Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(28)

“Almost four years old,” Diana said, an edge of worry clear in her voice.

North had a shockingly strong impulse to comfort her, but he couldn’t think what to say. “When do they usually begin speaking?”

“‘They’ being children in general?” Her voice had a thread of laughter in it, like pure spun gold. “Artie began before she was a year old, but I understand that boys are often slower to speak. I think she is as unusual in her own way as Godfrey is in his.”

Diana had turned away to light a lamp, and now she brought it over and stood at North’s shoulder. The boy was curled up like a snail, fast asleep. He had red hair and his long eyelashes lay on his cheeks like tiny fans.

“Did you and your sister have the same hair?” North asked, for something to say.

“Oh, no, she was truly beautiful. Rose had lovely hair, the color of yellow primroses in spring. Godfrey was unfortunate enough to inherit that hair from his father.”

What did she mean by saying her sister was “truly beautiful” or that Godfrey was “unfortunate”?

“Was Godfrey’s father . . .” North hesitated. “A member of the household?”

“No.” She reached out and pulled the covers over the boy’s little shoulder. “Her fiancé, as it happens.” Her voice was wooden. “A gentleman, supposedly.”

Right there was the reason men of honor ought to behave with propriety, especially with their betrothed. “He died before they could marry,” North said, appalled.

“He did.”

“That’s bloody bad luck.”

A soft sound, like a choked giggle, escaped her. “I never heard you curse while we were betrothed. In fact, I didn’t think you had thoughts violent enough to justify the lack of dignity.”

There was enough humiliating material there to destroy whatever fragments of self-worth he had clung to after being jilted.

She seemed to recognize it, because after a pause, she added, “Only because you were beautifully behaved, North. Seemingly effortlessly proper.”

Had she really thought him so proper that a curse wouldn’t cross his lips? North found that galling.

He cut her off before she could further pare his manhood down to the size of the boy in her bed. “And yet, here I am, in your bedchamber uninvited, in the middle of the night.” A gleam of dark amusement eased his exhaustion. “You could say that I’m playing the role of that Shakespeare character I’m depicted as. Not Hamlet, obviously.”

“I have no idea who the character is,” Diana said. “My mother considers dramatists to be dissolute by nature. She included Shakespeare in that group, so I haven’t read the plays. I must say that the plot of Cymbeline seems to confirm her opinion.”

“Hinges on a ravishment, as I remember it,” North said.

“I don’t suppose you’re planning to reprise the role?”

It took a moment for him to work out what she was saying. His head snapped around and he met her eyes, only to feel his incipient fury—did everyone think he was capable of rape?—melt away. Her eyes were dancing.

For a moment, rash words trembled on his tongue. His better nature prevailed, and he gave her a lopsided smile. “I only ravish fair ladies after emerging from a trunk. It’s a prerequisite.”

“I understand,” she said, her voice somehow turning laughter into words. “A gentleman must have standards.”

“Dukes require trunks full of diamonds,” he said, walking back toward the fireplace. He should go to his dark, quiet bedroom and the memories hovering in its corners. Instead he crouched down and put another log on the fire, poking at the embers to make it catch. “I wouldn’t have entered, but for the fact your door was ajar.”

“I leave it open for Godfrey,” she explained. “He can’t tell me his emotions, you see. It makes it difficult.”

North almost opened his mouth and said something absurd. Instead, he forced out a different sentence. “Who was your sister’s fiancé?”

He was beginning to formulate a plan to break down the door of the rake’s house and force his family to support their illegitimate grandson. He would take care of Diana, but the boy’s grandparents could set Godfrey up in comfort.

Their son had been a reprobate. Or perhaps merely imprudent, in love, and deeply unlucky.

Diana drifted to the other side of the fireplace. “Would you like some honey toast?”

He frowned at her. “What?”

“Honey toast. When Artie is as tired as you are, I feed her honey toast.” If her voice had been sympathetic, he would have left the room. Instead, she was matter-of-fact.

She went over to a table on the side of the room and began sawing at a loaf of bread. North poked at the fire again, trying to remember if he’d ever seen a lady slicing bread. He rather thought not, since he’d never been served by any hand other than a servant’s.

After a minute or two, Diana returned to his side holding two long forks of the sort he remembered from Eton. Thick, uneven slices were stuck on the tines. One side of his mouth curled up at the sight; servants knew how to cut a loaf of bread properly, which Diana did not.

She nudged him with a fork handle. “Your bread, Your Future Grace.”

Diana Belgrave had the most beautiful smile in the world. Tonight, she hadn’t braided her hair for bed, any more than she’d braided his sister Artie’s. It was loose, a silky mass thrown over one shoulder.