The Dangerous Viscount (24 page)

His heart descended to his boots and he felt like dashing his head against the wall. Fool, fool, fool! Suddenly, once again, she was little Amanda Vanderlin, luring him to his doom and the ridicule of Blakeney. For the last time, he swore. Never again would he let her, or any woman, dupe him.

“I
t cannot be true. Try it again.” Chantal pursed her lips and ran the long strip of cloth marked with inches around Diana’s waist. “The tape does not lie,” she said. “One inch more. You have been eating pâtisserie again.”

“I haven’t,” Diana wailed. “I promise.”

“Have you changed your regime? The beetroot seemed to work well, at first.”

“I’m tired to death of beetroot. It makes me feel sick. I have no appetite.” Diana groped for her handkerchief and couldn’t find it, since she’d stripped to her shift for the measuring session with her maid. She gave an inelegant sniff. Not only was she frequently queasy, she’d developed a tendency to burst into tears for absolutely no reason.

“Let me measure the bust now.”

Diana feared the worst. Her breasts had felt swollen for days. She braced herself for another scold. “How much have I grown?”

“It is as I thought,” Chantal said.

“What?”

“The lady’s maid is always the first to know.”

“Know what?” she shrieked. “That I’m swelling up like a balloon?”

“Does milord Blakeney know?”

“I doubt he’d notice an inch or two. Men don’t, you know.” She glared at Chantal. “Only interfering French maids constantly harangue one about such things.”

Chantal ignored this show of temper. “You will have to hurry and have the wedding. No more waiting for permission from
monsieur le duc.”

“What,” Diana said carefully, “are you talking about, Chantal?”

“Milady, you are increasing.”

“Impossible!” Even as she ejaculated her denial, Diana knew the truth. She’d last suffered her monthly flow before the trip to Gloucestershire.

Chantal snorted.
“Madame,
I have been in service for twenty-two years and I know well the signs. You would not be the first to claim yourself a victim of immaculate conception.
Quant à ça,
it is not for me to say. But I have never been wrong. When Chantal says you are enceinte, in a few months, if all goes well, there will be a child.”

The house had seen better days and those days were long past. While Diana assessed the crumbling mortar and peeling stucco of the once handsome building from the shelter of the hackney carriage, Chantal went to the door. The maid’s negotiation with the servant who answered her knock was apparently satisfactory. She nodded at her mistress and Diana climbed the steps to enter a shabby hall before removing her heavy veil. Even with Chantal to keep
her company her present quest edged on impropriety. In St. James’s Square it was all too likely that some passerby would recognize her.

A footman in old-fashioned livery as faded as the furnishings returned to the hall. “His Lordship will see you in the library.”

“Thank you. Please find somewhere comfortable for my maid to wait.”

She followed the servant, dreading the coming confrontation. During her last meeting with Sebastian she held the upper hand. His bafflement, without compensating for his sins, had been deeply satisfying. Today she had no idea what to expect, how he would react to her tidings.

Taking a deep breath she prepared to carry the battle into enemy territory, alone and unarmed.

Two things transcended the aura of decades-long neglect the library shared with the exterior of the house. Serried shelves of books glowed in a subdued rainbow of colored leathers decorated with old gold. And the room’s master was as orderly as his cherished collection.

He stood to greet her dressed in garments that wouldn’t have disgraced Tarquin Compton. The perfect tailoring was worn with the same comfort and ease he’d once lent his old-fashioned breeches and loose coats. Since Sebastian had updated his wardrobe only for the nefarious purpose of impressing her, the sight gave her no pleasure. There were few places in the world she wouldn’t prefer to be.

He didn’t look pleased to see her, either. “Have you changed your mind about the books?” he demanded, not troubling with the niceties. “You are
lucky you caught me. I plan to leave for the north tomorrow.” He folded his arms and frowned. “I’d have called at Portman Square had you summoned me. You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I wanted to see your house.” Taking her time, she took in faded curtains and bare patches in the carpet. “I think I prefer mine.”

“As a matter of fact, so do I.”

