Dear Peregrine,
I am not lost. I am here in London. You have not seen me because I am still cross with you for abusing Raven with that insulting assignment. I will come see you, but unhappily, as I do not Like you now.
Fondly,
Sparrow
P.S. What on earth has happened to you? You have become very silly in this public correspondence with Lady Justice. I think you are infatuated. I daresay that will prove most inconvenient if she turns out to be a seventy-year-old man.
Chapter 23
To the gold-and-black liveried maids and footmen in the Earl of Savege’s town house, the gathering of three ladies appeared to be a cozy tea shared between fond sisters.
In fact it was a conclave of thorough liars.
“My father needn’t be told the truth.” Lady Savege’s voice was hushed. “We will tell him that Diantha and Wyn renewed their acquaintance here in town as soon as she arrived and he offered for her immediately.”
“That will be best,” the Countess of Blackwood replied in subdued tones.
Diantha swung around from the window through which she was staring onto the street. Kitty sat across the tea tray from Serena, shining brunette head bent close to honey blond in conference.
“You will lie to Papa about where I have been?” She stared at both titled ladies, her momentary shock dulling into resignation. She had already learned, after all, that an elegant London gentleman could lie quite well without a qualm. Why not elegant ladies too? “But I always intended to tell him the truth of it afterward. I only withheld the truth before I did it so that I would be able to do it.”
“Yes, darling,” Serena tilted her head. “But now that the deed is done, we must devise an alternate plan.”
The deed had not been done. Not the intended deed. She was no closer to speaking with her mother than she’d been before leaving Devon. But Kitty had not told Serena the entire truth about her errant sojourn. Instead she’d said that Diantha had run away from Brennon Manor for merely an adventure. Perhaps that had been a prudent lie. Serena and her mother had never gotten along when they both lived at Glenhaven Hall.
“I thought I was the only one that lied to Papa in order to embark upon reckless escapades,” she finally said.
Kitty took up the teapot. “No one else need know of your journey than we three, Alex and Leam. Wyn assured me that Mrs. Polley can be trusted as well.” She offered Diantha an interested look. They had not spoken of him on the trip to London, but Kitty must be curious of the details of their time at the abbey.
Diantha turned back to the window and tried to focus on the trees and not the street where she kept expecting to see a black thoroughbred with a rider wearing a black greatcoat. The parlor window overlooked an enormous green square in the middle of London. They had only arrived the previous night and she had seen little of town as yet, but her heart wasn’t in it anyway. She felt peculiarly battered and not at all as though she were embarking upon her debut in society, and certainly not as though she were betrothed to be married.
The soft swish of Serena’s skirts sounded beside her, then her stepsister’s hand slipped through her elbow.
“He is one of my favorite people in the world, Diantha. Kitty’s and our sister Viola’s as well.” She spoke with the gentle grace Diantha always admired. “I cannot pretend to understand why you wished to escape Teresa’s home when you and she are such close friends, nor why you seem so reticent regarding Mr. Yale’s suit. But it cannot be undone now.”
“I am as fond of Teresa as ever.” Her friend would be amazed to learn what had come of her plan. “And I am sensible of the honor Mr. Yale does me. I understand that I am fortunate. But I cannot like it that he offered for me because he feels it is his duty.” She would not admit to them to quite what extent.
“Many a gentleman has offered for a lady upon much less honorable grounds.” Kitty sipped her tea. “And Wyn is not the sort of man to enter into such an alliance lightly.”
Serena’s brow furrowed. “Are you afraid that others will imagine you trapped him into offering? No one else need know how it came about. Even our brother, Tracy.” Diantha’s stepsister did not possess classical beauty; she was far too tall, her shoulders too square, and her blond locks did not approach the sparkling gold of Charity’s and Tracy’s. Their mother had always said Serena would never make a good match—or a match at all—but she had, an exceptionally good match that had plucked her out of spinsterhood and made her a countess. And Serena was happy with it. Alex treated her with remarkable solicitude, and when he looked at her, his eyes shone with pride and something else that Diantha had never seen in either of her fathers’ eyes when they looked at her mother. Genuine affection, and desire.
