The first thing Diana saw when she entered the ballroom at the Seftons that evening was the sight of Lord Rumford waltzing with a young, black-haired girl.
“We haven’t seen her before,” Sally murmured in her ear. “I wonder if that’s the elusive Miss Longwood.”
It didn’t take long for them to find out. Lord Dorset came immediately to Sally’s side and when she asked him who was dancing with Lord Rumford he replied immediately, “Oh, that’s Miss Longwood. I believe the family has just come to London.”
Diana looked at the girl who might be her rival. Miss Longwood was perhaps a little too plump, but she was vivaciously pretty. She was smiling brilliantly up at Lord Rumford as he said something to her.
“She’s attractive, but she’s nothing like you,” Sally murmured in Diana’s ear.
Yes, but she’s a viscount’s daughter, Diana thought. In this world, it’s birth, not looks, that counts.
One of the young men who always danced with Diana came up to her now and requested the next dance. She acquiesced gracefully and looked around to see if Lady Caroline Wrentham was present.
She was.
Diana felt a wicked stab of delight. Poor Lady Caroline, she thought mendaciously. Alex had decided not to come to Lady Sefton’s. Instead he was going out with some of the officers he worked with at the Horse Guards. Then she frowned, as she realized how happy she was at the prospect of Alex’s separation from the beautiful Caroline.
I don’t care what Alex does, she told herself firmly.
As soon as the dance was over, Lord Rumford came to Diana’s side, asking to be put on her dance card. She penciled him in for a waltz and a quadrille. Then he asked her to have supper with him, as well.
She couldn’t resist glancing over at Miss Longwood.
He said quietly, “It’s all right. I have no obligations in that direction.”
“But perhaps you have raised expectations,” she said softly in return.
“Believe me, Miss Sherwood, I am my own man,” he replied, his voice quite firm.
Could it really be true? Diana thought as she gazed up into the earl’s steady eyes. Could he really be seriously interested in her?
Her chest felt tight as a storm of emotion churned within her. This was what she had wanted, but now that it seemed to be happening, she was surprisingly apprehensive.
She drew a deep breath. “Very well, my lord, then I will be happy to have supper with you.”
The following morning Diana and Lord Rumford were the talk at all the breakfast tables of those who had been to the Sefton ball. The earl had danced once with Miss Longwood and twice with Diana. And he had taken Diana into supper.
The Longwood breakfast table was not a happy one. The viscount had not been in attendance with his daughter and his wife and when he learned about Rumford’s obvious interest in Diana, he cursed.
“Who the hell is this Diana Sherwood?” he demanded of his wife. “I’ve never heard of the chit.”
“Her mother is a cousin of Lady Standish,” she replied. “She is making her come-out along with Lady Sarah Devize. She is a nobody, my lord. I asked around last night. Her father was a mere colonel who was killed in the Peninsula and she and her mother have been virtual pensioners of the Standishes for years.”
“Then what the bloody hell is her attraction for Rumford?” the viscount demanded.
“She’s beautiful, Papa,” Jessica Longwood replied. “She’s the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”
The viscount slammed his hand down on the table. “We need this marriage, Jessica! Financially, we have to have it! I thought we had Rumford signed, sealed and delivered.”
“I thought so, too, Papa,” Jessica replied unhappily. “But he never did actually ask me to marry him, you know. I thought he was going to, at the house party at the Websters’. If he wants to change his affections to Miss Sherwood, I’m afraid he is free to do so.”
Lady Longwood said vehemently, “He does have obligations to you, Jessica! The entire ton expects him to offer for you. He gave every indication that he would do so! He can’t humiliate you now by turning to someone else.”
Silence fell as the Longwoods considered these words.
“I have just mortgaged Longwood to pay your brother’s gaming debts, Jessica,” Lord Longwood said. “I have confined him to the estate, but it’s too late to turn back the clock. We desperately need an infusion of cash. Your marriage to Rumford was the perfect solution to our problem. Once the knot was tied, I could have asked him for a substantial loan. He couldn’t refuse me, then. He wouldn’t want the scandal. And we have to act fast, before the truth becomes known about our financial situation. Then no one will want to marry you.”
“I know that, Papa,” Jessica cried. “I have done everything I could to attach Lord Rumford. I thought for certain that he would ask me to marry him this Season.”
“Damn! We should have come to town sooner. But I had to borrow the money before we could do so.”
