Stealing the Bride (19 page)

Temple ignored him, pacing a few steps back and forth. “None of this makes sense.”

Colin walked over to the sideboard and poured out a cup of coffee for his cousin. “It does when you consider Louis’s mistress was Scottish.”

“Scottish?” He took a sip of the strong brew, choking it down like the bitter truth that was staring him in the eyes.

“Yes. Her parents had settled in France after Culloden. Relations of the Bonnie Prince. Royal relations.”

“It can’t be,” Temple said, backing away, shaking his head, despite the gnawing truth that had stared him in the eye this morning. “It can’t be Diana. She’s Lamden’s daughter. Everyone knows that,” he said, more to convince himself than Colin.

“Is she?” Colin asked. “Who was Lady Lamden? Have you ever heard mention of her? I haven’t. And neither has Lady Finch.”

“Lady Finch?” Temple asked. The woman was a terrible busybody, but if there was anyone who could rival Pymm in uncovering the secrets of the
ton
, Lady Finch was the one to do the job. But the mere fact that Colin had sought her assistance told Temple that his cousin was coming to the same conclusion as he was.

Without the damning evidence that Temple had seen.

“What did she say?”

“That she understood Lamden married some Scottish cousin while he was in France, and that the poor girl died in childbirth. He was recalled shortly afterward and came home with his infant daughter and a wet nurse who spoke no English.”

Temple shook his head and backed toward a large chair in the corner of the room. He collapsed into the wide leather expanse and stared straight ahead. “Coincidence,” he muttered. “It’s all bloody coincidence.”

But even to his own ears, he didn’t sound convinced.

Colin’s brows rose. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”

“No.” Temple frowned at his cousin. “Well, yes.” He took a deep breath. “I saw something. On Diana. On her shoulder, specifically. She was wearing only her chemise and—”

Colin’s brow arched, then he started to grin.

Temple groaned. “It wasn’t like that.”

“If you say so.” Colin glanced away, obviously attempting to hide his amusement.

“Oh, stifle it,” he told him. “She has a mark on her shoulder. You wouldn’t notice it that much, for it looks like a birthmark, but when Marden spotted it, you’d have thought he’d found the Holy Grail.”

“Marden was there, when she was wearing her chemise?” Colin shook his head. “Now that must have been an interesting evening.”

“Pay attention,” Temple told him. “Diana came to the Assembly Rooms in Buxton wearing her chemise.”

“Her what?” Colin coughed a bit and then shook his head. “And I thought Georgie had the corner on scandal.” He caught up another chair and dragged it over beside Temple’s. Sitting, he asked, “What was it that Marden spotted?”

“A birthmark. But I don’t think it is one. It appears to be a brand.”

Colin eyed him. “What does it look like?”

From his cousin’s tone, Temple had the feeling he was afraid to ask. Just about as much as Temple was afraid to tell him.

“A fleur-de-lis. She has a small fleur-de-lis burned into her shoulder.”

Colin’s mouth fell open, and he stammered something Temple couldn’t make out.

“Yes, quite so,” he told his flabbergasted cousin, reaching over to pound him on the back. “Very much the reaction I had.”

Colin held up his hand to stave off any more of Temple’s assistance. Then he shot his cousin a very serious look. “If this is true, you know what it means? Can you imagine the groups who would use an Englishwoman in France as an opportunity to foment revolution here?”

“Yes, I can.” Temple shook his head. “I fear I’ve brought terrible danger to your doorstep. I apologize, but I didn’t know who else to go to for help.”

“Rubbish,” Colin said, clapping his cousin on the back. “Georgie will be in alt. She’ll start arming the footmen and upstairs maids and drilling them in the driveway.” Then Colin turned more sober. “Pymm was right about one thing.”

“And that would be?” Temple asked.

“Diana must be wed. Immediately.” Colin rose, hands behind his back, and rocked on his heels.

Temple well imagined this was the stance Colin often took on the rolling deck of his ship, the
Sybaris
.

“Yes, I know she must be,” he agreed. “It is the only way to safeguard her.”

“You are going to make me a rich man,” his cousin said, now grinning from ear to ear.

“Rich? How so?”

Colin cringed and then had the good manners to look embarrassed. “After you left White’s, there was a bit of speculation, and I fear I got a little caught up in it.”

Temple arched a brow. “About what?”

Hemming and hawing, Colin shuffled his feet. “You know I’m not one for betting or rash stakes, but I just wanted to see those smug, lazy bastards humbled just once at their own game.”

“What did you bet?”

“Two thousand pounds.”

“Two thousand?” Temple choked out. He knew Colin was a man of means, but he was also a cautious man who would never bet unless he knew he was certain to win.

