"Ah," hesaid,his voice as much of a caress as the "Mm" had been the night before. And he smiled. She did not know for sure that he smiled because she was carefully cutting into her fish. But she would have bet a fortune on the conviction that he was smiling.
He turned away to talk with Paula Peabody on his other side. And Diana, almost sagging with relief, was left wondering what he had meant by that "Ah," and indignant that he had not explainedhimself. She had not thought he was Teddy, she had told him. And then that soft and caressing" Ah." Whatever had he meant by it? And how dare he mean anything!
"You had a difficult journey here?" Russell Peabody asked from her other side.
6
Most of the gentlemen were whiling away the morning three days later in the billiard room while the ladies were either still in bed or on a shopping expedition to the village two miles away.
Viscount Wendell had remarked rather sadly that billiards was the one unclerical activity that his youngest brother had been remarkably skilled at.
"Yes," Lord Crensford agreed. "You knew that once Teddy got the cue in his hands, you might as well go in search of a good book. The game was over."
''Diana seems to be doing well,'' Sir Joshua Knowles said, "considering how bewildered she was just a year ago. She is in good looks. But then, of course, she is young. She will marry again."
"Mrs. Diana Ingram," Mr. Thomas Peabody said with some emphasis, "would be a prize well worth the winning."
"I loved Teddy dearly," Viscount Wendell added, clucking his tongue as he missed a corner pocket and relinquishing his place at the table to Lester Houndsleigh, "but I must confess we could never quite understand why Diana chose him. She might have had almost anyone. Pritchard was dangling after her and Honeywell and Darlington, to mention only some of the titled ones."
"She was overwhelmed by it all, doubtless," Sir Joshua said. "She was straight from me schoolroom and straight from the country, was she not, Clarence? Teddy had what she probably needed more than anything else—a kindly smile."
Lord Crensford gaped. "Is that what Teddy had that I didn't?" he said unwisely. All eyes turned his way.
"Fancied her yourself, did you, Ernie?" Sir Joshua said with a chuckle.
''She wouldn't have had you,'' Lester said, squinting along his cue in preparation for attempting an impossible shot. "You needless noseto be beautiful enough for Diana, Ernie."
"Oh, I say," his cousin said indignantly. "Teddy was no more handsome than I."
"But he did have that sweet smile," his uncle reminded him.
"And he had a brain," Lord Wendell added with a chuckle. "Diana is bright enough to admire brains."
"Oh, I say." Poor Lord Crensford was rendered speechless.
Lord Kenwood clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Come and take a stroll outside with me, Ernie," he said. "I still haven't seen this river you have spoken of."
"I wish I could learn when to keep my mouth shut," Lord Crensford said when they were safely outside the billiard room. "I was in love with Diana once, I'll admit. Everyone was. But I never held out any hope. It was only after she accepted Teddy that I thought perhaps if I had been the bold one ... I don't love her anymore. I can only think of her as Teddy's.And as my sister."
Lord Kenwood led the way outside and breamed in lungfuls of warm air, fragrant with the scents of the numerous flowers in the formal garden. "I wouldn't worry about it," he said. "They were just teasing.SoPeabodyfancies Diana, does he?"
"She won't have him," Lord Crensford said. "He is more than twenty years-older than she. His son must be her age.''
"But then it seems that everyone thought she would not have Teddy," the marquess said.
Ernest threw him a sharp glance. "Diana never was easily manipulated," he said. "You have been hanging about her altogether too much, Jack."
The marquess raised one eyebrow. "How else am I to win my wager?" he asked. "And win it I will, Ernie, my boy, you may rest assured."
"Diana's name should never appear in any betting book," the other said. "Not in any capacity at all. But this! It is too sordid by half."
"But she is there," the marquess pointed out reasonably.
"Rittsman must win," Lord Crensford said. "You have to let him win, Jack. I'll pay him the five hundred guineas."
"You, Ernie?"The marquess looked at him in amused astonishment. "You are often in dun territory, are you not?"
"I'll find five hundred guineas," his cousin said, "for Diana."
