A Rogue for All Seasons (Weston Family) (2 page)

“Why would I deny it?” she returned hotly. “I would have told you before I left, but I wanted to wait until I was certain. I haven’t felt sick at all, and”—her voice shook—“we’ve been disappointed before. I thought… I thought you would be happy.”

Mama was going to have another baby? Maybe this time, Diana would get a little sister. She loved Alex, but a sister would make her so—

“Happy?” her father shouted. “You thought I’d be
happy
?”

Something hit the wall and shattered.

“Thomas! That vase was a wedding gift from the Prince of Wales,” her mother exclaimed.

“And now it’s broken. Just like my trust. Just like our marriage. Christ, do you even know if it’s mine?”

Why was Papa being so mean? He knew how much Diana loved that vase. She was always so careful when she looked at it. She knew it was special, just as Papa always told her she was special. Why would he break something she loved?

“How can you say these things?” her mother whispered. “When did you stop loving me?”

“What do you mean?” Her father’s tone was low and gruff; Diana had to strain to make out the words. “I dreamed of you, wanted you, from the first time I saw you. I fell in love with you that night you sneaked to the stables to watch over that foal. God help me, even knowing what I do, I still love you. I’ll love you until I die.”

“If you loved me, you would trust me.” Mama’s voice trembled as if she were trying not to cry. At first, Diana had been too surprised to cry, but now the surprise was wearing off. She bunched up her pinafore and pressed it to her face so no one would hear her distress.

“I don’t know who you are,” Mama said slowly. “There is a stranger in this room with me. You aren’t my Thomas. You aren’t the man I married, or the father of my children or”—she choked—“or the man I love.
He
is the father of this child. I don’t know you, and I don’t care to know you. I’ll return to The Hall as soon as the horses are rested, and I won’t come back. I pity you on the day you realize how stupidly you’ve acted.”

“I don’t know you, either. You say you love me, and maybe you did when we married. You chose me then, but now you run off to your parents at the first word. They treat you like a servant. They haven’t forgiven you, Linnet, and they never will. They want Alex.”

“I’m not an idiot. I know my parents’ shortcomings, but at least their anger at me is justified. I wonder if you realize you’ve given them just what they want. You’ve driven the children and me straight into their arms.”

“Diana and Alex stay with me. I won’t have them raised in that shrine to wealth and privilege.”

“You can’t raise Diana alongside you in the stables. Do you want her to grow up to be a lady or a circus performer? And whether you like it or not, Alex is second in line to the dukedom. That ‘shrine to wealth and privilege’ might well be his someday. Will you deny our children their birthright?”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them,” came her father’s fierce reply.

“Then perhaps you’re not completely lost, even if you are lost to reason.”

Long moments passed before her father said, “Diana will have a better life with you than I can give her, but you must break with Peckford. I don’t want him around my children. I want Alex—”

“I was never
with
him!”

Then there was only the sound of Mama crying. Diana cried with her. They would hear her soon. She couldn’t keep quiet much longer. Mama was leaving, and Diana would go with her. Papa didn’t even care. He only wanted Alex.

“There are times I’ve been so angry with my parents that I wished them out of my life, but however much I disagree with them, I have always understood them.” Her mother sounded as if she had a cold. “I will never understand how you could doubt me. I didn’t know I could love someone and hate him at the same time.”

“Neither did I.” Papa’s voice was colder than Diana had ever heard it. “You will stay the night. Tomorrow—”

“No!” Diana shrieked, scrambling out from under the desk. “No, no, no, no!” She stamped her feet and flailed her arms around, trying to make it all go away.

“Diana…” Her mother, ashen-faced, took a step toward her.

Diana screamed as loud as she could. If she couldn’t hear her parents, then they couldn’t say any more bad things. Or at least she couldn’t hear them. So she screamed until she ran out of air, and then she was crying. She was crying with her whole body, crying so hard that it hurt and made it difficult to breathe.

Her mother’s concerned face swam before her eyes. “Come now, you must stop. You will make yourself sick.” She reached out a hand.

Diana backed away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Diana, love,” her father began.

“Don’t call me that,” she sobbed. “You don’t love me.”

“Don’t say—”

“You
don’t
!” she yelled. “You only love Alex. I hate you! I hate you, hate you,
hate you
!” With a fierce cry, she shoved everything she could off of her father’s desk. The papers, the books, the inkwell—off it all went in a satisfying crash. She didn’t wait to assess the damage, though. She ran from the study, then through the front door and out into the cold, dark night.

Diana heard her parents calling her name, but she ignored them. When her father came after her, she just ran faster. She ran and ran and ran, her heart pounding away in her chest and tears coursing down her face. Because if she ran long enough, and if she ran far enough, Diana was sure she could find a hiding place so secret, so safe that nothing bad would be able to find her…

CHAPTER ONE

With you and Olivia now happily married, I can turn my attentions to your brother. I had hoped, as you may have guessed, he and Miss Merriwether would suit. I know you think her quiet and reserved, but your rogue of a brother needs a woman with maturity and strength of character—a woman to see beyond his looks and his flirtations to the man he has the potential to be. I thought to bring them into each other’s company by pushing him to dance with her, but I should have known he would look askance at any female brought forth by his mother. All his life, I have only sought his happiness. As Shakespeare wrote, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

—FROM THE VISCOUNTESS WESTON TO HER DAUGHTER THE COUNTESS OF DUNSTON

S
IXTEEN YEARS LATER
LONDON

“A
RE YOU TRULY STAYING IN
town for the Season?” Isabella, Countess of Dunston, asked as she handed her brother a cup of tea. “I thought having the whole family here would send you running far and fast.”

