Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(31)

“Yes. Did you know him well?”

“There aren’t so many of us,” North said. He tried to sort through his memories of a pugnacious schoolboy with a thick Scottish accent and a chip on his shoulder. “How did he die?”

“Drunken coachman,” Diana said, getting up and moving around behind him. “Not his fault. He had no siblings.”

“This castle is haunted by dead people,” he said, knowing he sounded drunk. His eyes closed again, and this time he couldn’t open them. “Horatius and Rose. Archie and the rest of them.”

“The rest of them?” Her voice floated to him so softly that the words didn’t sound like a question.

He found himself answering. “John Goss, William Peach, Gower . . .”

“Who are they?” A warm blanket settled over his chest and he sank into a darkness that smelled like home: a moldering castle and English honey.

“My men,” he answered. “My men.”



North woke when the first birds were singing. The fire had burned itself out. He stood up, and the blanket fell to the floor. He stretched and raked his hand through his hair, conscious of an unfamiliar sense of bodily well-being.

It was dawn, and he had slept at least five hours, longer than he had in months.

Diana’s bed was empty. She hadn’t gone to sleep in the same room as a slumbering man, of course. She was a respectable governess. He’d driven her out of her own bedchamber.

He rubbed his chin, guilt making him feel awkward. He had entered a lady’s bedchamber without knocking, stayed for an irresponsible, improper conversation, and fallen asleep.

The high-pitched laughter of a little girl came from somewhere down the corridor. Diana was with Artie. Diana with her curves, her sensual mouth, her tender . . . He clenched his jaw and cut the thought off.

When he managed to make his way down the corridor without being discovered, his relief was directly proportional to the surprise of having had a refreshing five hours of sleep.





Chapter Seven





Late the following morning



Diana pulled Artie out of the bath and wrapped a warm towel around her wiggling body. She was determined to spend the day focused on her future, and not give a thought to her past.

North was her past. After he’d fallen asleep, she had picked up Godfrey and carried him back to his own bed, and slipped into one of the nursery beds herself. Before she fell asleep, she had decided that she could not allow North to approach the laird’s family.

It was only after Diana flatly refused to marry Archibald Ewing that Rose took matters in her own hands. Within half an hour of their second meeting, Archibald was desperately in love, Rose was agreeable, and only Mrs. Belgrave was furious.

Mrs. Belgrave had mandated a long betrothal, perhaps hoping that the marriage would fall through. Instead, Rose fell into Archibald’s bed, and when he died, months later, she was carrying his child.

If Archibald weren’t dead, Diana would love to kick him. Perhaps, if everything had gone differently, if she and North had married, North would have whipped Archibald to within an inch of his life for having the temerity to take her sister’s innocence before marriage.

Yet she had never seen the point of building castles in the air, and marriage to North would have been an ethereal castle, indeed.

“We will be fine,” she said aloud.

Artie patted her cheek. “Mama coming later?” she asked hopefully. She asked every day.

The Duchess of Lindow—or Ophelia, as she insisted Diana call her—returned to the castle as often as she could, and whenever she was in residence, she spent much of the day with Artie, Godfrey, and Diana.

It was unheard of among ladies, to the best of Diana’s knowledge. Her mother had seen her only during weekly appointments during which she and Rose displayed the skills their governess had taught them, playing the part of young ladies before they were dispatched back to the nursery. Mrs. Belgrave’s sojourns in London had been a source of relief for the entire household.

“Your mama will arrive very soon!” Diana said, giving the little girl a kiss and a celebratory twirl, holding her tight and spinning in place until Artie screamed happily. Then she put her down and suggested that Artie change her doll out of her nightdress while Diana bathed Godfrey.

Artie’s brows were like tufts of embroidery floss—until she began making a low noise like a teakettle on the hob. Then they turned into a straight line.

“What is the matter?” Diana asked, keeping her voice calm.

“You promised a story about Fitzy!”

The castle peacock reigned in solitary splendor over the lawns south of the castle, deigning to approach the Peacock Terrace on occasion. In their ongoing bedtime story, Fitzy led a thrilling life, in which he solved petty crimes and went to the theater in his spare time. He liked to show off for the queen, or so the story went.

“I tell you a story when you’re tucked into bed, not in the morning,” Diana said.

“No!” Artie’s face was turning red. “I want Fitzy now!”

Last night Godfrey had crawled into her bed, and now Artie was having a fit of temper, though she wasn’t hungry. Godfrey couldn’t tell her what the matter was, but Artie could.

Diana collected her little charge and sat down in the rocking chair. She immediately discovered that Mabel had informed both children that Diana would soon be leaving the castle and taking Godfrey with her.