“Good day, Your Grace,” he said solemnly to Charlotte, greeting each of them in turn by rank. “Good day, my lady. Good day, Lady Diana. I am your servant.”
Unable to make herself speak—even if she could find words to say—Diana ducked her chin in a nervous small nod and smiled as best she could. It wasn’t much of a smile, not at all, nor was it enough to thaw Lord Crump’s grave expression.
“I trust you are well, Lady Diana?” he asked, his face looming in the window as he continued astride his horse.
“Oh, th-thank you, yes, my lord, I am,” Diana stammered, her cheeks hot. “Very well. I trust you are also well?”
“I am well, Lady Diana,” he said. “Indeed, I am grateful for your solicitude.”
She had never felt more devoid of wit or conversation, more awkward or tongue-tied in her life—nor, she suspected, had Lord Crump as he stared at her, his pale eyes unblinking.
Not that Mama appeared to notice their discomfiture. “There now, Lord Crump,” Mama said, beaming with overbright cheerfulness. “A fair beginning if ever there was one! But wouldn’t it be better if you were to continue to converse beyond our ears? Diana, why don’t you climb down and walk a bit along the path with his lordship whilst your sister and I take our turn about the drive. Does such a plan please you, Lord Crump?”
“It does, Lady Hervey.” His face disappeared from the window as he dismounted from his horse, and Charlotte called for the footman to open the door.
Not daring to speak aloud from fear the marquis would overhear, Diana shot a look of desperate pleading to her mother. She did not want to walk a bit with Lord Crump; in fact, she did not wish to spend so much as a second alone in his company.
But her mother would not relent.
“Pray do not keep his lordship waiting, Diana,” she said, her words full of unspoken warning. “Charlotte and I will come collect you on our way back, no more than a quarter hour’s time. Though the paths are full of people this afternoon, I shall trust you to his lordship’s care.”
The footman opened the door and flipped down the steps. Another of their footmen was holding his lordship’s horse for him, while his lordship himself stood waiting, his arms hanging against his sides, either with patience or with resignation.
Oh, preserve her, he had long arms. Dressed in black, he looked for all the world like a crow with folded wings, the black beak of his cocked hat overshadowing his face.
“Diana,” Mama said in a warning tone. “Do not dawdle.”
With a gulp, she took the footman’s offered hand and climbed from the carriage. As she passed Charlotte, she felt her sister’s hand press lightly on her back in silent sympathy. Yet instead of comforting her, the small gesture nearly made Diana burst into tears.
She fussed with her skirts, shaking out and smoothing the ruffled silk to postpone the moment when she must take Lord Crump’s arm. At last she couldn’t put it off any longer, and she looked up at him.
Still he stood without moving, his expression unchanging. He wasn’t offering her his arm, either. With any other gentleman, Diana would have been insulted, but now she felt only relief.
“Shall we walk, my lord?” she said, striving to sound cheerful.
He nodded and began to walk, clearly expecting her to follow. She hurried to join him, her skirts billowing around her ankles. She heard the door to Charlotte’s carriage close behind her and the driver call to the horses to move on, and there she was, alone with the crow she was supposed to wed.
No, she wasn’t exactly with him. She was beside him, which, fortunately, didn’t appear to be the same thing at all.
The very concept of a walk along the mall with a lady seemed to elude Lord Crump. Instead of strolling at a leisurely pace, enjoying the sun filtering through the trees overhead and making genteel conversation, he walked purposefully, with his head bent and his arms swinging at his sides. While he was the same height as Diana (although the nodding plumes on her hat gave her a distinct advantage), his stride was almost a soldier’s clipped march, forcing Diana in her heeled shoes to trot beside him to keep up as they dodged among the park’s other visitors.
But Diana was determined to keep pace, and determined, too, to begin some manner of conversation, if for no other reason than to be able to tell her mother she had tried.
“Do you like my hat, Lord Crump?” she asked breathlessly, the exact opening that worked with most tongue-tied gentlemen. “It’s new. You’re the first to see it.”
