Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(65)

Lavinia was fearless; his tone didn’t intimidate her at all, although it would have sent his regiment scurrying into formation. She looked him over, and finally her mouth eased. “I suppose I’m trying to blame you rather than myself.”

North nodded.

“I had better return to my mother,” Lavinia said. “I left her in Her Grace’s hands.” She paused. “North, I shall assume that you have encountered marriage-minded mothers before.” Then she said, as if to herself, “Well, of course you have. You must know Diana’s mother, Mrs. Belgrave.”

“Yes.”

“My mother traveled from France to rescue her niece, but I would be remiss not to inform you that she was delighted to discover that you are still in need of a wife.”

North managed to choke back a response, but his lips moved in a curse.

“I have to repair Diana’s reputation before we can take her away from Cheshire, thus we cannot leave directly.”

“We have to right her reputation,” North said firmly.

She eyed him. “I gather you are not holding a grudge over Diana jilting you.”

He shook his head.

“Or that she apparently allowed the world to believe that the child was yours.”

He shrugged. “I would have been proud to have fathered Godfrey.”

Lavinia put a hand on his arm and smiled at him. He was forgiven.

“In my opinion,” she said, “it would be disastrous if we were to leave before the rumor about Diana being a governess is quashed.”

“I agree,” North said, thinking that Lavinia would have made a good general.

“It would be enormously helpful with respect to my mother if you would play the part of a suitor of mine until we fix things up with Diana,” Lavinia said, straightening her hat. “Don’t worry; I won’t compromise you.”

“I’m not worried.”

“In that case, would you see me back to the castle? My mother will be looking for me, and it will warm her heart to see the two of us together.”

North looked around again, but Diana and the children were nowhere to be seen. “Do you subject your mother to your sardonic sense of humor?” he asked, escorting Lavinia to the pony cart.

“My mother does not understand subtleties,” Lavinia said with a sigh. “Leonidas, come over here!”

“You seem to know my brother very well,” North said, trying to delay in case Diana returned. Where had they gone?

“Of course. He’s too young for me, unfortunately.”

“Isn’t he just your age?”

“Yes, but I seem to prefer grumpy and older,” she said lightly.

Diana probably needed time to think over Lavinia’s reappearance. He doubted that she would cheerfully climb into Lady Gray’s carriage, return to London, and resume the life of a lady.

“I was going to hand the reins to Leonidas, since he made such a fuss on the way here, but why don’t you take them,” Lavinia said to North.

“She drives like a madwoman,” Leonidas said, jumping onto the seat. “Don’t allow her to drive unless you’re feeling immortal. We almost overtook a hare on the way down the hill.”

“It shouldn’t have been hopping down the lane like that,” Lavinia retorted. “I thought it was quite fun, and so did the pony.”

Diana was still nowhere to be seen, and North was wrestling with an unusual bout of . . . of emotion.

In the midst of the Battle of Stony Point, he had wrenched off a dead soldier’s coat, snatched the paper that identified the man as a Yankee, made his way through enemy ranks, dived off a cliff, and swum a mile to get help. The HMS Vulture had been unable to return in time to save the outpost, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Throughout, he had stayed as calm as if he were in a ballroom. It was only around Diana that he got these infuriating surges of emotion.

Lust. Anger. Frustration.

“You might as well drive,” he said to Lavinia. “My brother has overturned the cart more than once.”

“Not since I was twelve!”

All the way home, as Lavinia enjoyed herself by sparring with Leonidas, North tried to pull his thoughts together. He’d never experienced anything like last night. It had felt as if he and Diana were two halves of the same coin, fitting together perfectly. But it didn’t seem to have changed her mind.

Diana went her own way, despite what society would think. What’s more, she was impulsive, and her spontaneity was only matched by her determination. He would have imagined himself falling in love with a woman of tact and composure, not one who turned fiery red when she embarrassed herself, which seemed to happen with alarming regularity.

Yet North would happily spend his life fishing her out of the corners she fled to, luring her to their bedchamber, and making her turn rosy red for a different reason.

After they reached the castle, they found Lady Gray and the duchess taking tea in the drawing room. He managed to sound enthusiastic enough about Lavinia’s visit that he caught his stepmother eyeing him. Then he sought out Lady Knowe.

His aunt had her own sitting room, a messy, comfortable room crammed with books and curiosities Alaric had sent her. Since she didn’t leave the castle very often, his adventuresome brother tried to send the world to her.

She looked up and smiled, waggling her quill to show that she had to finish her missive.