Two days later

I am exceedingly annoyed that so much happened while I was in Manchester, buying bonnets,” Lavinia complained, not for the first time. “Diana ran away, and you nearly sank into the bog, and now you have stolen the man whom I loved for at least three years!”

“But you stopped adoring him,” Willa pointed out. She was trying on Lavinia’s new hats. There were eight, each more delightful than the last. “Did I tell you that my straw hat with the roses was lost in the bog?”

“A worthy sacrifice,” Lavinia said, “in light of what followed.”

“I love this darling veil,” Willa said. She held up a summer hat with a swooping brim, a number of white and lavender plumes, and a veil in the back that floated almost to the waist.

“You must have it! It’s my gift, in honor of your wedding. I do so wish I had been there.”

Willa leaned over and kissed Lavinia’s cheek. “You couldn’t have ridden through the night, the way Leonidas did. As it is, he fell asleep in a pew and missed the ceremony.” She adjusted the bonnet so the brim hung rakishly over one eye. “Thank you for this lovely gift!”

“You’ve changed,” Lavinia said, narrowing her eyes.

“How so?” Willa readjusted the bonnet so the plumes swept around the side of her face. Which made her sneeze.

“It must be something to do with bedding a man,” Lavinia said thoughtfully. “Or perhaps it’s a matter of becoming Lady Alaric Wilde. You’re more yourself. The way you are when we’re alone.”

“Oh,” Willa said. She threw her a quick smile. “Our rules were only designed for the hunting season, after all.”

“Your hunting season is over, since you’re married to one of the most handsome men in the country. And one of the richest. Mother heard that Parth quadrupled Alaric’s and North’s inheritances.”

“You’ll have to stop calling him ‘simple-minded,’ ” Willa said with amusement.

Lavinia shrugged. “Now Mother has come to the conclusion that I should catch North before Diana changes her mind. She can’t decide whether to remain here or go to London. I think she’ll remain here, because the chances are pretty good that Mrs. Belgrave will have some harsh words for Diana’s chaperone.”

“As far as I know, neither Diana nor North has sent any messages,” Willa said.

“I just wish Diana had confided in me,” Lavinia said, twisting a ribbon around her finger. “She’s my cousin, after all. I would have helped her. I feel as if I failed her, somehow.”

“Diana is the sort of woman who keeps her own counsel,” Willa pointed out.

“It’s sent my mother into a frenzy, trying to persuade me to entice North to marry me. But—remember?—we decided not to accept anyone’s hand until the end of our second Season.”

“That was before I met Alaric,” Willa said, feeling that was an entirely logical response.

“Whereas I still haven’t met a man I could bear to live with for more than a week,” Lavinia said.

“You’ve never really considered North, inasmuch as Diana disqualified him,” Willa pointed out. “But I quite like him.”

“Diana bumbled it, didn’t she? Why couldn’t she simply behave like a civilized person? Running away is so dramatic.”

“Not only dramatic, but uncomfortable, since she rode the stagecoach,” Willa agreed. “I heard that North shouted at poor Prism for not sending Diana to London in one of the estate’s carriages. But Prism had no idea why she wanted to go to the village, so he lent her the pony cart, as she requested. Just imagine Diana crowded into a stagecoach!”

“I don’t believe she owns a gown that doesn’t double her width. All the same, I shall leave North to his melancholy. I have no interest in her castoffs.”

“May I wear this hat to the archery range?”

“Certainly.” Lavinia snatched up another new hat and put it on. It was smaller and adorned with a great many purple striped ribbons that formed bows and loops that made her look like a stylish ship, albeit with swelling sails. “Did I tell you that Parth Sterling has returned? He was barely inside the door before he insulted me.”

“He’s come for the wedding ball tonight,” Willa said apologetically.

“Don’t you dare tell him about all these bonnets!”

“Why on earth would I?” Willa asked, astonished.

“He said that I am a mercenary, grasping woman,” Lavinia said. “That I do nothing but visit shops, and am fit for nothing else.”

“He’s wrong,” Willa said, dropping the bonnet and giving Lavinia a hug. “He’s terribly wrong and I shall tell him so myself.”

Lavinia scowled. “Perhaps I’ll slip up with my bow and arrow. I’m a terrible shot, you know.”

