Page 49 of Five Nights to Claim His Duchess

Diana’s heart did the foolish thing again.

“Does he?”

“Have some cake,” said Henrietta serenely, and put a plate into her hands.

Diana took it, and turned, and caught two women by the refreshment table looking straight at her and looking away far too quickly.

“—I heard she forced herself upon the Duke. Threw herself at him and he was obliged. That is the whole reason it was done in a week.”

“Never.”

“On my honor. And they call her a lady of family. So much for noble blood.”

The plate went very still in Diana’s hands.

Beside her, Henrietta had gone rigid. “How dare they?”

She was about to step forward when Diana caught her wrist without looking away from the two women. “No. Not here.”

“Diana—”

“Wait.”

They waited. It did not take long; the pair finished their punch and drifted toward the terrace doors. Diana set her plate down on the nearest surface and drew off her gloves, one finger at a time, and found that her hands were perfectly steady.

“I want a word with them,” she said.

Henrietta was already at her shoulder.

“Then I am coming with you.”

“—shameless. Truly shameless, and there is no other word for it.”

“And the airs she puts on. Did you see her come in on his arm? Like a queen at her own coronation, and every soul in the room knowing how she came by him.”

“It is the performance I cannot stomach. If a woman is going to be low, let her be low and have done. But to stand there and play the lady⁠—”

“May I join you?”

The terrace was cold after the ballroom, and the two women turned so quickly that one of them bumped into the other

Diana came down the steps into the lamplight with her hands loose at her sides, her face pleasant.

Neither of them said a word.

“Oh, do not stop on our account,” said Henrietta. “You were both of you so very enthusiastic a moment ago.”

The elder of the two recovered first. She drew herself up, gathered her shawl, and made to go round them toward the doors.

“Have you no shame at all?” asked Henrietta.

The woman stopped. “I know you must take your friend’s part,” she said. “That is very loyal in you, I am sure. But what is wrong is wrong, and you must forgive us if we do not care to smile upon immorality merely because it has got itself a title.”

The second woman nodded, twice, with great firmness.

“You wretches—” Henrietta spat, ready to attack.

“Hen.” Diana laid two fingers upon her cousin’s wrist. Henrietta subsided, breathing hard.