Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(50)

North was conscious of a desire to buy a trunk full of shoes for Diana, but he was used to waiting. That day would come.

“Rats!” Joan cried. “I accidentally cut off Diana’s hand. Not that it matters.” She threw the scrap to the side.

He rescued the mangled Diana, adding it to the others he held. He must be losing his mind.

Perhaps he could make a memory box for Diana, whatever that was. He pictured his bold, self-reliant former fiancée’s reaction to a box covered with kneeling images of herself and snorted.

Betsy stuck her head back in the room. “Come on, then!”

Ophelia handed North a basket with two pairs of shoes and put Artie back on her hip. Joan grabbed the remaining prints and her scissors, and Lady Knowe put aside her mangled piece of knitting.

“Artie, may I have the inestimable pleasure of carrying you to the nursery?” North asked.

“No!” Artie said, snuggling against her mother’s shoulder and sucking her thumb.

Ophelia smiled at him. “I’m perfectly able to climb the stairs with her, North, but thank you.”

They trailed up a flight and down a corridor and arrived at the steep flight leading to the nursery.

By the time the three of them reached the nursery corridor, a burst of high-pitched voices could be heard coming from the schoolroom. Ophelia stopped, and North halted as well, even though Diana’s laughter drew him like a kite string.

“I am very fond of Diana,” his stepmother said. “As is Artie.”

Artie’s head rested on her mother’s shoulder but she roused enough to nod. “DeeDee.” That nod seemed to take all her strength. Her eyelids closed.

Was he meant to chime in? “Fond” wasn’t the word for what he felt for Diana.

“Diana is a wonderful woman, but she would not be a happy duchess,” his stepmother said firmly.

Another burst of laughter from the schoolroom underlined North’s stab of pure impatience with Ophelia’s interference. “I thank you for sharing your opinion.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t become stiff with me, North. I love both of you, and I am a duchess. I know what the position entails.”

“I have not asked her again to be my duchess,” he stated.

Ophelia’s eyes softened. “Not yet.”

“Are you warning me not to propose marriage?”

“I am telling you that Diana Belgrave would not be happy as a duchess. I leave Artie behind when I accompany your father to London; babies cannot thrive in London because of the smoke from coal fires. As Duke of Lindow, he attends endless dinners and hosts them as well, and he needs me beside him. That is part and parcel of being a member of the House of Lords.”

North had already decided to stay away from Parliament, though it had little to do with Diana, and everything to do with an aversion to hours spent in an airless chamber listening to tedious speeches.

“Yes, you will,” his stepmother said, reading his face. What happened to the days when no one could read his expression?

“There are more than enough asses in the Parliament chambers already.”

She shook her head. “You Wildes are stubborn enough to choke, but you never shirk your responsibilities. Your father would vastly prefer to be here. It breaks both of our hearts to leave Artie. But he has been fighting to get an anti-slavery bill through the House.” She readjusted her sleeping daughter.

North frowned.

“Exactly. How could you not take up your seat? Or refuse to attend the dinners necessary to persuade selfish men to think of someone other than themselves?”

“I take your point.”

“I presume that throwing Diana’s shoes in the lake was a courtship ritual of some sort.” Ophelia’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he had the random thought that his father was a damned lucky man.

“You could call it that.”

“I will be very displeased if my home was no longer a refuge for Godfrey and Diana.”

“She cannot remain your governess. If I do listen to you, I still have to marry someone, and what woman would marry me under those circumstances? Most of England thinks I took advantage of her!”

“I understand.” Ophelia nuzzled her daughter’s cheek. “I will find another governess.”

“You should bring Artie to London, governess or no.”

“I can’t.” His stepmother’s hand curled around Artie’s head. “The smoke.”

“London is full of babies, and our townhouse borders on Hyde Park. The smoke must be better there. Or buy a house just outside London, if you want. Send Father in daily to the Parliament. You could join him when you absolutely had to.”

Ophelia’s breath hitched. “What if she grew ill?”

“Then you would return to the country. Look at Joan. There’s nothing wrong with her lungs now, is there? Artie needs you, and Diana cannot remain here to be her second mother.”

Pain flashed through Ophelia’s eyes.

“Exactly. If there’s one thing that I learned in battle, it’s that time is precious. Anti-slavery laws are a noble pursuit, but I’m certain there is a way to keep your family together.”

Instead of going on to tell her that he meant to find a way to have Diana, he strolled into the schoolroom and watched as Diana rejected offers of shoes for long minutes until she gave in and accepted a pair of cream slippers cross-hatched with black thread.