"G-get out!" she said, and her teeth chattered in good earnest.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, doing just that and shutting her door behind him, blowing out his breath from puffed cheeks.
He tried to keep his mind off a certain painful throbbing in a lower part of his body.
Diana stood where she was for a long time after he had gone, the bedclothes still clutched to her with one hand,thewindow curtains still held back from the window with the other. Her teeth clacked open themselves, and her knees trembled beneath her. But she would have collapsed completely if she had moved so much as a finger, she was convinced.
The effects of the laudanum were rolling back like waves of the sea. She was standing there in the flesh—very much in the flesh—on the hard wooden floor of a country inn. A man had just left her room.A man who had shared her bed and who had all but shared her body.
A very real man.
A man she had dreaded to meet downstairs the afternoon before because he had seen her legs bared to the knee.
Gracious heaven above!
She heard a faint commotion outside her room and stayed where she was.
She watched Bridget bustle into her room a few minutes later, wearing only a crumpled shift as far as she could see in the near-darkness, and carrying some other clothes under one arm.
And Diana stayed where she was.
'' Mum!'' Bridget said, dropping her bundle on the truckle bed and coming toward the window.
"B-b-bridget?"She clamped her teeth hard enough together almost to crack them all.
"Mum," Bridget said, taking the curtains from Diana's nerveless fingers and letting them drop back over the window. She opened her ample arms and Diana—blankets and all—came into mem.
4
"What was all the commotion last night?" Lester asked the marquess at breakfast the following morning.
"Commotion?"Lord Kenwood yawned behind one hand and wondered if the sausage before him on his plate was just too greasy to be attempted.
"I distinctly heard the barmaid's voice," Lester said."And Carter's.There was someone else there too. That plump lady's maid, at a guess."
"Hm," the marquess said, deciding that the sausage should not be attempted. Not at least on an empty stomach.
"I thought perhaps you had thrown the barmaid out of your room," Lord Crensford said. "She was in your room, I assume? I did think of going out and inviting her into mine if you had no use for her. But of course, I was sharing the room with Lester."
"It was all just a little misunderstanding, I gather," Lord Kenwood said, waving his hand dismissively and looking with some distaste into his cup. That muddy substance was coffee? He would drink ale, thank you very much.
Lord Crensford looked suddenly disapproving. "You never had both of them in your room, Jack?" he said suspiciously. "The maid and the barmaid, I mean. Oh, I say, that was rather greedy: And Carter handed in his notice, did he? Can't say I blame him."
''You are very far wide of the mark,'' the marquess said. ''Carter is at this moment packing my things in the hope that we can vacate this infernal inn some time today. Shall we have this mess cleared away? It is making my stomach feel decidedly queasy."
"I'll have your sausage if you don't want it, Jack," Lester said. "You had better be careful, you know, not to wear yourself out before giving chase to the widow. It would be somewhat lowering, would it not, to have the wager all but won only to discover that you were incapable?"
The marquess raised one eloquent eyebrow. Lord Crensford scowled into his undrinkable coffee.
"Hey, Jack," he said, "thisis the limit, you know.Past a joke and all that.I'm deadly serious. I can't allow this wager. Teddy's Diana and all that. This has to stop right here and now."
"It's too late to think of that now, my lad," Lord Kenwood said. "The wager is made and honor is at the stake. And we have been over this ground ad nauseam. But you needn't fret, Ernie. I can safely promise yet again—and for positively the last time—that I will not be doing anything to your precious Diana that she will not thoroughly enjoy."
"That is what I like about Jack," Lester said to his extra sausage."His incurable modesty."
"Let's play a hand of cards," themarquess said, "and praythat the sun gets up soon and dries that mudbath out there. This has to be the worst road in all England. And I would wager that the landlord of this inn slips someone a sizeable bribe to keep it that way. How else would he induce any travelers to stay here? There are not even any locks on the infernal doors."
Lester laughed. "Is that what happened, Jack?" he asked. "Did the second female let herself into your room only to find that you were not yet finished with the first?"