It occurred to her that she’d never known before what to make of that look in a man’s eyes. Now she did. Wyn had said he liked her. He’d said he desired her. But he had also lied to her about the most important matter between them.
“Thank you.” What else could she say? That she didn’t care if everyone in society knew she had trapped him into it? That although at the time it had all seemed so adventurous and natural, in fact she manipulated him and he lied to her and now they must marry? She drew a fortifying breath.
Serena squeezed her hand. “Now we must visit the modiste so that when Mr. Yale arrives you will be adorned to enter society as elegantly disposed as he.”
“I don’t think that will ever be possible.” And if it were, he would not recognize her. She was confused and hurt, and no amount of fine garments or invitations gathering on the foyer table would cure that.
The following day while Serena napped with the baby, Tracy arrived from the country and came to the house. Diantha dressed in a walking gown with a single delicate flounce and a smart velvet pelisse, and her brother took her up in his phaeton to drive to the shops. London seemed all streets and buildings, horses and carts and carriages and vendors and urchins darting about. It might have been enjoyable if on every corner she didn’t wonder whether a certain Welshman had ever walked along the same block and looked into the windows of the same shops that she did now.
“You’re very pretty, Di,” Tracy said, with a handsome smile beneath his golden curls as she walked on his arm. “Much prettier than you were before with all those spots. Not like Chare, of course . . .”
“Charity is beautiful.” She glanced into a shop window from which a display of cigars seemed to jeer at her. “I have only my eyes to recommend me. That’s what Mama always said.”
“Well, she ain’t seen you lately, and she never did like your spirit.” He winked, but his blue eyes, light and clear like Charity’s, showed the discomfort that always attended mention of their mother.
“I want to speak with her, Tracy.” And there it was again, the pain of dishonesty that lingered in her belly. When they’d been on the road it seemed so easy to withhold from Wyn the truth she had come to recognize at the mill. She thought now, in light of the things he had confided to her of his father and brothers, that if she had told him the truth about why she needed to find her mother he might even have sympathized.
Tracy looked grim. “That’s a tough prospect, you know. Don’t think that’ll be possible, seeing as we still don’t know where she is.” He patted her hand then nodded to a pair of gentlemen coming in the opposite direction. One of them touched the brim of his high-crown hat and winked at her as he passed.
“Tracy, are gentlemen in town at liberty to smile like that at any lady they pass by?”
“Not any lady. I’ve just told you that you’re a taking thing these days. You’ll like it in time. All the young ladies do,” he assured with a grin.
Diantha had seen plenty of those young ladies on their stroll. Beautiful ladies, elegant ladies, young misses dressed gorgeously and whose faces shone with purity, in town with one purpose: to secure a husband. A husband like Wyn. That was the sort of lady he should wed, not a hoyden.
“She did not like my spirit, it’s true,�
�� she murmured. “She always said I was hopeless. ‘Unbiddable.’ ”
Tracy darted his gaze to her then back to the road. He cleared his throat. “There now, Di. There’s no cause to be dredging up—”
“Charity was biddable.”
“Now I’ve just as much affection for Chare as I have for you, but she’s had her own troubles, mark my words.”
“I suppose Mama leaving as she did before her wedding must have been hurtful to her.”
“Speaking of weddings.” Tracy’s good humor seemed to rally. “While I wouldn’t want some of these rum goers nearer to you than a ten-foot pole, a few of my friends are decent. It’d be a fine thing for you to marry a man I could get along with.” For a moment he seemed thoughtful. “What I’m saying is that whatever our mother used to say, I like you, Di. Always have, even when you were a little sprite running around our father’s feet and keeping him out of that chair he liked so much and chasing you around when you shouldn’t have even been out of the nursery.”
“Did I do that?”