As it happened, Willa never found out whether Lavinia came close to shooting Parth on the archery field, because no sooner had she made her appearance downstairs in her fetching new bonnet, than Alaric declared himself to be suffering terribly from his sore shoulder.

Which necessitated that they both return to the east tower and go to bed.

Willa did not, on the whole, believe exuberance to be an emotion that adults should indulge in often or at length. It seemed to her a childish emotion, one suited to parties and puppet shows.

Yet she knew perfectly well that the emotion brewing in her chest was just that: exuberance. She couldn’t stop smiling, for one thing. If she kept this up, she would resemble Lavinia.

But who wouldn’t smile?

She had spent the afternoon intoxicated by Alaric’s kisses, not to mention by the musculature of his chest, his long fingers, his eyelashes, his … other parts.

The duchess had summoned most of the Cheshire gentry to the castle for a ball that night to celebrate the wedding. Willa had returned to her old bedchamber to dress, while her husband lounged, book in hand, to one side.

Sweetpea had offered him a polite sniff, and then returned to her busy work; to wit, emptying Willa’s knotting bag of walnuts and stowing them under the bed, from whence the maid would fish them out and return them to the bag in the morning.

Alaric wasn’t sitting alone: stretched across his knees, purring, was a lanky orange cat. Hannibal’s fur was starting to shine, and his ribs weren’t quite as visible.

“You are the most exquisite lady in this castle, Evie,” he said, looking up from his book. “That apricot thing you have on, with all the satin flounces, makes you look like a princess.”

Willa glanced down at her favorite ball gown. It was a soft rose, not apricot; cotton organdy, not satin; a gown, not a “thing.”

“I am particularly partial to the bodice,” Alaric added.

Her corset hoisted her bosom into the air, and the bodice cleverly stayed just above her nipples, partly because it was skintight. Below her waist, lace and silk rioted in every direction.

Hannibal leapt to the floor when Alaric stood up. He came so close to her that he would crush her gown, but Willa didn’t want him to move away, not when he smelled so good that her heart skipped a beat.

She was fairly certain that she betrayed her feelings every time she looked at her husband. Every time she snapped open her fan in order to whisper to him behind its shelter. Every time she put her hand on his arm and glanced about, daring any of his admirers to approach.

It had taken a few days, but Willa had the house party under control. Guests were treating him like an ordinary man, which was a welcome change.

Tonight would be another challenge, but the last such for some time: tomorrow she, Alaric, Hannibal, and Sweetpea would depart for their own house, less than an hour’s drive from the castle.

In the last few hours, she had heard coach after coach pulling up in the courtyard, and the sounds rising from the ballroom had grown from a distant sibilant murmur to the clamor of a flock of starlings.

It would probably take a good part of the night to tutor the ladies of Cheshire that Lord Alaric was not the author, Lord Wilde, and that furthermore, he was not to be touched, questioned, or addressed inappropriately.

“We must go downstairs,” Willa said, before Alaric’s caresses grew too distracting. “We mustn’t be late,” she gasped, twisting away from a kiss that made her shudder with anticipation. “We mustn’t miss your father’s …”

The word escaped her because Alaric’s clever tongue was stroking her lower lip and all she wanted was to yield to him. “Your father’s gift,” she said with relief, grabbing the right word and holding on to it. “Your father’s gift to us, to celebrate our wedding.”

Alaric made a discontented sound, but he let her go. “Why in the hell did my father think he had to make such a fuss?”

“You are the first of his children to wed,” Willa pointed out. She stepped before the glass and began coaxing her hair back into the elaborate arrangement that allowed her to eschew a wig for the evening. “Do you know what his gift is?”

Alaric didn’t reply.

She glanced over her shoulder. “You do!”

“You will enjoy it.”

“But you won’t?” She met his eyes in the glass.

“You’re part of the family now, and you’re about to be introduced to my father’s sense of humor.”

Her smile turned to a puzzled frown. “Has His Grace summoned a jester to perform?”

“I only wish that were the case. The second duchess hated his sense of humor so much that we speculated in the nursery it was the reason she fled the country, lover in tow.”

“Funny stories?” Willa was unable to imagine the duke laughing at a merry tale.

