by Sandra Dubay
Still, Justin had to admit, she was trying, persisting with a dogged determination he would not have expected of her, given her headstrong and volatile temperament. She hadn't even protested too loudly when he'd engaged Herr Kemmel. In fact, she'd seemed pleased by the prospect of resuming the music lessons she'd begun at Blaykling Castle. Now that he thought of it, she'd been almost meek in the few weeks since he'd given her that spanking.
He sat back in his chair, bathed in the early afternoon sunshine, waiting for her to begin that troublesome stanza. She had beenwell, perhaps meek was stating it too strongly. Dyanna would never be docile; her very nature was too fiery for that. But she had been agreeable. She had not argued. She had not even protested his choices in the wardrobe he had ordered for her, even though he suspected she thought most of it too young and missish. It made her look younger than her years and perhaps, just perhaps, he admitted in the privacy of his own thoughts, that was his object. For he was constantly aware of her beauty. It sometimes startled him when he came upon her unexpectedly in the library or the garden. Bathed in the light of an evening fire, she was breathtaking. The memory of the night they'd met at the Angel Inn was never far from his thoughts, however hard he might try to banish it from his mind.
A high-pitched scream of pure frustration tore him out of his reverie. From the music room came the jarring discord of Dyanna's fists descending onto the ebony and ivory keys of the delicate, intricately inlaid Italian instrument.
Justin rose from his desk as he heard the scraping of the harpsichord bench on the parquet floor. Leaving his study, he strode down the hall to the bow-windowed room where the harpsichord stood, silent and abandoned now, near a tall and graceful golden harp that had belonged to some time-shrouded ancestor.
Herr Kemmel, his white wig askew, his once crisp stock limp with perspiration, mopped at his reddened face with a damp and crumpled handkerchief. He did not look up until Justin joined him near the opened French doors which led out into the sprawling, informal garden behind DeVille House.
"Lesson over, mein herr?" he asked archly, gazing out into the garden where Dyanna romped with Clancy, one of the huge, adoring Irish wolfhounds that lived in the stables beyond the tall hedges.
"Ach, this girl, my lord," the maestro said with yet another swipe at his moist brow. "She has no discipline. Practice! She must practice! This nonsense" he waved his handkerchief in the direction of the garden "should not be allowed."
Justin said nothing as his eyes followed Dyanna across the wide expanse of carefully manicured lawn. Her ruffled gown fluttered as she ran, its lilac satin streamers rippling behind her. Her hair, only moments before demurely wound into a twist at the crown of her head, had shaken free of its pins and fell in a tumble of glistening curls over her shoulders.
The wolfhound bounded toward her, a short, thick branch clamped in his massive jaws. He waited expectantly for Dyanna to grasp the stick and when she did, shook his great head and knocked her sprawling on the grass.
Justin chuckled, and Herr Kemmel turned accusing eyes on him. "You approve of this, my lord? This girl is your ward. Can you approve of this behavior?"
"She is young, mein herr," Justin replied, enchanted in spite of himself by the sight of Dyanna trying to wrest the stick from the dog's powerful grasp and by the soft, musical sound of her laughter. "She is high-spirited."
"It is this spirit which must be broken," the music teacher decreed.
"Broken?" Justin looked at him, appalled. "Surely you don't mean that."
"I do. A woman of breeding, of rank, should be retiring. Submissive. Not like" Again he gestured toward the garden.
"I like a woman with spirit," Justin disagreed. "I've no patience with meek little milksops who hide from their own shadows. A woman is not a horse, mein herr, to be broken, to be forced into submission. She should have pride, firein short, spirit."
"In my country, it is not so. A young woman who behaved this way would be considered"
"Take care, mein herr," Justin warned, his voice cold and filled with disdain, his very stance emphasizing the difference between him and the music teacher who was, after all, little more than a glorified servant.
Leopold Kemmel frowned. He could see that he was in imminent danger of losing a pupil. "Forgive me, my lord," he said. "It is only that she is not . . ." He faltered, groping for words that would allow him to extricate himself from the awkward situation.
"Go on," Justin prompted, "she is not . . . ?"