“That time you hid his brandy.” He chuckled. “You couldn’t have been more than five or six. He flew into the boughs when he discovered it missing. Thought it was that old pilfering footman again. But when he discovered it was you, he laughed and took you to the lake for a boat ride.”
She had always been a hoyden. “I hadn’t remembered that.”
“You were always up to larks, even with Carlyle from the day our mother took you and Charity to Glenhaven Hall. Never shy of letting a man know what you wanted.” He looked down at her, a crease in his brow. “Di, I’m determined to fix a good match for you. That’s why Carlyle and I brought you to town, of course, and it’s why Serena’s taking you about to meet all the matrons. Those ladies know which fellows are the decent ones, the sort that wouldn’t ever think of hurting a girl’s feelings.”
She must tell him of Wyn’s offer, but her tongue would not function.
“It’s just that you’ve been through plenty, with our mother leaving as she did.” His voice was sober now. “You deserve to be happy now. We’re settling a pretty dowry on you that’ll attract all the regular fortune hunters, but I’ll be damned if I’ll give you to a man who’ll have anything but your best interests at heart.”
At the Bates’s farm, Wyn had said that he was not in her best interests. But perhaps he had been trying to tell her—carefully, considerately—that she was not in his.
An hour later Tracy stood white-faced in the middle of the drawing room and stared at Diantha.
“I will not allow it.” His voice was uncharacteristically firm.
“Come now, Lucas,” the Earl of Savege said from his position at the sideboard. “Yale is a suitable candidate for your sister’s hand and they are already agreed upon it.” He poured from a carafe and walked toward Tracy. He stood several inches taller than her brother, an attractive, large man with an air of confident command that Tracy’s usual blithe mode of camaraderie could not match. Alex proffered the glass. “No need to jam a spoke in the thing now.”
Serena frowned. “Tracy, have you good reason for withholding your approval?”
Tracy set the glass down on the table. “I needn’t have a reason,” he said firmly, his brow creased. “I want what’s best for my sister and Yale isn’t it. I’m afraid that’s my final word on the matter. And see here, Savege, you’ve your way in most matters regarding my family, and it’s worked out best for the most part. But this time it’s my decision and you’ll not tell me my business.” He turned to Diantha. “I’m sorry, Di. Until you’re five-and-twenty you can’t marry without my approval, but I won’t give it to Yale.” He bowed curtly, went to the door and out.
She stared, her insides a tangle.
“I haven’t seen him so agitated in years,” Serena said. “What on earth can he hold against Wyn?”
“Nothing I can imagine,” Alex said. “Diantha?”
She shook her head.
“We must tell Tracy the truth,” Serena said upon a breath.
“No.” Diantha gripped her hands in her lap. Tracy was handing Wyn an escape from his responsibility to her.
“Your brother blusters,” Alex said, “but I can make him see reason if you wish it.”
“I don’t wish it. Rather, let this be an end to it.”
Serena stood. “Then it is all to be forgotten? I cannot like it. Diantha, you are making a mistake.”
“Why hasn’t Yale arrived in town yet?” Alex again directed his question at Diantha. She could only answer with the truth.
“Perhaps he wishes to delay the inevitable.”
Serena shook her head. “That isn’t like him. Didn’t you hear anything Kitty or I said to you the other day?”
“I did. But I fancy that after a fortnight traveling with him perhaps I know more of his wishes on the matter than either of you.” She stood up on unsteady legs. “He did his best to convince me to return to Brennon Manor. Frankly, he did everything short of tying me up and bringing me home by force. He helped me because he felt obligated and he offered for me because it was the honorable thing to do, but he doesn’t want this marriage and I don’t wish to hold him to it. Tracy may be nonsensical, but forcing him to change his mind on the matter would be even more nonsensical.” She took a tight breath. “I hope you will both understand that. I am quite certain Mr. Yale will be content with the outcome.” She strode from the room and to her bedchamber, where she stood at the window looking out at the street and wondering why, in fact, he had not yet come to town.
