by Eloisa James
He drifted across the room, knowing that he shouldn’t be here. Intruding on a lady’s bedchamber. Unheard of. Appalling.
No gentleman would consider such a thing. Perhaps an aftereffect of war was that a man lost his standards. Years before, if he had inadvertently entered a lady’s chamber without express permission, North would have promptly retreated from the room.
Here was Alaric planting the British flag on an impossibly tall mountain, Alaric wrestling a sea dragon, and Alaric entertaining the Empress of Russia in her bedchamber.
He turned to the paintings that crowded the mantelpiece. A sketch of kittens was propped next to a stick figure. Another engraving of the sort that adorned the wall. He held it closer to the fire so he could see the subject. A downtrodden girl was seated on a bench, a small child clutching her skirts.
The girl was recognizably Diana. Those straight eyebrows weren’t hers, but the pointed chin and full lips? Undeniably Miss Diana Belgrave. On the doorstep behind her, an aristocrat lounged.
It could have been any man in a wig and heels. He didn’t think his lips curled in such a thin, fantastically cruel line. At least he hoped not.
He had horns. Wonderful.
One of his hands was out of sight. He tilted the page toward the light to see whether . . .
Damn it.
“You’re the wicked baron,” a sleepy voice said from the other side of the fireplace. “Naturally, your hands are wandering.”
North’s head jerked up. Diana had pulled the dressing gown she wore the previous night over her nightdress. Her face was in shadow but he was acutely aware of her body and its curves. Once a man had glimpsed Diana’s breasts, they couldn’t be unseen.
“I thought you’d fled the castle,” he said, putting the print back on the mantel. “Forgive me for entering your chamber, but your nephew isn’t in the nursery and I was concerned about you.” He corrected himself. “Him.”
“Godfrey is here,” she said, nodding toward the bed. “He crawls into my bed when he feels uncertain or afraid. Since he doesn’t yet speak, I’m never quite sure what took him out of his own bed.”
“How old is he?” North walked over to the bed because, after all, he’d expressed interest in the boy’s welfare. In reality, he didn’t feel more than the usual curiosity one male feels about another who has usurped his place in bed.
“Almost four years old,” Diana said, an edge of worry clear in her voice.
North had a shockingly strong impulse to comfort her, but he couldn’t think what to say. “When do they usually begin speaking?”
“‘They’ being children in general?” Her voice had a thread of laughter in it, like pure spun gold. “Artie began before she was a year old, but I understand that boys are often slower to speak. I think she is as unusual in her own way as Godfrey is in his.”
Diana had turned away to light a lamp, and now she brought it over and stood at North’s shoulder. The boy was curled up like a snail, fast asleep. He had red hair and his long eyelashes lay on his cheeks like tiny fans.
“Did you and your sister have the same hair?” North asked, for something to say.
“Oh, no, she was truly beautiful. Rose had lovely hair, the color of yellow primroses in spring. Godfrey was unfortunate enough to inherit that hair from his father.”
What did she mean by saying her sister was “truly beautiful” or that Godfrey was “unfortunate”?
“Was Godfrey’s father . . .” North hesitated. “A member of the household?”
“No.” She reached out and pulled the covers over the boy’s little shoulder. “Her fiancé, as it happens.” Her voice was wooden. “A gentleman, supposedly.”
Right there was the reason men of honor ought to behave with propriety, especially with their betrothed. “He died before they could marry,” North said, appalled.
“He did.”
“That’s bloody bad luck.”
A soft sound, like a choked giggle, escaped her. “I never heard you curse while we were betrothed. In fact, I didn’t think you had thoughts violent enough to justify the lack of dignity.”
There was enough humiliating material there to destroy whatever fragments of self-worth he had clung to after being jilted.
She seemed to recognize it, because after a pause, she added, “Only because you were beautifully behaved, North. Seemingly effortlessly proper.”
Had she really thought him so proper that a curse wouldn’t cross his lips? North found that galling.
He cut her off before she could further pare his manhood down to the size of the boy in her bed. “And yet, here I am, in your bedchamber uninvited, in the middle of the night.” A gleam of dark amusement eased his exhaustion. “You could say that I’m playing the role of that Shakespeare character I’m depicted as. Not Hamlet, obviously.”
“I have no idea who the character is,” Diana said. “My mother considers dramatists to be dissolute by nature. She included Shakespeare in that group, so I haven’t read the plays. I must say that the plot of Cymbeline seems to confirm her opinion.”
“Hinges on a ravishment, as I remember it,” North said.
“I don’t suppose you’re planning to reprise the role?”
It took a moment for him to work out what she was saying. His head snapped around and he met her eyes, only to feel his incipient fury—did everyone think he was capable of rape?—melt away. Her eyes were dancing.
For a moment, rash words trembled on his tongue. His better nature prevailed, and he gave her a lopsided smile. “I only ravish fair ladies after emerging from a trunk. It’s a prerequisite.”
“I understand,” she said, her voice somehow turning laughter into words. “A gentleman must have standards.”