He stopped abruptly to consider the hat. “Do you like the hat, Lady Diana?”
“I do,” she said. “Else I wouldn’t have worn it, would I?”
“Ah,” he said. “Then I resolve to like it as well.”
He turned and began walking again, clearly considering his duty to both the hat and Diana complete.
But Diana would not give up, not yet.
“I am sorry for your loss, Lord Crump,” she said. “Of your brother, I mean.”
Again he stopped, and she stopped, too.
“My brother and I were not close,” he said. “He was much older than I, and we were born to different mothers. He fell to smallpox, you know.”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” she said again. “It must have been a grievous shock.”
“It was,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to marry at all, but now that I have inherited the title and all with it, I have no choice.”
Diana made a small, wordless exclamation of surprise at such an ungallant confession. She felt more than a little pain, too. How could Mama have praised this gentleman when he’d speak so callously to her?
“No choice but to marry me, my lord?” she asked, her voice squeaking upward. “No choice?”
“No,” he said bluntly. “You see I am not easy in the company of ladies, Lady Diana. I require a son, an heir, and for that I must have a wife. Your sisters have proven themselves to be fecund, and I trust you shall be, too.”
Diana gasped, so shocked she could not bear to meet his gaze any longer, but instead stared down at the path beneath her feet. Of course it was hoped that every marriage would be blessed with children, and for noble marriages it was imperative. But for Lord Crump to speak so coldly and with so little feeling of her fecundity, as if she were a broodmare, appalled her. It wasn’t that she was overly nice about how those noble babies were to be produced—lady or not, she’d been raised in the country, where there were no mysteries about such matters—but the thought of lying with this man as his wife and bearing his children horrified her.
She knotted her hands into fists at her sides, struggling to control her emotions. She couldn’t make a scandalous scene here on the mall. Likely there were already people slowing to observe them, whispering behind their fans, preparing the tattle to share with friends. With a shuddering breath, she forced herself to look up, intending to meet his gaze as evenly as she could.
But Lord Crump wasn’t even looking at her. Instead he was staring off down the path, his expression suddenly more animated and eager than it had been since he’d met her.
“By Jove, that is Merton,” he murmured, marveling. “In the park, of all places.”
“Who is Merton?” Diana asked innocently.
He frowned, clearly irritated to have her ask a question that was so obvious to him.
“The Earl of Merton, of course,” he said, still looking down the path. “A most important gentleman in the House of Lords. I have been trying to meet with him for days regarding an important trade bill before it comes to a vote, and now—here, you will not object if I go speak with him, Lady Diana. I shall be only a moment, and will return directly when I am done.”
He did not wait for Diana to reply, but immediately charged off in the direction of the elusive Lord Merton.
Speechless again, Diana watched him go. Although she’d hardly been enjoying his company, it was still preferable to being abandoned here in the middle of the mall. Already the fashionable crowd on the walk was beginning to gape at her, taking
note of the astonishing sight of a young lady standing alone and unattended. Anxiously she smoothed the sleeves of her gown and then her lace scarf over her shoulders. It was too soon for her sister and mother to return in the carriage, and she’d absolutely no desire to chase after Lord Crump and his precious Lord Merton.
Yet she could not remain where she was, as adrift as if she’d been cast off in a boat in the middle of the ocean. She looked down one way, then the other, and without hesitating any longer she turned from the main path entirely and ran off among the shady trees, not stopping until she was deep in the shade. Breathing hard, she leaned against the nearest tree and closed her eyes.
A moment alone to think, to calm herself, to swallow back her humiliation and despair. Only a moment, and then she’d go back and wait for the carriage.
But a moment was more than she’d have. She heard the rustling in the dry leaves first, the odd snuffling breathing that was suddenly around the hem of her skirt. She yelped with surprise and her eyes flew open. The white dog at her feet looked up at her, unperturbed and happy to have her attention. He was smallish, some manner of bulldog, with oversized pink ears like a bat’s and a crumpled face that was so ugly it became endearing. His barrel-like sides quaked as he panted, and he seemed to be grinning up at her with his tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth.
