in a clipped voice. “Jessica has to marry someone with money. It’s the only way out of our difficulties. The choices are Rumford, Standish—” here he lifted his eyebrows “—or Sinclair is always a possibility. He has plenty of blunt.”
“Sinclair has never shown the slightest interest in young, marriageable girls,” Lady Longwood said. “He seems perfectly satisfied with his many mistresses.”
“He has to get married some time,” Lord Longwood said. “He has the succession to think about, after all.”
“I don’t like the Duke of Sinclair,” Jessica said. “He scares me.”
Lady Longwood said, “The best answer to our problem is definitely Standish.”
Jessica thrust out her lower lip. “I don’t see how I am supposed to coax an offer out of Lord Standish. He’s simply not interested in me.”
Silence fell as the family stared fixedly into their variously filled coffee cups.
“What about Gerald?” Jessica said. “Can’t he marry a rich girl? Perhaps we could find him a Cit who wants a title.”
“I’ve thought about that,” Lord Longwood said. “But no rich Cit is going to marry his daughter to an inveterate gambler. They have too much regard for their money.”
Lady Longwood said slowly, “What if something should happen to Miss Sherwood? Perhaps then Lord Rumford would look Jessica’s way once more.”
Her husband and her daughter stared at her.
“What do you mean, Mama?” Jessica asked in a small voice.
“Well…what if she was found compromised with another man? That would certainly put off a prospective husband.”
Lord Longwood frowned. “That would be difficult to arrange.”
“Yes. I suppose it would be.”
“Still…” Lord Longwood tapped his lip. “We have to do something.” He folded his hands on the table and looked at them. “Perhaps getting rid of Miss Sherwood is not such a bad idea.”
Twenty-One
When Alex got back to London from Lady Moulton’s, one of the first things he did was to look up Captain Thomas Stapleton, the young veteran he had encountered at the reception for King Louis. They met for dinner at a small eating place near the Horse Guards that was frequented by military men.
“I have been thinking of establishing a small club for Peninsula veterans,” Alex said as they ordered their meal. “Both you and I have been having some problems readjusting to civilian life, and I would be surprised if we were the only ones with this difficulty. It felt good the other day to talk to someone who understood what I was feeling. Perhaps a group of us could help each other.”
Tom Stapleton looked at Alex for a long moment. “I’m drinking too much. Oh, I know a lot of chaps regularly get drunk, but I was never like that.” He shifted his gaze to his almost-empty wineglass. “Now I am.”
“It’s easier,” Alex said. He breathed in and out. “It keeps one from having to think.”
“And it lets one sleep.”
“Yes.”
Tom raised his eyes and they looked at each other silently.
“I know it would probably sound strange to most people,” Alex said. “We’re not like those poor enlisted men who are coming home to face no jobs and economic destitution. We have money. We have fine homes. We have families who love us. There’s no reason for us to be distressed. But there’s no question that we are having some problems.”
“I think a club for veterans is a very good idea,” Tom said somberly. “I know it would help me.”
They sat silently as their meal was served. Then, when the waiter was gone, Alex said, “We only want chaps who are having difficulties like us, though. Those men who have readjusted easily don’t need a group like this.”
Tom speared a slice of beef with his fork. “I know one other fellow who would be a good member. He’s become my drinking partner of late, and things come out when a man is in his cups.”
“I haven’t spoken about this problem to anyone but you,” Alex confessed. “But I’ll sound out a few chaps that I know at the Horse Guards.”
“How many members were you thinking of?”
“I was thinking of about eight or so.”
The waiter came over to pour more wine into their glasses. He asked if they wanted a second bottle.
“We’ll have just the one bottle,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Tom agreed as the waiter walked away. “It’s time we started to get well.”
Diana’s schedule was so busy the first few days that she arrived home from her visit to the Moultons that she didn’t even have time to walk Freddie in the park during the afternoon. Mrs. Sherwood graciously offered to do it for her.
“The dog will be perfectly all right being walked by a footman,” Lady Standish said impatiently. “Now that dear Diana is engaged to an earl, it is imperative that we improve her wardrobe. Don’t you want to come with us, Louisa, and pick out her new clothes?”
Mrs. Sherwood looked at her daughter. “Do you want me to come, darling?”
“It’s not at all necessary,” Diana assured her. “I feel very badly about neglecting Freddie, and if you wish to walk him I’d rather you do that than come with me. A footman is all right, but Freddie would prefer one of us.”
So Mrs. Sherwood was walking, leash in hand, along her usual path in Hyde Park when she was met by Sir Gilbert Merton, who was walking his dog, Caleb.
The man’s face brightened when he saw her. “So, you have returned from your visit, ma’am,” he said. “And a brilliant visit it was. We read all about it in the Morning Post.”
“Yes, my daughter is to marry the Ear
l of Rumford.”
It still sounded strange to Mrs. Sherwood’s when she said that.
“It is a splendid match,” Sir Gilbert said. “Will you be living with them at the earl’s estate?”
Mrs. Sherwood nodded. “Yes, they seem to want me.”
They both bent to let their dogs off the leashes.
“Who wouldn’t want a lovely lady like yourself?” Sir Gilbert said.
Mrs. Sherwood flushed lightly. “It is all Diana’s doing, I know that. But the earl was very kind to agree to her request. Not every man wants to inherit his mother-in-law along with his wife.”
Freddie and Caleb were doing their usual sniffing ritual, as if they had never met before.
“You will be an ornament to the earl’s home,” Sir Gilbert said soberly. “You would be an ornament to any man’s home, Mrs. Sherwood.”
Mrs. Sherwood’s flush deepened. “Thank you. You are very kind.” She drew a deep breath. “And how does Miss Merton go on?”
“She seems to be having a good time for herself, but I do not perceive any particular suitor who seems really serious. In fact, without Lord Standish around to dance with her and encourage others to do so, Charlotte has been less on the dance floor than she was wont to be. She will have a respectable portion, but we are not wealthy people, Mrs. Sherwood. My estate supports itself and the people who live upon it, but there is not a lot left over for fripperies—like this Season. But I could not say no to my only remaining child.”
The two dogs dashed off down the path, and their owners followed at a more leisurely pace. Mrs. Sherwood said, “From what you said to me earlier, you will not be all that unhappy if Charlotte returns to Sussex unwed. You said you would rather keep her close to home.”
“That’s true,” Sir Gilbert said heartily. “There are several fine young men for her to choose from in Sussex. Perhaps she will appreciate their solid worth better after a Season spent with the light-weight beaux of London.”
