Someone took command of the situation—Bedard, the marquess saw when he looked up and yawned loudly.
"We have to decide upon a female," Bedard said.
"For what?" someone else asked. "What is Jack to do with her? Kiss her? Elope with her? Marry her?"
"I'm not marrying anyone," the marquess said firmly, rousinghimself. ''If I have t'marry her, there's no wager.''
"Bed her, of course," Rittsman said impatiently.
Rittsman was doubtless the only sober man present, the marquess thought, with the uncomfortable feeling that he was at a decided disadvantage. Exactly what was he in the process of doing?But no matter.Life was confoundedly dull these days with only a parcel of young misses cavorting around for the Season, looking for husbands. He had no interest in young misses.
A lengthy and lively discussion ensued on who the fortunate female was to be whom the Marquess of Kenwood was to seduce. He was relieved to hear the chivalrous voice of one of his friends immediately declare that they must on no account choose any young virgin of the ton. Mrs. Mackenzie was rejected because she was too easy—and indeed she was. The marquess had been fending off her advances for two years or more. After hearing her name, he lost interest in the discussion for a while, finding a spot on his boots vastly more fascinating. Carter would look at him accusingly when he saw it, as if he had deliberately stepped into a puddle of mud. He could recall doing no such thing.
"She has to be available," someone was saying, objecting to the name of a lady who had sailed for America two weeks before. "But she has to be someone who is not at all easy."
That was when Ernie woke up. Not that Ernie, Lord Crensford, had been sleeping exactly. But if he himself was drunk, the marquess thought, fixing his eyes on his young relative, then Ernie might be said to have all but drowned in alcohol. His eyes were fixed and glazed, his face as white as parchment. Lord Kenwood winced mentally when he imagined the size of Ernie's headache the next day.
"Diana," he said. "Nob'dy c'd ever sh'duce Diana."
There was a polite pause in the conversation, a tribute befitting the resurrection of one who had appeared quite dead only a moment before.
"Diana?" the Honorable Lester Houndsleigh said. "You mean Diana Ingram, Ernie?Teddy's Diana?"
Lord Crensford nodded gravely. "Un'shaibble virtue," he said, and forgot to stop nodding.
"I say,"someoneelse said, "that ain't the Miss Diana Winters who married your brother, is it, Ernie?"
Lord Crensford continued to nod.
Miss Diana Winters? There was an awed buzz in the room.
Everyone remembered Miss Diana Winters, that most exquisitely beautiful young lady who had taken thetonby storm five Seasons before—and who had disappointed a score of hopeful hearts and more score of less hopeful ones at the end of that Season by marrying the Reverend Edward Ingram, youngest son of the Earl and Countess of Rotherham and going off with him to a country parsonage somewhere.
Everyone also remembered how remote and aloof she had been, how impossible it had been to charm her, to lure her into anything that she did not wish to do. And she had never seemed to wish to do anything that would take her alone into any man's company. Some people had dubbed her an ice maiden, but she had been too beautiful to ignore, too lovely not to sigh over.
Something like a collective sigh passed around the lounge at White's.
The Marquess of Kenwood did not know who Miss Diana Winters was. Or rather, he did know who she was. She was Teddy Ingram's wife.His widow, rather.Teddy had died more than a year before. But he had never met her, even though he was somehow related to the Ingrams. It was not a close relationship, though his mother would have been able to tell him exactly what it was. It involved some seconds or thirds and a few removes, he seemed to remember.
He had been in Scotland that summer—with that delectable little actress, whose name and face eluded his memory for the moment. He had missed the Season and the family wedding.
"Shall we agree to Mrs. Diana Ingram, then?" the cool voice of Rittsman was asking him.
"Oh, I shay."Lord Crensford was rubbing his unshaven chin with one hand. "Not Diana.Reshpect'ble female, y'know.M'shishter-'n-law.Teddy's widow, y'know." He ended his protest by belching.
"Mrs. Diana Ingram," the marquess agreed with a nod. "But how am I supposed to meet her?Never seen her in my life."
Lord Crensford hiccuped."Going t'Roth'rum Hall next week," he said."P'pa's birthday.Everybody going.Whole fam'ly.Cousins.Aunts."He waved an expansive hand. "Ever'buddy."
"It is time I renewed my acquaintance with my relatives, the earl and countess, your parents," the Marquess of Kenwood said, his voice sounding quite sober to his ears in comparison to Ernie's efforts. "Are you going too, Ernie? I'll come with you."
"Eh?" Lord Crensford said. "I'm going? 'F course I'm going, Jack. Desh'n—dec'nt of you t'say you'll come with me. Lester's coming too."
Ah, yes, the marquess thought, Lester Houndsleigh was quite a close relative. He and Ernie were second cousins.
"It is settled, then," he said, emptying his glass in one gulp.
But of course there were still other tedious details to settle. How long should he be given to accomplish his task of seduction? Seduction, Rittsman called it. Rubbish, of course. He had never in his life had to seduce any female. Indeed, he sometimes found one in his bed whom he had not strictly invited there. Not that he had ever turned a female out of his bed, of course, invited or uninvited.