“Whom do you belong to?” she said softly, crouching down before the dog to ruffle his ears. “Where is your master, to let you run through the woods like this?”
The dog closed his eyes and made such a grumbling groan of complete contentment that she laughed.
“What a delightful fellow you are,” she said. He was obviously someone’s much-loved pet: not only was he round and well fed (perhaps a bit too well fed), but he wore an elegant red leather collar with silver studs around his neck. There was a silver tag, too, and she tried to turn it around to learn his name. “Come, let me properly make your acquaintance, sir.”
“His name’s Fantôme,” said a gentleman’s voice behind her. “It seems he has made a more glorious conquest than his usual squirrels.”
With a little gasp of surprise, Diana looked swiftly over her shoulder to the gentleman, and gasped again. He was young, not much older than herself, and he was every bit as handsome as his dog was not. He’d broad shoulders and the strong, even features that would make any woman walking along the mall take notice of him, but it was his smile that captivated Diana. The devil-may-care grin that reached his eyes made her smile at once in return.
“Fantôme is French for ‘ghost,’ isn’t it?” she asked.
“It is,” he said, crouching down to her level with the dog between them. He wore a blue coat and a red waistcoat, both cheerfully bright even here in the shadows, and his light-colored buckskin breeches were tucked into top boots. There were spurs on the boots, which showed he’d been riding and had somewhere shed both his mount and his hat to chase after his dog.
“Though I fear Fantôme’s far too corporeal to be a real specter,” he continued. “You’ve only to look at him to see the truth. Isn’t that so, Monsieur le Gros?”
“Master Fat!” Diana exclaimed, translating for herself. “You’d call this fine gentleman by so dreadful a name?”
“I would,” declared the gentleman soundly, patting the dog’s broad back with fondness. “He is a French dog, and he is fat. And I do call him Monsieur le Gros, because it’s true. All the best endearments are, you know.”
“If you call your dog Master Fat,” she said, “then I should not wish to hear what you would call your lady.”
“Ah, but I haven’t a lady, you see.” He sighed deeply and drew his brows together, trying to look sorrowful, but only succeeded in making Diana laugh again. “I’ve no need for endearments beyond those for Fantôme.”
“I don’t believe you, sir,” Diana scoffed. “Gentlemen like you always have ladies.”
“That’s true, too,” he agreed. “More truth: I do not have a lady at present, but I expect to have one again very soon.”
Her cheeks warmed. It wasn’t the same kind of miserable flush that she’d felt with Lord Crump, but the exciting glow that came from mutual interest and amusement. He was flirting outrageously with her, and if she were honest, she was doing the same with him. She shouldn’t be permitting any of this, of course. She should rise and immediately return to the path and to Lord Crump or her sister’s carriage, whichever returned first.
But she didn’t. “Then we are quite even,” she said. “I didn’t have a gentleman when I rose this morning, but I do now.”
“I congratulate you on your swift acquisition, ma’am,” he said, clearly assuming she meant him. “Might I guess the fortunate gentleman’s name?”
She shook her head, the flirtation as suddenly done as it had begun. Yesterday, and any other yesterday before it, she would have been gratified to see the interest on this gentleman’s handsome face. Any other day, and she would have been pleased to see that he was as charmed by her as she was by him.
But today, now, she was promised to Lord Crump. She could vow she wouldn’t marry him, that she’d rebel, but her conscience told her that she wouldn’t. She’d be as dutiful in obeying her mother’s choice as her sisters had been, and pray that her own marriage would be as happy as theirs. She would because, truly, a lady had no choice.
And she would never again sit beneath a tree to laugh and flirt with a handsome gentleman like this one.
She scrambled back to her feet. “I must go. I can’t stay any longer.”
He stood, too, making her realize how tall and broad and brilliantly male he was in his blue coat.
“You could stay if you wished it,” he said as Fantôme, agitated, began to race around them. “Another moment or two. Please. You can.”