The musician said nothing, knowing there was no safe way out. He shrugged, bowing to the inevitable.
"I think my ward has had enough of music lessons, Herr Kemmel."
"As you wish, my lord," the Viennese acquiesced, realizing he had misjudged Justin's feelings for his ward. With a short, abrupt bow, he went to the harpsichord and gathered his music.
At the door, the music teacher paused and looked back. Justin stood, half turned away from him, gazing out toward Dyanna, frolicking in the sunshine. His feelinggthe enchantment and fascination the lithe, silverhaired girl held for himwere all too apparent in his face as he watched her. Smiling, Herr Kemmel turned away, wondering as he went if the cool, elegant Lord DeVille was as yet aware of his own feelings and wondering, too, how long those emotions would be held in check.
Unaware of the Austrian's departure, Justin strode out into the sunshine. Dyanna had disappeared into the ornate little domed folly at the far end of the garden. It was there that he joined her, finding her seated on a marble bench, a blade of grass twirling in her fingers.
"Where's Clancy?" he asked, leaning against one of the marble pillars that supported the high, gilded dome.
"Off digging up one of the flowerbeds, I suppose." She glanced toward the house. "Where's Herr Kemmel?"
''Gone." Justin grinned. "I gave him the sack."
Dyanna's eyes grew round. "You didn't!"
"I did."
"But why?"
"I'm afraid he thinks you're something of a hoyden."
"A hoyden! Well! The sour old son of a"
"Dyanna!"
She giggled, her eyes twinkling. "I'm glad he's gone! I like music, Justin, but I'm no prodigy. Why must I learn to play like one?"
"A lady is supposed to be accomplished."
"But I'm not a lady. Ask Herr Kemmel."
Justin smiled in spite of himself. For the first time, he realized that he had meant every word of what he said to the Viennese musician. If making Dyanna into the perfect young lady meant breaking the spirit that lent that sparkle to her eyes and that bounce to her step, he would rather see her remain a hoyden.
"Go have Charlotte put you back together," he told her, plucking a blade of grass from her tangled curls. "And I'll take you driving in the park."
Clapping her hands, Dyanna blew him a kiss and spun away. Lifting her billowing skirts, she ran toward the open doors of the music room while Justin watched, captivated.
It was not until she had disappeared from view that he could bestir himself to go to the stables and order a carriage brought around.
Attired in the black mourning upon which Justin insisted when they ventured out in public, Dyanna viewed the world through the fine lace veil that swathed her black-plumed hat. But from the moment they entered Hyde Park, she forgot her somber attire and was breathless, excited at the prospect of seeing fashionable London on parade.
"Is that Mrs. Robinson?" she asked, jabbing Justin with a black-gloved finger. She nodded toward an exquisitely beautiful woman in pink and silver who held court from an open carriage. "They say she is the Prince of Wales's mistress."
"Do they say so?" Justin asked, amused that even a girl as insulated from public scandal as Dyanna had heard the gossip about the seventeen-year-old prince and the twenty-one-year-old actress.
"You know they do,' she chided him. "Isn't it romantic? They say he fell in love with her at first sight."
Justin bit back a cynical observation concerning the prince's frequency of falling in l
ove. "So they say," he agreed noncommittally.
"I do so long to see him. Is he as handsome as they say, Justin?"
"The very picture of a romantic young prince," Justin admitted. "All the ladies agree."
Dyanna sighed. "I wonder if I shall ever meet him. I wish"
Her wish was silenced by the approach of a round, disheveled young man on horseback. Tipping his hat, he bowed low to Justin before his eyes roved admiringly over Dyanna.
"My lord," he said, his eyes never leaving Dyanna's face. "I'd be obliged if you'd introduce me."
Justin smiled. "I might have known you'd be nearby. Very well, then. Charles James Foxmy ward, Miss Dyanna McBride. My dear, this wretch is Mr. Fox, whose name you've no doubt seen in the papers."
Though politics was not one of Dyanna's abiding interests, she knew of Mr. Fox, leader of the Whigs in Parliament. On a more personal level, she knew he was acclaimed a genius, a womanizer, and a compulsive gambler.
