by Mary Balogh
"Lady Huntingdon was here this morning?" Diana's tone was quite casual. She was thumbing through a book while Bridget hung up her riding clothes.
"And they went into the greenhouse together," Bridget said. "Just the two of them. And she was clinging to him, Dick said—him being an undergroom, mum—as if she could barely wait until they was inside with the door closed on them."
"Dick had no business saying any such thing," Diana said, putting the book down. "I am surprised someone did not reprimand him for doing so."
"Mrs. Carling did, mum," Bridget admitted. "But still and all, it goes to prove that you was quite right about him. He is not a proper gentleman."
"Well," Diana said briskly, "we will be away from here in a little more than a week, Bridget, and we need never see him again."
"Though he is a very handsome gent," Bridget said. "And he do have a lovely smile."
* * *
The Earl and Countess of Rotherham were resting in the countess's sitting room later that day after another game of croquet on the lower lawn in which they and all their guests had participated.
"You are not overtaxing your energy, dear heart?" the earl asked in some concern as his wife sank down beside him with a sigh and lifted her feet to wiggle her toes in her slippers.
She looked at him and smiled. "Absolutely not," she said. "You know that having our family about us is the breath of life to me, dearest. It has been a happy time, and of course the best day is still to come. The weather has been kind, has it not?"
He stretched one arm along the back of the love seat and massaged her neck gently. "You should rest more," he said. "I hate to say it, dear heart, and to me you will always be the girl who captivated my heart, but neither of us is growing any younger, you know."
"And I would have it no other way," she said, patting his knee. "If I could take one minute away from my life, dearest, I would not do it, for I would not know which happy minute to give up. I was just hoping—it would have made the evening of your birthday even more perfect than perfect, you see—that there would be at least one announcement to make at the ball."
He chuckled. "I suppose if young people are too foolish to be persuaded of the advantages of matrimony," he said, "they must be left to their misery."
"Now with Russell and Barbara it is understandable," she said. "I am not at all worried about those two. They are both very young. And I would not expect that they would have anything more than a private understanding until at least after he has finished university. But Ernest and Angela, dearest. And dear Diana and Jack."
"I must confess—" the earl stroked the back of her neck with light fingertips— "that I have always thought there would be long odds on both of those matches,"
"Nonsense," she said. "Angela is perfect for Ernest, and Jack for Diana. But Angela and Ernest seem to have quarrelled quite nastily. She would not walk down to the lawn with him this afternoon, dearest, though I suggested very subtly that she do so. And he has developed that nasty habit, of scowling he used to have as a boy when things were not going his way. And Diana is avoiding Jack."
"I think perhaps he is too much for our Diana," the earl said. "She is too gentle and too proper to tame someone like Jack."
"I would not be so sure of that," the countess said. "I think he is pursuing her quite hard, dearest. And that is promising. Men like Jack usually do not waste much time in pursuit when there are so many females just waiting to be caught. And he walked with Lady Huntingdon for only fifteen minutes this morning, and we both know what she is like, though it is uncharitable of me to hint at such a thing."
"Well," the earl said, "he still has more than a week left in which to catch our little Diana. It is unlike you to give up hope, dear heart."
"Oh," she said, turning astonished eyes to him, "I have not given up hope. What a strange notion. It is just that both couples need a helping hand. It will have to be mine. I shall think of something, you may depend upon it. I shall bring them all to their senses, though they will not know, of course, that I am the one who is doing it. Oh, dearest, they are going to be so happy, all four of them. Perhaps as happy as we have been." She laid her head back against his arm.
"Have been?" he said. "Are we not still, dear heart? And will we not be in the future?"
"Oh, foolish!" she said. "You always were a foolish man. Taking my words so literally, indeed."
* * *
Carter brushed unnecessarily at the back of his master's evening coat. But of course, he was far too skilled at his job to have left even the smallest wrinkle in the shirt beneath it. He stood back to gaze in sour satisfaction at his handiwork. Though of course, the superior cut of the pale blue brocaded coat and paler pantaloons and the splendor of the silver waistcoat were more to the credit of Lord Kenwood's tailor than to that of his valet. And the good taste of the clothes was to the credit of the marquess himself.
But the snowy white neckcloth with its splendid and perfectly folded design was all the valet's. And Carter's skill with a neckcloth was one of his greatest redeeming features, the marquess thought, looking critically at his image in a full-length glass and arranging the lace of his cuffs in neat folds over his hands.
There was a large and lavish dinner to attend, at which forty-six guests were expected to sit down. And a ball afterward, to which several more guests had been invited. The house had been humming with preparations all day.
