She was heartily sick of the whole business, and had had several comfortable cozes with Bridget, her maid complaining about the valet, she about the master.
Perhaps she would not have disliked him had she met him under any other circumstances.Or if her mother-in-law had not so obviously—and disastrously—chosen him as her second husband.But as it was, she could not see him—or even think about him—without squirming with embarrassment and distaste.
If he had only been suitably humiliated at sight of her, perhaps she could have forgiven him. Perhaps they might have exchanged apologies and smiles and been, if not comfortable with each other, at least cordial.
But he was not at all humiliated. Or remotely sorry for the terrible embarrassment he had caused her.Not at all.His eyes laughed at her every time she looked into them, which happened far more frequently than she would have liked. And he had a way of raising one eyebrow that could deepen the color in her cheeks several shades, try as she would to look cold and indifferent. And mere was something else about his eyes too. They had a way of looking at her as if she had no clothes on. It was disconcerting, to say the very least.
She knew without a doubt that every time he looked at her, every time he spoke to her, every time he touched her, he was remembering. As she was, of course—how could she not? But at least she had the decency to remember with some horror. He clearly delighted in the memories.
The wretch.Perhaps it was unfair to hate him. After all, the mistake he had made had really been Bridget's. But she hated him anyway. He was quite ruining any chance she might have had to relax at Rotherham Hall.
And it was with him that the countess was trying to match her. Oh, no. Over her dead body!
And so it was with a feeling of some triumph that on the afternoon when the countess had organized a game of cricket on the lower lawn the day after the arrival of Mrs. Wicken-ham and Angela, she scooped Patricia, her infant niece, up into her arms and set herself very firmly between Claudia and Angela, who tripped along at her side, chattering brightly, as she usually did, about any topic that suggested itself to her mind.
The walk past the formal gardens and the orchard would be one at least that she would not have to take on the arm of the Marquess of Kenwood.
The gentlemen were to play cricket. They had really had no choice in the matter, since the countess's idea of entertaining was to provide exercise—preferably outdoors— for her guests during almost every moment of the day. Cricket was not, of course, a ladies' game. The ladies, it seemed, were to get their exercise from sitting at the edge of the lawn looking decorative and cheering on the team of their choice.
"Oh, dear," Claudia said, settling her skirts and her children around her, "Clarence is going to bowl. And he must ever take a run in of twenty yards in order to do so. I am afraid that he quite forgets that he and his thirtieth birthday parted company some time ago."
"He bowls with such flair, though, Claudia," her aunt said soothingly. "I wish they had not put Ernest out quite so close to the boundary. He never seems able to make a catch, and he gets so upset with himself if he drops one."
Angela giggled and spoke confidentially to Diana. "When I was here last," she said, "I simply worshiped Lord Crens-ford. I was only fourteen, you know, and he ten years older. I thought him quite splendid. He did not know I existed."
"Well," Diana said with a smile into the bright, pretty face beside her, "I am sure he must know you exist now, Angela. It would be very strange if he did not."
"I think he must be shy," the girl replied. "Allan and Russell and Lester are very attentive—I think perhaps they admire me a little—but Lord Crensford avoids me. He never looks quite into my eyes. Do you think he is shy?"
"I think perhaps he is," Diana said, closing her eyes and groaning as Ernest, who had been poised below a hovering ball right on the boundary for what seemed like endless seconds, lost the ball in the sunlight, and let it drop out for a six.
Most of the ladies applauded with some enthusiasm. Not for Ernest's error, but for the splendid way in which Lord Kenwood had begun his stint at bat.
"It really does not seem fair, does it," Lady Knowles said, beaming happily, "that gentlemenwho are handsome and charming so often seem able to do everything else well too?"
Lord Kenwood was leaning indolently and modestly on his bat, one padded leg crossed behind the other. Looking quite annoyingly handsome, Diana thought. And it was true. It did not seem fair. Poor Ernest was searching the bushes for the lost ball.
Fortunately, she thought spitefully at the end of a long game, the marquess had scored only twenty runs before Clarence shattered the wickets behind him with a particularly fast-paced ball. And his team lost to Clarence's by ten runs.A quite satisfactory conclusion.
But Claudia and her mother had taken the restless children back to the house half an hour before, and Angela had somehow got herself into the center of a loudly chattering group of young girls. And she was in imminent danger of having her mother-in-law suggest that she take the marquess's arm for the walk back to the house. She crossed the lawn with some haste to where Lord Crensford was pulling his coat on over his shirt.
She linked an arm through his when he was finished. She liked to be with Ernest. He was always cheerful and always quietly affectionate.And safe.He reminded her quite a lot of Teddy, though the two brothers had looked nothing alike. Ernest had always been characterized by his prominent nose and his unruly fair hair, which no amount of brushing would seem to tame into a fashionable style.
"Are you quite exhausted?" she asked. "You did a great deal of running."
"A very tactful way to comment on my game, Diana," he said, smiling ruefully at her. "I am afraid cricket was never my strong point. I was one of those boys at school who was always picked last for a team. Did you see me knock down the wickets with a back swing of my bat? But of course you saw. I wished at the time that there werea hole somewhere closeby deep enough to hide my head in."
"Oh, come now," she said. "You did score six runs, Ernest, even if you were not the hero of the hour. And your team won. You beat the Marquess of Kenwood for all his glorious six and two fours."
"You sound as if you don't like him much," he said. "Don't you, Diana?"
She shrugged. "I don't know him well enough to know whether I like him or not," she said guardedly.
Lord Crensford coughed. ''You need to watch out for Jack, you know," he said.
"What?" she said sharply. "No, I do not know, Ernest."
"You have been spending some time with him," he said. "That's Mama's doing, I know. And it's awfully hard to fight against Mama when she has her mind set on something."
