Page 73 of Anything But a Duke
“Like me?”
“Yes. For each lady she introduced me to, she produced a list like that one.” He waited until she’d finished reading and chuckling under her breath at the effusive way her friend had described her. “I would like a similar list about Miss Ashby. You needn’t write anything down, of course, but I’d like to know what you can tell me about her interests, her motivations.”
Lady Elizabeth cast him a sympathetic grin. “Diana is not terribly mysterious. One of the things I like best about her is that she is utterly bereft of pretense. She truly loves her science and engineering and inventions. Occasionally, I’ve seen her play the piano or ride a horse for pleasure, but for the most part I remember her as a young woman who was driven to create and make sure others understood the usefulness of her designs.”
“Do you know why she doesn’t wish to marry?”
“Most of us at Bexley had moments of rejecting the notion of marriage. Surprising, perhaps, to hear about a group of young ladies sent away to a finishing school. I recall one classmate who was the most vehement disbeliever. She insisted marriage was an institution designed to subjugate women.”
“Is that what Diana believed?” he asked Lady Elizabeth.
“I don’t think so. Diana wants exactly what she says: she wants her inventions to succeed.”
“The device she’s created can succeed.” Aidan admitted to himself that he hadn’t been a believer when she’d presented her idea to the Duke’s Den. But now, he understood how the device could be useful. “I believe in Diana, and I should have seen the potential in her invention.”
“That’s wonderful news.” Lady Elizabeth beamed.
“So once Diana has the success she craves, what will she think of marriage?”
The noblewoman’s mouth curved. “Unfortunately, the medium took her crystal ball with her when she departed the other evening, Mr. Iverson.”
“Your best guess, Lady Elizabeth.”
“I’m not a woman who offers guesses freely.” She took another sip of her tea. “I prefer facts. A bit like Diana.”
All his life, Aidan had been willing to take risks. He’d run away from the workhouse with nothing but the clothes on his back. He’d learned the ins and outs of gaming and risked pence and pounds in back alley betting for years before building his fortune. He owned a gambling club, for bloody sake.
But this was a different sort of gamble. One with consequences that he feared might break him in ways that the loss of money never could. While he sat stewing, Lady Elizabeth continued sipping her tea and casting him a skin-prickling look of assessment.
“You can tell me nothing to ensure I might win her?” That was it. The heart of why he’d come. The most open appeal he could make.
She tipped her head and her expression softened. Aidan had the sense she was considering whether to take pity on him. Finally, she drew in a long breath and let it out on a sigh.
Leaning forward slightly on the settee, she cast him a sympathetic grin. “Without risk, Mr. Iverson, is there any real value in the reward?”
Diana lifted the hammer again and again, working the strip of copper into the proper shape to fit into her third device. The metal gave way and formed itself against the wooden structure underneath beautifully. She was getting better at this part. Nothing like repeating the same processes over and over to become proficient.
“We’re going, Di,” Dominick called from the conservatory threshold.
Her next strike went wide and nearly caught her hand where she held the edge of metal in place.
“When will you return?” Diana hadn’t paid close attention to the details of her brother and mother’s outing. She only knew that they were answering a long put-off dinner invitation from a family friend.
“Late mostly likely.” Dom applied his gloves and sounded as unenthusiastic as Diana had been at the prospect.
They’d all been invited, but Diana insisted she could not spare the time. That had turned into an argument and then another, until her mother finally capitulated and allowed her to beg off. It wasn’t so much that Mama understood her need to spend every moment she could working on the devices for Mr. Repton, only that she’d tired of trying to change Diana’s mind.
But this had nothing to do with stubbornness. Mr. Repton’s deadline was fast approaching and she needed five devices in perfect working order by the end of the next week.
“There’s apparently to be a musical performance, then dinner, then parlor games,” Dom said in a miserable drone. “Wish me luck. Or simply knock me over the head with that hammer now. You choose.”
Diana laughed and stood to stretch out the knots in her back and shoulders before approaching her brother.
“You’ll survive, I promise.”
“Not if someone plays the harpsichord. I have an almost preternatural loathing of that sound. Either I will destroy the instrument or it will destroy me.”
Diana reached up to straighten his askew tie. “I’m glad you’re taking this all in good stride.” She winked at him.
