Page 16 of One Night for Seduction
Diana could not repress a smile at the sight of Felicity Sutton. For the sister of a duke, Lady Felicity had been a bundle of contradictions. Elegant and impertinent, popular and bookish.
The young lady claimed to prefer the solitude of the library to the swirl of a waltz, yet no expense had been spared in the commission of an ensemble Diana had glimpsed not six weeks earlier in a collection of the newest fashion plates out of Paris.
Diana exchanged her dowdy “measures inspectress” bonnet for the colorful spare inside her basket. Its profusion of silk flowers and wild feathers was just as powerful a disguise. With this outrageous confection tied to her head, no one would remember that the rest of Diana’s attire was drab and colorless.
She tightened the ribbon beneath her chin, then turned in Lady Felicity’s direction. Within moments, the young lady was nearly upon her.
Lady Felicity’s eyes lit up at once. “Miss Middleton! How lovely to see you.”
“How lovely to seeyou.”
In more ways than one.
Lady Felicity’s fashionable walking dress was made of pale green figured muslin with forest green embroidered trim. The sort Diana longed to wear. Lady Felicity’s matching spencer fit her frame perfectly and the rakish bonnet added just the right touch of irreverence. She was beautiful.
Diana wished she, too, could be a walking fashion plate. But it was not a fantasy she could indulge.
She would never jeopardize the ability to blend in as a harried under-secretary to some nameless solicitor. Nor could she risk the ton perceiving her as an eligible miss on the marriage mart. A husband would put paid to her extracurricular activities even faster than a spoiled disguise.
“You must be quite an early riser,” she ventured. In five years of clandestine missions, this was the first time she’d glimpsed a member of the Quality awake at such an hour, much less out performing errands.
“Not me,” Lady Felicity said with a laugh. “My brother has got it in his head that I spend too much time ‘in hiding’ and has taken it upon himself to drag me everywhere he goes. Except his tavern, of course. Only ruined women dare enter there.”
Diana gave a smile of commiseration. “He sounds much like my cousin. I wouldn’t attend society events at all, were it not for Thaddeus practically tossing me over his shoulder as if I were—”
Amusement quickly turned to apprehension.
“Wait, did you say, your brother? The Duke of Colehaven is here?”
“Haggling over hops just around the corner. It’s not the price—Cole could make beer out of gold if he desired. But it seems some magician with a greenhouse managed to grow some sort of delicious, rare varietal that he refuses to part with at any price. Mark my words. No matter how the negotiations are proceeding, as soon as my brother notices me missing, he’ll—”
“Felicity Sutton,” growled a deep, familiar voice. “I’ve half a mind to—”
He drew up short when he realized who his sister was speaking to.
Diana wiggled her fingers in greeting, then quickly shoved her hands out of sight. These were her working-woman gloves, not the luxurious ones her cousin had bought her. Best to keep the attention on her face and its ridiculous bonnet—and to cut the conversation as short as possible.
No matter how much she might like to stare at Colehaven all day.
His wide shoulders were barely contained in a coat of grey superfine. His dark hair spilled boyishly from beneath his hat, and his hazel eyes teased and sparkled with their depthless color. Diana could not have looked away if she tried.
“Miss Middleton,” he murmured, and made an elegant leg.
She bobbed a belated curtsy. “Your Grace.”
He did not seem to notice the forced gaiety of her bonnet or the calculated forgettableness of every other stitch on her body. He did not seem to be interested in her clothing at all. Every ounce of his hot, dark gaze focused on the lower lip she was currently gnawing out of nervousness.
She stopped biting her lip at once.
He did not immediately lift his gaze. When those long-lashed hazel eyes met hers at last, their sultry expression suggested that he, too, had lost precious hours of sleep wondering what might have happened if their lips had been allowed to touch.
Her skin warmed and she immediately glanced away to mask the increased tempo of her pulse. It would not do for him to suspect how he affected her. She must lock that part of herself away with the rest.
Diana had known when she started down this path that it would mean choosing between two markedly different lives. She could either be a fashionable young lady with high society beaux and nothing more pressing to do than to curl her hair in time to make an appearance at Almack’s…
Or she could disappear from that world altogether, choosing instead to make a difference in the lives of ordinary citizens, for whom the extra shilling of a deceptive scale might mean the difference between having enough money to eat, or candles to see by.
Diana had made the right choice. She would stand by her convictions.
