Authors: Lady Escapade
L
YDIA’S QUESTION WAS NOT
the one Diana had expected to hear. Her thoughts were full of the events of the past few days, but the question forced her to take stock of herself and of her entire relationship with her husband.
For a moment, just trying to think back so far was disorienting, all the way back to March and the glitter and excitement of a London Season amidst the ecstasy of peace—the Peace of Amiens, secured at last, after years of war. The very notion had seemed magical. And as a young girl who had enjoyed several successful London Seasons without showing the least interest in settling down to marriage with any of the eligible or not-so-eligible gentlemen who had presented themselves to the Earl of Trent as desirable prospects, the Lady Diana Sterling had merely looked forward to another such spring full of laughter and good times. Then she had met Simon, Earl of Andover and eldest son of the wealthy, influential Marquess of Marimorse.
“I fell tail over top in love with him,” she said now, speaking more to the cheerfully crackling fire than to Lydia, “and I thought it was the same with him. It was the most incredible feeling, being in love. Simon was so magnificent. I remember thinking, the night I first saw him—at Bedford House, it was—that he was exactly what the knight in shining armor in all one’s favorite fairy tales ought to have looked like. He’s so big, you know, so handsome, and he looks so powerful, like he could slay dragons and rescue damsels from all manner of villains. And all the time his eyes look right through one like golden arrows piercing right to one’s heart. There’s such power, such authority, in those looks. When I first met him, everything in me would go weak whenever Simon looked into my eyes. Sometimes, it’s still like that. There will be a stirring—no, more like a tingling.
You
know, Lyddy. Every thing just catches fire. And then he’ll smile, Lyddy, and he can look so gentle—”
“Diana, you’re besotted with the man,” Lydia cut in with a shake of her dark curls. “What on earth possessed you to run away from him?”
“I
was
besotted with him.” Diana sighed, leaning back into the chair and regarding her fingertips as they laced together in her lap. “I felt that way right up until we got married, Lyddy, like Simon was a god or something, who loved me more than life itself and who would always take care of me. The love I felt for him filled me and was so strong it’s a miracle it didn’t consume me, but the feelings only lasted a few weeks after the wedding. I don’t think his feelings lasted even that long. Little did I know what marriage to him would really be like.”
“What happened?” Lydia asked quietly, serious now.
“He changed, slowly at first, so I didn’t really notice. He would suggest I wear one dress rather than another or wear my hair confined in a snood rather than piled atop my head. That sort of thing.”
“And then?”
Diana’s jaw tightened. “Then he became unbearable, Lydia. It was absurd. He used to say—when we first met, you know—that he was charmed by my opinions and delighted by my independent spirit, but then he changed to the worst sort of jealous tyrant, constantly scolding and lecturing, giving orders instead of suggestions. He doesn’t even permit me to have opinions anymore. Indeed, he expects me to devote myself to him without a thought for anyone or anything else. He even expects me to wait upon him, like some sort of scullery maid.”
“Surely you exaggerate,” Lydia said calmly, “and even if you do not, Diana, the blame cannot rest entirely with Simon. A good many of the tales that have reached our ears have little to do with him at all, you know, except insofar as he seems to be the victim of a rather willful young wife. That is plain speaking, indeed, my dearest,” she added when Diana shot her a reproachful look, “but Simon is scarcely noted for his patience, except perhaps in diplomatic circles, and if any one of the tales I’ve heard is true, your behavior would have tried the patience of a saint. For that matter, you have had, for a number of years, the reputation for being a most accomplished flirt, so although I do not for one minute believe you have been engaged in criminal conversation with anyone at all, let alone Simon’s own brother, perhaps you ought to tell me just what came to pass between yourself and Lord Roderick that caused Simon to jump, as you say, to all the wrong conclusions.”
Diana bit her lip, avoiding Lydia’s keen gaze, but when she spoke at last, she made an attempt to recover her dignity. “I don’t know precisely what you may have heard, of course, but I make no doubt the tales were prodigiously embellished, Lydia.”
“Oh, I’m perfectly certain they were exaggerated,” Lydia agreed cheerfully. “I know for a fact that though you may very well have played the part of Lady Godiva at the house party at Badminton in September, you did not do so in a state of nature, for example.”
