Wilde in Love(32)

“I’m turning them into decoration.”

“That’s Alaric’s head!” Willa exclaimed, picking up one of the cuttings. “And his feet. Is that the cannibal pot?” At Lavinia’s nod: “I can’t believe you’re cutting up your favorite print.”

Lavinia’s hands stilled, and she looked directly at Willa. “My mother has a terrible toothache and stayed abed herself, so no one remarked on your layabout ways—except Lord Alaric, who knew you would be tired this morning, and told me at breakfast that he would walk Sweetpea.”

Willa bit her lip. “We kissed.”

“Most of the night?” Lavinia demanded.

At Willa’s silence, Lavinia went on. “In other exciting news, it seems my best friend has accepted an offer of marriage and forgot to tell me!” She slid off the bed and waved her scissors in the air. “Wilhelmina Everett, unless you have an excellent excuse—such as you kept kissing until dawn—you have some explaining to do!”

“He told you?” Willa gasped.

“He told everyone,” Lavinia said. “Willa, did you let that man spend the night in your chamber?”

“Absolutely not! It’s not a real betrothal,” Willa admitted. “You know that I would have woken you up and told you myself if I had accepted a proposal, no matter what the time of night.”

“Not a real betrothal?” Lavinia said, gaping at her. “What other sort of betrothal is there? Lord Alaric informed the entire breakfast table of your not-so-real future together. Although he neglected to mention that he had asked you for your hand at extremely close quarters—in this very room!”

“That is not what happened,” Willa protested. “We are not engaged to marry.”

Lavinia sank back on the bed. “Why not? I no longer want him for myself—thus my demolishment of his image—but I quite like him, which is far better than worshiping him.”

“We are pretending a betrothal in order to dissuade a deranged woman. Your newfound affection for Alaric is not a sufficient reason for me to marry him!”

“As your closest friend, I naturally—” Lavinia stopped short, her mouth forming a perfect O. “Prudence Larkin! I met her at breakfast, where she shared her feelings far and wide. I have to say that it made me ashamed of my former adoration.”

“Did she tell you that she wrote the play?”

Lavinia nodded. “You’re truly not betrothed?”

Willa shook her head.

“I’m disappointed,” Lavinia said, picking up her scissors and assaulting another print. “I do like him. Much more than I did when I adored him,” she added with a faint look of surprise. Then she turned back to trimming the scrap of paper. More snippets fell onto the coverlet. “Because there isn’t enough thrilling gossip to go around, Diana told me this morning that she is pretty certain she’s going to jilt Lord Roland.”

“Oh no,” Willa groaned.

“Her precise words were, ‘I can’t bear my life, and I hate my fiancé.’ ”

“Mrs. Belgrave will be furious,” Willa said, picturing the lady’s gasping face. “It’s lucky for Diana that her mother stayed in London. She has her heart set on the match.”

“Diana does not. Oh, I almost forgot,” Lavinia said, putting down her scissors and reaching into her pocket. She dropped a gaudy locket into Willa’s hand. “You are engaged to Lord Wilde—at least outwardly—so obviously, this should be yours.”

It was large, with an ornate W enclosed by a heart engraved on the front.

Willa flicked the catch. Inside was Alaric’s face, cut from an engraving. “You need to practice your scissor work,” she said. “You didn’t make it a proper oval and he almost lost an ear.”

“Would you prefer one in which he’s wearing an admiral’s hat? I have one of those, never mind Lord Alaric has had nothing to do with His Majesty’s Navy.”

“This will do,” Willa said. She clicked the locket closed.

“You must wear it outside your gown today, so Prudence Larkin can see it,” Lavinia said. “She told everyone at breakfast that she wrote the play because she was fated by God to be Lord Alaric’s wife. Diana inquired if she was referring to a Greek or some other heathen deity—because the Anglican God isn’t usually seen as a matchmaker—and Miss Larkin was not amused.”

Willa groaned.

“But she wasn’t truly overset until Lady Knowe pointed out that Prudence was acting as if Alaric were the god of her idolatry. At that point the lady became entirely incoherent. I thought she was going to fling her toast across the table.”

