Ernest, Rose, Diana, Lord Harrington, and Aunt Renata all returned to the Bannerman estate that evening for dinner. The maids and butlers arrived only a few hours later, and were also given a feast, in celebration of finally coming back to their “home.” When the Harrington estate was fully reconstructed, a decision would have to be made regarding whether or not Lord Harrington and Aunt Renata would return. As it stood, it felt oddly silly for them to be far away from Diana. Already, she felt they’d lost so much time with other loved ones. Why shouldn’t they have everyone around?
The following week, Aunt Renata, Diana, and Ernest took a carriage to Bond Street for some light shopping. The wedding was three weeks away, and Diana wanted to look at old jewellery, as she wanted to style herself a bit differently than other brides. Something unique, rather than entirely “in fashion.” This was her way.
As was her custom, Aunt Renata chirped endlessly behind them, speaking about the various engagement parties they were planning, about the after-wedding dinners, about who would be invited and who would, perhaps scandalously, not be.
Diana knocked her head to the side, dotting it on Ernest’s bicep. She gave him a sneaky smile, rolling her eyes. His eyes told her he understood: Aunt Renata was certainly an unfortunate shopping companion.
As they rounded the corner, Diana’s ears filled with another familiar voice.
“Darling, I don’t know what’s gotten into your head,” the voice uttered. “It’s as though I’m meeting you for the first time.”
“I’m telling you simply that my mother will not abide that sort of behaviour,” a man’s voice blurted.
Diana’s eyes flashed toward a stall that sold fine cheeses. There, standing in front of it, was Grace Bragg herself. She spoke pointedly toward a beautiful, blonde man—assuredly the duke she’d left Ernest for. Her lower lip bubbled as her rage grew.
“I simply don’t understand you,” Grace continued. “Your mother isn’t anyone we should bother ourselves with. Haven’t you seen the way she dresses herself? Hasn’t anyone told her? She needs far more than a girdle.”
The look that stretched across the duke’s face was difficult to describe. Diana gripped Ernest’s elbow, her heart fluttering wildly in her throat.
The duke leaned toward Grace, his eyebrows pulled together. His face looked more angular than perhaps it normally did, expressing an outrageous anger.
“That’s the final time you’re to speak of my mother in this manner, Grace Bragg,” the duke warned, his voice low and husky. “If you think for a moment that I won’t abandon you for the next woman who comes along—someone who can actually carry a conversation without talking ill of whoever is around—then you think incorrectly.”
Grace beamed at him. She was always ready for a fight.
“You couldn’t have anyone as good as me, and you know it,” she retorted. “I’m far more beautiful than any other woman in London. And you—you’re only the Duke of Coventry. Coventry! It’s a farm town, if anything. The fact that I’m returning there with you after the wedding is a sacrifice that I’m sure I’ll pay for every day of our lives together.”
The duke arched his brow. Sexual energy did seem to simmer between them, as though they got off on the argument. As this wasn’t Diana or Ernest’s way, it was certainly a puzzlement.
“You disgust me,” the duke growled. He gripped Grace’s upper arm with a firm hand, drawing her closer to him.
“And you make me wish I’d never crossed paths with you that evening at the ball,” Grace returned.
There was a long, dramatic pause. Diana hadn’t a clue what to do next. The crowd streamed around them, thrusting them closer and closer to the cheese. And—worst of all—it seemed that Aunt Renata hadn’t noticed Grace, and beamed around Ernest and Diana, huffing. “All I want in this world is to bring back a bit of fine cheese for your father. Why aren’t the two of you walking? I declare…”
It wasn’t until Aunt Renata was perched directly beside Grace that she noticed who she was. She blurted, “Oh, goodness me!” in a high-pitched voice, then bumbled back, nearly toppling some pieces of cheese to the ground below. The cheesemonger hustled forward, pulling the various cheeses deeper onto the table and away from Aunt Renata’s awkward movements.
Grace and the duke, of course, spun round to glare down at Aunt Renata.
“Grace. Lady Grace Bragg,” Aunt Renata said, her voice hesitant. She drew a lock of hair behind her ear. She looked much younger than she was—awkward, skittish.
“Oh. I hardly remember your name,” Grace replied. She tilted her chin higher, so that she appeared even taller than Aunt Renata.
“Oh, dear. I suppose that is reasonable, what with all the new developments in your life,” Aunt Renata tittered. She flashed her hand toward Ernest and Diana, gesturing for them to come.
Grace turned toward them. She looked strangely like a cat, toying with a mouse. The duke stepped tighter toward her, seemingly staking “claim” on her, despite the fact that they’d only moments before expressed their sincere hatred for one another. Perhaps this would be their way forever.