Her eyes scanned a scattering of mousetraps around the wainscoting. “Why don’t you move?”

“Since I left Cambridge I’ve had the use of the house at no expense to myself. Before that it hadn’t been lived in for some fifty years. My great-uncle never came to London.”

“Now that you own it you could make a few repairs.”

Even through his spectacles, his eyes were steely, unwelcoming. “I don’t believe you came here to lecture me on building improvements. Why don’t we get to the point?”

“I have changed my mind about the books.” His smile of satisfaction annoyed her and she was pleased to think she was about to erase it. “I’ve decided not to give them to my future husband after all.”

“Good. The idea of a yahoo like Blakeney owning Elizabeth Woodville’s Chaucer is a travesty. Buy him a nice set of hunting prints instead.”

“You misunderstand me. I may still give Blake the books. I haven’t decided yet. But I’m taking a different husband.” She paused. “You.”

That silenced him. He no longer looked either forbidding or smug.

“Believe me,” she said, “I’m not happy about it
but we need to be married. Unless you are prepared to have your child born a bastard. And for my sake I’d prefer it was soon. There’s something so vulgar about an obviously pregnant bride.”

She took a risky approach. Conciliation might be more effective. But pride demanded she not beg, even though she had more to lose. If he refused to marry her some might frown on him; she would be utterly disgraced. She preferred not to acknowledge that he held the upper hand.

When she named him as her husband Sebastian’s heart missed a beat. Then incipient pleasure at the prospect was rapidly quelled by Diana’s obvious disgust. She spoke as though marrying him was the worst fate she could imagine.

“Are you quite sure I am the father of this infant?” he asked bitterly. “If it actually exists, that is.”

He felt ashamed of himself even as she launched herself at him with a strangled cry. He stepped back barely in time to avoid her slap, then managed to catch her before she fell. “Careful,” he said more gently, her nearness having its usual effect on his senses. “You had better sit down.”

Having settled her in a wing chair, he propped himself against the library table and crossed his ankles, trying to address the matter calmly. “Now, tell me about it.”

She regarded him resentfully. “You are most certainly the father. There is no other possibility. Do you honestly believe that had I … engaged in intimacies with Blake that I would be proposing to wed you instead of him?”

He winced. “I am guessing the answer is no.”

“Do you know that it has been my greatest ambition since I was a girl to marry him? Thanks to your vile scheme of revenge for something that most men wouldn’t think twice about, my life is ruined! Why did you do it? Was kissing me such a dreadful experience?”

“I am sorry.” The simple apology was all he could manage. And one true fact. “Kissing you was as good as anything I had ever experienced until … well … you know.”

“Neither of us considered the consequences,” she said on a ghost of a sigh. “And now we must pay.”

Stupidly, like the protagonist of a bawdy novel, he’d never given a thought to the frequent result of lust indulged. And like those fictional debauchers he was taken by surprise.

“Tell me how you know.” He retreated into practicalities. “My ignorance of the business is profound, but I’m aware it takes nine months. It has only been six weeks. Are you absolutely certain?”

“I’m afraid there’s very little doubt.” He listened as she described her symptoms and some details about female physiology with which he guessed she meant to embarrass him. The whole monthly bleeding business was mildly repulsive, but Sebastian always found the acquisition of knowledge worthwhile. He made a mental note to buy a book on the subject.

“Are you unwell?”

“Most of the time not. The nausea comes on without warning.”

He eyed her a little warily. “Can I get you anything? A glass of wine? Tea?”

“Not now, thank you. I’d rather settle what we should do.”

Carrying on his line for posterity wasn’t something Sebastian had ever wished for, or even considered. And when it came to the matter of human reproduction the male of the species was involved only at the outset (in his case for a very short time). After that the business passed to the feminine realm and there was nothing for a man to do except await the dubious pleasure of seeing himself duplicated in miniature form.

There was, however, one duty that he couldn’t avoid: to give this future product of his flesh and blood a name.

“When do you wish to marry?” he asked. “And where?”

