Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(60)

Diana snorted. “You were ‘savaged’?”

“She locked us in her father’s library and did her best to compromise me.”

“How did you escape?”

“She had not envisioned a gentleman leaping from the window, which I did.”

“That is,” Diana said, trying to find an appropriate word, “regrettable,” she concluded.

“I managed to keep my virtue, such as it was,” North stated, a smile playing around his mouth.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Diana said. “Artie, please don’t go into the ditch! You’ll get your pinafore dirty.”

“It’s already dirty,” North said.

That was undeniable.

“Do you mind my asking why my sister sticks out so far in the front?”

“She carries her doll, Hortensia, in a bag slung around her neck under her gown. Hortensia has been lost several times.”

“Right,” North said, nodding. “Let’s return to the fish and peacocks. I’m lost in a welter of comparisons, but my main point is that unless I fall overboard and am eaten by a shark with a wig, I plan to marry neither a fish nor a bird.”

“Really?” Diana asked. “You want to add a shark into the mix? I think they aren’t fish, by the way.”

“Yes, they are fish. Did your mother consider marine life as unladylike as pounds and ha’pennies?”

“Yes, but I am learning. I’ve been reading aloud to Godfrey from a book about animals that I found in the library.”

“Must have been Horatius’s,” North said, guiding her around a rabbit hole in the path. “He was always thinking about birds and the like. A shark would have interested him.”

“What sort of books did you read as a boy?”

His mouth flattened. “You’ll find a collection of books about classical architecture somewhere on those shelves. I meant to design houses.”

“Really?” Diana was startled. She knew that houses had to be designed—sometimes architects were knighted by the king for their work—but not by noblemen.

He glanced at her with a rueful smile. “What should I have done with my life?”

“Noblemen don’t do things,” she said, without pausing to think. “No, that’s not quite true. They pay calls in the morning, and go to their clubs in the afternoon. They bet on horses. They go to the opera in the evening, or to a ball. They attend court now and then.”

“Noblemen run this country,” North said in a measured voice. “It could be that, in the future, the House of Commons will take a greater role. But at the moment, the House of Lords is vital to every decision the Prime Minister makes. We are judge and jury in many parts of the country, we muster militia, we send our men to war, we employ thousands of people.”

“I stand corrected,” Diana said. And she meant it.

The children had reached Gooseberry River, the small watercourse that separated the duchy from the village. They were seated on the low stone bridge, legs dangling, looking down into the water.

“Hell,” North said, drawing her to a halt. “I just lectured you, didn’t I?”

“I am woefully ignorant when it comes to the aristocracy,” she said. “Always better for a lecture, or at least, so my mother believed.”

“The cruelest cut of all,” he groaned. “You are likening me to a woman who discarded her daughters and stole their dowries.”

Diana frowned. “My father’s will merely requested that she provide for us. No dowries were specified and, in any event, I haven’t married.”

“She is not providing for you. You are working.”

“It was inappropriate to compare you to my mother, and quite unfair,” she said, not answering his point.

“I was trying to tell you,” he said, walking her to the bridge in order to join the children, “that I know you aren’t one of those women who flutter their eyelashes and fan out their plumage. That doesn’t stop me from wishing you would.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down into the Gooseberry River. As one might expect from the river’s name, the water was a curious pale green. Thick incursions of mare’s tail made a low-flowing stream even slower.

“Thank you,” Diana finally said, because it was that or kiss him in public, which would be frightfully improper, and she was trying to curb her impulses. She was tired of being a person who spoke or did things first and thought better of them later.

She crouched between Artie and Godfrey and peered at the water. “What do you see down there?”

“I can’t see fish. Godfrey can,” Artie said.

Diana had no idea how Godfrey conveyed his opinions to Artie. “I can see the peddler’s wagon,” she said, and nodded toward the village square.

The children scrambled to their feet and ran off the other end of the bridge.

Mr. Calico’s wagon was painted bright green, and had yellow lathe sides on hinges that, when raised, revealed shelves crowded with wares. He himself was a thin, elderly gentleman wearing a wondrous coat that sparkled in the sunlight.

As they neared, Artie hung back, holding Diana’s hand, but Godfrey ran straight over to him and bowed in an abrupt up-and-down motion, waving his hand at the peddler’s coat.