Ernest pressed his lips to Diana’s ear and whispered, “As if I would ever want her back in a million years…”
“Good afternoon, Lord Bannerman. Diana,” Grace said.
“Hello, Lady Bragg. I expected you to be far and away in Coventry by now,” Ernest said. He brought his hand out toward the duke’s. The duke just blinked down at it, seemingly aghast that Ernest would ever think he would do such a thing, to shake his hand like that.
“Yes, well,” Grace said. She looked rather smug. “The wedding is only just this weekend. I wouldn’t think to have it anywhere else but London.”
“Of course not,” Ernest offered.
The air between them felt sterile and strange, as though they’d hardly known one another, let alone had ever been just weeks from being married.
“Diana,” Grace said, turning her head slightly. She scanned Diana’s upper body, then her skirt below. “You’re looking…well.”
“Thank you,” Diana said. She was surprised how calm she felt. She beamed at Grace, then said, “I do hope nothing’s the matter?”
Grace scoffed. “Of course not. What could be the matter? We’re simply selecting cheese for our first course for dinner this evening. The duke’s mother is joining us here in London. Really a wretched woman, she—”
Here, the Duke wrapped his hand around her elbow and yanked at it—only slightly, but definitely enough for the others to notice. Grace cast him a horrific stare, her lips parted.
“Anyway,” Grace continued, drawing her arm away from the duke’s. “It was marvellous to run into you like this. I heard a rumour that you’ve already asked for Diana’s hand.”
“It’s true,” Ernest confirmed. Diana didn’t mention that he’d actually asked for her hand the very second that Grace had let him out of their arrangement. This was her own blissful secret.
“Well. I suppose it’s good that you found someone. Even if it is just anyone.” Grace’s eyes glittered.
“Oh, please, may I try a slice of this cheese?” Aunt Renata asked the cheesemonger. Her voice was bright and shiny, slicing through their awkward conversation like a knife.
“It was absolutely marvellous to see you again,” the duke said then. He dropped back, tilting his head, forcing Grace to follow him. “I dare say it won’t be long before we cross paths again.”
“I hope for it,” Ernest affirmed.
Grace laced her arm through the duke’s. They scurried off, darting through the bustling crowd. Diana and Ernest exchanged a hilarious glance, neither truly believing what they’d just seen. It seemed as though they’d just been privy to a reality they might have had, if they hadn’t found one another.
“Wow. She really is wretched, isn’t she?” Aunt Renata remarked. Her eyes searched Ernest’s and Diana’s, while her hand stretched out, accepting a slice of cheese from the cheesemonger. Without glancing back at him,
she tapped the cheese on her tongue and gave both of them a shrug. “I thank God every day she’s not in our lives.”
“Auntie!” Diana cried, nearly toppling over with laughter.
But Aunt Renata just shrugged and chewed at her cheese, before drawing back toward the monger and saying, “Yes. Absolutely. An entire wheel.”
It was like this that the three of them returned to their carriage: Aunt Renata carrying an entire wheel of cheese and Diana’s arm laced through Ernest’s, her heart bumping wildly with excitement for the weeks ahead. Engagement parties. Endless conversation with humans she loved with all her being. Toasts from her father. Dancing with Rose. It all added up to more than she could have possibly dreamed of. `
Back in the carriage, Ernest breathed a sigh of relief. He gripped Diana’s hand, a bit harder than he ordinarily did. Diana understood. Ernest had just witnessed what could have been his truth. It was like he was on a ship, watching the storm just barely miss him and his crew—allowing them to skirt past alive.
“I wish them all the happiness in the world,” Ernest muttered, only loud enough for Diana to hear. “And that one day, they both recognize how horrible they are—and find the strength to alter their ways.”
Chapter 24
Ernest arrived at his father’s grave the morning of his wedding to Diana Harrington. He’d already dressed for the ceremony: a black suit, his curls sort-of handled with a bit of cream. As he approached his father’s grave, he tried to imagine that he was approaching the man himself. He already knew the exact expression his father would wear, were he to look at his son on Ernest’s wedding day. It would have been an expression of love and of pride, his eyes firm with the belief that Ernest would make a fine husband, a wonderful father. “I know you’ll do the best you can, son. And the best you can is always good enough.”
Ernest didn’t wish to muss his suit and remained standing at the grave site. His fingers traced the top of the stone. That morning, as the house had been in uproar with preparations, he’d encountered Rose at the back door. She’d taken one look at him and said, “You’re going to him. Aren’t you?”
It was as though she always saw directly through him.
