Chapter Thirty-One
“I can’t do this anymore,”
Diantha said, shaking her head.
“What—balance the accounts?”
Drusilla put her hand against Diantha’s forehead. “You don’t feel feverish.”
“Not that,”
Diantha replied in a grouchy voice, knocking Drusilla’s hand away. “As though you don’t know what. No, I can’t sit here and pine for him when I know my ultimate happiness is with him. I’ve done a series of variables—”
“Of course you have,”
Drusilla muttered.
“—that take into account what my life would be like with him or without him, in varying stages of with him.”
She withdrew a small notebook from the inner pocket of her skirt and flipped a few pages before holding it up to her sister. “See? It says I could have him with the duke, as he has suggested. I could have him only occasionally, with him living as he wishes to and meeting me irregularly—”
“A clandestine affair! I approve,”
Drusilla said in an admiring tone. “But that doesn’t take into account your need for security. He’s wrong about how the two of you could be secure, but not about the need itself.”
“Yes, I factored that in as well,”
Diantha said.
“And of course you did,”
Drusilla said, her tone amused.
“The only thing that yields the best combination of happiness is for the two of us to live together alone.”
She looked up at Drusilla. “So I’m going to have to figure out how to persuade him I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but I would prefer to do that with him.”
“Then, it wouldn’t be taking care of your—”
Drusilla began, but Diantha scowled and swatted her.
“You know what I mean. But he’s gone off to Scotland, and I don’t know when he’ll return.”
“About that, my lady,”
Davy said, strolling into the main floor of the factory holding one of the life jacket models. “Lord Lucian sent a message that he’d be back before the shearing, whatever that is. He said it would be hair-raising.”
He raised confused eyes to the sisters. “But that means he’ll be here when we present to the Exhibition Committee.”
“That’s in less than a week!”
Diantha exclaimed, her heart starting to beat faster.
“You’ll have to plan your strategy by then,”
Drusilla warned.
“I will and most certainly can,”
Diantha replied. “I was thinking I might have to go to Scotland myself, but I’ll have the best opportunity here, where he can picture our lives together if he stops being such a dunderhead.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Drusilla ventured.
Diantha frowned. “Then I’ll have to do something reckless, like kidnap him and tie him down until he agrees.”
“I approve. I can get the rope. We’ve got some stout stuff in the storeroom.”
“We don’t need that yet. But I am glad to hear you are on my side.”
“Always,”
Drusilla said, and Diantha felt the warmth of her sister’s words flow through her, imbuing her with confidence. He had to see reason. He had to understand what it all meant for her, for him, and for the both of them.
He just had to.
“You just have to learn how to manage him,”
John said.
The family and Lucian were seated at the dining room table, an enormous heavy wooden thing that looked as though it had been rooted in this same spot since Scots thought wheezing into a bag was melodic and marched around hating the British.
Which, to be fair, described the present minus the claymores.
John’s two children were busily cramming vast amounts of beef and potato into their mouths, occasionally poking one another, but generally staying fairly quiet.
“How do you manage him?”
Lucian asked, spearing a piece of potato. The food at John’s fortress was hearty and plain—rather like John himself—but there was always some sort of crazily concocted dessert made for his wife Mary’s sweet tooth.
The disconcertingly named Black Bun had been surprisingly delicious, while the Clootie Dumpling was tasty, if underwhelming.
“I just tell him he’s right all the time,”
John said with a shrug. “And then I do what I wish.”
“Doesn’t he notice?”
Lucian asked. And how had he not noticed John’s own brand of insurrection?
Another shrug. “He might, but he’s in London, and I am here. It’s not because I love living in Scotland, mind you,”
he said. “It’s so there’s some distance between us.”
“And since you fell in love with a Scottish lass,”
his wife reminded him.
He chuckled. “That too. But I would not have been here in the first place if I hadn’t wanted to leave. Our father can be . . .”
he said, as if looking for the right word.
“Judgmental? Demanding? Rigid?”
John nodded. “Yes.”
“But you’re his heir. He’s dynastically bound to look favorably on you. I’m just the second son, and what’s more, I don’t think I want to live in Scotland.”
“You could go anywhere,”
John pointed out. “The Americas, Australia, the Far East.”
“Just to get away from our father? Wouldn’t it be easier to try to get him to see reason?”
John gave him a knowing look.
“No, it wouldn’t,”
the brothers said together.
“I see now what she—that is, Lady Diantha—meant when she said we’d never be out from under him. I want to go tell her, but—”
“But what?”
Mary said. “You just go tell her.”
“It sounds simple,”
Lucian said.
“It is simple,”
Mary retorted. “And then you simply tell her you will be with her however she wishes it, and tell the duke you won’t stand for his shenanigans any longer. Oh look, here’s the Cranachan.”
A servant wheeled in a dessert in an enormous clear glass bowl, layers of cream and berries and goodness knew what else, and brought it to Mary’s side. She nodded approvingly and looked at Lucian.
“Thank you, but no,”
he said, rising from the table. “I need to get back to London, to make right what I made wrong. Or make right wrong, from our father’s viewpoint. In either case, I need to go.”
“Good luck,”
Mary said, waving a cream-filled fork at him.
“I know you’re up to the task,”
his brother added, making him feel just a bit warmer inside.
The presentation was held in one of the royal palace’s meeting rooms, presumably where Prince Albert conducted his Exhibition business. They’d been given special treatment because the duke was involved, which meant that Prince Albert himself would be attending.
“Where is he?”
Diantha said, not asking about Prince Albert.
Drusilla rolled her eyes. “It’s not even time yet; he’ll be here. He’d be disappointing Davy if he didn’t come.”
