Page 7 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord

“You never married her mother,” she said slowly, wonderingly.

“No.” There did not seem much purpose to be served in elaborating, regardless of whether or not she thought she might be owed an explanation.

A strange little flick of her skirts as her hands fisted in them. “Whereisher mother?”

“Dead. Perhaps a week after Hannah’s birth. Childbed fever.”

Her face softened minutely. “Poor little mite,” she said. “To have lost her mother so young.”

“She has a father,” he said. “She’s not felt the lack.” By the sharpening of her features, he could see that she disagreed. “Diana, why are you here?”

“I came—I came to break our engagement,” she said stiffly, tipping up her chin. “I see no reason to continue the pretense any longer.”

“You needn’t have come so far to do it,” he said, scrubbing at his face. “You might’ve sent a letter. Appealed to my father, perhaps.”

“You’ve wasted years of my life,” she said incredulously, “and all you have to say to me is that I ought to have sent aletter?”

The spiteful hiss of her voice was a warning, he was sure—but he was far too tired to heed it. “It would have been more efficient,” he said, “than traveling the length and breadth of England to find me.” When, clearly, he had not wanted to be found. “And more to the point, it was my father who has wasted so much of your life—notI.”

“I had as little say in it as you!” she shot back. “No one ever askedwhether or not I wished to marry you, and still I was obliged to wait. To waitendlesslyfor a man everyone could see had no intention of wedding me!”

She trulyhadcome only to castigate him. Well, he supposed he could not blame her for that. “You could have cried off at any point,” he said. “No one would even have thought poorly of you for it.” Not when her prospective groom had failed to materialize after so many years—she wouldn’t even have been branded a jilt for it.

“So might you have done!”

“Not so. HadIcried off, then that would have given rise to speculation, which would undoubtedly have fallen upon you.” Worse still, his father would have been obliged to return the monies that had already been paid out for her—funds that had no doubt long been spent, if what he knew of his father still held true. The last thing an already impoverished nobleman needed was a breach of promise suit launched against him. “Diana, if you’ve come about your dowry, you should know that it’s gone. Father almost certainly ran through it years ago. If you mean to launch a suit for it—”

“I don’t give a damn about the dowry!” She threw up her hands in a surfeit of aggravation. “I only want to be free of you. But for that, I require your cooperation. I have suffered beneath this farce of an engagement for too long, and it is time to end it. We must make it clear to society that we have mutually decided to end it at last. A united front, as it were—you owe me that much.”

She couldnotbe suggesting what he thought she was. “Tellsocietywhatever you like,” Ben said, throwing the words down between them like a challenge. “But I won’t be present for it. I have no intention of ever returning to London.”

Chapter Three

What?” Diana croaked. “But you must. Youmust. You—you’re an earl. You have got aresponsibility—”

“Not until my father dies.” And the old bastard had always been in remarkably good health. “Happily, the sons of the nobility have few enough responsibilities until they inherit.”

“But your daughter—”

“I will never subject Hannah to a society that will shun her for the circumstances of her birth.” It might have been different, had father not run the family estate into the ground. There came a great deal of prestige and respect with a revered family name, but he had learned, eventually, that money spoke louder still. An impoverished nobleman had precious little power, and still less respect. He could hardly keep a roof over their heads as it was; how was he meant to shepherd his growing daughter through the rigors of society? How was he meant to protecther from those that would offer her only scorn?

To his surprise, Diana’s eyes glittered behind the lenses of her spectacles. “She needs a governess,” she said. “She is the daughter of an earl. She must be educated as such.” She chewed back a sound of aggravation. “As it is, she’s a little hellion.”

“She’s achild.”

“A child who is in desperate need of structure and discipline.” Her eyes narrowed. “When she thought me a governess, Miss Wright advised me to run at the earliest opportunity,” she said. “Just how many women has your daughter run out of the house?”

Too many. Miss Wright had been his last hope, and she’d lasted less than a week. Ben rubbed at his eyes, wearied beyond belief. “If Hannah has in some way offended, I shall see that she apologizes. But can this not wait until morning?”

“Of course it cannot. Mycoachman—”

“Won’t be returning for you this evening.” Even in the dim light, he could see the expression of confusion that passed over her face. “The road is washed out,” he said. “It always washes out with a hard rain like this. Passable for a horse and rider, perhaps, but not a carriage.”

“I—” She seemed to flounder at that. “I can’t bestuckhere.”

“Unless you’d prefer to walk back to the village. I wouldn’t recommend it in the dark.”

True horror etched severe lines into her face. “But my clothing,” she said, with a little flail of her hands that nearly knocked her spectacles askew. “A bed—abath.”