There was also the small matter of the thing she had not been able to stop thinking about doing since the moment he left her room last night: kissing him again.

And again. And again.

She felt rather as though she’d lost control of her own body. Despite her best efforts, she could not stop her mind from returning to the feeling of those short hairs at the base of Willingham’s neck sliding through her fingers. Or the feeling of his evening stubble scraping against her cheek. Or the roughness of his hand against the smooth skin of her breast.

For heaven’s sake, it was breakfast time. She hadn’t known that thoughts this inappropriate were possible this early in the day. Surely they belonged to candlelit evenings instead. Did everyone feel like this? How did anyone manage to get anything done? Her eyes landed on Violet and Audley with newfound respect—while she had found their antics since their marital reconciliation a bit tiresome, she now felt that they exercised great restraint. Had she a husband she felt this way about, she wasn’t certain she’d ever leave their bedchamber again. It was somewhat alarming that these feelings were not directed at a husband at all, but at Willingham, of all people—a man she certainly had no intention of ever wedding.

But she had no time for these dangerous thoughts—she had a scheme to enact, a dowager marchioness to thwart, and a marquess to make miserable. In short, she was busy. Busy ladies had no time to dwell on kisses.

Ten

After breakfast, everyone returned to their respective bedchambers to prepare for the day’s outing. Diana stood impatiently as Toogood removed her soft blue gown and replaced it with a sturdier riding habit the color of claret. Toogood redressed her hair as well, braiding it into a knot designed to withstand wind and tree branches. Within the hour, the group had reassembled at the stables, where a lengthy debate was undertaken about the merits of various horses. Diana, who was a competent rider but had zero interest in horseflesh, was thoroughly bored by the discussion, and instead wandered around the perimeter of the stable, her eyes scanning the vista before her.

Elderwild was a beautiful estate and she knew, despite his best efforts to convince everyone otherwise, that Willingham was a careful caretaker. The view from the stables behind the house was magnificent, the lawns sloping gently upward, giving way to scenic woodlands; Willingham seemed to think that the natural beauty of Wiltshire was pleasing enough to the eye without attempting to tame every inch of it, and Diana couldn’t have agreed more. Her fingers itched to get a brush in her hand—it had been an age since she’d done a proper landscape painting, and the scene before her was practically begging to be painted.

“Here you are,” said a voice, and she turned, startled, to see Willingham standing very close to her—she had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the telltale crunch of boots on gravel signaling his approach. “We’ve decided on the horses at last. I thought Audley and West were going to come to blows at one point, but it seems to have all been sorted.”

“Now that he’s given up his own stables, he can’t resist offering his opinion on everyone else’s horses instead,” Diana said, her mouth curling up. She was referring to a recent decision on Audley’s part to return ownership of a country house and lucrative stables to his father, a duke, after having spent the past five years managing them. It was of course incumbent on every aristocratic man to have at least a somewhat tortured relationship with his own father, though Audley took this to a greater extreme than most men of Diana’s acquaintance.

“Quite,” Willingham agreed, his gaze focused on the view beyond her shoulder. She turned as well, soaking it all in, already imagining how to capture the vivid green of the lawn, the darker shade of the leaves on the trees—

“Thinking about painting this?” he asked, interrupting her vision.

She was surprised by his question—she didn’t make a habit of discussing her painting with him, and she was a bit unsettled to realize he’d been paying such close attention when she spoke of it. “I was, actually,” she admitted, not bothering to turn. “I don’t come to the country much anymore, and there are few opportunities for landscape painting in town.”

“Didn’t Templeton have a country house?”

“He did,” she confirmed, “but the new viscount has taken up residence there.” When her husband had died, the title had passed to his nephew, who was a few years older than Diana herself. The new viscount was a kind man, and had told her that Templeton House in London was hers as long as she cared to live there. He maintained his own residence in town, but he had young children and spent much of his time at the family seat in the country, which Diana had been only too happy to give up—she could not imagine herself there alone, wandering the drafty halls with only the servants for company.

She had, on occasion, thought of moving elsewhere in London—her husband had left her a hefty portion of his fortune, and she could certainly afford her own home. She wasn’t certain what stopped her—pure inertia? She felt stalled, somehow, like an insect caught in amber. She watched other lives moving on around her, and yet felt that she hadn’t taken a step since her husband’s death. She slept in the viscountess’s bedchamber, lying in bed each night looking at the connecting door to a room that had lain empty for years now. Why did she do it? Why didn’t she move? Or at least invite someone else into that bed with her?