Page 2 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
He had always been just the best brother, really; kind and indulgent. He had made time for her whenever she had had need of him, and probably it was difficult for him to come to terms with the fact that she didn’tneed himanymore—at least, not in the same fashion. But she would not let herself be swayed by it. It wastime. Long past time.
“I will write,” she agreed softly, only to reassure him. “As often as I am able.” Though she could not imagine there would be any need, for she intended to be back before long.
“We will miss you something dreadful,” Lydia said, and she reached across the expanse of the table to lay her hand over Diana’s.
Diana would miss them too, of course. She’d lived with them these last four years, and they had been the best of her life by far. But she had been suffocating in London, smothering slowly beneath the weight of her unending engagement. The time had come for her to finally,finally, take her life in her own hands.
But she did hate that she had had to lie to them in order to do it.
∞∞∞
“I’ve found him.” The words had slipped out just moments after the maidservant who had delivered the afternoon tea tray had quit the room. It had been an effort of monumental proportions for Diana to keep them tucked behind her teeth even that long.
“I beg your pardon?” Emma asked, her strawberry blond brows scrunching in confusion as she exchanged a baffled glance with Phoebe, who sat at her left. She served herself a wafer-thin biscuit decorated with little frills of lemon icing. “And where is Lydia? It’s unusual for her to miss tea.”
That much was true, but Lydia had had to handle some trouble or other with the theatre company she managed, and would therefore not be in attendance this afternoon, which was simplyperfectbecause Diana could not take the risk that Lydia, devoted as she was to Marcus, might carry tales to her husband.
“She was called away by the theatre,” Diana said, and her fingers trembled as she dropped a lump of sugar into her tea. “But that doesn’t matter, because I havefoundhim. My errant fiancé.”
Phoebe muffled a little gasp beneath the press of her fingertips, her vivid blue eyes going wide. “Do you mean to say—”
“Yes. Yes, and I am swearing you to utter secrecy. Not even Lydia can know.”
“However did you manage it?” Emma asked, her mouth falling open in shock. “There’s been not a whisper, not even the smallest suggestion of him in years and years.”
Yes. Somehow, the man had managed to fall straight off the map, as if he’d never existed to begin with. Which was damned infuriating, because he’d left Diana to suffer the speculation of his defection on her own.
“Well,” Diana murmured, pushing up her spectacles, which had slid down her nose. “I didn’t find him, precisely. Rafe did.” Or said he had, at least. “He’s got an address for me. I’ll have it in my hands this very evening.”
“An address!” Phoebe’s fingers curled round her cup, her shoulders hunching as if to hold in a secret. Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial murmur, she asked, “Then you mean to do it?”
It, Diana supposed, was meant to encapsulate all those colorful fantasies she’d spun throughout the years of what she would do if her missing fiancé had ever had the good grace to turn up.
But he hadn’t. Probably he never would. And while he had been off, completely and totally indifferent to the fact that he had had a fiancée awaiting him in London, she had had nothing but time—years and years of it—to imagine what she would say to him, to compose excoriating speeches in her head.
She was eight and twenty already. A spinster. Because he hadn’t cared even enough to break their engagement, to set her free of that obligation.
Well, then. She would do it herself. And it would be glorious.
“I mean to say, wherever he is, I am going—and I am going to have done with him at last.” Sothere.
Emma gave a nervous little titter behind her hand. “Diana,” she said gently, “I know it has been…cathartic to speak of such things. But you can’tgo. It isn’tdone.”
Diana had long since ceased to care about what was and wasn’tdone. “It is now,” she said. “Who will miss me?”
“Iwould,” Phoebe said. “For God’s sake, you’re my only company atTonevents.”
That was more by Phoebe’s devising than anything else. For reasons known only to herself, she had never had much of an inclination to marry, and had gone to…rather extraordinary lengths to ensure it. She was perfectly content, therefore, to sit with the chaperones and to wait out an evening in quiet conversation with Diana.
Diana had been in that same situation out ofnecessity. Her longstandingengagement was public knowledge. The marriage mart was rife with gentlemen seeking wives, and she—she was not an option. She hadn’t ever been.
“But nobody else will,” she whispered. She had been a decoration for more years than she cared to count, merely one more woman in attendance who could be safely settled between the infirm and elderly at dinner parties. Makeweight, but never sought after. A woman of acceptable breeding and station whose only purpose was to even out numbers.
“Oh, Diana,” Emma sighed. “Of course you would be missed.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “But that is why I need you.” It was possible, if unlikely, that her disappearance might be noticed. Probably it would cause little more than a raised brow, an inquiry or two—but provided suspicion could be averted, then it would pass quickly. Nobody much liked to consider spinsters. Unmarried women of a certain age tended to make society uncomfortable, as if it were some sort of moral failing to be unwed. She had long grown accustomed to eyes running over her and then swiftly away, as if nobody dared let their gaze settle upon her too long. As if spinsterhood might becatching.
“I need you,” she said, taking a sip of her tea, “to change the subject should I happen to come up. It won’t be too difficult, I imagine. Just tell anyone who might ask—tell them I’ve gone to visit Mother in Scotland. It’s what I’ve told Marcus and Lydia.” With any luck, they would not learn otherwise until she had already returned. “You will help me, won’t you?”