An excessively hot day. And possibly the last one they would have for a while. There seemed to be every possibility that there would be a storm during the night. And once rain broke into a spell of pleasant weather in England, one could usually kiss the sun and the blue sky and the warmth goodbye for a long time to come.
He had played billiards with Lester and Michael and Thomas Peabody. He had ridden with Clarence and Sir Joshua. He had strolled the back lawns with Russell and Barbara and Beatrice. He had prowled the greenhouses alone. And had sat with a book in the library, alone.
And he had been telling himself all day that tomorrow he would be able to leave. Or certainly the day after. His leaving early would no longer be considered a slight once the earl's birthday was in the past.
He would go back to London and pay Rittsman his five hundred guineas, and forget about the whole thing. Set it behind him and get his life back to normal.
"Yes, you may leave,'' he told Carter, waving a dismissive hand. "You can tidy up later when I am at dinner. I wish to be left alone now."
The valet looked at the mess around him with a deliberately pained expression, bowed stiffly, and withdrew.
He would go back to London and find Sally and spend as many days and nights in her perfumed rooms as he needed to spend there in order to get his life back to normal. As many days and nights as it would take him to get Diana Ingram out of his system.
He could still feel claws of something—panic almost— grab at his stomach when he recalled what he had told her at RotherhamCastle. He had never told anyone about his father or about how his mother had quite unwittingly fostered feelings of insecurity in her children. Frances crying with him over her stillborn daughter, afraid of showing such weakness before her husband for fear he would sneer at her and turn to other women—even when it was perfectly clear to an impartial observer that Jeremy doted on her. Hester forever falling in love with rogues in the unconscious conviction that she was not worthy of a better man.
And himself. Convinced that he was his father's son and was incapable of behaving differently from his father even if he wished to do so. Giving himself up to the inevitability of that life, while at the same time protecting some unknown woman who might have been his wife from the agonies of humiliation and rejection his mother had suffered.
He had never even put words to these deepest feelings in his own mind. He had never thought out the causes of his sisters' problems, or of his own. He had never thought of himself as having problems. He was happy. He was living the perfect life. He was the envy of a large number of the men of his own cl
ass. And much sought-after by women.
He had never told anyone else. Or even himself. Yet he had told Diana Ingram.
What made her so different from any other woman? She was not different. She was beautiful. She was desirable. She was attracted to him. She responded to his particular brand of teasing and flirtation. He could possess her, enjoy her, and put her safely to rest in his past. She was no different.
He could have had her there at the castle. He had wanted her badly enough. For the space of a few minutes he had totally lost touch with reality and his usual carefully plotted seduction. He would not try too hard to recall the words he might have said to her during those minutes. He might be embarrassed by the memories.
And she had wanted him as badly. He had known from instinct and experience the exact moment when desire and temptation had given way to surrender. He could have led her out into the sunshine and laid her down on the grass and had his fill of her. He could have worked her out of his system right there and then. And won his wager into the bargain.
That damned wager! It had seemed distasteful to him as soon as he had sobered up after agreeing to it. Why did it now seem sordid and dishonorable in the extreme?
Was that why he had fought the unnecessary battle to control his desire and made the lamest of excuses not to take their lovemaking to its natural conclusion? Was it the wager? The fact that he had sworn to bed her for money and for the satisfaction of being able to gloat to a few dozen gentlemen acquaintances?
Diana! She was a person. She was just recovering from an ordeal that no young person should be asked to face. She had hopes and dreams for her future. She wanted to marry again. She wanted to marry a man who could make the universe explode for her. She wanted to have children.
Teddy had been unable to give her children. She had cried for them. She ached with envy when she saw other women with their babies. He knew how all-important giving birth was to women. Frances had never looked so happy as when she had taken him to her nursery to show him his nephew.
Diana wanted a child.
And he was to bed her for five hundred guineas and for a well-deserved reputation as England's greatest libertine. Well deserved indeed!
He could not do it. It was as simple as that. He had known it there at the castle as he held her in his arms, his head bent back against the stone pillar, his body aching and aching for her.
He could not do it. She had done nothing to deserve him and the kind of destruction he could bring into her life.
And so he had spent two days avoiding her. He teased her lightly whenever he could not do so, but he succeeded in not being alone with her at all. It was not difficult to do. She was avoiding him too. He suspected that she was shaken by her surrender at the castle. She would not be pleased with herself. She knew what he was, though she only thought she knew—she did not know the half of it. And yet she had surrendered. She would, of course, avoid him for the rest of their stay at Rotherham Hall.
The Marquess of Kenwood shook his head, realized that he had been staring for several minutes at his shoes in the mirror, and turned to leave his dressing room. It was time to go and enjoy himself.
