Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(27)

It was empty.

The nursery at Lindow Castle was made up of a sprawling suite of rooms that included the children’s bedchamber, a bathing alcove, the schoolroom, the dining room, and even a priest’s hole.

He suddenly remembered that his governess, Miss Raymond, had had a sitting room of her own, where she used to retreat when four energetic boys—Horatius, Alaric, he, and Parth—wore her out. In retrospect, she had done an excellent job, handing out butterfly nets and sending them on daily rambles around the countryside.

Once in the corridor, he turned right, passing the dining room and the schoolroom. Next to it was the door to Miss Raymond’s chamber.

He had no memory of ever being invited to enter, nor, indeed, wishing to. He and his brothers hadn’t devoted any thought to their governess, although now he wondered if she, too, had been caught between the family and the household, not fitting into either place.

His heart sank. The door stood ajar. No lady left her private chamber door open.

Curses spun through his head. Diana was gone, and he would have to chase after her. He pushed open the door, thinking that Prism had to have been aware of her departure. Nothing happened in the household without the butler’s knowledge. Yet no one had informed him?

An indefinably flowery warmth hung in the air. Bread had been toasted at the fire in the not-too-distant past.

She hadn’t left.

His heart hitched in a way that sent a shock down his spine. It was merely because he was grateful not to have to chase the woman down, he told himself quickly. That would have been a bother.

The chamber was good-sized, with a small desk by the window. A narrow bed was nestled in the corner, but he didn’t allow his eyes to rest on it, looking instead at the fireplace flanked by two padded chairs, worn enough to have been there since his childhood.

It had been a chilly evening, and a fire was still giving off enough light that he could see watercolor paintings propped up on the mantel. They were likely gifts from his sisters, considering their dashing colors and complete lack of talent. The room was full of reminders of his siblings, from a broken bow to a pile of children’s gloves awaiting mending.

The fireside chairs were wide enough that a slim governess might read aloud to one or even two small children, and in light of the stack of children’s books on the hearth, that happened on a regular basis. An unfinished sampler, perhaps belonging to Joan or Betsy, lay across a stool, a bag of embroidery thread beside it. A roughly carved wooden boat leaned against one wall, waiting for its creator to return from Eton, presumably.

Big plump pillows were piled to one side so that a child could throw herself on the floor and read a book.

A grin spread across North’s face—such an unfamiliar facial movement that he noticed it—when he realized that one wall was taken up with a gallery of prints depicting his brother Alaric, or “Lord Wilde,” as he was known to readers of his books as well as playgoers who saw the infamous Wilde in Love which, before being shut down, was the most sought-after theater ticket in all London.

He drifted across the room, knowing that he shouldn’t be here. Intruding on a lady’s bedchamber. Unheard of. Appalling.

No gentleman would consider such a thing. Perhaps an aftereffect of war was that a man lost his standards. Years before, if he had inadvertently entered a lady’s chamber without express permission, North would have promptly retreated from the room.

Here was Alaric planting the British flag on an impossibly tall mountain, Alaric wrestling a sea dragon, and Alaric entertaining the Empress of Russia in her bedchamber.

He turned to the paintings that crowded the mantelpiece. A sketch of kittens was propped next to a stick figure. Another engraving of the sort that adorned the wall. He held it closer to the fire so he could see the subject. A downtrodden girl was seated on a bench, a small child clutching her skirts.

The girl was recognizably Diana. Those straight eyebrows weren’t hers, but the pointed chin and full lips? Undeniably Miss Diana Belgrave. On the doorstep behind her, an aristocrat lounged.

It could have been any man in a wig and heels. He didn’t think his lips curled in such a thin, fantastically cruel line. At least he hoped not.

He had horns. Wonderful.

One of his hands was out of sight. He tilted the page toward the light to see whether . . .

Damn it.

“You’re the wicked baron,” a sleepy voice said from the other side of the fireplace. “Naturally, your hands are wandering.”

North’s head jerked up. Diana had pulled the dressing gown she wore the previous night over her nightdress. Her face was in shadow but he was acutely aware of her body and its curves. Once a man had glimpsed Diana’s breasts, they couldn’t be unseen.

“I thought you’d fled the castle,” he said, putting the print back on the mantel. “Forgive me for entering your chamber, but your nephew isn’t in the nursery and I was concerned about you.” He corrected himself. “Him.”

“Godfrey is here,” she said, nodding toward the bed. “He crawls into my bed when he feels uncertain or afraid. Since he doesn’t yet speak, I’m never quite sure what took him out of his own bed.”

“How old is he?” North walked over to the bed because, after all, he’d expressed interest in the boy’s welfare. In reality, he didn’t feel more than the usual curiosity one male feels about another who has usurped his place in bed.