What the devil could Colin have been so sure of to risk so much?

“Tell me exactly what you wrote in the book that got you into this muddle.”

“That you’d succeed in finding and marrying Lady Diana before any other man.”

“Marry Diana?” Temple stammered. “Me? You know that isn’t possible.”

“Oh, not this again,” Colin said.

“Here me well, cousin,” Temple said, “Two thousand pounds or not, I’ll never marry her.”

“Lady Diana,” a voice called down the stairs.

Diana whirled around from the door of Colin’s study, her face red with shame.

It wasn’t for the fact that she had just been caught eavesdropping, because she’d only just pressed her ear to the door. No, what brought the color to her cheeks were the only words she’d managed to overhear.

I’ll never marry her.

Temple’s adamant tone tore down every hope she’d ever held that he would eventually come to his senses.

She’d been a fool all these years to think otherwise.

“Lady Diana, are you well?”

Diana took a deep breath, hoping to still her quivering lips, the racking shudders in her chest. Of all the people who had to see her thusly, it had to be Colin’s wife.

Inside the study, the men’s voices began to rise, but their words, fast and heated, melded together into a cacophony.

Lady Danvers shook her head and held out her hand. “Come along. From the sound of it, they’ll be at it for hours.” She offered a small, tentative smile to Diana. “Besides, I think we have much to discuss. And plan.”

In that moment, Diana knew she’d found a friend, and a determined ally.

“I
know you love her,” Colin said, meeting his cousin’s inscrutable gaze with a challenging one of his own. “How can you even consider such a choice?”

Temple shook his head. “Don’t you see,
this
is the only choice I have.”

“I don’t see that, not at all,” Colin told him, stalking over to his desk and throwing Pymm’s special license down on top of it. “You love her. And for some ridiculous reason, she loves you…still,” he added, hoping to make a point. “How can you even think of asking me to marry her off to someone else?”

Temple flinched and looked away. The idea of Diana being another man’s wife cut him to the core.

He supposed it always would have, but in the last few days, being in her constant company had only renewed the heartache that he thought he’d banished years ago.

Colin caught him by the shoulder and spun him around. “The luckiest day of my life wasn’t the day I met Georgie, it was the day she became my wife. Marry Diana. Don’t live the rest of your life with regrets.”

“But what about Diana? How can I say she won’t come to rue her choice?”

“Don’t you think if she was of such limited character, she’d have given up on waiting for you and married someone else by now?”

“Nonsense. She hasn’t an inkling what being my wife would entail.” Temple ran a hand through his hair. “You of all people should have some idea of what I’m saying.”

Colin had heard this argument too many times. Temple’s fears were ridiculous. If it were any other woman, Colin might have agreed, but this was Diana Fordham they were discussing.

She possessed a tenacity of spirit and will that Colin had seen in only one other woman. And he’d had the good sense to marry that one.

“I’m doing this for Diana,” Temple said with a resignation that sent Colin’s frustrations through the roof.

Especially because he knew that once Temple set his heels, it was next to impossible to change his cousin’s stubborn stance. If he continued to argue the point, his obstinate relation would only dig in harder.

He and their grandfather had much in common, as much as they both would disagree on the point.

Only Temple possessed one thing their grandfather never would—a heart. As much as he disavowed it, Temple only needed to bridge the divide between him and Diana, and it would quell the fears that seemed to lock his cousin in a lonely exile from life.

“Discreetly send out word,” Temple told him in a voice devoid of emotion. “Whoever arrives first, wed Diana to him without delay.” He paused for a moment, and Colin held out hope that he was reconsidering, but it wasn’t to be.

“Elton and I will continue on toward Scotland as if we are still making a dash for Gretna. Hopefully Marden will take the bait and follow us, while Diana remains here safe with you.”

Colin gave it one more chance. “What if I can keep her out of sight, at least until you get to Scotland and determine if these rumors of a French tangle are true or not. Then you can return and marry her.”

Temple shook his head. “It matters not who her father is. Not to me. But if she is Louis’s daughter, she’ll only be safe once she is wedded and bedded.”

He turned and shot a look of pure challenge at his cousin that seemed to say,
And not by me
.

“Diana, there is no reason why we can’t straighten all this out.” Georgie smiled, then glanced at the door. “Though I do wish my sister were here. No one can set a man on his ear like Kit.”

“If only I could convince Temple that he doesn’t need to protect me from his life. I’m hardly the wide-eyed innocent I was when we first met.”

Georgie waved her hand at Diana. “After all these years, Colin still requires constant persuading that he needs me. And Temple…I well imagine he is twice as stubborn.” She took a sip from her cup of tea. “Do you love him?”

