"I must confess—" the earl stroked the back of her neck with light fingertips— "that I have always thought there would be long odds on both of those matches,"
"Nonsense," she said. "Angela is perfect for Ernest, and Jack for Diana. But Angela and Ernest seem to have quarrelled quite nastily. She would not walk down to the lawn with him this afternoon, dearest, though I suggested very subtly that she do so. And he has developed that nasty habit, of scowling he used to have as a boy when things were not going his way. And Diana is avoiding Jack."
"I think perhaps he is too much for our Diana," the earl said. "She is too gentle and too proper to tame someone like Jack."
"I would not be so sure of that," the countess said. "I think he is pursuing her quite hard, dearest. And that is promising. Men like Jack usually do not waste much time in pursuit when there are so many females just waiting to be caught. And he walked with Lady Huntingdon for only fifteen minutes this morning, and we both know what she is like, though it is uncharitable of me to hint at such a thing."
"Well," the earl said, "he still has more than a week left in which to catch our little Diana. It is unlike you to give up hope, dear heart."
"Oh," she said, turning astonished eyes to him, "I have not given up hope. What a strange notion. It is just that both couples need a helping hand. It will have to be mine. I shall think of something, you may depend upon it. I shall bring them all to their senses, though they will not know, of course, that I am the one who is doing it. Oh, dearest, they are going to be so happy, all four of them. Perhaps as happy as we have been." She laid her head back against his arm.
"Have been?" he said. "Are we not still, dear heart? And will we not be in the future?"
"Oh, foolish!" she said. "You always were a foolish man.Taking my words so literally, indeed."
* * *
Carter brushed unnecessarily at the back of his master's evening coat. But of course, he was far too skilled at his job to have left even the smallest wrinkle in the shirt beneath it. He stood back to gaze in sour satisfaction at his handiwork. Though of course, the superior cut of the pale blue brocaded coat and paler pantaloons and the splendor of the silver waistcoat were more to the credit of Lord Kenwood's tailor than to that of his valet. And the good taste of the clothes was to the credit of the marquess himself.
But the snowy white neckcloth with its splendid and perfectly folded design wasall thevalet's. And Carter's skill with a neckcloth was one of his greatest redeeming features, the marquess thought, looking critically at his image in a full-length glass and arranging the lace of his cuffs in neat folds over his hands.
There was a large and lavish dinner to attend, at which forty-six guests were expected to sit down. And a ball afterward, to which several more guests had been invited. The house had been humming with preparations all day.
An excessively hot day.And possibly the last one they would have for a while. There seemed to be every possibility that there would be a storm during the night. And once rain broke into a spell of pleasant weather in England, one could usually kiss the sun and the blue sky and the warmth goodbye for a long time to come.
He had played billiards with Lester and Michael and Thomas Peabody. He had ridden with Clarence and Sir Joshua. He hadstrolledthe back lawns with Russell and Barbara and Beatrice. He had prowled the greenhouses alone.And had sat with a book in the library, alone.
And he had been telling himself all day that tomorrow he would be able to leave.Or certainly the day after.His leaving early would no longer be considered a slight once the earl's birthday was in the past.
He would go back to London and pay Rittsman his five hundred guineas, and forget about the whole thing. Set it behind him and get his life back to normal.
"Yes, you may leave,'' he told Carter, waving a dismissive hand. "You can tidy up later when I am at dinner. I wish to be left alone now."
The valet looked at the mess around him with a deliberately pained expression, bowed stiffly, and withdrew.
He would go back to London and find Sally and spend as many days and nights in her perfumed rooms as he needed to spend there in order to get his life back to normal.As many days and nights as it would take him to get Diana Ingram out of his system.
He could still feel claws of something—panic almost— grab at his stomach when he recalled what he had told her atRotherhamCastle. He had never told anyone about his father or about how his mother had quite unwittingly fostered feelings of insecurity in her children. Frances crying with him over her stillborn daughter, afraid of showing such weakness before her husband for fear he would sneer at her and turn to other women—even when it was perfectly clear to an impartial observer that Jeremy doted on her.Hester forever falling in love with rogues in the unconscious conviction that she was not worthy of a better man.
And himself.Convinced that he was his father's son and was incapable of behaving differently from his father even if he wished to do so.Givinghimselfup to the inevitability of that life, while at the same time protecting some unknown woman who might have been his wife from the agonies of humiliation and rejection his mother had suffered.
He had never even put words to these deepest feelings in his own mind. He had never thought out the causes of his sisters' problems, or of his own. He had never thought of himself as having problems. He was happy. He was living the perfect life. He was the envy of a large number of the men of his own class.And much sought-after by women.
He had never told anyone else. Or evenhimself. Yet he had told Diana Ingram.
What made her so different from any other woman? She was not different. She was beautiful. She was desirable. She was attracted to him. She responded to his particular brand of teasing and flirtation. He could possess her, enjoy her, and put her safely to rest in his past. She was no different.
He could have had her there at the castle. He had wanted her badly enough. For the space of a few minutes he had totally lost touch with reality and his usual carefully plotted seduction. He would not try too hard to recall the words he might have said to her during those minutes. He might be embarrassed by the memories.
And she had wanted him as badly. He had known from instinct and experience the exact moment when desire and temptation had given way to surrender. He could have led her out into the sunshine and laid her down on the grass and had his fill of her. He could have worked her out of his system right there and then.And won his wager into the bargain.
That damned wager! It had seemed distasteful to him as soon as he had sobered up after agreeing to it. Why did it now seem sordid and dishonorable in the extreme?
Was that why he had fought the unnecessary battle to control his desire and made the lamest of excuses not to take their lovemaking to its natural conclusion? Was it the wager?The fact that he had sworn to bed her for money and for the satisfaction of being able to gloat to a few dozen gentlemen acquaintances?
Diana! She was a person. She was just recovering from an ordeal that no young person should be asked to face. She had hopes and dreams for her future. She wanted to marry again. She wanted to marry a man who could make the universe explode for her. She wanted to have children.
Teddy had been unable to give her children. She had cried for them. She ached with envy when she saw other women with their babies. He knew how all-important giving birth was to women. Frances had never lookedsohappy as when she had taken him to her nursery to show him his nephew.
