Page 23 of The Duke and the Hellion Bride

When she entered the breakfast room, dressed in a modest morning dress, seeing the room to be empty, she did not waste time asking if His Grace would be joining her. She was not such a fool as that. Rather, she seated herself toward the head of the table and instructed the staff to make her a plate.

So, this is what I can expect from now on, is it? A husband who wants nothing to do with me? Why, exactly? Perhaps if he would speak to me, I’d have an answer.

Diana had spent most of the previous evening running through her head what had transpired between herself and her husband, trying to figure through what she had done wrong and at what point exactly His Grace had decided he wanted nothing to do with her. No clear answer came to him, for the circumstances yesterday were as unclear as could possibly be.

Ultimately, she was forced to contend with the likely fact that His Grace was committed to this marriage of convenience and truly he only wished for this marriage so she might help raise his two nieces.

Speaking of which...

“Adeline! Josephine!” Miss Brooks swept into the dining room suddenly, a frantic look painted across her aged face. “Adel -- oh! Your Grace,” she started and came to a sudden halt. “I am so sorry. I did not see you there.”

“Is something the matter... Miss Brooks, wasn’t it?”

“That is me, Your Grace.” She offered a quick bow. “And no, no. It is nothing I cannot handle. I should not have disturbed you.”

“Nonsense.” Diana waved her away. “You are searching for the girls, I take it? What has happened...” She smiled playfully. “Have they run off on you?”

Miss Brooks flushed. “We are supposed to be taking reading lessons, and I instructed both Adeline and Josephine to meet me as soon as they were dressed. But they are nowhere to be found, and I fear...” She flushed further with embarrassment. “I fear that they have purposefully absconded.”

Diana laughed. “I used to hate reading lessons when I was a little girl. I empathize with them.”

“It is not for you to worry yourself with,” Miss Brooks said quickly. “I will find them. This is not the first time they have acted in this way. Please...” She turned to leave. “Continue.”

“No, no,” Diana said as she rose from her seat. “If the two girls are hiding, I dare say it will be much faster if we look for them together. Do you not think?”

“Your Grace, there is no need...”

“And yet I am going to help you anyway.” She swept down the length of the table. “Now, tell me, where is it that they like to hide? My guess is that they have their favorite places? If we split up, we will find them in no time.”

Miss Brook could not help but smile. “That they do. They are not so clever as they like to think. Albeit they are just as troublesome.”

It was thus that Diana spent the morning searching for Josephine and Adeline with Miss Brooks. There were five places in the manor which the girls enjoyed hiding, and Diana took two of them to herself.

The first was the library, for it was a maze of tables and couches and bookshelves, so easy for young girls to scurry away in. She looked through every nook and cranny that she could, finding no trace of the two girls.

The next location was the stables outside, and that was where she struck gold.

It was the moment she ducked her head inside the stables that she heard the girls whispering to one another in the back corner, tucked away in the furthest stall. When she heard them, Diana smirked to herself, realizing suddenly that this was a perfect opportunity.

The concept of motherhood was new to Diana, and she’d had little time really to decide what type of mother she might be. Not that she was to be a mother to these girls, more a mother-figure, a female elder for them to look up to. But that only confused the matter further.

Her only experience in such a thing being her own mother, whom she loved dearly but was strict and no-nonsense and not at all in line with how Diana thought she should approach the situation.

If she wanted these girls to listen to her, they had to like her. And if they were going to like her, she needed to give them a reason to. And so, she decided upon a game...

“I wonder where they might be,” she said loudly as she started across the stables, toward where she heard them whispering. “Oh, where could they be?”

She heard them gasp. One of them told the other to be quiet. Diana’s smile grew as she came closer.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are...” Closer she came to their hiding place. “Clearly, this is not the right place to look,” she continued. “If I was hiding from the wicked Miss Brooks, I would not be such a fool to hide here.”

She crept closer to the stall, standing right on the other side. The girls were both silent now, holding their breaths, surely praying that Diana would move on. But she did no such thing.

She crouched down just a little. She set her expression to one of menace. Then she pounced around the stall, throwing the door open, and holding her arms out as if to trap the two girls from running past her.

“Got you!” she cried out.

“Ahhhh!” Adeline, the youngest of the two cried out.

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