Page 79 of My Own True Duchess

“I want to go with you,” Diana said, bending over her slate. “Mr. Tresham is not from our family, so you should not be private with him.”

“We won’t be private. At least a half-dozen servants will be on hand.” Theo paced past the schoolroom window, the best vantage point from which to spy a coach pulling up out front. “Besides, I am a widow, and I don’t require a chaperone.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Diana used a cloth to rub at her slate, while she kicked at the rung of her chair with one foot. “Married ladies have husbands, but young ladies and widows do not. If a young lady needs a chaperone, then a widow should as well.”

“That’s not how it works, Diana. What are you drawing?”

“A dog. Will Mr. Tresham bring Comus to call?”

“Likely not.”

Diana looked up, her expression presaging a spate of grouchy rhymes. “I like Comus. I do not like Mr. Tresham.”

Jonathan’s matched grays trotted around the corner and drew to a jingling halt before the house.

“To dislike somebody who has given you no cause is unkind, Diana. You should be more concerned about whether Mr. Tresham has a good opinion of you.”

Diana rubbed vigorously at her slate, making the school room smell of chalk. “Why should I worry about his good opinion of me?”

Theo wanted Jonathan with her when she informed Seraphina and Diana of the upcoming nuptials.

She also wanted to shake Diana. “Mr. Tresham’s good opinion matters, because he is becoming a dear friend. I hope to see a great deal of him in the near future.”

Down below, Jonathan emerged from his coach, looking splendid in morning attire.

“Will you marry him?”

Yes. “I might.”

“Why?”

Diana takes after me. That realization came with equal parts relief and chagrin. The girl was stubborn, observant, and inquisitive, and those were not traits she’d inherited from her father.

Theo moved away from the window, lest she be caught gawking. “I might marry Mr. Tresham because I have been lonely since your papa died, and Mr. Tresham’s company suits me.” Two understatements so vast as to approach dissembling.

“Do you like him better than you liked my papa?”

What to say? “Your papa was my first love. He will always hold a special place in my heart.” A sad, angry special place. “Besides, your papa gave me you, and I have no greater treasure on earth.”

“I don’t want Mr. Tresham to die.”

Oh, dear God. The logic of childhood was simple and dire. “We all die, Diana, but Mr. Tresham is in great good health. I think he’ll be with us for a long time, and he won’t die simply because I marry him.”

Diana put her slate on the ledge beneath the chalkboard. “Are you sure, Mama? Papa married you, and you had me, and then Papa died. He wasn’t old. Seraphina said he wasn’t old at all.”

Theo knelt before her daughter. “Your papa was sick, Diana. He’d been unwell for a long time, and nothing anybody could have done would have kept him with us.”

Diana looked so solemn, so unsure. Gone was the child with the attention of a butterfly, in her place was the beginning of a girl too serious for her own good.

“My father lived until I was of age,” said a masculine voice from the doorway. “I still mourned his passing, still felt as if he was taken too soon.”

Theo curtseyed. “Mr. Tresham.”

He bowed, twice. “Ladies.”

Diana curtseyed very credibly, which made Theo smile, though Jonathan looked tired and somber to her.

“Will you marry my mama?” Diana asked. “You have to promise you won’t die if you marry her. She would cry and cry if you died, and Seraphina would go into a decline, and Cousin Viscount might send us to the north.”