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ways attending to Ferdie was much easier. He was like an overgrown child. If he arrived home in his cups singing at the top of his lungs and weaving from one solid object to another, he was invariably smilingly apologetic. If he had a disastrous evening at the gaming tables, he was always blithely certain he would recoup his losses. As time went on, Ferdie actually began to enjoy taking his wife to some of the routs and ridottos that were such a necessary part of any fashionable gentleman's existence, and Diana always took pleasure in his escort, for he was such genial company.
    However, increasingly his customary exuberance had begun to fall away, and a worried frown was often seen to flit 36
    The Willful Widow
    by Evelyn Richardson
    across the viscount's jovial countenance. "Nothing, 'tis nothing," he would always disclaim quickly when taxed with this unusual state of affairs, but a hunted look had begun to lurk at the back of his eyes that Diana could not fathom until several days after his groom had brought his master's body home.
    Ferdie, in a desperate attempt to keep up his spirits and improve his fortunes had challenged his closest crony, Anthony Washburne, to a curricle race, betting a hundred pounds that he would make it to Brighton before his friend did. A stray dog had blighted all his hopes and turned Diana into a widow by ambling into the road as Ferdie came around a particularly sharp corner at a slapping pace. Once again, Diana had discovered, as she had when examining accounts at Buckland, that she was left with nothing so much as a pile of debts. She had been aghast. How could somebody have lost so much money in so little time—especially someone like Ferdie, who never seemed to put that much effort into anything? Even his mother, more conversant with her son's ruinous tendencies, had been appalled.
    The disastrous state of Ferdie's fiscal affairs was left to the new heir, a distant cousin, to sort out and to try to recoup the estate's finances—which, Diana, already left with Buckland and all its attendant headaches, handed over to him with relief. The new viscount, a sober pleasant man, was more distressed to think of the entail depriving the dowager viscountess and her daughter-in-law of a home, but Ferdie's mother had been only too happy to go live with her newly 37
    The Willful Widow
    by Evelyn Richardson
    married daughter, while Diana had withdrawn contentedly enough to the house on Brook Street, which Ferdie, with uncharacteristic forethought, had left to her. As it was one of the few possessions untouched by creditors, Diana was able to take up residence quietly and comfortably while renting out the fields at Buck-land to a local fanner in an effort to recover some of the estate's losses over the years. Only the question of companionship remained, for it was unthinkable that a young widow should remain all by herself in London, regardless of the fact that to all intents and purposes, she had lived virtually alone all her life. With the exception of Boney, who had been a constant companion since he had been sent as a twelfth birthday present by Aunt Seraphina, Diana had often gone for days with nothing more than desultory intercourse with the servants, while her father had immured himself in the library. She had become accustomed to solitude and since coming to town, had discovered that much of the social interaction she had missed was merely vapid conversation and empty-headed gossip.
    The task now was to find someone who would satisfy the dictates of society without threatening Diana's sanity or independence. It had actually been Boney who solved the problem, for one morning as Diana, gazing blankly out the window, had wondered out loud what to do, he had flown over, perched on her shoulder, and begun nibbling her ear. His mistress had stroked him absentmindedly. "Yes, Boney, you have been a good and faithful friend since Aunt Seraphina sent you, but somehow I do not think you would 38
    The Willful