“I’d really like to go alone, Rose,” he’d told her. “I just need to speak with him one final time before…”
Rose had rolled her eyes, as though she’d expected him to say precisely this—and it was, in fact, wasting her time to hear it. “Of course, silly. I know that. I have my own words to say to Father, and they have nothing to do with you.”
Now, faced with saying hello to his father for a final time before his marriage, Ernest felt strangely void of words. With both of his hands wrapped over the top of the gravestone, he mumbled, “I find myself totally and completely in love with someone, Father. I wish only you could have known her in your life. I wish you could have felt the light that shines within her. She’s a creature that has seen darkness and felt it within her soul. But in spite of this, she reaches forward toward some sort of impossible, beautiful truth. I hope only to instil a bit of it in my soul before I follow in your path in death, Father. I know that we’re only given this one life. I mean to make mine filled with love. And I will do it remembering you every step of the way.”
When Ernest had been a boy, he’d followed his father around as often as he could. Everything his father did, he’d tried to copy it: altering the way he ate his meals, trying to use his father’s words. His mother had called him a “parrot,” which had been a funny thing for Ernest to imagine. He’d read about parrots in books, yet could hardly picture them. Birds, echoing back human language? It sounded like magic. And this had been back when Ernest had very much believed in magic.
It had been no one’s fault when Ernest’s mother had died. But he’d felt the devastation in his father like a storm. He’d carried the torch of their family, taking up far more duties in caring for Rose than was perhaps necessary for a man of his status—or for a man at all.
This had always thrilled Ernest, especially looking back. He prayed that he would have a similar role in his children’s lives. What was more exciting than gazing down into the face of a baby, seeing them giggle and squirm as you spoke to them in coos and soft words? They’d just arrived from somewhere else, and you—as a ridiculous, older human—were allowed to experience this wonder.
“I know you’ll be there with me today,” Ernest said, feeling his time at the grave drawing to a close. He knew he was wanted back: that his carriage awaited; that he would be yanked into the beautiful cathedral, with its glowing painted glass windows and enormous hanging cross and stunningly carved pews, within the next hours. Hundreds of people would watch as he gripped Diana’s hand and told her that he would keep her close to him, in sickness and in health, for all the days of his life.
He prayed that those days were long. That his and Diana’s existence wouldn’t be marked with the sort of terror that had permeated throughout his father’s and mother’s, along with her parents’. “We’ve known such pain,” he’d recently murmured to Diana, shocked at his own forthrightness.
“But we know how to handle it. And how to build one another up,” Diana had returned. “Please. Keep heart. Whatever happens, we’re in it together.”
The wedding was a beautiful one. Although many members of the crowd had been quite confused at the sudden change of “cast,” when it came to the switch of Grace to Diana Harrington, no one could doubt the stunning smile on either the groom or the bride’s face.
There were whispers, of course. Ernest heard them as he embarked toward the front of the cathedral.
“I thought he was meant to marry the Bragg girl?”
“Wasn’t that what his father wanted?”
“I heard she ran off with the Duke of Coventry.”
“What is this new girl? Diana Harrington? I’ve hardly heard of her.”
“But quite beautiful, I hear. Stunning.”
“Not like Grace Bragg…”
“Oh, Grace was always such an imbecile, wasn’t she? She could hardly carry a conversation unless it was about herself.”
“I suppose now that you mention it, she was quite like this…”
“Absolutely atrocious.”
Of course, Ernest was able to slip out of these anxious thoughts, draw away from the gossip in the crowd, and focus entirely on his bride. When they said their vows, neither kept dry eyes. Ernest mouthed, “I love you,” in the midst of it, making Diana blush and mouth the words back. There was something about doing this in front of an enormous crowd that made it even more final, even more sure.
As was the custom, there was a wedding breakfast after the ceremony. It was a flurry of activity, of constant conversation. And when the newly-wedded couple collapsed in bed that night, they did so with aching limbs and stunted words. They held onto one another’s hands as they drifted off to sleep—both instilled with the knowledge that soon, soon, they would find the space and time to make love as husband and wife.
The following evening, Rose, Aunt Renata, and Lord Harrington arranged a garden party at the Bannerman estate, inviting their closest friends and relatives. Aunt Renata instructed the various maids and servants to set up the party in the early afternoon, which meant frenetic hubbub prior to the guests’ arrival.
Ernest and Diana, however, remained in their bedroom throughout the hours leading up to the party. Both exhausted, they stretched out on their bed—both grateful to be entirely alone, at least for now.
“I don’t know that I can handle yet another party,” Diana whispered. She bit down on her lower lip, her eyes glowing up at him. “I just want to lay here next to you. Avoid the rest of the world for a while.”
A Seductive Lady Rescued From Flames (Historical Regency Romance) Page 27