“Perhaps this is just a brief infatuation of Rumford’s,” Lady Longwood said. “She is a beautiful girl, my lord. But she certainly isn’t well born enough to marry an earl. Perhaps Rumford will come to his senses—particularly now that Jessica is here to show him the alternative.”
“I hope to God that is so, my lady,” Lord Longwood said. “Because if we lose Rumford, I don’t know what we are going to do.”
That afternoon Alex went to Grillon’s Hotel, to a reception that the prince regent was holding for King Louis XVIII before the French king left England to take up his newly restored position in Versailles. A large throne had been put in place for Louis and, as Alex stood with a group of other Peninsula veterans, the king moved slowly toward the chair, rather dragging his large body and weak limbs than walking. The regent shared some of the spotlight by investing Louis with the Order of the Garter, graciously buckling the garter around a leg even fatter than his own.
Captain Thomas Stapleton, an old friend whom Alex hadn’t seen since he’d returned home, was standing next to him. Stapleton said, “There was no question that we had to get rid of Napoleon, but I wish I could be more confident about his replacement.”
Alex looked at the fat Bourbon king. “We’re working hard to make the transition smooth,” he said. “Wellington will be in Paris to command the occupation.” He sighed. “The transition from war to peace is not as easy as I thought it would be.”
Captain Stapleton immediately grasped that Alex was speaking on the personal not the political level. “No,” he agreed soberly. “I was glad to see my mother and father again but life at home seems somehow…remote. I was only just out of school when I left; I never had the chance to build an adult life for myself here in England. Life in the army is what is real to me now. Yet I don’t want to go back to that, either.”
Alex felt a chill go through him as he heard his own feelings spoken out loud.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We need to find a tavern where we can get very drunk.”
It was after two in the morning when Alex staggered into the house. Instead of going upstairs to bed, he made his way down the hall to the library, where he flung himself into a leather chair that was placed comfortably in front of the fireplace.
He didn’t want anything else to drink. He and Tom Stapleton had almost drunk each other under the table. But it had been very good to be with someone who was going through the same feeling of displacement as he was.
I can’t continue like this, he told himself as he stared with blurred vision into the empty fireplace. I have to make a new life for myself. I am the Earl of Standish. I have responsibilities.
But he was meeting his responsibilities, he thought. He was here in London, doing the things that a young man in his position was supposed to be doing. Wasn’t he?
What do I want? he thought.
The answer came immediately. I want Dee. She is home to me. She’s the only one who can bring me back to my old world. Stapleton doesn’t have anyone like that, but I do. I have Dee.
But he didn’t have Dee, of course. He had thrown Dee away when he had gone away to war. He had loved her all his life, and he had left her anyway.
What a fool he had been. And now it was too late. She wouldn’t forgive him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even blame her. He was the guilty one, not her. She deserved someone better than he.
He heard the night footman open the door and there were voices in the hall. The ladies had returned from whatever ball they had been out to this evening.
Tomorrow he had to ride to Richmond Park with Dee and Lord Rumford. And with Lady Caroline Wrentham, who for some reason appeared to be interested in him.
She seemed to be a nice enough young woman, but he wasn’t interested in her. He wasn’t interested in anyone except Dee.
What if she married the Earl of Rumford and was lost to him forever? What would he do?
There is so much between us, he thought. Can she really turn her back on it all and marry a man old enough to be her father?
She had never really had a father, he thought. Perhaps she was looking for one in Lord Rumford.
When Diana invited Sally to join the expedition to Richmond Park, Sally had been delighted to accept. However, instead of asking Lord Dorset to join her, as everyone thought she would, she sent a note to the home of the Duke of Sinclair inviting him along.
She did it with much trepidation. Sally had always thought of herself as a quiet girl, but she was discovering a boldness that she had not known she possessed. First she had rescued Jem from the chimney sweep, and now she was chasing after one of the most notorious rakes in London.
She couldn’t explain it, but there was something about the Duke of Sinclair that spoke to her. There had been a look in his eyes when he had come to her rescue that day. He had not helped her on a whim. He had been as disgusted as she with Jem’s situation.
Most of the men she danced with and drove in the park with were quite pleasant and charming. It was impossible not to like a nice young man like Lord Dorset. But she was not certain that he would have rescued Jem as Sinclair had. So she daringly sent a note off to Sinclair House asking the duke to escort her on the trip to Richmond, and he responded several hours later saying that he would.