“I’m sorry about last night,” he muttered. “Was it very bad?”
“I know you can do better. Much better.”
“I will,” he said. “Later. Or as soon as you like.”
She was not, however, in the mood to be dragged off to bed or the nearest piece of furniture. Too many questions needed answers, and this might be a moment to get some.
“Why do you continue to hate Blakeney so much?” she asked.
“I don’t. He’s nothing to me.”
“He’s your cousin. And while you may have little in common, there’s no reason to go on feeling bitter about childhood quarrels.”
“I know everyone else finds him so handsome and charming. I just don’t happen to agree. And I am not bitter.”
“Can’t you see that you’ve won? I am your wife, not his. It’s time to forget he removed your breeches when you were ten years old. Get over it!”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, but too late. He rose from the table, wiped his hands on a napkin and flung it to the floor. “What you do with Cousin Blakeney or any other man is immaterial to me, though I’d prefer it if you didn’t expect me to offer my name and fortune to your bastards.”
Starting to walk out, he paused for one last barb. “Let’s make sure this one is the last, shall we?”
He stalked out of the house again and this time Diana didn’t wait for his return. Three hours later she still burned with rage as her carriage joined the Great North Road and headed south. What he’d said was unforgivable.
Hadn’t she been the sweetest, saintliest, most understanding wife that was ever provoked by an untrusting, overly reserved, coldhearted, mean-tongued, inquisitorial man of a husband? She wanted to scream aloud her frustration at being tied for life to such a brute, that her poor innocent child would have no other father.
By the time they stopped to change horses, her indignation had lessened and she was feeling weepy.
“Perhaps we should go back.”
“No, milady,” Chantal said firmly. Diana had neither sought nor received her maid’s opinion, but she knew the Frenchwoman was thrilled to leave Saxton Iverley. In fact it was highly unlikely Chantal would ever agree to go there again. She’d find herself a duchess to dress and Diana would be reduced to a frump with messy hair, married to a reclusive bookworm who hated her, and live for the rest of her life in a frozen mausoleum where nobody called.
“I think milady’s neck aches, no?”
Like a docile child Diana let the maid remove her bonnet then turned her back so that Chantal could massage her from behind. “Thank you, that feels good.”
“I know les femmes enceintes. And I know their ‘usbands, too. Milord Iverley will come after you.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so.”
“He’s very angry with me. Not that he has any right to be.”
“He’ll miss you in bed. I know men.”
Diana gave an angry sniff. “If that’s the only reason, he can stay behind as far as I’m concerned. There should be more to marriage than bed.”
“He will be very worried about you. One day at most and he will follow you. Perhaps he’ll catch us on the road.” Chantal grinned. “I ‘ope not. Once we’re in London he won’t make us come back here until after the babe is born.”
Her maid’s confidence cheered her a little. Leaving him, letting him discover he missed her, might be the best way to bring Sebastian to his senses. She refused to think about what she’d do if the stratagem didn’t work.
“You’re right, Chantal. We’ll take a detour to Wallop to collect Miss Minerva and then on to Portman Square.” Tears pricked the back of her eyes. “I’m afraid I won’t be shopping for the season this year. I shall be big as an elephant by Easter.”
Chapter 31
When Sebastian returned to the house that afternoon, he brushed off Hedley’s greeting and strode off to the library. Like the day of another homecoming, his sanctuary had been invaded by a female, a maidservant feeding coal into the stove.
Irritated, he looked out of the window at a bleak prospect that matched his own inner landscape. He registered a blister on his forefinger, the result of hard riding around the countryside wearing the wrong gloves. He hadn’t even noticed the hole in the thin kidskin until he removed them and realized his hands had been clad for a walk through St. James’s, not galloping on the shores of the North Sea. No physical discomfort could match the pain in his heart when he thought of Blakeney and Diana together, sharing the tale of his youthful humiliation and laughing at him.
All this time he’d trusted her and she’d known.
