“Perhaps.” She turned to stare across the lake and sighed when she saw Bethany’s hat floating near the center.
“Your sister-in-law is not going to become enraged over the loss of her hat when you could have drowned.”
“I was perfectly safe. You would not have allowed me to drown,” she declared automatically, pulling the material of her skirts away from her legs. “Besides, it’s not that I think she will be angry over the hat,” Diana explained. “It’s that she will besadto have lost her favorite. Perhaps it holds some special memory for her. Perhaps it once belonged to her mother—or her father gave it to her as a gift before he died.” Why was it that men could be so wickedly smart about some things and so obtuse about others?
“Are any of those true?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Diana answered.
He pinned his silvery gaze on hers, and Diana hugged her elbows.
“Your sister-in-law will forgive you regardless.” He glanced down and twisted the ends of his jacket, sending water streaming onto the ground.
Was he reconsidering his promise to pretend to court her?
“Shall I tell Bethany about our ruse?” For their scheme to be truly convincing, her brother would likely need to give the marquess permission to court her—pretend or otherwise. “Shall I tell Chase?”
“I’ll handle Chaswick.”
Relief swept in, knowing their dip in the lake hadn’t caused him to change his mind. Furthermore, he sounded confident in her brother’s approval, which, Diana mused, gave her one less thing to worry about.
What mattered most right now was that Captain Edgeworth had finally noticed her!
“What should I do next? If the captain pays me a call, should I go driving with him? Should I pretend not to like him? What if he sends me flowers?” It felt good not to be alone in making these decisions. And whereas her brother and sister-in-law only ever expressed their optimism, she could trust Lord Greystone’s candor.
“When he requests you to go driving with him, tell him another gentleman has already claimed the privilege. Do not express that you like him and do not, I repeat, donotstare into his eyes with that look of longing you were practicing earlier.”
“What look of longing?” Diana turned to stare up at him, trying to remember what she’d been doing—what she’d been thinking—before the marquess had approached her.
“The one where you look like the runt of a litter gazing after the last of her superior siblings.”
“Are you comparing me to a dog?”
“A puppy,” he clarified.
“Like this?” Diana screwed up her face trying to recreate the expression he had just described. She leaned forward so that he could judge her efforts.
He scowled, but she thought his upper lip might have twitched again. Likely, he’d used up his annual allotment of laughter on the boat. “Exactly like that,” he answered.
“Or like this?” She pursed her lips into as pitiful of a pout possible.
This time, he merely shook his head, which was just as well, as Bethany and Chase approached with Collette in tow.
Diana raised a self-conscious hand to her head and then rushed to her sister-in-law. “I lost your hat. I’m so terribly, terribly sorry. The pins must have come out, and when a gust of wind caught it, it went flying across the lake. I’ll understand if you never forgive me.” And then she had an idea. “If you’d like, I could walk around to the other side and see if it’s ended up there—”
“No! That won’t be necessary.” Bethany grasped the material of Diana’s gown and pulled it away as it was clinging again. Her sister-in-law’s words sounded like a reprimand, but laughter lurked behind her eyes. “And you’ve lost a shoe, I see.” She was shaking her head, and Chase was scrubbing a hand down his face.
He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
“Miss Diana is quite troubled by the loss of your favorite hat, my lady,” the marquess explained, which didn’t even come close to expressing Diana’s remorse. “And we would not have tipped over if I had conveyed to her the importance of remaining seated.” At this, he sent her a condescending glance—because he had instructed her to stay seated.
More than once, in fact.
“I could hardly believe it when the hat flew off my head.” She recalled the moment it had lifted into the air. “Did you know that ducks fly?” Diana asked.
“But of course, they do,” Collette answered.
“Miss Diana was, indeed, most distraught,” Greystone added.