“No. A pervasive interest in oddities, paired with a strong belief that Wildes should not be allowed to bask in their own consequence.”

Willa had that same interest in oddities; it made her feel warm toward her new father-in-law.

“Yes, you are very like him,” Alaric said, reading her mind. “Except for the way you look, which is luscious. We’d better go down before I decide I need to have your hips writhing beneath me.”

“Alaric!” Willa colored and almost ran out of the room, followed by his chuckle.

When they reached the doors leading to the ballroom, she squared her shoulders. In a way, she had been born for this.

If there was anyone in England who could liberate Alaric of the burden of Lord Wilde and give him the private life that every Englishman deserved, it was she. She had every intention of returning her husband to his rightful place in society as a member of the aristocracy, rather than a deranged scribbling girl’s idea of a hero.

She poised the fingers of her hand on his forearm, as if they were about to dance a minuet.

Alaric looked at her. “I wouldn’t wish anyone else to accompany me into battle.”

“You are cultivating the ability to guess what I am thinking,” Willa laughed.

“As do all the best husbands.” He seemed completely unperturbed by the fact of their marriage, whereas Willa was in a state of disbelief that a mere fortnight before she had arrived from London. She had felt nothing but amused skepticism about the object of Lavinia’s adoration, the famous Lord Wilde. How quickly her circumstances changed!

Now she was married to that notorious explorer. Sleeping with him at night. And she would be for years. Decades. For the rest of her life.

It was such an alien concept as to require a flowering imagination like Lavinia’s. One capable of picturing the inconceivable.

At Alaric’s nod, Prism threw open the ballroom doors.

Instead of musicians and dancing guests, the great space was filled with row after row of chairs. Those in the front were gilt, set far enough apart to accommodate ladies’ skirts. They were reserved for the family; a number of young Wildes were already seated, faces shining with excitement. At the sight of Alaric and Willa, there was some yelping, quickly curtailed by two nursemaids.

Behind them, chairs carried in from the drawing rooms were filled with house-party guests and the neighboring gentry who had arrived that evening for the ball. At the back of the room, ladies’ maids, valets, and grooms sat shoulder-to-shoulder, with a few leaning against the back wall.

“My father,” Alaric said, sotto voce, “wants to share the joke as widely as possible.”

Willa gasped and came to a sudden halt. “It’s the play, isn’t it!”

“The final performance, as I understand it,” Alaric said. “My father had the production closed and brought the actors to the castle before they disband. The last gasp of a murderous playwright.” His wry smile made Willa want to kiss him.

Though, obviously, propriety forbade it.

As they made their way to the front row, the audience became even more animated. Willa caught fragments of conversation floating from the assembled guests, who ogled them with the attention usually reserved for royalty, not mere neighbors.

“That’s he,” a robust lady announced to her elderly companion, who was blinking watery eyes as if she couldn’t make out Alaric’s form. “He looks a proper—”

Whatever she went on to say was drowned by a squeal from a young lady a few rows forward. “I cannot believe the luck of being able to see Wilde in Love! Petra’s father had to pay four times the price for—”

“Thighs,” a third lady gasped.

Yes, thighs, Willa thought affectionately. Her husband’s were magnificent, and magnificently shown off tonight, as Alaric was wearing one of North’s costumes. He had ransacked his brother’s wardrobe for formal attire.

He had complained that North’s breeches were entirely too tight, but the truth was that his legs flattered the tailor who had made breeches to that measure.

“I believe I am about to faint,” Lady Boston moaned as Alaric passed her chair. Willa gave her a look, just to make it clear that Lord Wilde would not be gathering swooning women from the floor and reviving them against his manly breast.

“You terrify me,” Alaric said into her ear.

When they reached the front row, Leonidas jumped to his feet. He and Betsy were dressed for the ball, whereas the younger children were going to be dispatched back to the nursery.

“With the arrival of the lovelorn hero, the play can begin,” Leonidas announced, doubling over with laughter at his own joke.

Alaric gave his brother a mock box on the shoulder as he escorted Willa to a chair and then seated himself as close to her as he could, given the luxuriant mounds of silk and creamy lace that pooled on either side of her chair.