He did not come the day after, or indeed that sennight. Serena ferried Diantha about to drawing rooms where she became acquainted with other young ladies as well as gentlemen whose flatteries made it clear that none of them had ever considered the merits of a rule like Number Six.
Kitty and her close friend, Lady Emily Vale, made her familiar with London’s marginally less social venues.
“I do not understand gentlemen,” Diantha said to a painting suspended from the museum wall depicting a grizzled old Venetian glass blower.
“Men are irrational.” Standing beside her, Lady Emily pronounced this statement as though it were the natural truth.
“C’est vrai!” Lady Emily’s companion, Madame Roche, sighed, swooping her black lace shawl about her shoulders and pursing red lips in a powdered face. “The gentlemen, they are not always speaking of the truth. It is tragique, some of the times.” She wandered away toward a painting of a winter landscape nearby that seemed to have interested Kitty.
Diantha studied Lady Emily, the clean edge of her profile, the clarity of her skin, the silvery gold locks contained haphazardly in plain pins. A self-proclaimed bluestocking and spinster at no more than three-and-twenty, Emily dressed with economy despite her parents’ dedication to high fashion, she required that others call her Cleopatra, and she went about with the most glamorous lady’s companion Diantha had ever seen.
“Do you really think men are irrational, Cleopatra?”
“I do. Most men are merely little boys in big bodies, prone to foolish games, overindulgence, and occasional cruelties toward friends and strangers alike.”
“Little boys . . .” Diantha drew in a long breath. “Do you recall the wedding of Lady Katherine and Lord Blackwood at Savege Park?”
Emily turned her emerald eyes from the painting. “Yes.” She had a way of looking at a person like she was thinking hard, always a small crease between her brows above the brim of her gold spectacles.
“The night of the wedding my stepsister held a ball. I wasn’t yet sixteen, but I dressed in my prettiest gown and went to the party. It was splendid, the music and ladies and gentleman all from town dancing so beautifully. No one took notice of me, of course, and eventually I went out onto the terrace.”
“I wish I had joined you. I don’t care for dancing, but Kitty is a particular friend, so I must have danced that night.”
“That night I wanted to dance more than I wanted to breathe.”
Diantha smiled slightly. “The terrace was empty, so I danced by myself. Then a group of young men came outside and saw me. I’d known most of them for years—they were all local boys—so I asked if any of them would like to dance. I knew a lady mustn’t do such a forward thing, but I was so filled up with the music and thrill of the wedding day I didn’t care about the . . . rules.”
“Did any of them oblige you?”
“They said they would never wish to dance with me, even if there weren’t other girls around for miles. They said I looked like a sheep all white and spotty and round, and they made rude gestures. I shouldn’t have minded it, really.” Except that shortly before her mother left home, she’d called her round as a sheep. “But I cried, right there as they were laughing at me.”
“They were disgusting. I am astonished they were guests in Lady Savege’s home.”
Diantha shrugged. “They were normally all right. But that night they were quite drunk.”
“Miss Lucas, a man whose tongue goes astray when he is drunk is not a worthy man when he is sober. But it is true, strong spirits make idiots and cads of men.”
“All men?”
Lady Emily lifted her slender brows. “Know you an exception?”
“That night, when those boys said those horrible things . . .” Diantha twisted her fingers in the string of her reticule. “Mr. Yale rescued me. You are acquainted with him, I think.”
“Somewhat.”
“He was drunk that night too. But he helped me.” From the shadow of a tree beside the terrace where she hadn’t known he stood, he’d heard it all and come forward. “He told them to go away, and they did. Then he behaved with great gentlemanliness toward me.” He asked her to dance and became, irrevocably, her hero.
Lady Emily seemed to consider. “Perhaps a man must be cruel in his heart to be cruel when he has been drinking spirits.”
“Have you seen him?” She shouldn’t care. With Tracy’s pronouncement it didn’t matter anyway. But fear had begun to niggle at her, the specter of Mr. Eads never far from her thoughts. “Lately, that is. Here in town?”
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