Amanda Scott (4 page)

“Is not Susanna to make her come-out this year?”

“Indeed she is, and her letters to us have been full of nothing else. She was invited to make one of the Wilton House party, but both Lady Ophelia and the marquess forbade it, saying it would not be the thing, since she is not yet out. Not that that stopped Lady Sarah Fane from taking part. She does not make her come-out until spring either. But that is beside the point. We have prevailed upon the marquess to allow Susanna to emerge from the schoolroom for the Christmas festivities, and they are to be very grand, as you well know. My mama took up Susanna’s banner when the marquess was loth to allow her to take part. Mama wrote him a charming letter, assuring him that his lovely and very well-behaved daughter could only profit from being granted such a treat, that it would be far better for her to try her wings for the first time on her home ground and under benevolent eyes. Simon also wrote to him,” she added.

“Ah,” said Lydia with an air of vast wisdom.

Diana made a face at her. “Getting him to write was one of Mama’s knacky notions, too, if you must know everything. My mama is a very knowing one when all is said and done.”

“She is, indeed,” agreed Lydia, who made no secret of the fact that she adored her mama-in-law. There was a moment’s silence before she added softly, “Did you explain the matter to Simon, Diana?”

Diana had no difficulty following Lydia’s train of thought and realized, not for the first time, that while it was easy enough to divert her sister-in-law’s attention for moments at a time, it was rarely possible to put her off the scent entirely. She grimaced. “I couldn’t explain other than to tell him it wasn’t what he thought, that we were merely talking.”

“It is well known that Lord Roderick has always wanted whatever Simon had,” Lydia said slowly, musingly, “so perhaps—”

“No!” Diana interrupted explosively. “I won’t listen to such stuff, Lyddy, even from you. If Rory is bitter, he has cause to be, but much as they have fought over the years, he loves Simon and Simon loves him. He covets nothing of Simon’s—not anymore—only what should be his by right. Even Simon was beginning to see that, before he had to tow Rory out of River Tick again only a week before we reached Wilton—”

Lydia’s laughter interrupted her. “Oh, forgive me, Diana,” she said, attempting unsuccessfully to stifle her mirth, “but you jump about so. One moment I’m nearly persuaded to feel sorry for Lord Roderick, and the next you paint a perfectly clear portrait of poor Andover coming home from France to be met by the news that his scapegrace twin is under the hatches again and must be rescued from a sponging house. Then, as thanks for the rescue, Lord Roderick is caught making love to Andover’s wife. Andover ought very likely to be ripe for Bedlam by now. One must hope that Lord Roderick did not choose to fly into the boughs after that little scene you described to me, and leave Wilton House on your heels, else Andover will think the two of you have run off together.”

Diana tossed her head. She hadn’t considered the possibility of Rory’s taking flight, too, but if the thought disturbed her, she would never admit as much to Lydia. “So what if Simon does think I’ve made a conquest of Rory?” she demanded. “He’s accused me of flirting often and often, just as though he himself had not left a string of feminine conquests from Calais to Paris on this latest trip of his.”

“Goodness, did he, indeed? A whole string of them? How very tired he must have been,” Lydia said sympathetically. “I daresay he quite collapsed at Mr. Bonaparte’s feet, which perfectly accounts for their mission having gone so well. No doubt that odious man merely counted Andover’s behavior as proper obeisance from a potential subject.”

Diana choked. “Lydia, will you, for the love of Heaven, be serious?”

“But I am serious, my love, perfectly serious. If I mouth absurdities, ’tis only because the thought of Andover making love to countless Frenchwomen, one after the other, can be nothing
but
absurd. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Diana.”

“The way he
looked
at me, you mean. I tell you, Lyddy, the man stifles my very spirit. His jealousy is ridiculous. Even if I do flirt a little, we all do. Such behavior is expected. It is also perfectly harmless, as everyone but Simon seems to know. And he
does
flirt, too, whatever you may think, so he has no business to tell me to stop when he won’t stop himself.”

