"Oh, come now, Diana," he murmured. "Perhaps I am not gentle, though I believe I can rise to it when the occasion demands. But I am all of the rest of the word, my dear, as I think you know. Now what on earth is Miss Wickenham doing in the moat while Ernie stands on the bank, looking like a fish out of water?No, on second thought, looking more like a thunderhead."
It seemed that Angela had been told by the countess of a maiden who had once thrown herself to a watery death in the moat when she received word that her lover had been killed in battle. It was a quite unsubstantiated story, Lord Crensford had told her, but she wanted to see anyway where the girl must have landed and what she must have looked up to as she drowned.
"Though why no one jumped in to save her, I don't know," she called up to the three people ranged along the bank above her. "Surely someone must have been able to swim. Was it not a requirement of knighthood?"
"But all the knights were doubtless at the same war that killed her lover," the marquess pointed out. "Only old ladies and blacksmiths and jesters and people like that would have been left. Jesters couldn't swim. They were too busy jesting and jangling their bells."
"Well, I think it was a very romantic thing to do, anyway," Angela said, scrambling up the bank and reaching up a hand to the one Lord Crensford stretched down to her.
"And very brave, too.Not many ladies would have the courage to kill themselves for love. Most would prefer to pine away."
"The really brave ones would probably do neither," the Marquess of Kenwood said. "They would straighten their shoulders and lift their chins and march off into the future.''
Angela gave him a level look before throwing back her head and giving vent to a peal of laughter. "How very un-romantical you are, my lord," she said. "Just like my papa. Are all men the same? But I shall persist in believing that this girl was very brave. And I am sure her ghost must haunt the castle—but on dark and stormy nights. We must come back on such a night."
"We absolutely will not," Lord Crensford said testily. "I have no wish whatsoever, Miss Wickenham, to haul your dead body home with me."
Angela laughed again. "But you agree with me, don't you, Mrs. Ingram?"
And if he had any hopes of outwalking Ernie on the way home or lagging behind him so that he might resume his stimulating conversation with Diana, Lord Kenwood thought ruefully, he might let them trickle away at this very moment. Angela Wickenham linked her arm through Diana's, and the two of them went walking off together in the direction of home, their heads together, forall theworld as if they were bosom friends who had just met after being apart for six months.
Ah well, progress had been made. Progress had definitely been made. She would have smacked his face, indeed! The kiss he had embarked on had lasted such a brief time that a clock would probably not have measured its duration. But she had been opening her mouth. He would take an oath on it.
He had well over two weeks left.Plenty of time.Time for the one necessary bedding and for more after that if he found that she made a pleasurable mistress, as he fully expected she would.
"So, Ernie," he said, "you have thwarted my wicked designs for one night. Are you proud of yourself, my boy?"' 'Iwas almost too late,'' Lord Crensford said. He was quite grim-faced, the marquess could see. "And Miss Wickenham could have been hurt. I'll be more careful in the future, Jack. You are going to find me wherever you turn your head."
"How alarming for me," the marquess said."And how potentially embarrassing for you, Ernie."
* * *
The Countess of Rotherham was planning a grand dinner and ball for the earl's sixty-fifth birthday two weeks after the arrival of the first guests. But busy as she was with the preparations for that and with the daily entertainment of her guests, she clapped her hands with delight when Nancy Decker told her at breakfast one morning that Allan Turner also had a birthday two days later.
''I should have remembered, dear,'' she said to him when the truth was discovered. "I recall telling your mama that she really must produce you on dear Rotherham's birthday— his thirty-fifth—and being quite cross with her when she was in too much of a rush and presented your papa with you five days early." She laughed heartily.
The earl rubbed his hands together. "This will be a cause for celebration," he said.
Allan's protests were to no avail. Before many minutes had passed, the countess had decided on an afternoon picnic at the river for the birthday, a very special dinner, and a musical evening.
"And everyone must participate in the concert," she announced. "There will be no protesting that you do not have a musical note in your heads. This family was ever musical. Everyone must do something. Yes, Ernest, dear, even you. Your violin is still in the music room."
"Mama!"Lord Crensford protested—to no avail.
Diana felt some alarm. She played the pianoforte, but not with any brilliance. And she could sing, but not well enough to rival any nightingale. Perhaps she would do both, she thought. She would sing to her own accompaniment. Then perhaps the audience would expect a little less of each performance.
"Are you fond of music, Allan?" Lady Knowles asked him when the earl and countess had left the breakfast parlor.
Allan Turner looked somewhat pained. "Not particularly," he said. "The one consolation seems to be that since this concert is to be in my honor, I will not be expected to perform in it. That will be a relief, both for me and for all of you, I do assure you."
"Isn't this just like Mama?" Lord Wendell said in some exasperation. "I suppose you are not overfond of picnics either, Allan."
Diana had promised to spend the morning in the village with Claudia and Angela and a few of the other ladies. Angela had been dithering for days over a bonnet at the milliner's that she was not at all sure was quite all the crack, though she liked it excessively, she said. This morning, though, she was going to buy it.
It was not until after luncheon, then, that Diana found a moment to steal into the music room. She would have an hour before they were all scheduled to play croquet on the lawn. And it would be quite pleasant to have something definite to do in private. For the past three days she had been hiding in her room every time there was no common activity in progress.
And when there had been some general entertainment, she had attached herself to one of the ladies—she had always been fond of Claudia, and she had become quite friendly with Angela—or to Mr. Thomas Peabody, who seemed quite safe because he was old enough to be her father. The only trouble with the latter situation was that he was becoming quite markedly attentive. Oh dear, she thought sometimes, another problem was looming on the horizon.
But she had successfully avoided the Marquess of Kenwood in the past three days, if one discounted the fact that everyone's place at mealtimes seemed to have become fixed, and she found herself next to him at both luncheon and dinner each day. And if one discounted the seating arrangements the countess had made in the carriages going to church on Sunday, and in the pews inside the church. Almost inevitably, she had seated Diana beside the marquess.