“Dukes require trunks full of diamonds,” he said, walking back toward the fireplace. He should go to his dark, quiet bedroom and the memories hovering in its corners. Instead he crouched down and put another log on the fire, poking at the embers to make it catch. “I wouldn’t have entered, but for the fact your door was ajar.”
“I leave it open for Godfrey,” she explained. “He can’t tell me his emotions, you see. It makes it difficult.”
North almost opened his mouth and said something absurd. Instead, he forced out a different sentence. “Who was your sister’s fiancé?”
He was beginning to formulate a plan to break down the door of the rake’s house and force his family to support their illegitimate grandson. He would take care of Diana, but the boy’s grandparents could set Godfrey up in comfort.
Their son had been a reprobate. Or perhaps merely imprudent, in love, and deeply unlucky.
Diana drifted to the other side of the fireplace. “Would you like some honey toast?”
He frowned at her. “What?”
“Honey toast. When Artie is as tired as you are, I feed her honey toast.” If her voice had been sympathetic, he would have left the room. Instead, she was matter-of-fact.
She went over to a table on the side of the room and began sawing at a loaf of bread. North poked at the fire again, trying to remember if he’d ever seen a lady slicing bread. He rather thought not, since he’d never been served by any hand other than a servant’s.
After a minute or two, Diana returned to his side holding two long forks of the sort he remembered from Eton. Thick, uneven slices were stuck on the tines. One side of his mouth curled up at the sight; servants knew how to cut a loaf of bread properly, which Diana did not.
She nudged him with a fork handle. “Your bread, Your Future Grace.”
Diana Belgrave had the most beautiful smile in the world. Tonight, she hadn’t braided her hair for bed, any more than she’d braided his sister Artie’s. It was loose, a silky mass thrown over one shoulder.
“Do you need me to show you how to make toast?” she asked, a wry note entering her voice because he hadn’t moved, frozen in place.
“No,” he said, taking his fork and hers as well. She opened her mouth to protest, shrugged, went bac
k to the table and clattered about. The rich smell of fresh butter and a sultry waft of honey filled the room.
He felt a pang of hunger, perhaps because they were such simple foods. Since landing in England, he had discovered that his stomach revolted at mushrooms à la béchamel, hare cake in jelly, and even lamb cutlets à l’échalote, which he used to enjoy.
Pigeons à la poulette made him feel physically ill. Giblets of beef aux fines herbes? No.
But farmer’s bread, turning brown and crispy around the edges, made him hungry. “My brothers and I used to tramp across the countryside carrying bread and roast beef tied up in handkerchiefs,” he said, over his shoulder.
He propped up the forks and pulled one of the chairs close enough that he didn’t have to crouch on the hearth. “We were forbidden to build fires, so naturally we always toasted our bread.”
He didn’t watch as she settled into the other chair. She might have told him, foolishly, that a lady couldn’t be compromised once she accepted a salary. That didn’t mean a man couldn’t seduce her. Not ravish: seduce.
The question was irrelevant, as he had no plan to do either.
“That sounds like fun,” Diana said, curling her legs underneath her. Her toes were delicate and pink. “I always manage to burn my toast, but you’re getting an even brown. Were your brothers as skilled at cookery as you seem to be?”
“Horatius would painstakingly toast his bread to a perfect color on all sides. But I am still waiting for an answer to my question, Diana. Who was your sister’s fiancé?”
“I don’t like to think about him.”
North glanced up, just to be sure that the castle governess had refused to answer his question. Or, to put it another way, that his former fiancée was stirring a jar of honey and ignoring him.
He flipped the toast, and thought about that. Then he tried a new tactic.
“Will you please tell me his name? We needn’t discuss his qualities.”
“Why do you want to know?”
He glanced up as the jar of honey thumped onto the hearthstone next to a plate containing a slab of butter and a dented knife.
“His family ought to support Godfrey,” he said, slathering butter onto a perfectly toasted slice. “I shall make that clear to them. And to your mother as well, by the way.”
“Rose’s fiancé had only a father, who died with him. Why would anyone accept responsibility?”
“Someone must have inherited his land, and along with inheritance comes responsibility. Rose was not any woman; she was a lady and his betrothed. I don’t understand why she didn’t go to his family, if your mother threw her out.”
“My mother continued to support her. Rose sank into a melancholy when her fiancé died, so my mother postponed her plan to bring both of us to London for the Season. And then Rose found out she was carrying a child.”
“That must have been a shock.”
“Rose was happy about it. My mother was not, but she finally accepted it; she was there when Godfrey was born. When she and I moved to London for the Season, Rose couldn’t live with us, obviously, or people would find out about Godfrey. But Mother rented a house for them in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and we saw them as often as we could.”
North pulled the dipper from the jar and drizzled honey over the toast. “Is this honey from the estate?”
“Yes.” Diana smiled, clearly relieved to drop the subject. “It smells like balsam and sweet alyssum. Lady Knowe experimented last year with planting lavender near the hives.”
North offered Diana a slice of toast, ignoring the bone-deep satisfaction he felt at feeding her.
Her smile grew, reminding him sharply how dangerous this impromptu visit was. Shadows in the room had drawn around them warmly, and even the bed holding her nephew seemed to have retreated from the circle of flickering golden light coming from the fireplace.
It was as if they were in a small boat on a large sea, just the two of them.
He dragged his gaze away after she took a bite of toast, which left her lips glistening and soft. If they kissed, she would taste like butter and honey. His toast had begun to burn, so he pulled it out and slapped on a chunk of butter, which promptly melted and ran down his wrist.
Without thinking, he raised his hand and licked it off, just as he would have as a boy.
“What happened to you?” a curious voice asked.
She was smiling again, damn it.
“You would never have licked yourself in front of me before. Was it going to war? Or is it because I’m not your betrothed any longer? Or because I’m no longer a lady?” There wasn’t any condemnation in her tone, just genuine curiosity.
The damnable thing about the silent castle in the middle of the night was this feeling of seclusion. A boat in the middle of the sea, with no one for miles around.
He’d grown up knowing that the Wildes were an object of curiosity to all England. Attention had become more fierce after he became his father’s heir, and it leapt again after Alaric became famous as an author of travel memoirs.
Printing presses churned out prints that turned them all into objects of public fascination. Privacy had been in short supply for most of his adult life.
“I feel comfortable with you,” he said, taking another bite before he could say something stupid.
“I suppose it’s because we have a past.” Her voice was thoughtful. “You can trust me not to be chasing after you with ducal lust in my eyes.”
He finished the toast, knowing damned well that he’d like to see any kind of lust in her eyes.
“You’d better eat this as well,” she said, handing over her piece, minus a couple of bites. “I’m not hungry.”
The warm bread was in his stomach a moment later. “Whether or not Godfrey’s family knows he exists, they must pay for his care,” North said, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping his hands. He sank back in his chair feeling inexpressibly exhausted. “He’s blood of their blood. Their relative took advantage of a lady, the lady whom he should have treasured most in the world.”
“Do we have to discuss it?”
“Yes.”
He opened his eyes a slit, just enough so that he could see the way golden strands wove through her red hair. See her, curled in the other chair.
The silence lasted so long he nearly closed his eyes, but not to sleep. He rarely slept these days, and certainly not in a woman’s room. He hadn’t shared intimacies with a woman since . . . since he saw Diana for the first time.
Her expression was unreadable, the way it used to be when she was covered with face paint and powder. Without thinking, he scowled at her.
“What?” she asked, surprised.
“Your face took a turn into your mother’s idea of a perfect duchess,” he said, allowing more than a tinge of cynicism into his voice.
She hunched up one shoulder. “I suppose I can tell you about Rose and her fiancé. It’s not easy to have a grocer as a grandfather,” she said, coming at the subject from the side. Naturally.
Diana’s voice was like velvet, with nothing of a grocer audible. Her accent was the purest King’s English, her voice resonant with the inherent confidence that supposedly results from generations of aristocrats.
“He loved proverbs,” Diana said, working toward an answer in her own way. “He would say, ‘One volunteer is worth two pressed men.’ Have you ever heard that before?”
He had. He had refused to have any “pressed” men in his regiment—those boys snatched from the streets and forced into service. Lethargy was stealing through him. “Perhaps we should discuss it tomorrow,” he murmured. Lord knew how long it would take Diana to get from proverbs and pressed men back to her sister.
“I don’t want to discuss this ever again,” Diana stated, so he opened his eyes. “That proverb is just as relevant for ladies as it is for sailors. I was blackmailed into service, if that makes sense, but Rose was a volunteer.” A tight note in her voice filtered through his hazy exhaustion.
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��I don’t understand. She fell in love?”
“Not initially. You see, I was supposed to marry him, but I didn’t want to. Rose volunteered. My mother was furious because Rose was truly beautiful. She would have won the highest in the land had she debuted in London, and my mother was acutely aware of Rose’s value.”
He was so absorbed by Diana’s casual depiction of a mother who assessed her daughters like horseflesh that he almost missed the implication that she wasn’t beautiful. Diana couldn’t have meant that.
“Of those men available to marry, I was the highest in the land during that Season,” he said flatly. “She couldn’t have won me, because you had already done so.”
Her laughter blended into the honeyed, quiet air. “That’s only because you never met Rose. She was not only lovely, but she had flawless manners.” Her voice was warm with affection and love.
North was damned sure he would have ignored Rose if Diana had been in the same ballroom.
“My mother refused, of course, but Rose took matters into her own hands. My proposed spouse and his father paid a second visit to our house, and Rose smiled at him.”
North squinted across the fire. Diana was curvy and soft, everything he’d dreamed of as a boy. Her hair shone like a river of fire and her mouth . . . well, poems had been written about lips like hers. Only half of them were appropriate in polite company. In fact, none of them were, because any man reading the poem would know—North cut himself off.
“I miss her so much,” she said.
“I miss my brother, but you would have hated him,” he observed. “You seem to think that I’m pokerfaced, but Horatius was fifty times more pompous than I am.”
“We’ve both lost a sibling,” Diana said in a surprised tone, not taking issue with his summary of her feelings about him.
Had he really been that pompous? Or that much of an ass?
Another wave of exhaustion hit him and he shut his eyes again. “So was it a love match?”