Lydia gave her a long look, and Diana felt sudden tears springing to her eyes. But the older woman made no attempt to press the issue, giving instead a quick look at the elegant, gilt Cafieri clock on the Nash mantelpiece. With a ladylike shriek of dismay she exclaimed, “Good gracious, Diana, only look at the time! I’d no notion the hour was so far advanced, and I must be up with the birds, for I promised to visit the dairy in time for the milking. We’ve a new dairymaid, you see, and I promised Ethelmoor I’d keep watch till she’s found her way about. A nice child from one of the tenant families, and she’ll do well enough, but it is always difficult being new at something. Never mind feeling you must get up any earlier than you would have done at Wilton House, however,” she added, still speaking rapidly. “We shall feed you whenever you choose to show your face abroad.”

Diana smiled, her equilibrium restored. “You are a love, Lyddy,” she said impulsively. “I think the smartest thing my brother ever did was to entice you into our family.”

“Pooh,” said Lydia. “If you think your doltish brother did the asking, then you still do not know me very well. He had some of the oddest notions of proper courting—all pomp and circumstance and stuffy proprieties. But I managed to turn all that to good account in the end, for very fortunately my grandpapa fell ill, so I was able to urge Ethelmoor to come up to scratch in case Grandpapa should cock up his toes and do us out of a timely wedding.”

Diana shook her head. “And to think,” she said in righteous tones, “that you were taking me to task less than twenty minutes ago for my irreverent words regarding the late Marchioness of Marimorse.”

“Ah, but Grandpapa recovered,” Lydia pointed out, “so it was not at all the same thing. And since I knew perfectly well that he was suffering from nothing more serious than a slight chill caught whilst wading up to his hips in an icy brook in order to catch the one that always gets away…well, there you are. Not the same thing at all.”

“Sometimes,” Diana said awfully, as Lydia got to her feet and shook out her skirts, “I think you are a more unprincipled madcap that I am, Lyddy.”

“No, do you?” replied Lydia demurely. “But how could I be, dearest, with a sturdy ten-year-old at Eton and a scrambling three-year-old in the nursery? I’ve no time for mischief, nor would you have time for it, my girl, if you and Andover would but begin your nursery.” Seeing the gathering frown on Diana’s face, she added quickly, “Never mind, my dear. ’Tis none of my affair, and I’ll indulge in no more lectures. I’ll see you to your bedchamber and then, just to show what a love I am, I’ll send Madi along to you the moment she’s put my things away.”

Diana declined at first, insisting she had no need of a lady’s maid to see her to bed, but she gave in without much argument because she liked Madi and because it would give her a chance to practice her French. Madi was another of the numerous émigrés from war-torn France, but hers had not been the comfortable life of the Comte and Comtesse de Vieillard and their children. Her parents had fled the Terror when Madi, then Mademoiselle Madeleine de Flétan, had been but a child. Her father, a minor nobleman (but not minor enough to escape the attention of the Committee for Public Safety), had died before ever reaching safe harbor in England, and Madi’s mother had arrived with one small child and no money. Fortunately, however, she had managed to find a position as chambermaid in Lydia’s parents’ household, so Lydia had known Madi most of her life.

When the plump Frenchwoman arrived to help Diana, that young lady greeted her in fluent, idiomatic French, and Madi, knowing well that Diana enjoyed practicing the skills learned from a doting French governess, made no attempt to turn the conversation to English, although she now considered herself every inch an English citizen.

Once the maid had gone, Diana snuffed the remaining candle by the bed and snuggled down to sleep. But sleep eluded her. Whenever she closed her eyes, her mind filled with a vision of the Earl of Andover, large and furious, his eyes flashing, his voice aroar. She had half expected him to have arrived by now. Perhaps this time, however, he had chosen not to confront her. Perhaps this time she had outraged him beyond what he would tolerate.

She could still see the expression on his face when he had caught her—no, not that—when he had walked into the Double Cube room so unexpectedly. He had said nothing at all at first, merely striding across the room to grab Rory with one iron hand before knocking him to the floor with the other. Then, hauling him to his feet again, he had ordered his twin to make himself scarce while he could still move under his own power. And Rory had fled, leaving Diana to her husband’s tender mercies.