"Mr. Fox," she said softly, wondering that a man of his stature should not at least own a clean stock.
"Miss McBride," he returned. "Very much your servant. I knew your father, Rakethat is, Rayburn McBride. I was sorry to hear of his death. But I believe you were about to make a wish when I interrupted."
"I was wishing, sir, that I might meet the Prince of Wales."
"And so you may, my dear. It is said he will be at Cumberland House tonight. His uncle, the Duke, has persuaded him it is time he began coming out in society, even if his father, the King, does not think so."
"But I shan't be there," Dyanna pointed out.
"No?" Fox looked at Justin curiously. "But you were invited, were you not, my lord? I could have sworn your name was mentioned at Brooks' Club as one of those to be honored with His Royal Highness's acquaintance."
"The Duke was kind enough to invite me, yes," Justin confirmed. "And I do plan to attend."
"Justin!" Dyanna breathed. "We are to go to Cumberland House?"
"I plan to attend, Dyanna, alone."
Her face fell, but she said nothing, seething in silence as Justin made their farewells to Mr. Fox and turned the carriage in the direction of DeVille House.
Chater Ten
"Justin!" Dyanna stood at the head of the stairs glaring down at her guardian who, dressed in black and gold brocade, was about to leave for Cumberland House. "It is unfair!"
He sighed. Taking his hat from Ipswich and submitting to a last once-over by Bertran, he waved a dismissal to his servants and faced his angry ward alone.
"The matter is not open to discussion, Dyanna," he said, his tone firm and weary with the quarrel that had been raging intermittently ever since they'd returned from Hyde Park.
"But I was invited! The Duke of Cumberland was a friend of my father's, was he not?"
Justin resisted the temptation to tell her that gambling and whoring together did not make men lifelong friends, particularly not when one of them was a Royal Duke, brother to King George III. Instead, he said only:
"I have told you, Dyanna, that Cumberland House is not a proper place for a young woman not yet introduced to society. The Duke of Cumberland is a roué and a rake. His duchess is considered by many an adventuress, and she is not received at Court. It would not do for you to be known to associate with them."
"You are associating with them."
He closed his eyes, his frayed patience nearing its end. "I have accepted the duke's invitation, my dear, for the opportunity of sounding out the Prince of Wales's opinions. The prince is chafing under the restrictions his father places upon him. He longs to be treated as a man, but is kept a boy. Cumberland thinks to build a rival court around the Prince, with Cumberland House as its base. I wish to know in which direction that wind is going to blow."
"And while you are out testing the wind, I must sit idly at home."
"Dyanna, you are not yet eighteen. You have not grown up in society. You should enter it cautiously, slowly. I have decided you would be better to wait until your year of mourning is over. You will be older then, more sophisticated. Wiser in the ways of the world."
"A year!" she cried. "It is unfair!"
"This is where our discussion began," he observed, clapping his hat on top of his head, "and this is where it will end. Good-night, Dyanna."
Leaving her to glare after him, her hands gripping the gleaming bannister until her knuckles whitened, Justin turned and with a swirl of his caped cloak, was gone.
Later, in her room, with only the sympathetic Charlotte for company, Dyanna sulked.
"He means to keep me a prisoner," she complained her fingers snipping at the pale green ribbons threaded through the lace that frothed her leaf-green lawn nightdress.
"A prisoner," Charlotte repeated. "Like in a gaol?"
"Exactly like that!" Scowling, Dyanna leaned closer to her maid. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, even though the two of them were alone in the room. "Do you know, Charlotte, I read something precisely like this in a book?"
"Really, miss?" The maid's eyes were filled with wonder. She, too, loved to read, but she seemed to think every book was a true story.
"It was about a girl named Jenny Flynn. Her parents died and left her in the clutches of a guardian."
"Same as you and my lord DeVille!"
"Exactly so! This man's name was Greatrakes. Ebenezer Greatrakes. And do you know what he did? He shut her away in a gloomy old mansion and tried to steal her fortune!"
"He didn't! That monster!"
"And more than that! He seduced her! Ruined her. Robbed her of her innocence and virtue!"
"The beast!" Unconsciously, Charlotte pulled her drab cotton nightdress closer about herself. "Even my lord DeVille would not be so wicked as that!"
"Don't be too sure," Dyanna said cryptically, thinking of that night at the Angel Inn, but conveniently forgetting that Justin hadn't known she was his ward that night and that she had made no great show of resistance to his advances. Tonight she wanted to think him a beast and a rake. It suited her mood.
"What do you mean, miss?" Charlotte asked, enthralled and titillated.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Dyanna was not about to reveal what had happenedor almost happenedbetween herself and Justin at the inn. And particularly not to a maid who was still, officially, a servant of the Marquees of Summersleigh. "Go to bed, Charlotte. There is no need for you to stay up with me."
"Are you sure, miss? I don't mind."
"I'm sure. You go to bed."
Obviously reluctant, the maid rose. After dropping her young mistress a curtsy, she left Dyanna alone with her private thoughts.
From a drawer in the night-table, Dyanna retrieved the book about Lord Lucifer Wolfe. She had read no more in it since Justin first brought her to DeVille House. The past few weeks had been quite pleasant. But now, angry at him as she was, she was willing to believe he had done precisely what Geoffrey had feared he might dolulled her into trusting him.
Thoughtfully, she let her fingers stroke the finely worked leather of the cover. It was said that Lucifer Wolfeor Sebastian DeVille if Geoffrey were to be believedhad had the power to fascinate women, to bind them to him by sheer animal magnetism. She wondered, suddenly, how much like his father Justin might be. Did they look alike? She thought of the portraits that lined the walls of the salons downstairs. Was Sebastian there, tucked discreetly between two forebears of less notorious reputation?
Leaving her room, Dyanna swept silently down the hall, only the soft hissing of her rippling nightdress marking her passing. Taking one of the candles from the candelabrum that burned on a table at the head of the stairs, she started down the staircase toward the red salon.
The house seemed abandoned. The servants had been dismissed; Justin seldom asked them to stay awake until he returned. Entertainments such as the one at Cumberland House could go on until daybreak. Even the faithful and vigilant Bertran, who often remained out of bed to help his master undress, was dozing in a chair in Justin's upstairs s
uite.
Crossing the hallway downstairs, Dydnna reached for the latch at the door to the elegant, red-walled salon that connected the library with the music room. Her fingers brushed the cold bronze, then froze, hovering in the air above the ornately scrolled latch. She had heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the gravel of the drive outside.
"Justin," she breathed, poised for flight. But no, it could not be Justin, her inner voice reasoned. It was far too early for him to return, and besides, he had gone in a carriage. The sounds in the drive were unmistakably those of a single horse.
Hurrying to the window, she peeked out. A soft gasp of surprise escaped her when she saw Geoffrey Culpepper about to ascend the stairs to the door.
"Geoffrey!" she hissed, her heart fluttering as his footsteps drew nearer to the door. She wavered, undecided. It was the height of impropriety for him to arrive unannounced and uninvited at such an hour, of course, and worse still when Justin was out and she was wearing her nightdress. And without so much as a maidservant hovering in the backgroundscandalous! Justin would be furious if he found out.
A frown creased Dyanna's brow. But Justin was not there, was he? No! Where was he? Out for the evening, enjoying himself at a soiree * to which she had been invited but was forbidden to attend. He was selfish! He cared nothing for her pleasure, only his own! What harm could it do if she visited with Geoffrey for a few moments? He was the only suitor she hadthanks, again, to Justin! If her high-and-mighty guardian did not want her seeking her own pleasures, he should see that she had some happiness instead of devoting his time to his own enjoyment!
Feeling pleasantly self-righteousand tantalizingly bold and defiantshe opened the door to admit her caller.
''Geoffrey," she said, smiling, "I could not imagine who might be arriving."
"I almost did not stop," he told her, laying aside his chapeau bras. He unfastened the clasps of his surtout and removed it carefully lest he disturb the impeccable white ramillies wig, whose silver embroidered bow matched the glittering fabric of his waistcoat. "I thought everyone was in bed."