"You are still in love with her!" Lord Kenwood stopped in his tracks.
"No, I am not." Lord Crensford flushed with indignation. "But she is my sister-in-law, Jack. And Teddy is no longer alive to protect her. It doesn't seem right somehow seeing her here without him. I daresay it's my job to protect her now, Clarence being too busy with Claudia and the children. And I intend to do it. Hands off, eh? Forget the wager."
Although their intention when they left the house had been to walk around to the back and down to the river, which flowed through the wood, they had in fact progressed ho farther than the corner of the house.
The Marquess of Kenwood clasped his hands behind his back. "Ernie," he said, "do I detect a threat?"
His cousin paused to consider. "I suppose so," he said at last. "I am telling you not to force yourself on Diana. And I suppose that means that if you do, I will do something to you."
"What?" The marquess rocked back on his heels.
"Oh, Lord," the other said, beads of sweat coating his upper lip, "can't you just agree like a gentleman, Jack? Does this have to get ridiculous? I'd draw your cork, I suppose. Punch your lights out. Have younameyour seconds. Sneak off with Papa's dueling pistols. I don't know what I would do." He frowned. "But I would do something. Leave her alone."
"Have you ever heard of me forcing myself on any woman?" The marquess's tone was amused.
"No, I haven't," Lord Crenshaw said, clearly rattled, "but I have heard of females crying their brains out after you have had them and threatening suicide and worse when they knew you had been merely dallying with them, Jack. It's all very well for you to claim, you know, that you give them pleasure andall that, and I don't doubt that it's true, though I don't know how you do it. But pleasure isn't enough for some people.Especially females.Their hearts get involved. It's all right for you, Jack. You don't have a heart."
The marquess was still rocking on his heels. "Bravo," he said. "I didn't know you were capable of such a lengthy and impassioned speech, my boy. Look, Ernie, a wager is a wager. And at White's! I couldn't dream of forfeiting it. I would never live down the ignominy. I'm sorry that it has to be Diana, since you obviously feel very protective of her. But I'm not going to hurt her or break her heart, you know. One bedding, that's all. Surely a sensible woman like Diana won't get all silly and sentimental after one bedding."
"Diana would," Lord Crensford said stubbornly. "Diana wouldn't do such a thing lightly."
"Look!" Lord Kenwood was beginning to feel exasperated and to wonder why he was standing and arguing the point yet again. "Chances are, Ernie, that she will have none of me. We have been here three days already and you must have seen how she sticks her nose in the air and turns to marble whenever I am within eight feet."
"Which happens to be quite often," Lord Crensford pointed out.
The marquess grinned. "I think you have your mama to thank for that," he said. "She has clearly decided to play matchmaker and match up Diana and me."
"It would serve you right too," his cousin said, "ifyou were to end up married to her. I would wish for it with all my heart, Jack, as suitable punishment for you if I didn't know that Diana would live a life of misery with you afterward."
"Well, goodness me," the marquess said, his voice drawling in a way that always set his relative's teeth on edge, "you have decided to take the gloves off, haven't you, Ernie? Fortunately, your precious Diana is in no danger. Even ten of your mamas working on me all together could not bring me to the altar. And it looks as if we are going to be saved from coming to blows for this morning anyway. The carriage that
is approaching is not any of the ones the ladies took into the village, is it?"
Lord Crensford turned to watch the ponderous old coach that was drawing to a halt before the front doors of the house. Those doors opened at the same moment, and the earl and countess came out and down the marble steps.
Lord Crensford sighed. "It's Wickenham's carriage,",he said."Claudia's father.Claudia's mother and sister; at a guess. I was beginning to hope . . . But no matter. That means all the guests are here, since Allan and Michael and Nancy arrived yesterday."
The two men strolled over to greet the new arrivals, who were being hugged and kissed by the earl and countess.
Lord Kenwood looked appreciatively at the tall, slim and handsome figure of the older lady, and assessingly at her daughter. She could not be a day over eighteen. Beneath a pert little straw hat, she was all bouncing auburn ringlets and merry brown eyes and upturned nose and generous mouth and—yes, definitely—sprinkled freckles.Beautiful?No, not at all, he thought.Attractive?Decidedly so, for those whose tastes ran to innocent and mischievous schoolroom misses.
He bowed to the ladies, to whom he was being presented, and glanced at Lord Crensford. And foundhimselfconsiderably amused and intrigued to find that his relative was regarding the little beauty with a look of almost open disgust.
"I was fourteen," Miss Angela Wickenham was saying with a smile at Ernest that wrinkled her nose in a most charming way. She was clearly speaking in reply to something the countess had said. "It was at Claudia's wedding. And you did not know I was alive, my lord."
"Oh, yes, I certainly did know that," Lord Crensford said, taking her hand and not seeming to know if he should shake it or carry it to his lips.
"I was fourteen," she said."A mere child."
Lord Crensford shook her hand and released it.
"All the ladies have gone into the village this morning," the countess said, taking Mrs. Wickenham's arm and leading her in the direction of the house, "except Claudia, who is playing with the children and awaiting your arrival with great impatience. She must not have heard your carriage, the nursery being at the back of the house, you see. Most of the gentlemen are playing billiards. Come, I will take you to your rooms. You will want to refresh yourselves before going to the nursery to see our grandchildren. How wonderful it is to have our family around us again. Though not as many as we could have wished, the Season still being on in London. Only eighteen guests all told, alas."
The earl took Miss Wickenham's arm and patted it in a fatherly way.
"I can't imagine why they would want to come," Lord Crensford said ungraciously to the marquess. "They are not reallyfamily.Except for Claudia, of course."
Lord Kenwood fingered his quizzing glass but did not raise it to his eye. "You do not find the little beauty rather exquisite, Ernie?"