She had made no particular attempt to justify her actions, because she had not felt she could do so without betraying the subject of their conversation, which Rory had particularly asked her not to do. She had not even (though she had told Lydia otherwise) tried to tell Simon he was in error in believing she held a tenderness for his twin. Instead, she had held her tongue while he read her a severe scold. Not until he had begun berating her for past misdeeds, not until he had accused her of flirting with a list of men long enough to count as a squadron, if not an entire army, had she lost her temper and lashed out at him, accusing him of worse things, taunting him until she had thought for a moment that he would lose all control over his temper, that he might even strike her. At that point she had fallen silent, and Simon, after one parting blast, had left the room.

The episode had taken place after supper the previous night, and Diana had not seen Simon afterward. She had slept alone in a very large bed, and the next morning her headache had been only half imagined. Sending a chambermaid to tender her excuses for not taking part in the day’s hunting, Diana had packed her bandboxes, ordered Ned Tredegar to saddle her favorite mount, and ridden nearly forty miles through a drizzling rain to Ethelmoor Hall.

Now, as these images faded and she began to remember her talk with Lydia, she was besieged with visions of Simon as he had been when she had first become acquainted with him—at Bedford House, the night they first met, when Simon, a golden giant in a dark blue coat, golden waistcoat, and cream-colored knee breeches, had swept down upon her and informed her with his charming smile that he
needed
her company at supper.

“You need me?” She had laughed at him, feeling very sure of herself simply because his eyes told her that she was the most beautiful, the most fascinating creature he had ever seen.

“Indeed I do,” he assured her, his low voice like music to her enchanted ears. “You are exactly the sort of young lady my aunt would approve of, so if you will go down to dinner on my arm, she will not attempt to foist the daughter of one of her bosom bows upon me. Boring, every one of them, I assure you. You will be doing me a signal service, thereby putting me forever in your debt.”

How they had laughed, and how much they enjoyed themselves that night and a host of other nights afterward. For the young Earl of Andover suddenly seemed to appear everywhere she went, and Diana, who had never been tempted to marry any of the young men who had pursued her through several Seasons, suddenly found herself hoping and praying that Simon would approach her father to seek permission to court her. In those days Simon had only to suggest that he liked her best in pink for her to discard every gown in her wardrobe that was
not
pink. And if, on a whim, he decided the following week that pale yellow would become her, Diana had sent for her long-suffering dressmaker to effect the change. She grimaced now, thinking about how he had changed after the wedding.

The wedding itself had been the highlight of a sparkling Season. It was as though the marriage of Andover and the Earl of Trent’s lovely, fickle daughter had resented the
beau monde
with the perfect way to celebrate the Peace of Amiens. After a succession of lesser celebrations, they had gone all out with a special fete at Ranelagh Gardens and even a grand display of fireworks in Hyde Park.

There had been fireworks afterward, too, Diana remembered, squirming a little in her bed. Not immediately afterward, though she had been annoyed when Simon had refused to take her into France on their bride trip, saying it was still much too dangerous, when everyone knew people were simply flocking to Paris again. He had taken her to Scotland instead, to Edinburgh, where they had visited the castle and where they had stayed with friends of his. But the change had been setting in even then.

She had no longer had quite the same urge to flatter his every whim by then, of course, but he had seemed to go right on expecting her to bow to his slightest suggestion, and, worse, he had begun to take umbrage when she did not. And he had objected, loudly, every time she had so much as smiled at another man. Diana’s independent spirit had rallied quickly under such Turkish treatment, and a not so private war had raged between them ever since, much to the delight and consternation of friends in the
beau monde
. They were an
on dit
.

Her thoughts came back to the present, and she wondered if Simon would arrive during the night. The rain still drizzled steadily, so he had probably racked up for the night by now, but he would no doubt arrive in the morning. She would need a good night’s sleep if she was to deal competently with him in an angry confrontation.

That was her last sensible thought before sleep finally claimed her, but her dreams were by no means peaceful, and the muted clatter and crunch of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels on the gravel drive beneath her window the following morning snapped her to an upright, wide-awake position straight out of her troubled sleep.