A muted clatter of metal announced that the girl had finished with the stove and stowed the poker and shovel in their place. He waited with some impatience for her departure. Instead she approached him, looking scared, determined, and very young.
“My lord,” she said in the lilting Tyneside accent, bobbing a graceless curtsey. It was the first time one of the female servants had ventured to address him. “I kna I divint ought to speak but I want to thank you.”
“What for?”
“For taking me into the house after my da was kilt. Without it I’d have to go doon the pits.”
“That’s all right,” he said awkwardly. “It was Her Ladyship’s idea. What’s your name?”
“Mary, my lord. Mary Ash.”
“I’m sorry about your father, Mary. It was the least we could do.”
“Most girls haven’t the choice.” She thanked him again and scurried out of the room.
He stared after her, something tugging at his memory. The whore in South Molton Street, whose name he couldn’t now recall, had used similar words, had been glad to have the choice between life in service and reasonably genteel prostitution.
Coal worker or servant; servant or whore. Neither girl had any very alluring prospect, yet both were grateful for the option. A woman, he supposed, didn’t often have much choice about her path in life. A ghost of a thought came to him, so light and fleeting as scarcely to be conscious. Had Lady Corinna Iverley any choice? Had she wanted to leave him behind?
He slammed the door on that corner of his mind. Thinking of his mother was something he never did. Ever.
He had to decide what to do about another troublesome female, the woman who’d had no choice but to wed him instead of the man she really wanted. Much as he’d prefer to skulk in his library, he’d better go and find his wife, though he had no idea what he would say to her.
Against all reason he felt a thrill of anticipation as he traversed the miles of echoing passage to the east wing. The fact depressed him. How could he still want her? Yet he did. The knowledge of her betrayal did nothing to diminish her fatal allure.
He wondered whether he should knock—he didn’t usually—and decided not. The cowardly notion crossed his mind of pretending nothing was wrong, that he’d never seen the letter and the morning’s exchange had never happened. He wondered if she’d let him get away with it. Probably not.
He opened the door and walked into the glorious luxury of Lady Iverley’s chamber to find … nothing. No wife draped suggestively over a pile of cushions, no French maid sorting lace-trimmed undergarments. With a sinking stomach he noticed that many of the accoutrements of Diana’s occupation were also missing: the silver-backed hairbrushes on the dressing table, the perfume bottles, shawls and robes carelessly flung over the backs of chairs, slippers next to the bed. The Rajah’s Court was forlorn, for its Ranee had fled.
Slumped on the edge of the bed, his head between his hands, Sebastian gave way to despair. He didn’t want to live in this monument to perpetual winter with only the ghost of his uncle and a pack of male servants for company. His soul howled with grief that for a brief magical time light, color, laughter, and femininity had dispelled the gloom and made Saxton Iverley a place of joy. He’d lost it. He’d driven her away.
His eyes stung, an odd, unpracticed yet still familiar sensation. He hadn’t for
gotten the last time he wept. It was the day he finally accepted he was to spend his life in gray Northumberland instead of Italy, the fabled land of sunshine and heat.
Except it wasn’t the same. He was no longer a boy and his uncle couldn’t stop him from following her. He got up and ran all the way to the hall, yelling for Hedley and his valet.
That night, water broke through from a long forgotten horizontal mine shaft and once again flooded the Saxton colliery.
Chapter 32
Reaching London in late evening two weeks later, Sebastian decided to spend the night at his own house rather than join his wife at Portman Square. Ideally late evening would have been the perfect time for a visit, to the bedroom. But he wasn’t so foolhardy as to attempt an approach without an expensive peace offering.
One task could be tackled without delay. He ran Blakeney to earth at White’s; not in the gaming room but alone for once, in a corner with a decanter for company. His cousin hunched low in a chair with legs apart, one booted foot propped against the edge of a table.
