Emily, however, was the next person Diana saw after her discussion with Willingham in her drawing room, and therefore had no choice but to be the recipient of her conflicted ramblings.

“But… you and Willingham can barely spend ten seconds together without arguing,” Emily said, once Diana’s somewhat incoherent explanation of Willingham’s proposal had finally come to an end. It was the afternoon of the same day, and they were walking in Hyde Park, a footman and Emily’s abigail trailing a discreet distance behind them. It was not entirely private, of course, but about as close as she was likely to get.

It had been tricky to explain Willingham’s proposition without revealing his reasons for doing so—fortunately, however, given the man’s general behavior, Emily hadn’t seemed to have much difficulty believing that he’d just taken it into his head that Diana would be a likely enough candidate for a roll or two between the sheets.

“I do find him more irritating than any other man of my acquaintance,” Diana agreed.

“What promising groundwork for romance,” Emily said, straight-faced.

Diana shot her a reproving look. She had known Emily for close to ten years; Emily’s parents were good friends with Violet’s, meaning the Marquess of Rowanbridge and his family were frequently paying visits to Violet’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Worthington, and Diana’s aunt and uncle had lived on the adjoining estate. The three girls had been thick as thieves since well before their debut Season.

And yet, even after all that time, there were still moments when Diana found Emily exasperatingly difficult to read. She had the best mask of the three of them—she possessed an almost eerie ability to project the image of the serene, innocent, uncurious lady that society so desperately wished her to be, with no sign of the quick mind that lurked beneath. Diana admired this skill, except when she was on its receiving end.

“So, what do you intend to do?” Emily asked, breaking into Diana’s thoughts. They were approached by a cluster of ladies they knew, walking in the opposite direction, and for several minutes their conversation was interrupted by an exchange of pleasantries and a perhaps excessive amount of cooing over Lady Julia Hornby’s new dog, which was being paraded about by a footman. Diana did not care for dogs—too noisy, too energetic, and too smelly. She rather liked the idea of acquiring a cat at some point, though—she admired their lazy grace, as well as their ability to force everyone around them to do their bidding. It was a skill she was constantly trying to hone in herself.

At last they were alone again, continuing their walk down the public footpath that ran alongside Rotten Row, a soft breeze now rustling the leaves on the trees around them. “I’ve not decided yet,” Diana said, without preamble; Emily did not so much as blink, apparently having no difficulty in picking their conversation up where they had left it. “It occurs to me that there might be some… advantages to the arrangement.”

Emily’s smooth brow furrowed, the only imperfection to her appearance; she was dressed in a gown of blush pink, her golden curls pulled neatly into a knot at the nape of her neck, her blue eyes wide and guileless. She appeared so perfect a specimen of English womanhood that the sheer absurdity of her unmarried status hit Diana with greater force than usual—and, not for the first time, Diana wished she could shove the Marquess of Rowanbridge, whose gambling debts were the cause, into the nearest body of water.

“What sort of advantage?” Emily asked, but the words had scarcely left her mouth before her confused expression cleared, replaced by an alarmingly rapturous one instead. “Oh, Diana!” She stopped in her tracks, turning to face Diana full-on, clasping her hands together in barely contained glee. “Do you mean to say…” She trailed off, momentarily overcome by emotion.

Diana, who had stopped walking when Emily had, eyed her friend with some degree of trepidation. “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, the answer is no.”

“Do you mean to say,” Emily repeated, ignoring Diana’s words entirely, “that you have a tendre for Willingham?”

“No!” Diana said; the words came out as nearly a screech, and she darted a quick glance around to ensure that she had not drawn any undue attention. Behind them, her footman and Emily’s abigail dawdled, clearly waiting for their employers to begin walking again, but no one else appeared to be paying them any mind.

“No,” she repeated at a more normal volume. “I mean nothing of the sort. What I meant…” She trailed off—much as she loved shocking Emily, she hesitated at the thought of explaining why it was that she was considering Willingham’s offer.

Really, it should have been easy to say no—Willingham certainly hadn’t done a very convincing job of selling the proposition. But the fact remained that there were years of history here—years of her spine tingling whenever he walked into a room, of a prickling awareness of his gaze on her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. It was so tempting to just work this—whatever this was—out of her system once and for all and be done with it.

There was also another, more logical reason for accepting his—highly indecent—proposal, one that Willingham could not possibly have known when he appealed to her sense of reason, but which existed nonetheless: her need for a bit of practice in the bedchamber.