“I am keeping a valise packed in the event I need to flee in the night.” Henry Weston regarded his sister with amusement. “Was that your subtle way of suggesting I leave, Izzie? Perhaps you should have considered how often I would visit your breakfast room before you married my oldest friend.”

Isabella laughed, but Henry didn’t miss the subtle tension that tightened her shoulders. James Sheffield, Earl of Dunston, the husband and friend in question, frowned as he set aside his morning paper. “I would wager you come for the food, rather than the company,” he said dryly as he took Isabella’s hand. They exchanged a fond, intimate look that had Henry averting his eyes.

Isabella leaned forward in her seat. “Hal, you must know I am always happy to have you with us,” she earnestly assured him. “I even suggested to James that you ought to stay here. Now that I have redecorated, this is surely more comfortable than your bachelor’s lodgings. However—”

“However,” James broke in, “I persuaded your sister that her generosity was unnecessary.”

“But James—”

Henry chuckled. “No, Izzie, he’s quite right. ‘Two is company, three is none,’ isn’t that the saying? Believe me, I have no desire to intrude on your, er…”

“Desires?” supplied James.

“Do you know, I believe we’re long overdue for a round in the ring at Jackson’s. I know I promised my sister I wouldn’t call you out for seducing her, but I think I deserve the opportunity to blacken your daylights.”

“Don’t you dare think of fighting with James,” Isabella warned. “And, just so you know,
I
was the one doing the seducing.”

Henry and James groaned in unison.

“Hush, love,” James told his wife. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

“The only reputation you need to be concerned with upholding,” Izzie maintained, “is that of the world’s most faithful husband and devoted father.”

“And if he slips up? Then can I pound him into the ground?” Henry asked hopefully.

“If he slips up, you are welcome to whatever is left once I’ve finished with him,” his sister agreed, her blond curls bobbing in approval.

James winced. “You have nothing to worry about, my bloodthirsty little wench.”

A tender smile curved her lips. “Then neither do you.”

“What you should both be worried about is the spectacle Mother is going to make of you at her ball,” Henry interjected. He wasn’t looking forward to his mother’s ball, but at least he wasn’t the cause for the occasion. That honor fell to James and Isabella, along with Olivia, another of Henry’s sisters, and her husband. In the past two years, two of his sisters had married, giving him two brothers-in-law and two baby nieces. At times, everything felt a bit
two
much.

Isabella grinned and glanced knowingly in his direction. “I don’t think
we
are the ones who need to be concerned.”

“What do you mean?”

Isabella sighed. “Have you learned nothing in all these years? What is our mother’s main purpose in life?”

“Finishing her book?” Henry guessed. Their mother had been working on a collection of essays about Shakespeare’s heroines for, well, forever.

“Yes, well, aside from that.” Izzie waved a hand, brushing aside their mother’s opus.

At his blank look, she gestured between herself and James, then held up her left hand, wriggling the finger encircled by her wedding band. How could he forget? Even more than finishing her book, his mother wanted to see all her children wed.

“The twins are a bit young for her matchmaking efforts. Lia and Genni are only twelve. Besides, they’re more interested in books than boys.”

“The twins are
fourteen,
and the books they’re currently enthralled with are romantic tales. When they were over last week, Lia spent the better part of the visit rhapsodizing over one of the grooms at Weston Manor, and you know Genni will follow where Lia leads. Still, I think the twins are safe for now. Mama’s current project is well past marriageable age.”

Henry groaned. “Is she back to Miss Merriwether again?” His mother had a soft spot for that particular wallflower. “The chit has been out for at least five Seasons. She—”

Isabella stood and leaned over the table until her nose nearly touched his. “Not. Miss. Merriwether.” She punctuated each word with a sharp jab to his chest. “You!”

“No.” He tugged at his cravat, wondering if the temperature in the room had risen drastically in the past few minutes.

“Until the twins are out of the schoolroom,” Isabella continued, confirming his fears, “you are the only child Mama has left to marry off. The real reason for this ball is so she can look over this Season’s crop of debutantes with an eye to picking her future daughter-in-law.”

“I’m too young to get married,” Henry protested. “I still have wild oats to sow.”

“If even half of what I hear is to be believed, you’ve already sown more than your fair share,” his sister remarked dryly.

“Besides, I am only four months older than you,” James reminded him, “and Izzie and I are about to celebrate our second anniversary. You’re going to need a better argument than age to avoid the parson’s mousetrap. There’s no reason to avoid it, though. So long as you choose wisely—and I can’t imagine your mother or sisters allowing you to do otherwise—I think you will find the wedded state most enjoyable.”

“He certainly enjoys the bedded one,” Isabella drawled. “Though I think all men—”

“Izzie, my darling, stop tormenting your brother. Will you see if the baby is awake? I’m sure Henry would like to see his niece.”

“Very well,” Isabella huffed, as she rose and headed for the door. “But there is to be no fighting while I am gone,” she reiterated. “Just think how devastated Mama would be if Hal showed up to the ball with a black eye marring his pretty face.”

Henry glowered at her back as she swept from the room. If Isabella was right—and he had learned that Weston women were nearly always right—his mother was intending to see him at the altar by the end of the Season.

CHAPTER TWO

Like all men, Hal wishes to be charge of his destiny. The trick lies in allowing him to maintain that fiction whilst guiding him in the desired direction. Should he meet the right woman, I do not imagine he will put up a great fight. Love has toppled far more determined bachelors than our prince…

—FROM THE COUNTESS OF DUNSTON TO HER MOTHER THE VISCOUNTESS WESTON