“Lydia! Surely, you never heard such a thing!”
Lydia nodded, her eyes beginning to twinkle.
“
Norn d’un nom d’un nom
,” breathed Diana, choosing a phrase used by her French governess during moments of stress. “No wonder Simon was so out of reason cross when he arrived at Badminton. He had made one of his flying trips to London, you know, to confer with Lord Holland, and arrived two days after the theatricals. He must have heard a similar tale. That would certainly explain why he flew into a temper and scolded me so severely over the dress I was wearing when he arrived. It was a red gown with black lace trim, I remember. The bodice was perhaps a trifle low, and the whole effect was slightly improper, I suppose,” she added, wrinkling her brow and thinking back, “but not so improper as all that.”
“Did you truly empty a bowl of arrack punch over his head in the middle of that quarrel?” Lydia asked curiously.
Diana chuckled reminiscently. “That much of the tale was true enough. Lord, but Simon was furious. Standing there sputtering like a fool with punch streaming down his face and under his neckcloth. As I recall, an orange peel came to rest on the very top of his head. He looked perfectly ridiculous, but I do not like public jobations, you know, and he was idiotish enough to treat me to a regular bear-garden jaw right in front of the Duke of Beaufort and all the others. I had to do something. I got punch all over myself, as well,” she added, chuckling. “The dress was utterly ruined.”
A gurgle of delicious laughter escaped her hostess’s lips. “I wonder Andover did not
do
something himself, my dear, like beat you soundly for treating him with such insolence.”
Diana grinned at her, but she was remembering at the same time that it had been a near thing on that particular occasion. In her mind’s eye she could still see the furious look on Simon’s face, the ominous beetling of his thick eyebrows when the room around them grew apprehensively silent, just before the unexpected twinkle leapt to his golden-hazel eyes and his booming laugh burst forth. He had snatched her up into his arms then and had swung her about, to the huge delight (and relief) of the Duke of Beaufort’s guests, calling her his make-mischief lady and wondering aloud what devilry she would next concoct to plague him. But when he had set her once again upon her feet, he had guided her with seeming gentleness but willy-nilly all the same into the winding staircase hall outside the ballroom, where he had informed her in a few pithy statements that if she valued her skin, she would never again subject him to such a scene. A shiver of fear shot up and down her spine now at the untimely memory, and she glanced over at Lydia to find that lady’s soft brown eyes curiously upon her. Diana shifted in her chair.
“He is a temperamental man, but he is not much given to violence, I think. Lord knows, I have provoked him often and often, and though he bellows a good deal, he has never raised a hand to me.”
“Is that why you provoke him, Diana? To seek out the limits of his patience?” Lydia spoke gently.
“He provokes me, too, Lydia. I
told
you how it is.”
“Yes, I know you did, but it sounds to me as if the two of you are merely testing one another. You seem to be trying to find the limits of his temper whilst he seeks to discover how thoroughly he can master you. Such a testing is not at all unusual during the first year of a marriage, I believe, particularly in a love match.”
“Nonsense, it is nothing so childish. At least, on my part it is not. I do not doubt you may be right about Simon, but I am determined that he shall never see me under his boot. Perhaps my methods have not always been precisely ladylike—”
“They call you Lady Escapade,” Lydia murmured.
“Oh, that.” Diana hunched a shoulder. “That came from that odious Vidame de Lâche. He is such a muckworm, Lyddy. It astonishes me that he can have such a sweetly lovely sister as Mademoiselle Sophie.”
But Lydia had ceased to follow the rapid twist of subject. “De Lâche? Sophie? Do I know these people?”
“No, probably not, though I’m sure they are perfectly respectable. Or Sophie is, in any case. Sorry, I’m dithering. They are French émigrés. The family name is Beléchappé, but their father is the Comte De Vieillard, and their mother the comtesse, of course. The vidame is a flowery fop with an evil tongue. He seeks to make his way by following Mr. Brummell’s lead, I think, but unfortunately the vidame lacks both Mr. Brummell’s charm and his wit. De Lâche had the temerity to call me
la dame des frédaines
, or the escapade lady, once in Brighton, and the Prince of Wales chose to be amused. Simon did what he could, of course, but I cannot be surprised to hear that the nickname has managed to stick in some quarters, at least. I am persuaded that no one can wonder at Rory’s having a
tendre
for Mademoiselle Sophie, for she is shyly sweet and very charming—just the sort of innocent child to stir his protective instincts—though how she came to have
such
a brother, I’m sure I cannot—”
“Rory? Lord Roderick?” Lydia leaned forward, her mouth agape. “Oh, Diana, is he truly throwing out lures to an émigré’s daughter? Why, the marquess will have an apoplectic seizure an he hears of such a thing.”