She shook her head, looking back through the trees to the path. She saw Lord Crump, his black mourning standing out among the others as he waited for her.
“Please don’t ask me,” she said, beginning to back away. “Because I can’t. I can’t.”
He caught her hand lightly to keep her from leaving.
“Only a moment, sweetheart,” he said. He considered her hat, then plucked one of the tiny silk flowers from the crown, as if plucking a real flower from a garden. He tucked the wire stem into the top buttonhole of his coat and gave it an extra pat.
“There,” he said softly, smiling. “For remembrance, yes?”
“No,” she said, striving to harden her voice and her heart, and failing at both. “Good day, sir.”
Then she turned and ran, back to the path, to Lord Crump, and to her fate as his wife.
There were very few people in this world (or the next, for that matter) who could influence the actions of George Charles Bramley Atherton, the fourth Duke of Sheffield. The groom charged with the breeding of His Grace’s favorite horses was one, and his personal chef de cuisine in Paris was perhaps another. But the only mortal who, by way of a letter alone, could make Sheffield return to London on the night boat from Calais was his favorite cousin, the Duke of Breconridge.
Now, as the carriage slowed before Brecon’s town house, Sheffield glanced down at the white bulldog dozing on the seat beside him and sighed. He’d slept late, and he’d taken his time dressing, and he’d even gone for a brief ride in the park to help compose his thoughts, and his defense, too. The shadows in the street were long and the day was very nearly done, and he couldn’t keep Brecon waiting any longer.
“I fear it’s finally time, Fantôme,” he said, resigned. “Though the fair lady you found for me in the park certainly was a worthwhile diversion.”
He touched the silk flower, still in his buttonhole. She had been fair, and with her golden hair and wide blue eyes, she’d been as delicious a creature as ever could be found in London. Yet there had been more to her beyond her beauty. It was hard for him to define exactly. He’d liked how she’d laughed, a rippling merriment deep in her throat, and he’d liked how she’d answered him with ease and wi
th cleverness, too. She’d made him smile, and she’d made him laugh, which in his experience was both rare and pleasurable. Of course, when she’d crouched down to pet Fantôme, she’d also unwittingly displayed her well-rounded breasts as her lace kerchief had come untucked, and remembering that—or them—was powerfully pleasurable, too.
Not that anything would come of it. He sighed again. There was the man she’d mentioned, and Sheffield was sure she’d run off to join whoever it was. Besides, Sheffield must now vow to Brecon to be as chaste as a monk, at least until Brecon’s ire had faded. He smiled ruefully down at the little silk flower and pulled it from his coat. Brecon would spot such a token at once, and Sheffield already had sufficient explanations to make without adding a mysterious girl in the park. But instead of casting the little flower into the street, he tucked it inside his waistcoat pocket for safekeeping.
“Don’t tell Brecon, Fantôme,” he said, still thinking of the girl as he glanced from the window. “Misbehavior of any sort will not be tolerated while we are in His Grace’s domain.”
Two years had passed since Sheffield had last climbed those white marble steps, two years that he’d spent traveling abroad, yet nothing had changed about Brecon’s house. Nothing had changed, really, for as long as Sheffield could remember. The silver knocker, shaped like a curving dolphin, still gleamed mirror bright, and the carefully clipped yew trees in their marble pots beside the door never grew any larger. And Sheffield would have wagered a sovereign that at the precise instant his carriage’s footman let his hand approach that black-painted door, the door would open, and behind it would be Brecon’s butler, the improbably named Houseman, equally unchanged and unchanging.
Which was exactly what happened, though to Sheffield’s regret, no one else had stood by to witness and take his sovereign wager.
“Good day, Your Grace,” Houseman murmured as he held the door wide for Sheffield and Fantôme to pass. It was one of the miracles of Houseman that the butler could unerringly sense when a person of rank was calling, so that he could step in the place of the more usual footman to open the door himself. “Might we offer you a welcome upon your return to London, sir?”
When the Duke Found Love Page 2