Before them, a wide stage had been erected a few inches above the ballroom floor; canvas sheets painted with a jungle scene were suspended behind it and along the sides. An extremely hairy painted lion peeked from between two trees, and a painted crocodile lounged, open-mouthed, at the bottom right.

Green velvet curtains had been hung behind the canvases, shielding anything happening behind the scenes. A certain amount of excited activity could be detected on the other side of the curtains, a low burr of actors’ voices.

“How on earth did His Grace arrange for the performance to travel to Cheshire?” Willa asked.

Her husband shrugged. “He told me he was having the production closed down as a wedding present. I suppose he paid them enough to make the trip worthwhile.”

It was true that in the days after Alaric’s wounding, she had paid no attention to anything beyond his care. Still, a whole theater troupe had arrived without her notice.

“Good evening,” she heard a man say. She looked up.

It was North, but not the same North. For one thing, he wasn’t wearing an extravagant Parisian wig, but the sort a doctor, or a man indifferent to fashion, might wear. His plain black coat emphasized the shadows under his eyes, but his bow was as elegant as any courtier’s.

“I didn’t realize you had returned from London. Please do sit beside me,” she invited. “Prism just informed us that His Grace may not be able to attend the performance.”

“Ophelia is all right, is she not?” North asked, taking the chair she indicated.

“Tetchy as hell,” Alaric said, leaning forward to speak around Willa. “Doesn’t like the doctor’s prescribing lying in, and is keeping Father dancing at her beck and call.”

“As it should be,” Willa pointed out. She strongly believed that Nature’s rule that only females carried children was unreasonable.

“Should it be that way all the time, or merely during delicate times?” North had a frightfully charming smile.

“In a just world, women would birth female babies and men would birth males,” Willa said firmly. “Some male babies are far too large to be carried with comfort.”

North looked past her at his brother, his mouth a lopsided smile.

“Yes, I am lucky,” Alaric said, grinning.

North’s face closed like a trap.

“Bloody hell,” Alaric said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Did you find Diana?”

“No, and her mother informed me that she is no longer my concern.”

From behind the green velvet curtain came the sound of a few violins being tuned. Alaric leaned forward and gripped his brother’s knee.

A beaming Lady Knowe arrived and took the seat on the other side of North. “I’ve seen this play twice already, and I am agog to see it a third time!”

“You do remember that it was authored by a woman who was as mad as a March hare?” Alaric asked.

“And responsible for no little actual drama?” Willa chimed in, curling her hand around Alaric’s arm. She still woke up at night, shaking with fear.

Lady Knowe shrugged. “Whoever claimed that Shakespeare was sane? Do you know that he left his wife nothing but his ‘second-best bed’?”

“That sounds like a commentary on his marriage, not his sanity,” Willa pointed out.

A moment later, the ballroom fell silent when a boy emerged from the curtain and paraded across the stage holding a large pasteboard placard which read,

WILDE IN LOVE
OR,
THE TRAGIC STORY OF
THE BEASTS OF THE WILD
AND THE
MISSIONARY’S DAUGHTER

Willa wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but she patted Alaric’s knee instead. A helpmeet, she reminded herself, should offer succor in times of distress.

The boy reached the far end of the stage, turned his placard, and marched back the way he’d come. The sign now read,

The Final Performance

This brought on another wave of chatter from the audience, only hushed by the sound of violins rising in a crescendo.

A gentleman emerged from behind the curtains and stepped up onto the low stage.

“Oh God, don’t tell me he’s supposed to be me,” Alaric groaned.

“He is not so terrible,” Willa whispered.

The actor didn’t resemble her husband in the least. He had a narrow patrician face, a carefully powdered lavender wig, and a figure that seemed to have been created specifically for the current slim-waisted fashions.

“I am wearing a corset,” Alaric hissed, outraged, in Willa’s ear.

“Hush!” she whispered back. But she couldn’t help laughing.

The gentleman—who was indeed “Lord Wilde”—launched into a long speech about his passion for the wilderness, while Alaric sat back and glared, arms folded over his chest.

It seemed that the presence of the actual Lord Wilde made the actor nervous, because he fairly rattled out a soliloquy that explained his voyage to “wildest Africa.”

