“She’d be cross,” Diana agreed. Her lip began to tremble. She seemed suddenly to be reflecting on her actions rather than taking the adventure as it came. When she gazed into Jack’s eyes her own looked bright with unshed tears. “I think maybe because I did what she did she’ll be even crosser. Oh dear!”
“Well, at least your mother knew where her carriage was going,” Odette muttered, obviously referring to Katherine’s escapade seven years before. “You didn’t, Diana. You could have got into awful trouble.”
Diana shook her head and sat up straight. “Oh no, Mama didn’t know where her carriage was taking her. That’s why she’ll be even crosser with me for doing what she did.” As if a realisation had suddenly descended upon her, the little girl gasped, “I’ll have a lifetime of sorrow.” She suddenly burst into such tears of genuine fear and tragedy both Jack and Odette looked at each other in confusion before Jack reached across to pat the little girl’s arm and say, “Of course you won’t, Diana. We’ll take you back to your Mama straight away.”
She rubbed her reddened eyes and looked back at them. “After the apple pie?”
Jack smiled, wondering if he could press her on her enigmatic words, for a rather odd sensation had followed Diana’s revelation, and he didn’t know if it might also have registered with Odette.
“Naturally. You can have my serving as well, if you like.”
It was as if the sun had lit her up from within. Jack swallowed, for Diana’s smile was as genuine and without artifice as Katherine’s had ever been; it sent him hurtling back in time. He remembered the pure joy he used to feel at the prospect of leaving the foundling home to see his old friend each week. Being welcomed by Katherine, running across the lawn to meet the dogcart in which he would invariably be conveyed had been like stepping into a magical kingdom.
“I’m sure your mother didn’t threaten you with a lifetime of sorrow if you hid in someone else’s carriage,” he prompted mildly. “It’s a rather unlikely thing to do.”
Diana shrugged. “It’s what Mama said she got when she got into the wrong carriage. She was punished with a lifetime of sorrow. Oh, goody! It’s the apple pie!”
There was no opportunity now of getting into the specifics. Distracted by the little girl’s words, Jack pushed across his plate of apple pie and imagined possible interpretations. Had Katherine inferred to Diana that she wished she’d not been so impulsive in choosing to jump into Diana’s father’s carriage that fateful night?
Or was there something more to it?
Odette clasped his hand, and he looked into her face, forcing himself to smile. She’d hate to know how often his thoughts dwelled on this little girl’s mother, and how suddenly the past seemed to be in doubt.
As did the future.
“Ah, Jack, but you’re a good man, sacrificing your apple pie to bring happiness to a perhaps not-so-deserving child, but one who is grateful nonetheless.”
His betrothed’s eyes sparkled at her attempt at humour, and Jack wondered if a similar analogy with regard to his own situation with Odette were not too dissimilar.
Chapter 25
With great irritation, Odette had just agreed that she and Jack had no choice but to return from whence they’d come in order to take Diana home when a short, sharp rap upon the door of the private parlour heralded the tavern keeper. Bringing up the rear was Lord Derry, who, after a quick glance about the room, settled his gaze upon Diana with relief.
“Lord, my girl, but you’ve set the cat among the pigeons with your carryings-on,” he said, not unkindly but not in the ameliorating way that might have won him the child’s approbation. “So! I have instructions from your distraught mother that when I find you you’re to return immediately with me.”
Diana rose to her feet with a vengeance. “With you? I will not!” She put her hands on her hips and stared directly at Jack. “I’m going with Mr Patmore. He already promised.” She pointed a little finger accusingly at Jack. “He let me have his apple pie on condition I go home with him, and I gave my solemn pledge.”
Odette seized her opportunity as she smoothed her mulberry and grey check skirts and jutted out her chin. “You’ve already been so naughty as to run away, Diana. Of course you’ll do as you’re told and go with Lord Derry.”
Jack looked dubiously at Derry’s riding clothes. “You don’t propose to put her in front of you and gallop all the way home, do you?”
Derry nodded, his look slighting, as if he disliked being called to account by a sapling like Jack. “She’s as light as a feather, and it’ll not do her any harm.”
Jack stared from the indignant and reluctant child to the older man while concern niggled. “Surely Katherine didn’t expect Diana w
ould be jolted all the way home with…” He was going to say someone she hardly knows, but supposed this was not true. Perhaps it was why Diana did not wish to go with him.
Lord Derry hovered near the doorway impatiently. “It’ll be less than an hour on horseback, and the sooner I can put her mama’s mind at rest, the better. They still don’t know where she is, of course, and are in quite a panic. Come, Diana. You love an adventure!” He said this with an enthusiasm that had no influence upon Diana.
She looked at Lord Derry disdainfully, and in that moment, Jack realised he must be the one to win Diana over. Not just for her but for her mother’s sake.
He crossed the room and knelt down in front of her. “Miss Worthington and I can take you back in our carriage,” he said cajolingly. “It’ll be much more comfortable. Lord Derry can ride ahead to tell your mama. How does that sound?”
Before Odette could respond, a commotion in the passage was followed by another arrival. Jack glanced up as the tavern keeper’s wife swept into the room followed by a large, voluble middle-aged woman loudly declaring her pleasure to discover that Miss Worthington was in residence.
Her bonnet was trimmed with more roses than Jack had ever seen and her purple gown was expensive and vulgar yet Odette greeted her like an old friend, rising quickly and clapping her hands.
“Mrs Monks. Why, I haven’t seen you in more than a year,” she exclaimed, smiling warmly and introducing the woman as their former neighbour and dear friend of her late mother’s. When she established that Mrs Monks was resting for the day before resuming her journey to London the following morning, Odette was quick to suggest that Jack could take Diana in the carriage while she remain.