“Because it comes from Wales?” Over a decade after the duke’s rebellious, outraged winter there.
Vee shook her golden head. “Because there is no mention of it in the ledgers—not here and not in London, either. She has a ridiculously good memory for such details and she’s right. When everything else is meticulously cross-referenced in one of the estate books, that omission is an anomaly. So now she and Dalton are on a mission to prove it.”
“They’ve left the estate?” He had spent hours out in the cold avoiding her when he could have managed to do that here in the warm.
“Apparently, they had to, to consult the parish records. I doubt my tenacious sister will rest until she finds out who that headstone was made for.” She smiled as he stared at the pile of papers in the middle of the floor. Diana’s spot. She liked to sit amongst it all cross-legged. “Have the pair of you argued?”
“Why do you ask?”
“There was an atmosphere last night and you have been keen to stay out of each other’s way today. You left at dawn as if your breeches were on fire.” She pointed to the ceiling. “My room overlooks the stables, so I saw you gallop off with a face like thunder, and when I asked Diana the same question she got that pinched look that she gets when she doesn’t want to say anything before she remembered to roll her eyes and tell me I was imagining things.”
“We exchanged a few cross words, that is all.” He’d said them. She’d been cross with them.
“Can I give you some advice, Giles?”
“Don’t I have enough of that from Dalton?”
She smiled in blatant pity. “Diana is a complicated soul and as suspicious as she is stubborn. If she gets an idea in her head, a team of elephants won’t dislodge it until she is ready to let it go. That receipt is a case in point. She has a suspicion and until she has either proved or disproved it, it will linger unresolved. Or fester. She is much the same with people—all people and not just men. Though men especially and that is hardly a surprise when you consider the one we grew up with. After he left, that distrustful aspect of her character grew, and probably out of necessity. Three young girls alone are ripe for exploitation, and while Minerva stepped up to be a mother to me, Diana took on the role of protector when she was only seventeen, and had to remain that for five long, difficult years. So long that the inclination has become ingrained, and it takes her forever to trust someone. Look at Hugh. He’s been married to Minerva a whole year, been nothing but lovely to all of us, yet Diana is only just warming to him. Still not ready to believe he is as decent as he is.”
“And your point is?” He sat on the corner of the desk, curious as to whether she had more of an understanding of her prickly sister’s mind than he did. Heaven knew a little insight couldn’t hurt after he had made such a splendid hash of things with his unwelcome declaration. What the blazes had he been thinking to speak his feelings aloud?
“My point is, Diana needs the time and sufficient evidence to prove her suspicions are unfounded before she will let go of them.People have to work hard to earn her trust—and I am sure youalmosthave it but…”
“But?”
“That now places you in the most precarious position of all as far as Diana is concerned. Because now, instead of doubting you, she is doubting herself.”
Giles blew out a frustrated breath. “I have never done a single thing to make the harridan doubt me. If anything, I have always been brutally honest with your sister.”
Too honest.
“And therein lies the rub. In Diana’s suspicious mind that makes you too good to be true, and that in turn makes her all the more resistant to your charms. If you are going to win her over and get past all the barricades and obstacles she has built around her heart, you need to persevere. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Strike while the iron is hot. Be the fly in her ointment. The stick in her spokes. Diana is a hard nut to crack, so find excuses to be alone with her.”
He laughed at that ludicrous suggestion. “Even if I was inclined to do that—” This was madness. Pure folly. As pointless as a circle and as useful as a teapot made of chocolate. “How exactly would I do that with you, our self-appointed, idiom-quoting, and equally suspicious chaperone, watching us like a hawk?”
“Iwasyour chaperone when I assumed Diana was ready to succumb to your charms. Now that I realize she has battened down the hatches and convinced herself she is immune to them, I have decided to revert to matchmaking.”
“Do all the Merriwells blow hot and cold with such unpredictable frequency?”
“All I am saying is that I am inclined to turn more of a blindeye until the tide turns if you’re tempted to grasp the bull by the horns.” She giggled at her shameless but apt use of more idioms. “The more you prove to her that you are the man of her jaded dreams, the more chance you have of becoming him.”
He shook his head. “I am not the man of her dreams, Vee. In my position, I cannot be the man of any woman’s dreams. My situation likely makes me more the stuff of nightmares and I wouldn’t saddle my current burdens on my worst enemy.”
“You think Diana cares if you are a duke or not? Knowing my sister, you are more appealing without the title than with it. She has a healthy disregard for society—or perhaps she fears it. Either way, she has done a good job of remaining quite detached from it. You might have noticed she does that a lot, too—detaches. It is almost as if she believes that if she tries not to care about something, then she won’t. That way, when it is taken away, she has convinced herself already that it won’t matter.”
Vee’s kind eyes suddenly looked older and wiser than her years. “She will argue the toss until she is blue in the face if she cares the slightest bit to make you think that she doesn’t, but if she really cares and she fears her arguments lack enough conviction and might give away the real her, she is silent. That, my dear Giles, is when you know that you have her. Why do you think we all give her such a hard time over you? Because several months ago she ran out of convincing arguments—even for herself. And her silence is deafening.”
An optimistic theory his stupid heart liked the sound of, but Giles was nothing if not a realist. “She really isn’t, Vee. I know this because I might have slipped up last night and plighted my troth.” Saying it aloud ripped another hole in his heart, and he pulled a mortified face. “Suffice to say, she wasn’t interested, and I cannotblame her. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t want me, either, and I certainly was in no position to ask. I am kicking myself that I did.”
“Did she tell you that she did not want you or was she silent?” Vee smiled kindly. “Because I will bet every book I own that it was the latter. When I arrived she looked uncertain, and Diana would usually rather die than allow that vulnerable emotion show. Despite her hard exterior, she has a big heart. It might well be wrapped in thorns and guarded by dragons, but she is still here, Giles. For all her lofty claims about barely tolerating you, she moved heaven and earth and lied through her teeth to be by your side in your hour of need and she is out there right now”—she cocked her head toward the window—“hunting for the truth on your behalf. And be in no doubt: If she finds it, she will break every law of the land to keep you safe from it and to hell with the consequences. If that isn’t categorical proof that she more than cares for you, then I do not know what is.”
That gave him food for thought. Or false hope. Or a selfish justification for ruining an innocent and decent woman’s life all over again when she had only just repaired the damage wreaked by her awful father. “Forcing Diana into a corner wouldn’t be fair.”
“All’s fair in love and…”
“Nobody died in this parish in February 1796 and was buried in Wales.” Dalton burst through the door with his customary lack of manners, acknowledging Giles with a tip of his chin while he shrugged out of his greatcoat. “In fact, nobody has died in the parish and been buried in Wales ever. At least not that we could find—and Miss Diana dragged me to every church within ten miles, including the little Quaker place up in the hills. So now she’s got the bit between her teeth.” He rolled his good eye. “God help us.”
“I heard that.” Diana strode in, all windswept from her ride and still in the tight habit that did wondrous things for her figure. As she noticed him, her step faltered for a second before she masked it with indifference and Vee nudged his leg. “However, I will not be deterred from my quest. How far is it to Llanyre?”
