Page 5 of To Love and to Loathe
“Yes, Willingham,” Diana agreed innocently. “Surely you wouldn’t presume to contradict your grandmother, who of course is so much wiser in the ways of the heart than you are yourself.”
“You are laying it on a touch thick, Lady Templeton, but I do applaud the general sentiment.” The dowager marchioness’s fan increasedits rate of flapping, seemingly in time with the pace at which the cogs in its owner’s brain were turning. “Jeremy,” she said suddenly, turning to her grandson, “did you receive a reply from my secretary to your invitation to your house party?”
“I did indeed, Grandmama,” Willingham said mournfully, his blue eyes impossibly wide. “It naturally struck at the soft parts of my heart to read yet another crushing refusal from you, but I trust I will eventually be able to recover from the disappointment.”
“Enough, Jeremy, you’re not half so charming as Lady Templeton is.” Diana quirked a single, self-satisfied brow at Willingham in response to this in a show of restraint that she frankly felt worthy of a saint.
“I think I have changed my mind, however,” the dowager marchioness continued. “I really ought to thank you, Lady Templeton,” she added, turning her attention—and the breeze generated by her fan’s vigorous flapping—in Diana’s direction. “You have made me see that I’ve allowed matters to go on quite long enough. It’s time to take charge of things myself.”
“Yes,” Diana said uncertainly, not entirely understanding to what she was agreeing.
“Excellent,” the dowager marchioness said briskly, her gaze flicking between Diana and Willingham. “I shall look forward to this house party immensely. I anticipate it will be most productive.”
Diana was too busy cackling internally at the look of alarm on Willingham’s face to take much notice of the scrutinizing look the dowager marchioness cast her way. She would soon have cause to reflect on, and regret, her mistake.
Two
For the next couple ofweeks, Diana’s life continued on much as it ever did. She spent her afternoons painting in her solarium, and her evenings at a dwindling series of dinner parties and balls as thetonbegan to scatter to their various country estates in early August.
Since that evening at the Rocheford ball, Violet and Audley, whose marriage had been strained in recent years, had reconciled in predictably nauseating fashion. This reconciliation had been the culmination of nearly a fortnight of Violet feigning a case of consumption in order to get her husband’s attention—an endeavor that had severely tried Diana’s patience—but husband and wife were in the throes of matrimonial bliss once more. While this was overall a satisfactory outcome, it did mean that one could not spend too much time in the company of the recently reunited couple without feeling moderately ill. As a result, Diana had not spent quite as many hours at Violet’s Curzon Street house as she was accustomed to—which did have the advantage of meaning that she’d not been forced into Willingham’s company much of late. She’d heard from her brother that he’d wasted no time in taking up with a new mistress, now that his love affair with Lady Fitzwilliam, the former Sophie Wexham, had ended, but this was such quintessentially Willingham-like behavior that it scarcely warranted notice.
This was the state of affairs when, one morning in August, as she was lying abed, her butler arrived to announce an entirely unwelcome visitor.
“Lord Willingham,” she repeated, clutching her wrapper tightly to her throat to ensure that poor Wright did not accidentally see even an inch of inappropriate flesh—she wasn’t sure his heart could handle it, poor dear. “Lord Willingham, to whose country estate I will be retiring in a matter of days? Shouldn’t he already be there? Doesn’t it taketimeto prepare for a country house party?”
“I could not say, my lady,” Wright replied stiffly, his gaze focused somewhere over her left shoulder. Despite Diana’s modest attire, clearly the fact that she was in her bed was too much for his nerves to bear. “Would you like me to tell him that you are not at home?”
“No, no,” Diana said, her curiosity piqued. “Tell him I shall be with him shortly.”Shortlywas, of course, a relative word, and Willingham would understand as much. She was a lady of style, after all. She did not simply roll out of bed and instantly become the delectable creature who graced ballrooms in the evening. This transformation took time.
She instructed Toogood, her lady’s maid, to dress her hair as simply as possible once she had shimmied into her favorite pink muslin morning gown. Not fifteen minutes later, she was smoothing her skirts as she entered her drawing room, where the Marquess of Willingham was waiting for her.
Her first thought, as she entered the room, was that he was ill at ease. This was laughable—she was not sure she hadeverseen Willingham anything other than confident and secure of himself, with the notable exception of his elder brother’s funeral six years prior. He crossed the room to bow over her hand, entirely correctly, but therewas something ever so slightlyoffin his manner that made her gaze sharpen as she took a seat on the most comfortable settee.
“I must confess, I am surprised to find you here, my lord,” she said politely, lacing his title with the slightest layer of sarcasm, as was her wont. The tone she used when she referred to him asmy lordalways implied that he was anything but, and an amused glint in his eye acknowledged the slight and congratulated her for it. She never addressed him as Jeremy, only ever as Willingham ormy lord. He hated his title, and none of his friends used it; their refusal to do so made her all the more determined to be scrupulously correct in her address, just to needle him. “Do you not have guests arriving at your country house in less than a week? And…” Here she paused, as though the thought had only just occurred to her. “… you don’t have a wife to assist you! Who is helping the cook set the menu? Who is ensuring that all the rooms have been aired out? Who is setting an agenda of activities? I know you have a large staff, Willingham, but they do needsomeguidance.”
Willingham waved a lazy hand. “I assure you, they do their best work when I am well out of their way. Were I to show up at any time other than at the last possible moment, it would set them all aflutter, the poor creatures.”
Diana narrowed her eyes. “Spoken just like a man.”
Willingham gestured to himself, the motion somehow encompassing his perfectly knotted cravat, the riding boots polished to shining perfection, and every artfully mussed golden hair upon his head. The gesture asked,Am I not a perfect specimen of well-bred masculinity?Diana had too much self-respect to allow herself to reply with even an internal sigh.
With a firm mental shake, she refocused her attention on thematter at hand. “What can I do for you, Willingham?” she asked briskly. “And won’t you please sit? You’re making me nervous. I do hate to watch anyone expend more energy than is strictly necessary. Except, of course”—and here she allowed her voice to take on a flirtatious note—“in certain situations when it is entirely desirable.”
Willingham allowed his gaze to slowly rake her from head to toe as he sauntered toward her, and Diana’s pulse quickened, much as she willed it not to.
“It is interesting that you mention that, Lady Templeton,” he murmured as he drew near her and proceeded to sink elegantly upon the settee next to her, despite the availability of a pair of armchairs nearby.
“Exercise?” Diana asked innocently, ignoring with some effort the proximity of his thigh to her skirts.
“Of a sort.” He reached out without warning and seized her hand. He had removed his gloves at some point before she had joined him in the room, and the feel of his bare skin against her own sent an embarrassing tingle racing through her.
“I find myself thinking,” he continued, maintaining his firm grip upon her hand, “that as we are both unattached, young, attractive individuals…” He trailed off as he lifted her wrist to place a kiss upon her pulse there. “We might find our way to some sort of arrangement.”
“An arrangement?” Diana asked, and was distressed to hear that her voice was not quite as steady as she would have liked. His lips were warm upon her wrist, and he withdrew only enough to allow himself to speak, his breath heating her skin with each word.
“I’m sure a lady of your experience doesn’t require me to elaborate further upon the sort of arrangement I have in mind.” His eyes met hers, bright with amusement, and it took a moment for his words to filter through Diana’s sluggish mind. After a moment, however, theydid, and a particular phrase—your experience—was as invigorating as a blast of freezing wind.
She stiffened and withdrew her hand from his grip. “Myexperience?” she asked coldly, inching herself away from him as much as was possible on the tiny settee.
