Page 29 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
“Perhaps because you were looking for me in the vicinity of Sir James and that awful Gerard Dunn.” Diana giggled. “Come on; we can talk over here. Colin showed me a little library on this floor that’s out of the way enough to—”
“Colin?” Leah repeated teasingly, a look of shock on her face. Lady Westermont glared over at them from the corner where she had been making polite conversation with Leah’s mother.
Diana winced. “Mister Mullens, I mean. Come on, just follow me.” She took her friend’s hand and led her down a nearby winding corridor, feeling her cheeks heat as though she had just been burned. Leah allowed herself to be dragged into the cosy little library, giggling lightly all the while.
“Here, you see?” said Diana as she gestured to the comfortable-looking sofas that surrounded a low table of dark wood. “Everything we could want in a place to giggle and gossip to our hearts’ content and without having to fear any of Sir James’ guests listening in or interrupting.” Diana scowled as she reached for the sideboard to pour them each a glass of sherry; she was aware that she was nattering on too much to distract herself from this nagging feeling of embarrassment and disliked this reaction in herself.
“Lovely, yes,” said Leah, reclining on one of the sofas. “And this is a place that Colin—I do beg your pardon,Mister Mullens—has shown you, then?”
Diana handed her a generous portion of amontillado and sat with her own still more generous cupful. “You’ve seen this house, Leah. You can imagine it might take a few decades to learn its ins and outs; there’s no shame in getting some guidance from someone who knows the place better.”
“What else hasColinbeen telling you, then? Showing you any other secluded corners of the house when there is no one else about?” asked Leah with a mischievous grin on her face.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re implying, Leah, but I don’t much appreciate it.”
Leah leaned forward, nearly spilling her wine in her eagerness. Her eyes were alight with amusement that Diana found strangely unnerving. “Come now, Diana. We’ve known each other for most of our lives, haven’t we? There’s no shame in enjoying the company of a handsome young bachelor. Especially when you and he are so clearly well matched for one another in matters intellectual and conversational.”
The pieces had fit together in Diana’s mind, but even as she looked at the finished puzzle, she refused to see it in its completeness. She opened her mouth to avow that she had no idea what Leah was talking about, but another voice filled the silence in the library first.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was … Miss Hann?”
The two women looked up at the doorway from their positions on the sofas to see two smartly dressed young men stopped midway through entering the library. Diana felt something swell in her breast at the sight of the pair—Adam Radcliffe wore a glittering diamond pin in his tie, and Colin Mullens always cut a dashing figure in his fashionable black coat, no matter how many times she had seen him in the exact same ensemble. On closer examination, she detected an odd, uncomfortable air hanging over Colin and found herself as curious about that as she was eager for her conversation with Leah to be at an end.
“Good evening, Miss Reid,” Colin cut in, his voice oddly stiff. “Miss Hann. We will leave the two of you the use of this room. We may only have a few minutes until dinner is served, anyway.”
“No, please,” said Leah with a crocodilian smile on her face, ignoring the daggers that Diana stared in her direction. She gestured to the unoccupied seats on the other end of the low table that squatted between the two women. “Please, do join us.”
Diana’s and Colin’s protestations came simultaneously. “Leah, I—”
“I’m not sure that—”
“Diana, please, I haven’t yet finished this lovelyapéritif.” Leah swiftly raised and lowered her glass, which was nearly empty by this point. “Surely you don’t want me to have to endure a stomach-ache, do you?”
Amid a smattering of shrugs and mutters, the men sat in the indicated chairs, sipping their own wine as they made themselves comfortable.
“I say, Miss Reid, I do hope we are as fortunate in our seating arrangement this evening as we were last time,” said Adam Radcliffe, leaning forward in his seat with an eager grin.
Leah gave him a wary smile. “Poor fellow, have you been unable to find anyone to turn you down as thoroughly as our Diana did last time?”
Adam raised his hands in mock surrender. “No, no, Miss Reid, you’ll be happy to know I’ve sworn off women, at least for a time.”
“Not a very long time, if history be our guide,” Colin quipped.
Adam laughed and shook his head ruefully. “It would be longer if women would all stop being so bloody pretty … begging your pardon, Miss Reid. Still, it is a necessary step, if a lonely one. After a recent unfortunate episode involving a certain—”
He stopped abruptly before he could continue this sentence, halted by a well-placed elbow to the ribs by his friend Colin. He flashed Colin a look of irritation, then rubbed the back of his head and laughed. “Involving a possibly unsavoury situation not fit for mixed company.Mildlyunsavoury.” Adam looked at Colin again, this time with a wolfish smile. “At any rate, Miss Reid, you’ve naught to fear. I am eager to resume our previous seating positions not to indulge my predatory instincts but to play spectator again to one of the most thrilling evenings of sport to be found in all of London.”
Diana frowned. She could see that Colin had a similar expression of confoundedness on his face.
Leah, however, seemed to follow what Adam was saying completely. Nodding her head and smiling broadly, she put in, “Oh, quite! But why limit ourselves to one city? I imagine one could not witness better, cleverer banter anywhere in the whole of Europe.”
“Ah, but you see, many Europeans speak French, which gives them a bit of an unfair advantage.” Adam laughed.
“Do you think this time Sir James might be so irritated that he might actually explode? The man does seem to hate being any less than the centre of attention.”
“We can only hope so. Though I would hate to have another bout interrupted by—”
“What in the world are the two of you talking about?” Diana asked helplessly. A silent exchange of meaningful glances among Leah, Adam, and Colin followed this question. After a tense silence, Leah and Adam broke into laughter while Colin gave an exaggerated shrug and sipped his wine noisily. Diana could think of nothing else to do than to follow his lead, letting her friend chatter on about whatever it was she and Adam were alluding to.
