"Or sooner," he said. "I must be greedy and have a few days with you here, but I will leave early next week and make all the arrangements at lightning speed and break my news to my mother and the girls—they will have forty fits apiece and hug me so hard they will crush every bone in my body— and gallop as fast as hoof will travel to your papa's door to claim you. Will he let me have you, do you suppose?"
"I am of age," she said. "But how could any papa resist you? You are, after all, a marquess."
''I sometimes forget that I am such an exalted personage,'' he said. "I suppose that is the reason you
are marrying me, Diana, is it?So that you may be a marchioness?"
"Yes," she said. "You mean you thought there might be some other reason?"
He removed the arm which had been around her shoulders and propped himself up on his elbow. "I see I am going to have a saucy wife," he said. "I hate to say this, Diana, but there is suddenly a dreadful hush outside. I fear the rain has stopped and it is time to squelch our way back through the grass to the house."
"If you were a gentleman," she said, "you would carry me."
"If I were a gentleman," he said, bending to kiss her nose, "I would not have you naked on the floor here having my wicked way with you merely because you have had the misfortune to be trapped with me here during a storm."
She sighed. "Well," she said, "if I had the choice between lying naked here with you and then having to get my feet wet on the one hand, and not lying here with you and being carried back to the house on the other, I don't suppose I would choose to keep my feet dry."
He grinned, scrambled to his feet, and reached down a hand to her. "Someone has to keep a cool head," he said. "On your feet, woman, and get some clothes on before we also have the dawn light to show us the way home. And we still have the countess to face. Can you imagine how she will react to our news? I may have no bones left for my mother to crush. Get dressed."
"Yes, my lord," she said meekly one moment before he jerked on her hand and brought her right into his arms.
"On second thought," he said, "people with cool heads rarely get much enjoyment out of life."
"My sentiments exactly, Jack," she said while she was able.
Epilogue
During an evening a little more than a week after his betrothal, the Marquess of Kenwood strolled into White's. He stood looking into the card room for a while, and nodded to those acquaintances whose attention was not entirely engrossed in a hand of cards. He glanced in at the reading room, which was almost entirely deserted at that particular time of day.
He found the person he had hoped to see in the lounge. And as luck would have it, there were several more of his acquaintances there too. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye, perused the group at his leisure, and sauntered across the room.
"Rittsman?" he said, nodding amiably."Hartley?Bedard?Quincy? Maurice?"
"By Jove,it'sJack come to liven us up," the last named gentleman said. "Pull up a chair, Jack, and join us."
"I am just passing through," the marquess said languidly. "I have promised to put in an appearance at my mother's soireé. Rittsman, my good fellow, I have something for you."
He leaned down and set a piece of paper on the table before Elwood Rittsman. "It is a draft on my bank for five hundred guineas, as you will see. It is an unfortunate fact that we frequently become boastful when in our cups. The last month has proved you quite right, it grieves me to report. Not all women are susceptible to my superior charms. Mrs. Diana Ingram's virtue, it seems, is quite "unassailable."
Rittsman picked up the bank draft. "Being a gentleman, Kenwood," he said, "I will not say 'I told you so.' But I would have to say that this is the easiest won wager I ever engaged in."
The marquess raised his quizzing glass to his eye and surveyed the other through it with haughty languor.
There was a chorus of dismay from some of the other gentlemen.
"Jack!" Maurice said. "Your reputation will take years to recover from this. I would not have thought it of you, oldchap."
"Never mind his reputation," Hartley said. "I had two hundred of my own on this, Jack."
"And I had a hundred," Quincy added.
The marquess shrugged and lowered his glass. "I must be on my way," he said. He took a few steps toward the door before turning back and raising one lace-covered hand. "Ah, by the way, you will all be receiving official cards of invitation, but since I am here, I might as well make those invitations verbal as well. I hope to see you all at my wedding on the first day of August.AtSt. George's, of course."
His audience gaped at him.
"You, Jack? Getting married?" Bedard chose to be spokesman for the group.
The marquess raised his quizzing glass again. "Yes," he said. "Me. Getting married. I will expect to see you all at the church." He turned to leave.