He concluded with a flourish, proclaiming that one hadn’t truly experienced life until one had lived among wild animals. At that point, Alaric’s expression grew ferocious, and one could definitely have described the poor man’s exit as a flight.

North leaned over. “I’d forgotten what a jolly good play this is. I daresay Fitzball could give you some hints about dress, Alaric.”

“Fitzball?”

“The actor,” North clarified, his expression positively gleeful. “Quite a star already. His soulful performance of Lord Wilde did much to increase your fame.”

Alaric’s response to this was a rude gesture, so Willa gave him a gentle kick, reminding him there were children present. Then, since they were family now, she kicked North as well. “Behave yourselves!”

“Ouch,” North rumbled.

At this point, the missionary’s daughter burst onto the stage, and Act One was off. As the play proceeded, Willa discovered that her assessment of the play was different from North’s. For one thing, there was far too much reliance on throbbing sentences. For another, the missionary’s family was given to blessing each other right and left, which grew tiresome.

She did enjoy the scene in which the missionary’s daughter fell into the deep river (adequately represented by rippling blue cloth). Her mother shrieked and moaned, casting blessings on the head of her drowning daughter.

Lord Wilde beat his chest, raging up and down the riverbank while lamenting that his terror of the water prevented him from saving “the sweetest maiden who ever walked the savannah.”

The reaction of the audience to this dramatic crisis was divided unevenly between those in the front rows—the Wildes—who were howling with laughter, and the rest, who were howling in terror and suspense.

Happily, it was revealed that the young lady knew how to swim, because she wiggled across the blue cloth and made it to the riverbank, ending Act Two.

“I can’t believe this nonsense,” Alaric said, in the interval before Act Three commenced.

“It isn’t very good,” Willa agreed, “although I thought the mother played her part with a great deal of spirit.”

“ ‘Dead! Dead! Never to call me Mother again,’ ” North said, deadpan.

Further along the row, past Lady Knowe, Lavinia and Parth had somehow ended up seated beside each other. Willa just caught Lavinia’s retort, “Just because you have no understanding of art—”

Act Three opened before Lavinia could complete her sentence.

The heroine’s near death had caused Lord Wilde to see at last that she was the dearest treasure of his heart. Their stolen “moment of delight,” represented by feverish kisses, was greeted with approval by the audience, especially the youngest Wildes, whose encouraging hoots could be heard over civilized applause.

The locket made its appearance, and was dropped by the heroine into her bodice; a nice touch, Willa thought.

After that, high emotions came thick and furious. The missionary and his wife uncovered Lord Wilde’s perfidious seduction, leading to much gnashing of teeth and wailing about God’s providence: “Branded with infamy! Shunned! Degraded! O, my daughter, my daughter, what will become of you!”

Before anyone could answer that riveting question, the cannibals made their attack, though it was conducted behind the scenes. To the front of the stage, Lord Wilde ate a leisurely breakfast, unaware that his lady love had not only been cast off by her parents, but had been captured by bloodthirsty cannibals, and was about to become their breakfast.

A few rending screams shook the curtains, followed by the pushing of an enormous papiermâché cooking pot onto the stage, “fire” wadded underneath. A woman’s hand was draped over its rim, the locket poignantly tangled in its fingers.

Even the children held their breaths now, waiting for Lord Wilde to finish his ham and eggs, turn around, and discover the tragedy.

He leapt to his feet with a fine roar of fury. There was nothing he could do other than fight off the cannibals and rescue his beloved’s body in order to return it to her family. But he kept the locket, falling to his knees and crying out, “Never shall I love another woman!”

A satisfied sigh echoed around the ballroom.

Until Alaric broke the mood by bursting into laughter.

Fitzball threw Alaric a withering glare and swept from the stage.

“I will credit Prudence for getting one thing right,” Alaric said, rising to his feet.

Willa looked up at him inquiringly.

“I will never love another woman,” he announced. He pulled her up, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. The audience roared with appreciation.

Willa returned his kiss, because there are rare occasions on which propriety should be ignored, and this was one of them. “Love you,” she murmured, her voice almost silent against his lips. “And you?”

“Don’t you dare,” he murmured back.

She choked back laughter because, after all, it was unnecessary to point out that he was, indeed, Wilde in Love.

The whole castle knew it.