Diana nodded.

“Have you told him?”

“I’ve tried. But it doesn’t matter. It’s as if the more right it seems, the more he pushes me away. Why, I truly think he would have let me marry Colin.”

“Well, thank goodness that never happened,” Georgie said.

Both women burst into companionable laughter. After but a few moments in Georgie’s company, Diana felt as if she’d known the other woman all her life.

But Diana’s humor didn’t last long. “Oh, Georgie, what am I to do? I’ve waited so long for him. I thought I could accept his change of heart. King and country and all that honor rubbish. But not any longer. Can’t anyone see that he is tired? That he’s given his country everything but his life? He’s lost, and I’m not going to wait idly by for the day when he doesn’t come back.”

Georgie nodded in complete understanding.

“His work for the Foreign Office is going to kill him.”

“You know about that?” she asked, her eyes wide with shock.

“Yes, but don’t tell him.”

“Oh, never. Temple is quite proud of his deception.” Georgie grinned. “How long have you known?”

Diana blushed. “Since the day I was to marry Colin. But it matters not how. I only knew then that I couldn’t marry anyone but Temple.”

“Then I’m glad you discovered the truth in time,” Georgie said, patting her swollen midsection.

“So am I.”

Georgie leaned over and refilled Diana’s cup.

Diana nodded her thanks, and continued, “Before I found out, I could never understand Temple’s sudden change of heart, his wretched indifference. Once I knew, I told myself that he just didn’t want to embroil me in such dastardly affairs.”

The door to the salon came flying open, and in dashed a young girl. “Mother? Mother?”

“Here, Chloe,” Georgie said.

Chloe let out a long, anxious sigh, as if the end of the world was coming. “I can’t find Sarah. She’s supposed to be taking her lessons with me and she’s gone missing.
Again
.”

Diana hid a smile behind her hand. She knew that Chloe was supposedly Georgie’s daughter from a previous marriage, and that Colin had adopted her, but if Diana didn’t know better, she would swear that the little girl’s inky locks and riveting eyes were the exact image of Lord Danvers.

And if Chloe was close to nine years old that would mean…Diana gave up on the math that placed the child’s arrival within nine months of her broken engagement to Lord Danvers.

Obviously Colin’s heart hadn’t been torn asunder for very long.

“Never mind about your sister,” Georgie was saying. “I sent Sarah on a little errand.”

Chloe’s mouth pursed, and then she glanced over at their guest. “Are you Lady Diana?”

“Yes, I am.”

The little girl eyed her up and down. “Aren’t you supposed to marry Cousin Temple?”

“Chloe!” Georgie said. “That isn’t something you ask a lady.”

“Well, I would think she would know,” the little girl replied. The child crossed the space between them and sat down beside Diana. “How did you meet him?”

She smiled down into the rapt face looking up at her and reached back to those treasured memories, the ones that had held her in good stead all these years. She’d never told anyone about her affair with Temple, but now seemed as good a time as any.

“It was by chance that we first met…” Diana began.

Sussex, 1796

The carriage skidded to a clattering and unearthly halt on the moonless and pitch-black road.

Inside, Lady Diana Fordham, a recent student of Miss Emery’s Establishment for the Education of Genteel Young Ladies, tumbled from her seat and landed in a heap on the floor, uttering a ripe phrase that was most unlikely to have been learned at her very proper school.

And from the deep intake of breath, her hired companion, who had landed beside her in much the same fashion, didn’t approve much more than Miss Emery would have of the oath Diana had chosen.

“Lady Diana,” Mrs. Foston began in a voice that harbingered another lecture on the propriety of young ladies. “I hardly think—” she began as she started to right herself. “Oh dear. Oh my. Oh, I believe I have injured myself.”

Diana thought Mrs. Foston would be better served if she just came out and cursed.

“Let me lend you a hand,” she suggested instead. Diana helped the lady back up to her seat and then fumbled in the darkness for the window and pulled open the shade. “Gribbens? Gribbens? Are you well?” she asked their driver.

“I’m fine, milady,” came the gruff reply. “And you and the missus?”

“Mrs. Foston is hurt, but I am unharmed. What happened?” she asked, feeling around for her bonnet, which had flown off in the tumult.

Besides frowning on cursing, Mrs. Foston was loath to see her without a bonnet. Her companion took her duties very seriously, seeing to her young charge with the utmost care and strictest of rules. Diana imagined that was because the lady had no family or income beyond the little her army sergeant husband had left her before he’d died.

Since Lord Lamden had hired Mrs. Foston as a favor to her husband’s colonel, an old family friend, the lady was determined to discharge her duties with almost a military fervor—much to Diana’s chagrin.