“I shall never wear that locket,” Willa said. She hated the play, and everything it had done to Alaric without his permission. She hated the locket, too, though she might put Alaric’s picture in the exquisite locket that Diana had given her.

“The party is entertained by the news of your betrothal, except the ladies who had hoped to talk him into their beds,” Lavinia said, picking up the last print and cutting a circle around Alaric’s face. “I doubt Eliza Kennet will ever speak to you again, although that’s not much of a loss, seeing as her conversation is limited to discussion of your fiancé.”

General knowledge of the sham betrothal was such a terrifying notion that Willa felt unable to respond. Last night, she had stepped in to help without a second thought. But now …

“What are you doing with those cuttings?” she asked, pushing panic away.

“I’m going to paste the heads onto a sheet and paint gold halos on them, so that Alaric will never forget the heyday of his popularity.”

Willa groaned. “He’ll hate that.”

“I know!” Lavinia grinned. “I might give you my artwork. For when you marry that dusty, boring scholar, the one with skinny thighs and a perfectly kempt wig.”

“I never said I wanted to marry a scholar.” But Willa had imagined just that. Scholars were so precise with their language. Comfortingly knowledgeable.

Lavinia patted her leg and went on snipping.

Willa opened the locket again and looked at Alaric’s face.

“You’d better ring for a bath because Lady Knowe might come fetch you herself.” Lavinia scrambled off the bed, leaving scraps of paper strewn over the counterpane. “She is determined to impress Prudence with your closeness to Alaric.”

Willa was still thinking about Prudence an hour later, after her bath, as she put on her favorite riding habit. The skirt was crimson, worn with a white waistcoat under a tight crimson riding coat that opened in a dramatic fashion over her bosom. The matching straw hat was worn at an angle, and adorned with black plumes.

It was masculine, almost military, at the same time emphasizing her every curve. A neckcloth edged in white lace provided a feminine finishing touch.

A missionary’s daughter would never wear anything so provocative.

Looking in the glass as she put on riding gloves, Willa felt better. It wasn’t going to be easy to look Alaric straight in the eyes. Not after last night.

After those kisses.

But the riding habit helped. She felt braver in it. More in control. Not a woman joining a horde of admirers.

For some reason, it felt essential that he recognize that. She was edging toward a decision. Did she want to be Willa for the rest of her life? Or was she brave enough to marry a man who saw her as Evie?

Yet what if Alaric grew tired of England and English society? Or Willa? Or Evie?





Chapter Twenty-two


Willa arrived in the entry of the castle to discover that the party had already set out for the stables.

“It’s a walk of a few minutes only,” Prism told her. “Roberts will escort you.”

“No, thank you,” Willa said, straightening her hat to make certain that the sun would not touch her face. “I shall enjoy the walk.”

“You cannot miss the stables if you keep to the path,” Prism said, looking very disapproving at the idea that a young lady would venture to walk in the open air without escort.

She strolled out the great front doors of the castle, and followed a footpath that wound down a sweep of emerald-green lawn toward a riot of violet, burgundy, and pale pink rhododendrons at the bottom. The path curved alongside the flowering bushes, first skirting a beech wood and then ducking into it.

The woods were pleasantly cool, and Willa walked slowly as a heady smell of horse and straw began to eclipse the honey-nutmeg scent of the rhododendrons. The path turned again and opened on the stables.

If Prism had a sense of humor—which Willa thought unlikely—she would have judged his comment that she couldn’t miss the stables a dry jest. The duke’s stables were larger than most mansions, composed of a sprawling series of low barns surrounded by paddocks, any number of gallops, and training yards. One lush field held five foals madly racing each other about, and beyond that were snug cottages, presumably for the grooms and their families.

The largest paddock was crowded with people and horses, dotted with the duke’s grooms wearing their dark ruby livery with almond-colored trim. Willa caught sight of Lavinia’s guinea-bright hair amidst a crowd of gentlemen, her riding hat bedecked with a green feather.