Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(10)

“Joan is the youngest, and has a Slavic appearance,” his aunt said bluntly. “I suspect her mother meant to take her abroad, but Joan was lucky enough to get a cough and begin wailing night and day, so she was dispatched back to the castle.”

“That’s appalling,” North said, taken aback. It would have been devastating for all of them if Joan had been taken from their family.

“Your father would have gone after her,” Aunt Knowe said. “He would never have allowed one of his daughters to be taken off to the continent by a mother who couldn’t remember the child’s name from one moment to the next.”

“Yet Joan is not his child?” North asked, not certain how they got on to the subject.

“What I am saying is that child rearing has nothing to do with blood. My brother is Joan’s father, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I see.”

They had reached the door of his aunt’s bedchamber; her hand tightened on his arm and fell away. “Poor Boodle pined like a heartbroken milkmaid while you were gone. It’s time to allow the man to have his way with you.”

North groaned. He’d managed very well in the army without a valet. “I’m surprised he didn’t leave for another position.”

“Your father needed a valet, and of course, Boodle enjoyed the consequence of serving a duke. But you are his masterpiece,” his aunt told him. “The moment we had news of your imminent return, he found another valet for your father. In his mind, you hired him to take you to the heights of fashion, and he dreams of future glory.”

“This is not going to end well,” North said.

“He’s hoarded a collection of prints of French courtiers and broods over them like a hen with golden eggs,” his aunt said. “I shall expect to see you glittering from head to foot in a few hours.”

When North didn’t answer, she chuckled. “What was it that my father used to say? Ah, yes: ‘Distance lends enchantment.’ I think he was talking about the company of women, but it applies to valets and their masters as well. Poor Boodle, he’s forgotten what a stubborn mule you can be.”

“‘No man is a hero to his valet,’” North said wryly, capping her proverb with his own. “He’ll remember shortly, if he’s forgotten.”

Lady Knowe pushed open the door to her bedchamber and paused. “I forgot to ask! I assume you saw your father and Ophelia before you left London?”

“Only briefly,” North said. He had planned to spend time in London, but the city’s raucous noise threatened what little sleep he got these days. “They will bring the family as soon as they’re able.”

His aunt’s shrewd eyes searched his face, no doubt grasping his inability to stay in London for more than a few hours.

All she said was, “Until they arrive, we will take our meals in the small dining room.”

He bowed, but she kissed him in lieu of a curtsy, and held him for longer than etiquette demanded. “I’m glad that you’re home, dear,” she said in a rough voice. “We missed you so much.”

North’s bedchamber was in a different wing. Lindow Castle had begun as a medieval fortress, but various dukes had made their mark by adding a tower here, or a wing there . . . Now it was an eccentric hodgepodge of a building.

As a boy, he had spent years designing and redesigning a light and airy country mansion, with bathing chambers and dressing rooms attached to bedchambers, and a nursery wing at the top of a steep staircase. With architectural ambitions in mind, he had given the money he inherited from his mother to his boyhood friend Parth Sterling, who had tripled it in value.

He had the money to build another castle, if he wanted.

But at twenty-three he had become the duke’s heir, and someday this castle would be his. The most he could do would be to add a turret to a structure that already had three too many, in his opinion. He pushed open the door to his bedchamber with more force than needed.

“There you are, my lord!” Boodle cried. His valet was a tall, thin man, powdered and plucked and bewigged. He stood beside a bath of steaming water scented with bergamot. Shaving tools were arranged on a length of toweling.

A mustard-yellow coat embroidered with bunches of cherries and a pair of matching breeches were lovingly laid out on the bed. The waistcoat was cream silk dotted with cherry twill, and the shirt’s lace-ruffled cuffs would graze his knuckles. Three pressed neckcloths awaited, in case the first attempts were not entirely satisfactory.

North paused in the door, rubbing his chin. His stubbly chin.

“Come, come, my lord!” Boodle exclaimed, waving his hands in the air. “We have no time to waste. Lady Knowe will become tetchy if the meal is delayed more than a couple of hours, and I have the challenge of a lifetime in front of me.”

He was vibrating with the excitement of a man facing a heated battle.

North was not.





Chapter Three




Diana soothed Mabel’s aggrieved feelings, played with the children, fed them supper . . . and all the time her fingers trembled as if she were an aspen tree in a storm. When the children were in bed, she retired to her private chamber, a luxury for which she’d never been more grateful.

Mabel was a terrible gossip, and responding to her prying questions with dignity had taken a terrific act of will. Once alone, Diana sank onto her bed and stared at the wall.