After some more frantic searching, her fingers closed over the bonnet’s silk ribbons, tugging it loose from beneath the seat, and then plopping it back over her curls.

“There’s a bit of a problem, milady. Now, you stay inside there, and Michaels and Wilson will have…um, will have…
it
cleared away right quick.”

From behind the carriage, the two footmen leapt down from their posts. The flicker of a lantern passed by, as they brought the light from the rear of the carriage forward to survey the situation.

Diana waited silently inside, the only sounds their boots crunching in the gravel on the roadway, and then the deep intake of breath as one of them stepped around the front of the horses.

One of the beasts nickered and then balked, rattling its bridle and bit, and lurching the carriage back a few feet.

“Is it alive?” she heard Wilson mutter to Michaels.

“Could be a highwayman’s trick. I heard tell they used one in Dorset until it stank too much for them to carry about.”

“One what?” she called after them suspicious of the man’s uneasy tones. “What exactly is in the road?”

“Oh, milady, don’t you fret a moment about this. Just do as Gribbens tells ye and stay inside the carriage.” Michaels, another longtime family retainer, sounded as uneasy as Gribbens.

And like Gribbens, knew their mistress wouldn’t stay put for very long.

Diana’s hand was already on the latch. “Whatever is
it
that you don’t want me to see?”

“Really, miss, it ain’t a sight for yer eyes.”

That was enough for Diana. She bounded out of the carriage, deliberately ignoring Mrs. Foston’s protests, for she knew the lady’s injury prevented her from doing much other than complaining—vehemently.

Better to ask forgiveness than permission
, Diana thought.

She followed the shaft of light knifing through the darkness until she came to the wall presented by the backs of Gribbens, Michaels, and Wilson.

“What is it that has us waylaid and the three of you so flummoxed?” she asked, prodding her way between them.

“Oh no, miss. Don’t,” Gribbens warned.

And then Diana saw it.

A man facedown in the road before them. His body lay at an unnatural angle.

“Is he dead?” she whispered.

“Don’t rightly know, miss,” Michaels said. “Like Wilson was saying, it could be a trick.”

Then she noticed that both Wilson and Michaels had their pistols drawn.

“Oh, botheration,” she muttered, reaching over and snatching the lantern from Gribbens. Ignoring his protests much as she had ignored Mrs. Foston’s, she stalked over to the body. “If it were a trick, don’t you think it would have been sprung by now?”

Setting the lamp down, she knelt beside the man and put her fingers on his neck. His skin was still warm, and there was a faint pulse beneath her fingers.

She let out a deep breath, one she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“He’s alive,” she said over her shoulder.
Barely.

She caught up the lamp again and tried to discern who he might be. By the expensive cut of his coat and the sheen of his boots, he wasn’t some mere ruffian.

“Wilson, Michaels, be quick and turn him so we can see who he is.”

In all likelihood it was one of their neighbors thrown from his horse while coming home from the squire’s dance.

The footman caught the man and rolled him over, the poor fellow groaning at the movement. But his identity remained a mystery, for he wasn’t anyone Diana had ever met.

Dark hair framed a young, handsome face. A strong jaw, carved features, and a hawkish look made him seem almost like a fallen angel. A most unholy one.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and shook him slightly. “Sir, sir, what has happened to you?”

He did not reply, but instead a warm, wet feeling crept through her gloves. When she pulled her fingers back, a dark red stain spread over the once white kid leather.

Blood. His blood.

“He’s been shot,” Michaels said.

“Highwaymen,” Wilson muttered, in a tone that hinted that he’d been right all along. “Best we be getting you home, milady.”

“Then load him into the carriage quickly,” Diana instructed.

“Miss?” Gribbens said, as if he swore he hadn’t heard her correctly.

“I said, load this man in the carriage. We certainly can’t leave him here. He’ll perish.”

“But miss, your father is in London. He’s not likely to be pleased about having a stranger in the house when he’s not home.”

“Botheration, Gribbens, you sound like Mrs. Foston. I am not about to leave this man to die in the road like a stray dog. Get him in the carriage.”

Her stance told all three that she wasn’t going to yield.

And if their protests were bad enough, nothing surprised Diana more than when Mrs. Foston cursed roundly at having a bleeding, unconscious man heaped onto her lap.

Danvers Hall, 1809

“And so you saved Cousin Temple?” Chloe asked.

“Yes,” Diana told her. “I suppose I did.”

“That’s almost as wonderful as how Aunt Kit met her husband,” Chloe said with a sigh, as only romantically inclined little girls could. She leaned forward and whispered loudly, “She met her husband when she was sent to jail for stealing.”