With this promising start, Diana took Emily’s abandoned seat next to Willingham and the meal commenced.

Things naturally only got worse. Over the soup course, the dowager marchioness—ignoring all dinner table etiquette as to her conversation partner—subjected Diana to a lengthy inquiry about her childhood, marriage, and whether she preferred cats or dogs. Over fish, she regaled the table with anecdotes from Willingham’s misspent youth, casting a rosy, sentimental sheen upon the conclusion of each story that Diana was certain was wildly out of step with the reality of the events.

Over dessert, she mercifully subsided, allowing herself to be drawn into conversation by West, who had been sitting to her left and tolerantly observing this show over the course of the past hour, exchanging an occasional raised eyebrow across the table with Sophie, who was seated directly opposite him. This respite was not as relaxing as Diana might have hoped, however, given that she could still feel the dowager marchioness watching her out of the corner of her eye even as she gave the appearance of being entirely distracted by whatever West was saying.

Were she a religious sort of person, Diana might have thought that a divine power was punishing her for years of misbehavior; not being terribly pious, however, she merely decided that this was a cautionary tale about grandmothers.

She had been perfectly delighted at the prospect of Willingham’s grandmother devoting all of her considerable energy toward seeing him married to some insipid virgin; it was quite another thing entirely to realize that the prospective wife the dowager marchioness had set her sights on for her grandson was Diana herself.

“I would have thought your grandmother more subtle,” Diana said under her breath to Willingham, raising a bite of blackberry tart to her mouth.

“Indeed,” Willingham agreed, gazing down the table at his grandmother with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps she is growing desperate in her dotage.”

Diana suppressed a snort with great difficulty. While the dowager marchioness was certainly getting on in years, she was as sharp and wily as ever. “Or,” she suggested, “perhaps she thought that we would require only the merest push to fall into each other’s arms.” She batted her eyelashes at him, adopting a look of lovesick adoration.

Willingham leaned closer. “She’s not entirely wrong on that front.” Diana fought the impulse to shut her eyes at his proximity—this close, she could feel the heat of his body, see the faint traces of evening stubble shadowing his jaw. “I’m looking forward to my visit this evening. To discussing… conditions.”

He leaned back then, leaving Diana embarrassingly breathless. The word conditions had never sounded lewd to her before. The house party was only hours old, and it was already proving highly educational.

Seven

Jeremy was nervous. It was late; his guests had retired to their rooms more than an hour before, and the hallway outside his bedroom door had grown quiet, no longer full of the footsteps of servants rushing back and forth. He himself had dismissed his valet, Snuffgrove, and now stood barefoot in breeches and a loose shirt beneath his favorite blue banyan, a glass of wine in hand. He had imbibed less than usual this evening, not having joined the other gentlemen in their after-dinner port or in their brandies in the drawing room once they rejoined the ladies. Now, however, the weight of the glass in his hand was a comfort as he contemplated the evening ahead.

He had no intention of throwing himself at Diana like a green boy this evening, much as the cut of her bodice at dinner had made him want to do just that. If Jeremy wanted reassurances that he was the consummate lover he’d always believed himself to be, he’d hardly serve his cause well by rushing into this without taking the time to lay the groundwork.

The problem was, of course, that he felt as though the groundwork between himself and Diana had been lying there, ready to be used, for years. Every encounter he’d had with her since she was eighteen years old had somehow involved flirtation. Of course, Diana flirted with everyone—and so did he. But it felt different between them, as though it had some purpose beyond making the other smile or—dream of dreams!—blush.

He, of course, had never made her blush. He wondered if she were even capable of it.

He would very much like to find out.

It was that fortifying thought that had him draining the rest of his glass and striding to the door. He opened it carefully and poked his head into the corridor, ensuring that it was indeed deserted before continuing. When, prior to his guests’ arrival, he’d asked his housekeeper, Mrs. Foxglove, to give Diana a bedchamber on the same hallway as his own, she’d given him a long, suspicious look.

He crept down the hall and scratched at her door. The door opened a second later—had she been standing there, awaiting his knock?—and he quickly slunk inside before she closed it behind him.

It was only once they were safely ensconced in her room together that he took a good look at her. She had changed from the evening gown she’d worn to dinner and was dressed as simply as he had ever seen her, in a plain red muslin dress with nary a jewel in sight. Her glorious hair was no longer in an elaborate coiffure but instead spilling over her shoulders in waves that shone in the candlelight, and she held a small glass of wine in her hand, just as he had minutes before.

“Diana,” he said, unable to use anything other than her Christian name in a setting as intimate as this. He strove to inject his voice with its usual sarcastic drawl. “You look… informal.”