Page 14 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord

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The coachman had arrived perhaps ten minutes later, and Ben grunted as he collected Diana’s trunk, which had been tossed down to him, and heaved it up into his arms. “Good God. What have you packed in this? Rocks?”

“No,” she said absently, brushing at her skirts. “Just the essentials for a long journey. Clothing, shoes, books.” An airy wave of one hand toward the stairs, which he assumed was meant to imply he ought to take the trunk upstairs for her.

“Books,” he said. “You brought books?”

Diana blinked behind her spectacles as she stepped out of the house to go and speak with the coachman. “Of course,” she tossed over her shoulder as she went. “I’m a prolific reader.”

Of course she was. And by the weight of the trunk, she’d packed what amounted a small library. Just how many books could a single woman intend to read on what she had no doubt assumed would be a journey of perhaps a little over a week?

Hannah skittered inside just as Ben had turned for the stairs. Her dress, which had once been a sort of bland, faded pastel pink, was now mostly a drab shade of brown, owing to the mud that was drying in patches all across the front. She canted her head, sending one of her plaits slipping over hershoulder, and she fisted her mud-streaked hands on her hips. “What’re you doing, Papa?” she inquired in a suspicious tone of voice.

Oh, hell. She’d been playing outside for the duration of their conversation. And the coachman had arrived before he’d had a chance to break the news. “Diana has agreed to stay on for a while,” he said, as gently as possible while the trunk slowly crushed him beneath its weight. The damned books might as well have been rocks, indeed.

“No!” It was a furious shout. Hannah turned her tiny chin up at him in a rebellious expression. “You said she was leaving! You promised!”

In fact, he had done no such thing. “Sweetheart, you’re too young to stay at home by yourself.” And too much given to mischief besides. “Diana has graciously agreed to stay and to watch over you—”

“I don’t want her!” Hannah stamped her foot to punctuate the screech she had issued, and her face flushed a vibrant red. A sudden wash of tears filled her blue eyes as her chin quivered. “Why can’t you stay with me?”

“Oh, poppet,” he sighed. “I would like nothing better. I am trying to make a better life for us—” How was he meant to explain such large, convoluted concepts to a child? “You must trust me to do what is right for both of us,” he said. “And for you, that means minding your manners and taking instruction from Diana.”

“I don’t want a governess!” Another pronounced wobble of her chin.

“She’s not—well, she’s—” Damn. “She’s not a governess, exactly,” he said. “She’s a proper lady; arealone. The kind that lives in a big, fancy house in London.” The edges of the trunk were biting into his fingers, his grip slipping. “She knows lots of things about how proper little girls ought to be educated.”

Hannah opened her mouth once more. “I—”

“Don’t want to be educated?” The dry interjection surprised them both. Diana sailed back into the house, adjusting her spectacles, the shiny silver frames glinting in the light. “I daresay it’s more fun to splash about in mud puddles than it is to learn how to read properly,” she said. “But it would make your papa very proud if you learned to read and write. Wouldn’t you like to make your papa proud?”

Hannah glanced between them, clearly torn between appeasing him and putting Diana in her place. He saw the moment that one won out over the other—the pinching of her brows, the ruby flush that burned in her cheeks. “No!” she shouted, with another wrathful stamp of her foot, and she turned on her heel and fled.

Diana pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest, and Ben felt his shoulders droop; felt the trunk slip a little more. “It’s not personal,” he said, and heard the plaintive tone in his voice. “She’s just—”

“Spirited,” Diana said flatly. It had not been a compliment. “Well. If she means to run me off, she’s got her work cut out for her. I don’t intend to give up so easily.”

No, she wouldn’t. Not when it meant her freedom from their sham of an engagement. The damned trunk was cutting off the circulation to his hands. “I’ll just put your trunk in my—your—room,” he said.

“Yes,” Diana said, her voice clipped with annoyance. “Do.”

Ben wavered. “Hannah—”

“I’ll find her.” She took a single step in the direction Hannah had gone, and paused. “If you would be so kind as to heat some water for a bath?”

“Yes. Of course,” he said. It was the least he could offer her, when one considered that the evidence of yesterday’s misadventure with the flour still lingered in the roots of her hair, dusting the black locks a ghostly white.

“Quite a lot of water,” she said, the words coming out in a stilted monotone.

A sinking suspicion began to take hold. “Er—why is that?”

“Because by the time I’m done with your daughter,” she said, in dark tones, “we’re both going to need a thorough washing.”

Chapter Six

The wretched little goblin child had not gone far. Diana had only had to follow the trail of small footprints that meandered through the succession of mud puddles liberally scattered across what passed for a lawn. Hannah had plunked herself down beneath a tree at the edge of the copse of woods behind the house, gazing through them toward a pond past them in the distance. In profile, Diana could see the aggrieved little frown etched into the child’s face.

Perhaps she had not expected to be pursued—or perhaps she simply had not expectedDianato do the pursuing. Either way, the child took no note of her whatsoever as Diana crossed the muddy lawn, searching for a prime puddle on her way. Perhaps ten feet away now, and—there. A choice specimen.