“Yes, but—”
Diantha stopped speaking as the doors opened, revealing the prince consort and his entourage. He strode in first, his eyes glancing around the room before alighting on the duke.
“Good afternoon, Your Highness,”
the duke said, bowing. Diantha and Drusilla swept into deep curtsies, while Davy shuffled and bent his head, worrying his hat with his hands.
“Good afternoon,”
Prince Albert replied. His various attendants went to work setting up the prince’s chair and table, placing a notepad, a few pens, and a glass of water beside his place.
And then there he was.
Lucian, standing at the doorway, his eyes immediately meeting hers. He strode in, his elegantly graceful walk taking her breath away, as it always did.
His smile was a rueful quirk, and he only nodded toward his father before coming to stand beside the sisters.
“You’re late,”
Drusilla pointed out in a whisper.
“Not the least of my transgressions today,”
he replied. “Just you wait and see.”
Diantha blinked at his words.
“Well, let’s see what we have, then,”
Prince Albert said, gesturing to the duke.
The duke then gestured toward Lucian, who turned to Davy, who immediately turned beet-red.
Diantha rushed to help, taking the model life jacket and putting it on Davy. Using him as a model, she explained its use and benefits, as well as the materials needed to produce it.
Throughout the demonstration, Prince Albert looked intrigued, and Diantha began to relax a little, thinking perhaps they were going to get approved for the Exhibition after all.
She finished the explanation, then helped Davy remove the jacket, passing it to Prince Albert to take a look at up close.
“There is one more thing, Your Highness,”
Lucian said. Everyone snapped their heads to look at him, except for Albert, who was busy tightening one of the life jacket’s cinches.
“What is it, Son?”
the duke said in an impatient voice.
“It is that that contraption isn’t the only thing that will save lives,”
he said, pointing to the life jacket in the prince’s hands. “I want to take this opportunity to tell Lady Diantha that everything she said three months ago is correct.”
He addressed the duke. “All my life you’ve told me I am too impulsive, too focused on my own pleasure, too prone to having fun.”
“Heaven forfend,”
Drusilla murmured.
“And I want to tell you that you, too, are absolutely correct, your grace. I am impulsive. I am focused on my pleasure. I do like having fun.”
He took a deep breath. “I should be here to grovel on my knees to Diantha, to tell her I will do anything she wishes if she will agree to marry me. But I won’t.”
“You won’t?”
Diantha said, surprised.
“You won’t?”
Prince Albert said, looking up from the life jacket.
“No. What I will do instead is tell you that I love you. I am madly, passionately in love with you, and I want to show you all the fun that is to be had.”
He took Diantha’s hands and waited for her nod before pulling her into his arms as though they were about to waltz. “I want to dance as shockingly as possible with you—”
he pulled her closer “—and I want to tell you that groveling for you only demonstrates I am recalcitrant. What it doesn’t reveal is that I know that we will have the most fun together if we are . . . together.” He stumbled a little at the last part, then gave a faint, rueful smile.
“Suave,”
Drusilla commented. He gave her a narrowed look, and she laughed.
“You said, when we first met, that you wish to do what you wish to do,”
he continued, as Diantha bit her lip. “Which is, a very smart person told me, tautological. But it is also true. I wish to do what I wish to do too, but more than that, I wish to do what we wish to do. Together. Whether that means traveling to foreign lands by ship, or wearing Mr. Wilkins’s life jackets, or returning to Scotland and all those sheep, or staying right here in London finding new products for the factory—”
“Lady Meow-Meow could use some friends,”
Drusilla said, at which Prince Albert looked decidedly puzzled, then returned to his perusal of the jacket.
“I want to be with you. And that is more important than anything, even if—”
“You won’t have any support if you do this. You’ll be cast out of Society. You’ll end up living in a ditch,”
the duke said in a blustery voice. “Is that what you want?”
“That is highly unlikely, your grace,”
Lucian replied, “since Shammie has offered me a position. If that meets with Diantha’s approval, I will take it, and we will see where we live. Perhaps we will choose to live in a ditch. But it will be our choice, not yours.”
“That is all I wanted,”
Diantha said in a soft voice. “To be able to choose for myself.”
“And that is what I realized when I was done being an idiot,”
he replied. “Will you marry me, Diantha? Will you spend the rest of your ditch-living days with me?”
The duke made a disgusted sound, and Drusilla went to the duke, grabbing his arm to escort him out of the room. The duke was so startled he went along with her until they were out the door. The last image Diantha had of him was his shocked expression mingled with his vast disapproval. So be it. If he didn’t accept them as they were, they didn’t need him.
Drusilla returned alone, shutting the door and leaning against it with a pleased smile.
“I will,”
Diantha said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “And any choices we make will be together from now on.”
“From now on,”
he echoed. He gazed down at her, and she wanted more than anything to kiss him, but of course it wasn’t appropriate.
Which meant . . . she put both hands in his hair and drew his head down to hers, placing her lips on his. “I want to begin as we mean to go on,”
she murmured in a voice only he could hear. “Let’s have scandalous fun together.”
“Agreed, my adventuress,”
he said, holding her more closely.
“I think this product of yours should be in the Great Exhibition,”
Prince Albert said abruptly, not looking up from his examination.
The two drew apart, then began to laugh. Drusilla wrapped her arms around both of them, a huge smile on her face.
“I knew you two would figure it out,”
she said. “With a little help from a capable sister.”
“And a capable friend,”
Lucian added, kissing Drusilla on the cheek.
Drusilla released them and went to speak to Davy, who looked at the prince, stunned.
“I love you,”
Diantha said. “I loved you even when you were being an idiot.”
“I love you too. Even when you were being stubbornly and annoyingly correct.”
“An excellent start to a marriage, Lucifer.”
“Indeed.”