“Oh, pooh, it is nothing so serious as all that,” Diana said quickly, conscious of having been indiscreet in her wish to escape further discussion of her odious nickname. “Besides,” she added with a mischievous gleam in her eyes, “there is a fabulous treasure hidden somewhere in the grounds of Château Beléchappé, their family seat in Normandy, and the vidame is hopeful of recovering it now that peace has come.”
“Really, Diana,” Lydia said, laughing, “you know perfectly well that every émigré family washed ashore on the south coast these twenty years has boasted of massive treasure left behind. ’Tis too absurd. Those who truly had disposable assets brought them along, and anything they couldn’t carry away then, they are hardly like to snatch from under Bonaparte’s long nose now. But tell me more of Mademoiselle Sophie. Is she frightfully beautiful?”
“She is lovely,” Diana said slowly. “Light brown hair so soft and wispy it looks like spun silk, and huge blue eyes, like a China doll, but Sophie’s loveliness is more than mere beauty. She is possessed of an innocence, a fragility, that makes men yearn to protect her.”
“Men, maybe, but Lord Roderick?” Lydia’s tone indicated astonished doubt. “You mentioned his protective instincts a moment ago, and I thought you must be joking. That madcap never gave a thought to anyone but himself in all his life, Diana. Now I know you have been roasting me. Innocence would merely bore him, so all this has undoubtedly been a ruse to escape confessing your own sins.
Were
you flirting with him? Truth, now.”
Diana sighed. “No, Lyddy, I wasn’t. But Simon certainly thought I was. Rory and I were in the Double Cube room at Wilton—”
“The room that is said to be all white with real gold trim and magnificent painted ceilings?” Lydia demanded. “I’ve heard it said that Inigo Jones went completely wild in designing that room.”
Diana nodded! “The Herberts are proud of it, and I suppose it’s very nice. Rory and I were looking at the Van Dyck portraits and just sort of talking. I said something he didn’t like—I fear that, like you, I dared to doubt that he was truly serious about his love for Sophie—and he grabbed my shoulders to make me look right at him, just to emphasize whatever it was he was about to say, of course, and not for any other reason. His temper can be as volatile as Simon’s at times. But of course Simon must choose that exact moment to interrupt our conversation. He knocked Rory down,” she added with another sigh and a small, ironic smile.
“Well, that at least is nothing new,” Lydia pointed out matter-of-factly, “whatever you may choose to think of Andover’s not having a violent streak. They say the Warrington twins have been at it hammer and tongs since the day Lord Roderick first discovered that by having had the misfortune to present himself to the world some twenty minutes after Andover’s arrival, he had done himself out of the title and anything other than what little his father or brother might choose to grant him from the unentailed property.”
“But it need never have been that way if the marquess had not lavished all his attention on Simon and if Lady Marimorse had not dubbed him the good twin and poor Rory the bad twin before ever they were out of short coats. My mama said the marchioness’s attitude was the source of the whole unfortunate business, and I’ve no doubt Mama has the right of it. I think it a most fortunate thing indeed that the marchioness is no longer around to shove her oar between them.”
“Diana!” Lydia exclaimed, scandalized.
“Well, I won’t unsay the words,” Diana returned stoutly. “I think she must have been a dreadful woman. I can only be glad she did not live long enough to cast a blighting influence over dearest Susanna. Goodness knows she’s had enough to contend with in Lady Ophelia, but at least her ladyship means well.”
“She is a bit overbearing at times, I daresay,” Lydia said, diverted again.
“Not overbearing, merely a trifle weighty. Papa says she creates boredom, then causes others to suffer mightily. Mama merely calls her the platitudinous Lady Ophelia. But her ladyship is kind to Susanna, and the twins both adore their little sister, so she will come out of it all right in the end.”