* * *
Diana was enjoying herself, as she had been doing all day. She had spent an hour of the morning alone with the earl and countess, Clarence, Claudia, Ernest, and the children. It was wonderful to have a houseful of family members, the countess declared, but at least a small part of dear Rotherham's birthday must be reserved for just the immediate family.
It had felt good to be considered part of that immediate family still, even though Teddy had been gone for more man a year. She had sat beside her father-in-law for a while, her hand in his, and had hidden her face against his shoulder when Clarence had commented on how strange it still seemed not to have Teddy with them. The countess had dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and blown her nose and
said how blessed they were to have had him for so long, and how happy they must be that he had made dear Diana a part of their family circle too.
"And you always will be, dearest," she had said, crossing the room to kiss Diana on the cheek, ''even after you marry again, as you must do soon. And when you do, then your husband will become part of our family too, just like another son."
Diana rested her cheek against the earl's broad shoulder. But it had been a happy sort of sadness, she thought, frowning over the paradox.
And the rest of the day had been happy. She had helped the countess and Claudia and Lady Knowles with the flower arrangements in the dining room and ballroom. And she had washed her hair and generally lazed in the heat of her room until it was time to dress for dinner. She had been led in to dinner by Mr. Fleming, who had grown up with Teddy and been his close friend. He was a cheerful and talkative companion.
And when the ball began, she promised so many dances to so many different gentlemen that she wished she had a card at her wrist, just as if she were at a formal London ball, so that she would not forget.
It had been a happy day, and would be a happy evening. She had scarcely seen the Marquess of Kenwood all day, and had not exchanged a word with him. He had made no move to sit beside her at dinner. And he had not been among the group of gentlemen who had solicited her hand for a dance as soon as they entered the ballroom.
He must have decided to leave her alone. He must have decided that she had meant it when she had said they would never come together. He had turned his mind elsewhere. He had led Lady Huntingdon in to dinner, and danced the opening set with her. And a very beautiful couple they made too.
She was happy about the situation. She had recovered completely from her madness of a few days before, when she had started to like him, to enjoy his company, even perhaps to fall a little bit in love with him. And it certainly had been madness, when she considered what had almost happened at the castle. And when she recalled what she had known of him before that and what she had learned since.
There had, of course, been that rather disturbing conversation they had had in the courtyard. But she kept her mind closed to it. It did not fit into anything else she knew or had heard about the Marquess of Kenwood. It was best not to think of it.
And she must not recall that she had talked freely to him about her childless state, about her longing to have a child of her own. However had she come to confide such thoughts to him? She had never spoken about the matter with Teddy, even when month after month for the first two years she had shed tears in private. And she had only spoken of it once with her mother, at the end of the first year.
Why had she not flushed with mortification when the marquess had asked her right out why she had no children? Why had she not told him it was none of his concern?
But she would not think of it. She smiled at her father-in-law, with whom she was dancing a gavotte.
"All the ladies want to dance with you, Papa," she said. "I hope you will not collapse with exhaustion."
"Never!" he said. "I have not been this sought-after since I was a young sprig of a bachelor, Diana, and all the mamas knew that I would be an earl one day. Ah, those were the days."
"I would not let Mama hear you say that if I were you," she said.
"I only meant, my dear," he said, "that I would have all the pleasure of meeting her and courting her again. A little slip of a thing she was in those days. I could have spanned her waist with my two hands."
"And I daresay you did, too, on more than one occasion," she said with a laugh.
She was not really looking forward to the next set. She was to dance it with Mr. Peabody. She had not spoken much with him since the afternoon of the picnic. She guessed that he looked back on their encounter with some embarrassment. She had been somewhat surprised when he asked her for a set of dances. She hoped that he was not about to renew his addresses.
''You must come and sit beside me until your next partner comes to claim you," the earl said when the music drew to a close. "I must catch my breath, Diana. I see that my dear countess is leading
Jack this way."
Diana looked up in some dismay. She had noticed that the two of them were dancing the previous set. She schooled her features into the coolness she had perfected during her Season in London.
"How perfectly splendid the music is," the countess said, her arm firmly holding Lord Kenwood's.
"I feel quite like a girl again, dearest."
"And look like one too," the earl said.
"Diana, my dear girl!" The countess smiled dazzlingly at her. "Don't you think it quite heavenly? I absolutely forbid you to sit out for even one dance. I hope you have no such plans. Or you, Jack. I would consider it a personal insult."
The Marquess of Kenwood bowed and smiled. "I would not dream of disobeying you, ma'am." he said, "even if I had any intention of missing any of the dancing."
She patted his arm with one heavily ringed hand and looked at her husband. "I believe the next set is ours, dearest," she said. ' 'We will be forced to abandon the two of you, I'm afraid. But mind, you are not to sit it out, either of you.''