He looked up, and peered through bloodshot eyes. “Well, if it isn’t Cousin Owlverley, the married man. Have some brandy and tell me all about life beneath the wifely boot. Or should I say slippers. Very smart little slippers Diana wears. All the better to show off those smart little ankles.”
Sebastian stuck his clenched fists in his pockets. “Why was my wife writing to you?” he asked.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Blake replied with an evil smile. “You can do that more easily if you are in the same town. Diana—I beg your pardon, Lady Iverley—has been back at least a week and this is the first time I’ve set eyes on you. I’m told proximity assists in harmonious marital relations.” He thought about that for a minute while taking a swig of brandy. “Or maybe not. What do I know of marriage? I was thinking of trying it lately but my chosen bride threw me over for another. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down and have a drink instead of standing there glaring at me?”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m not going to. It’s none of your damn business.”
“She’s my wife and very much my business.”
“I would never betray a lady’s confidence. As I said before, ask her yourself.” Blakeney raised his glass but Sebastian saw he wasn’t as drunk as he pretended. “Do you want a drink?” he repeated.
“No.”
“That’s not very friendly of you.”
“That’s because we aren’t friends. We never have been.”
“No. We’re just cousins. Do you want to talk about why we aren’t friends?”
“God no!” Sebastian said. “I want to beat you to a pulp.”
Blake put his feet on the floor and sat up straight. “Are you calling me out? Swords or pistols?”
“Certainly not. I have no desire to either kill you or cause a scandal. I am inviting you to a friendly bout at Jackson’s. Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock. Prepare to be turned into pulp.”
“You think you can do that to me?”
“I beat you in the horse race.”
“You had the better horse. This time it’ll be just the two of us.”
“Suits me fine.” Sebastian met his cousin’s eye. “This isn’t about Diana, you know.”
“No,” Blakeney replied. “It isn’t.”
Diana wasn’t sleeping well. Over a week since she’d reached London and no sight nor sound of Sebastian, not so much as a scrawled note in the post. He was being stubborn, she assured herself. Eventually he’d miss her and come after her. She didn’t want to even consider the possibility that he would rejoice in the departure of his unwanted wife and tiresome future offspring and sink back into his misogynistic ways.
Her sister’s companionship she found to be a mixed blessing. While in Shropshire, Minerva had been driven by boredom to write to a noted Radical whose columns in The Reformist she admired. A lively correspondence ensued. As far as Diana could tell, Mr. Bentley was a respectable gentleman of middle years without any notion that the letters signed “M. Montrose” were written by a female, let alone a seventeen-year-old. Still, it was one thing to pen earnest diatribes on recent legislation from the rural safety of Shropshire. Mr. Bentley lived in London. Minerva had told Diana all about her new hero but said not one word about wishing to meet him in person. This restraint filled Diana with deep suspicion.
Rising at nine after a restless night, she was alarmed to hear from the upstairs maid that Min had left a note on her door, asking not be disturbed because of a migraine. She burst in and found an arrangement of bolsters under the bedclothes. She could only hope Minerva had left early that morning rather than the night before.
That wish was crushed by the delivery of a hurriedly scrawled note from Minerva. She’d been arrested the previous night for attending a seditious meeting and was currently immured at the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. Rumor had it the prisoners were to be transferred to Newgate later in the day. Minerva would very much appreciate it if Diana could come and pay her bail.
Bad enough that Minerva had spent the night in jail. She must not spend even a minute in the notorious Newgate Prison, famous for filth, disease, and corruption. What the escapade might do to her sister’s reputation Diana didn’t even want to consider.
Without having the least idea how to rescue a young woman from the clutches of the law, she knew that a gentleman, preferably an influential one, would have better luck. Better yet a nobleman. But her own husband was unavailable, just when she needed him most.
She considered her close acquaintances and which ones she knew to be in town, and settled on Blakeney. He owed her a favor and he could help. No one boasted more powerful connections. She dashed off a note saying that Minerva was in trouble and she needed him to call urgently, underlined twice. Her summons would probably get him out of bed. Do him good, she thought waspishly. He’d caused enough trouble and now he could damn well put himself out for her.
