“I don’t think that will ever be possible.” And if it were, he would not recognize her. She was confused and hurt, and no amount of fine garments or invitations gathering on the foyer table would cure that.
The following day while Serena napped with the baby, Tracy arrived from the country and came to the house. Diantha dressed in a walking gown with a single delicate flounce and a smart velvet pelisse, and her brother took her up in his phaeton to drive to the shops. London seemed all streets and buildings, horses and carts and carriages and vendors and urchins darting about. It might have been enjoyable if on every corner she didn’t wonder whether a certain Welshman had ever walked along the same block and looked into the windows of the same shops that she did now.
“You’re very pretty, Di,” Tracy said, with a handsome smile beneath his golden curls as she walked on his arm. “Much prettier than you were before with all those spots. Not like Chare, of course . . .”
“Charity is beautiful.” She glanced into a shop window from which a display of cigars seemed to jeer at her. “I have only my eyes to recommend me. That’s what Mama always said.”
“Well, she ain’t seen you lately, and she never did like your spirit.” He winked, but his blue eyes, light and clear like Charity’s, showed the discomfort that always attended mention of their mother.
“I want to speak with her, Tracy.” And there it was again, the pain of dishonesty that lingered in her belly. When they’d been on the road it seemed so easy to withhold from Wyn the truth she had come to recognize at the mill. She thought now, in light of the things he had confided to her of his father and brothers, that if she had told him the truth about why she needed to find her mother he might even have sympathized.
Tracy looked grim. “That’s a tough prospect, you know. Don’t think that’ll be possible, seeing as we still don’t know where she is.” He patted her hand then nodded to a pair of gentlemen coming in the opposite direction. One of them touched the brim of his high-crown hat and winked at her as he passed.
“Tracy, are gentlemen in town at liberty to smile like that at any lady they pass by?”
“Not any lady. I’ve just told you that you’re a taking thing these days. You’ll like it in time. All the young ladies do,” he assured with a grin.
Diantha had seen plenty of those young ladies on their stroll. Beautiful ladies, elegant ladies, young misses dressed gorgeously and whose faces shone with purity, in town with one purpose: to secure a husband. A husband like Wyn. That was the sort of lady he should wed, not a hoyden.
“She did not like my spirit, it’s true,” she murmured. “She always said I was hopeless. ‘Unbiddable.’ ”
Tracy darted his gaze to her then back to the road. He cleared his throat. “There now, Di. There’s no cause to be dredging up—”
“Charity was biddable.”
“Now I’ve just as much affection for Chare as I have for you, but she’s had her own troubles, mark my words.”
“I suppose Mama leaving as she did before her wedding must have been hurtful to her.”
“Speaking of weddings.” Tracy’s good humor seemed to rally. “While I wouldn’t want some of these rum goers nearer to you than a ten-foot pole, a few of my friends are decent. It’d be a fine thing for you to marry a man I could get along with.” For a moment he seemed thoughtful. “What I’m saying is that whatever our mother used to say, I like you, Di. Always have, even when you were a little sprite running around our father’s feet and keeping him out of that chair he liked so much and chasing you around when you shouldn’t have even been out of the nursery.”
“Did I do that?”
“That time you hid his brandy.” He chuckled. “You couldn’t have been more than five or six. He flew into the boughs when he discovered it missing. Thought it was that old pilfering footman again. But when he discovered it was you, he laughed and took you to the lake for a boat ride.”
She had always been a hoyden. “I hadn’t remembered that.”
“You were always up to larks, even with Carlyle from the day our mother took you and Charity to Glenhaven Hall. Never shy of letting a man know what you wanted.” He looked down at her, a crease in his brow. “Di, I’m determined to fix a good match for you. That’s why Carlyle and I brought you to town, of course, and it’s why Serena’s taking you about to meet all the matrons. Those ladies know which fellows are the decent ones, the sort that wouldn’t ever think of hurting a girl’s feelings.”
She must tell him of Wyn’s offer, but her tongue would not function.
“It’s just that you’ve been through plenty, with our mother leaving as she did.” His voice was sober now. “You deserve to be happy now. We’re settling a pretty dowry on you that’ll attract all the regular fortune hunters, but I’ll be damned if I’ll give you to a man who’ll have anything but your best interests at heart.”
At the Bates’s farm, Wyn had said that he was not in her best interests. But perhaps he had been trying to tell her—carefully, considerately—that she was not in his.
An hour later Tracy stood white-faced in the middle of the drawing room and stared at Diantha.
“I will not allow it.” His voice was uncharacteristically firm.
“Come now, Lucas,” the Earl of Savege said from his position at the sideboard. “Yale is a suitable candidate for your sister’s hand and they are already agreed upon it.” He poured from a carafe and walked toward Tracy. He stood several inches taller than her brother, an attractive, large man with an air of confident command that Tracy’s usual blithe mode of camaraderie could not match. Alex proffered the glass. “No need to jam a spoke in the thing now.”
Serena frowned. “Tracy, have you good reason for withholding your approval?”
Tracy set the glass down on the table. “I needn’t have a reason,” he said firmly, his brow creased. “I want what’s best for my sister and Yale isn’t it. I’m afraid that’s my final word on the matter. And see here, Savege, you’ve your way in most matters regarding my family, and it’s worked out best for the most part. But this time it’s my decision and you’ll not tell me my business.” He turned to Diantha. “I’m sorry, Di. Until you’re five-and-twenty you can’t marry without my approval, but I won’t give it to Yale.” He bowed curtly, went to the door and out.
She stared, her insides a tangle.
“I haven’t seen him so agitated in years,” Serena said. “What on earth can he hold against Wyn?”
“Nothing I can imagine,” Alex said. “Diantha?”
She shook her head.
“We must tell Tracy the truth,” Serena said upon a breath.
“No.” Diantha gripped her hands in her lap. Tracy was handing Wyn an escape from his responsibility to her.
“Your brother blusters,” Alex said, “but I can make him see reason if you wish it.”
“I don’t wish it. Rather, let this be an end to it.”
Serena stood. “Then it is all to be forgotten? I cannot like it. Diantha, you are making a mistake.”
“Why hasn’t Yale arrived in town yet?” Alex again directed his question at Diantha. She could only answer with the truth.
“Perhaps he wishes to delay the inevitable.”
Serena shook her head. “That isn’t like him. Didn’t you hear anything Kitty or I said to you the other day?”
“I did. But I fancy that after a fortnight traveling with him perhaps I know more of his wishes on the matter than either of you.” She stood up on unsteady legs. “He did his best to convince me to return to Brennon Manor. Frankly, he did everything short of tying me up and bringing me home by force. He helped me because he felt obligated and he offered for me because it was the honorable thing to do, but he doesn’t want this marriage and I don’t wish to hold him to it. Tracy may be nonsensical, but forcing him to change his mind on the matter would be even more nonsensical.” She took a tight breath. “I hope you will both understand that. I am quite certain Mr. Yale will be content with the outcome.” She strode from the room and to her bedchamber, where she stood at the window looking out at the street and wondering why, in fact, he had not yet come to town.