Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(51)

“You should have these as well,” Viola said, waving a heeled shoe at Diana. “Yellow clashes with my hair.”

“That’s not yellow,” North said. They all turned and looked at him. He grinned. “Saffron, Viola. Saffron.”

He was an agile man, and deftly caught the shoe when it flew through the air at his head.

“These are more than enough,” Diana said, happily wiggling her toes in the cross-hatched slippers.

“Take this pair as well,” North said, holding up the yellow shoe. “Viola is right. The color would make her skin appear jaundiced.”

In the resulting mêlée, as Betsy defended the color of Viola’s skin, and Joan protested that Viola’s chestnut hair went extremely well with yellow, he handed the shoe to Diana and watched her slip it on.

It was a frivolous shoe, delicate and spangled. Peeping from the hem of Diana’s worn gown, the yellow silk was a glimmer of sunshine.

“You must.” Viola gave Diana the other shoe. “Yellow is brilliant with red hair, but not with chestnut, no matter what Joan says.”

“Yours is copper, but Godfrey’s is more like a rusty gate,” Betsy said. She was helping Godfrey arrange his horses, and she reached out and tousled his hair.

“Diana’s sister might have had darker red hair.” Joan had brought her scissors with her, and was busy cutting up one of her last prints.

Diana’s eyes flew to his and he knew exactly what she was thinking. He nodded. Yes, they all knew.

And no, they didn’t care.





Chapter Twelve




For the next two nights, Diana set out bread and honey. It was as if she were feeding a house elf, she thought amusedly on the first night. One of those Norse sprites she’d read about in a storybook given to Artie. A housewife might set out milk and honey as thanks, or to trap an elf into granting her wishes.

They were tiny men in red caps, and nothing about North was tiny. But he had answered one of her wishes, at least: She had longed for new shoes, and now she had them.

North didn’t come that night, nor the second night either. Diana woke up in the cold dawn, shivering in her robe, wondering why she had slept in the chair again.

No one had eaten the bread, and the milk soured on the hearth.

She had spent both days with the duchess, the lady’s daughters, and Godfrey. Without direct conversation on the subject, she was no longer the castle governess. If Artie needed a new nappy, Her Grace summoned Mabel, or changed it herself.

Within a day, Artie began using the chamber pot, whereas Diana’s previous attempts to persuade her had resulted in Artie protesting and, at one point, kicking over the pot. Diana tried not to mind. The important thing was that the family treated Godfrey as lovingly as they did Artie. He was visiting the stables twice a day, once with Leonidas, and again with North.

Her mind couldn’t get around that last one.

It turned out that North, her foppish, prim fiancé (to call a spade a spade), was a superb horseman, who managed a large breeding program at Lindow Castle. There had been an excursion or two on horseback in the early days of the betrothal party. But she had managed to avoid them, throwing herself on her bed so she could cry in peace, grieving for her sister.

She’d never even seen North on horseback.

On the third day, North didn’t return Godfrey to the nursery after their daily trip to the stables. When Diana found her nephew, he was sitting on the edge of the billiard table, happily watching Leonidas and North knock balls about.

North looked up and caught her eye, but just nodded and wished her good afternoon, with all the emotion of someone greeting . . .

Well, greeting a governess.

That night, she looked at the loaf of bread she’d fetched from the kitchen and felt like a fool. Obviously, North no longer had a problem sleeping.

True, she thought the smudges under his eyes were darker than they had been the day before. But what did she know? With a twinge of humiliation, she put the loaf to the side, uncut. Thank goodness he had no idea that she’d sliced bread for him the last two nights, and then fed them to Fitzy in the morning so that no one would know.

She had deluded herself into thinking that she could help with whatever had happened to him during the war—because she felt guilty. Absurd. Yet guilt was such a familiar companion.

Closing her door firmly, Diana bathed, tightly braided her hair, and climbed into bed. Ophelia had informed her in the afternoon that she intended to bring Artie to London. In the next few months, the duke would buy a new house near Kensington Gardens, where the air was cleaner.

“The girls will need to be in the townhouse for the Season,” Ophelia had said. “But I can go back and forth. Artie can join us at the townhouse now and then.” Ophelia had looked at Diana with pleading eyes. “Do you think Artie’s lungs will be harmed?”

“No,” Diana had said, and then, with a wry smile, “Although you mustn’t consider me an expert in child rearing! All I know is that it will make Artie so happy. She misses you awfully.”

“I cannot bear to leave her again,” Ophelia had said, relief written on her face. “I simply cannot.”

Diana went to sleep thinking about the joy in Artie’s eyes as she curled like a dormouse in the duchess’s lap. Yes, Artie loved Diana. But not the way she loved her mother.