When the Duchess Said Yes (39 page)

Frantically Diana shook her head. It was true that there’d been considerable talk about her last summer, talk that hadn’t been very nice. Because of Charlotte being a duchess, Diana hadn’t been completely cast out from polite society, but there was a decided chill to her reception in the most noble houses, a chill that would only be cured by an excruciatingly respectable marriage, preferably to an equally respectable peer.

And it was also true that both her sisters had had their marriages arranged for them, and equally true that their bridegrooms had been virtual strangers. But just because Charlotte and Lizzie had fallen in love with their husbands didn’t mean that Diana would be so fortunate—especially not wed to a man named Crump who was marrying her because no one else would.

“I’m sure that Lord Crump will come to love you, Di, and you him,” Charlotte assured her, as if able to read her thoughts. “True, lasting love, too, and not silly flirtation.”

“But why would he ask for me if he’s never so much as seen me?” Diana asked plaintively. “He must be attracted only to my fortune, or my connection to you and March, or—or some other mercenary reason. He cannot care for
me
.”

“But he will, Diana, just as we do,” Charlotte said with a firmness that startled Diana. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know this would happen one day. You saw it with
me, and with Lizzie, too. This is how ladies like us marry. We’re not dairymaids or seamstresses, you know.”

Diana bowed her head, hiding herself and her misery inside the brim of her hat. Deep down she knew that everything Charlotte was saying was right, because she’d seen it in her own family. If being a lady and the daughter of an earl meant that she rode in a carriage and wore fine gowns and lived in a grand house on St. James’s Square, then it also meant that she wasn’t permitted to marry wherever her heart might lead.

Her marriage
would
be a mercenary transaction, a legal exchange of property and titles for the sake of securing families and futures. She would simply be another one of the properties to be shifted about by the solicitors in their papers. It didn’t really matter that she was surpassing pretty, or that she possessed a kind heart and a generous spirit, or that she could ride faster than any other lady she knew, or that she always defended small animals and children, and it certainly didn’t matter that she’d always dreamed of a handsome beau who would declare his love and passion for her alone.

No. She was no different from her sisters or her mother or any other lady of her rank. She must forget all the dashing young gentlemen who’d danced and flirted with her, and sent her flowers with sweet little poems tucked inside. There would be no romance for her, no grand passion, no glorious love like the kind to be found in ballads and novels and plays.

For her there would only be Lord Crump.

And that was the exact moment Diana realized the grim, unforgiving nature of fate.

“There’s nothing to weep over, Di, truly,” Charlotte said, slipping her arm around Diana’s shoulders. “You’ll see. March knows Lord Crump from the House of
Lords, and says he’s a steady, reliable gentleman, which is exactly what a lady wishes in a husband.”

Steadiness was what Diana wished for in a horse. It was not what she dreamed of in a husband, though she knew better than to say that aloud.

“Pray do not misjudge Lord Crump, Diana,” Mama said earnestly. “Let him address you, and show you himself how fine a gentleman he is.”

Still staring down at her hands, Diana sighed forlornly. “Is he handsome? If he were to ride by this window, would I take notice of him?”

Mama hesitated a moment, exactly long enough for Diana to know that Lord Crump was decidedly not handsome.

“Lord Crump is a good man,” Mama said again, carefully avoiding Diana’s question as the carriage turned into the park’s gates. “A most honorable gentleman.”

“There he is, Diana,” Charlotte said, leaning forward toward the window. “Come to greet you, just as he promised. There, on the chestnut gelding. That is Lord Crump.”

At once Diana looked up, her heart thumping painfully behind her stays. There was only one gentleman mounted on a chestnut gelding within sight, and he was riding purposefully to join them.

And, oh, preserve her, he wasn’t handsome. The closer he came, the more apparent that became. He was stern and severe, his face beneath his white wig and black cocked hat without the faintest humor. His eyes were a chilly blue, his thin-lipped mouth pressed tightly shut, and there was a peppering of old smallpox scars over his cheeks. Diana could not guess his age, except that he was older than she; much older, perhaps even thirty or beyond.

“Oh, Charlotte, he—he frightens me,” Diana whispered. “He’s dressed all in black.”

“He’s in mourning, silly,” Charlotte said, signaling for the driver to stop the carriage. “His older brother died last winter, which was how he came into the title. That’s why he has such an urgent desire for a wife and marchioness.”

“Smile, Diana, please,” Mama whispered even as she turned toward the open window. Mama’s own smile was as warm and irresistible as the sunshine as she nodded to the marquis.

But there was no smile in return from Lord Crump.

“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 the 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, nor 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 could 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 resignation.

Oh, preserve her, he had long arms. Dressed in black, he looked for all the world like a crow with folded wings and the black beak of his cocked hat overshadowing his face.

“Diana,” Mama said, more warning. “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 before her.

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 forward 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 gentleman. “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?”

“Ahh,” he said. “Then I resolve to like it as well.”

He turned and began walking again, clearly considering his duty both to 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 surprised indignation at such an ungallant confession, and more than a little pain, too. How could Mama have praised this gentleman, when he’d speak so callously to her?

“No choice, 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 was 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—her
fecundity
, as if she were a brood mare, appalled her. It wasn’t that she was overnice 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 husband 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 first 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 as her eyes flew open, while 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 that it became endearing. His barrel-like sides quaking as he panted, he seemed to be grinning up at her with his tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth.