Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(77)

It was mesmerizing. North was still gazing at the bed when Diana sat beside him. “Still no sleep?”

“It’s better,” he lied. Weakness was a damnable thing.

“I feel as if it’s my fault,” Diana said, her hands twisting.

He turned to look at her, a smile crossing his face. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I jilted you, and you went to war,” she said flatly. “You certainly never mentioned that you had ambitions to raise a regiment when we were betrothed.”

North found himself in the grip of genuine amusement.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Diana said. “Am I wrong?” Her voice was hopeful.

“There may be men who would fling themselves into combat on account of a broken heart.”

“But you aren’t one of them?”

He shook his head.

Diana let relief flow through her like a cool river.

“Did you make love to me out of guilt?” North asked.

She looked at him, incredulous. His face told her that it was a sincere question; she moved over just enough so that she could lean against him. His arm went around her and she laid her cheek against his shoulder.

“Is that a no?”

“I offered you toast in the hope it would fill your stomach and act as a soporific. Artie can’t sleep if she’s hungry. But intimacies? No.”

He was silent. Then: “I cannot abide suet pudding, but everything else you told the chef to make was perfect.”

“I merely suggested plain English food.”

His arm tightened. “When I was a boy, I dreamed of two things: architecture and war. Alaric came home and offered to take over the ducal estates, so I was free.”

“Except you’d already asked me to marry you,” she said, seeing the problem. North would never have betrothed himself and then taken on a hazardous venture like war. Most heirs to duchies wouldn’t consider risking their lives.

“I wanted to serve my country. When you broke our betrothal, I was most unhappy. But I was also free to buy a commission.”

Soft laughter bubbled out of Diana, relief coming from deep inside her. “I was terrified that you would die or be maimed, and it would be my fault.”

He kissed her hair. “The way you blame yourself for Rose’s death?”

“If I had accepted Archibald, she wouldn’t have decided to marry him.” She whispered the next. “My mother felt that Rose’s death was the direct result of my selfishness. I can’t seem to forget that.”

North cursed under his breath. “That’s a monstrous thing to say, and she’s wrong. How well did Rose know Archie when she chose him?”

“He had dined with us. I had consistently said that I didn’t want to go to London for the Season. My mother told herself that a Scot would take no notice of my hair. Archie was the highest ranking eligible Scotsman with an English estate nearby, and she knew his father.”

“If Rose was anything like you,” North said, “she made up her mind about Archie during that dinner. She waited to make certain that you didn’t want him—I am assuming that a peskily self-sacrificing trait runs in your bloodline—and then she smiled back at him. Likely that was enough.”

Diana frowned, trying to remember the dinner. She’d been so cross at her mother that she’d scarcely paid attention to the suitor Mrs. Belgrave had produced. “I can’t even remember if Rose and Archibald spoke.”

“I’ll warrant they did. Archie wasn’t a bad fellow; she chose well. They were just unlucky. He was a stubborn Scotsman. I’d warrant that if he had betrothed himself to you, and decided thereafter that he was in love with your sister, he would have jilted you and taken her to Gretna Green.”

It was an interesting thought. Another river of relief, cool and forgiving, washed over her. Diana brushed a kiss on North’s neck by way of thanks. It was strong and corded, nothing like the birdlike necks of courtiers. “Will you tell me why you sold out?”

“There’s not much to tell.” His voice rasped.

She snuggled against him and waited.

“The war with the colonies isn’t just. We should give the country to its citizens. Our incompetence is another issue. We’re fighting the war with an army made up primarily of German mercenaries, and we consistently underestimate the enemy.”

She waited some more. Across the room, Godfrey snuffled and turned over in his bed.

“My regiment was last stationed at Stony Point. My commander thought that the Yankees wouldn’t climb a rocky cliff to attack, and they did. We were overcome in fifteen minutes. The enemy could have shot my entire regiment, because the men were caught with weapons in hand.”

Diana shuddered.

“Instead, they showed mercy. Our orders had been to shoot any enemy taken with a weapon. After that, I disbanded my regiment.”

Three sentences that contained a world of pain.

No wonder he was in the army for so short a time. A man like North would not tolerate a lack of ethics or plain stupidity.

She said nothing, and neither did he. After a while, she glanced up and saw that his eyes were closed.

Maybe he was asleep.





Chapter Nineteen





June 1, 1780