So it was done. In this matter at least Sebastian proved a gentleman. For the second time, Diana found herself betrothed to a man she’d once believed she loved. What would it be like, she wondered, to receive a proposal of marriage from a man she
did
love, and who returned her sentiments? She would never know.

She longed for a gesture, for him to offer even the smallest hope that they could move forward together without disaster. He remained leaning against the table, shoulders hunched, arms folded.

She spread one gloved hand in front of her and examined it carefully for flaws. “I would like to marry at Mandeville Wallop,” she said. “I had planned to travel to Shropshire for Christmas. Since there will be no time to call the banns, you will have to obtain a special license.” She looked up, but his face told her
nothing. “Do you know how to go about it?”

“I’ll find out. Shall you tell your parents the truth?”

“They’ll eventually suspect when the child is born so soon after the marriage, but I think I’d prefer to let them believe we have an affection for each other. It would upset them very much to see me forced into a marriage I didn’t want. My mother and father will both welcome you to the family. They liked you.”

His voice thawed a couple of degrees. “I liked them. They are interesting people.”

“A few things I’d like to make clear,” she said. “I have a large fortune. For my protection I would like it to be settled on me and my children. Blakeney agreed to the condition.”

“I have sufficient funds. You can keep the whole lot as far as I’m concerned.”

“I don’t like this house.” She sniffed and checked the mousetraps, thankfully still sitting idle. “Would you consider moving to mine? We can expand the library.”

“Agreed. I meant it when I said I liked yours better.” So far he was proving amenable.

“One other thing. Our sleeping arrangements. Until the child is born I would prefer to sleep alone.”

A quiver in his throat was the only perceptible reaction for a few moments. “Is it better for the infant?” he asked finally.

“I don’t know. But it’s better for me. Naturally if the child should turn out not to be a boy, I shall readmit you to my bed until you beget an heir.”

Sebastian didn’t give a damn about begetting an heir. Did she mean that the only way he’d be allowed
to make love to her was if she kept on producing girls? And forget the future. The birth was months off.

“Why?” he said. He wanted to assure her that with experience he would become a better bed partner.

“I’m sorry,” Diana said. “But I can’t forgive your shabby behavior. I hope I may be able to in the future.”

That poured cold water on any inclination he had to beg.
His
shabby behavior! Yes, he’d been wrong. Very well. He was willing to admit it. Like a man.

“I owe you an apology for what happened at Markley Chase,” he said. “I should not have behaved as I did.”

“You mean seducing me for reasons of petty revenge?” He nodded.

“Don’t you think that was a little excessive? All I did was make you kiss me. Was that such a dreadful sin?”

Pride wouldn’t let him protest how much that kiss had meant, or how devastating had been the discovery that she was trifling with him. “Again, I apologize.”

“And I apologize for the original bet. It was a jest in poor taste and I have long regretted it. And I suppose I’m sorry about the books, too, though under the circumstances I do believe you deserved that.”

All he could manage was a nod.

She sighed. “I feel like we are a pair of children, forced by our mothers to make up our differences, to utter apologies that we don’t mean because there is no true forgiveness. Perhaps like children we can forget in a day or two.”

She tilted her head at him, expecting a response. “Since we are to be married,” he said, “it would be better if we were on cordial terms.” There! That was a sensible and mature aspiration.

“I can’t argue with you. Nevertheless, I’m not yet ready to engage in normal marital relations.”

“I would never force myself on you,” he said coldly. “Am I permitted to state a condition of my own?”

“That would only be fair.”

He was about to ask her for the books, but his mind rebelled. The pleasure in owning them would be tainted by being obtained as part of this bitter fight. He didn’t want them as spoils of war. Let her give them to Blakeney, rather. See how the boob enjoyed such an esoteric gift.

Blakeney.

Blakeney wanted to marry Diana. Blakeney was presumably going to be quite sorry when she broke their engagement. And furious when he learned his cousin had stolen her from under his nose.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I have no condition.”

“You summoned me. What can I do for you?” Blake gave her a careless kiss on the cheek and dropped a long narrow package into her lap.