She was not amused when her footman returned with the message that Lord Blakeney had a morning engagement he couldn’t postpone and would do himself the honor of calling on her later.
She’d see about that.
“Send for the carriage,” she ordered.
Twenty minutes later she marched up the steps of Blakeney’s Mount Street house and bullied his butler into indiscretion. Compensating the servant, now a broken man on the verge of tears, with a guinea, she directed her coachman to the lower end of Bond Street.
The effrontery of the man, to shrug her off for a sporting event!
“This is as close as I can get to number thirteen,” the coachman apologized.
“Never mind. I’ll walk.”
The distance was only a hundred feet but Diana managed to meet someone she knew, Lady Georgina Harville of all people, emerging from the haberdasher’s next door to Jackson’s. Neither could ignore the other without issuing a cut direct.
“Diana,” she said with a look that would turn a dairyful of cream to junket. “I didn’t know you were back in London. Allow me to felicitate you on your marriage.”
“Thank you, Lady Gee. I’d love to stop and talk but I have an urgent errand.”
“Wait! You can’t go in there.”
“I’d like to see anyone stop me.”
The hall porter of Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, a hulk of a man with a crooked nose, did his best. But though he was no doubt equal to the task of ejecting any unwelcome man who tried to storm the premises, he’d never been faced with a determined female. His mouth worked up and down like a fish’s as he sought the words to express his confusion.
“I’m here to see Lord Blakeney,” Diana announced, her nose as high as she could raise it.
“You can’t come in here,” was all the prizefighter could manage.
“Nonsense.”
She breezed past him and found herself in a large, high-ceilinged room with sawdust on the floor. The walls were decorated with paintings and prints depicting feats of
pugilism. In one corner stood an all too familiar sight, a weighing machine almost identical to the one in the hall at Wallop. The place reeked of that disgusting smell emitted by the exercising male, familiar to her from her brothers’ quarters: sweat and dirt.
Two or three dozen men were gathered in the place, some of them stripped to the waist. Rather a puny fellow crossed his arms over his chest in alarm at her approach. Diana rolled her eyes to the ceiling and refrained from telling him she’d seen it all before, and better. Two other gentlemen, similarly unclad, ducked out of her way with panicked croaks. Like a pair of old spinsters, she thought scornfully.
The majority of those present were concentrated in a group in the center of the place, among them Blakeney, who looked very good without his shirt. He was running in place while feinting punches with his hands, which were encased in funny padded mittens. The men surrounding him fell silent as she marched forward.
“Diana!” he said. “You shouldn’t be here. You must leave at once.”
“Boxing!” she hissed, poking him in the chest with her forefinger. “My sister is in trouble …” Poke, poke. “And you can’t come and help me …” Poke, poke. “Because you have an engagement. A boxing match?”
“Uh … Diana.”
“Don’t. Say. Another. Word! Put your on shirt immediately and come with me.”
A flurry of chatter arose among the company. She looked up and the crowd milled around to reveal another man stripped for boxing, one whose bare chest she knew intimately.
Sebastian was getting some quiet last-minute advice from Tarquin, who had sparred with Blakeney on numerous occasions.
“Overconfidence is his weakness. Keep your guard up and wait for him to drop his. Also, he tends to squander his strength in the early rounds. Keep in the fight and you’ll outlast him. Look at him now, jumping up and down, the big show-off.”
Sebastian offered his wrists for Tarquin to fasten his gloves and found he’d lost his friend’s attention. “I’ll be damned,” Tarquin muttered.
Sebastian peered through the crowd of men, who were chattering like a flock of pigeons thrown an unexpected bushel of grain. Since he wasn’t wearing his spectacles his vision more than three feet out was blurry, but he could tell that a woman stood next to Blake. She appeared to be jabbing at his chest and sounded highly agitated.
The Dangerous Viscount Page 27