“I should note that Lady Helen seems to find my charms more than satisfactory,” he said, smiling smugly at her. “Besides, even if I tried to fend them off, there is not a stick in the world strong enough to counteract the lure of a marquessate.”

She smirked at him, the sun hitting her face in just such a way as to light up her hazel eyes. “How true. Indeed, for all you know, you might be the world’s worst lover with all the charm of a troll.”

He felt as though he’d walked into a cleverly laid trap, except he was fairly certain the trap was of his own—unintentional—devising. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Oh, no, I’d go even further,” Diana said, beginning to warm to her subject. “For all you know, you’ve never left a woman truly satisfied in all your years of… raking? Rakedom? Rakehood? Is there a proper word to use to describe this activity?”

“It’s not as though we have meetings to discuss it,” he said peevishly, even as his mind screamed, Trap! Trap!

“But you don’t deny that you’ve no idea whether your legion of conquests have enjoyed their time in your bed.”

“No,” Jeremy said vehemently. “I certainly do deny it.”

“So you’ve asked them, then? You’ve solicited reviews immediately after the fact?”

“I—” Jeremy paused. He racked his brain. He was trying to think of a good example with which to refute her, but instead found himself wondering: had he ever asked a woman if she had enjoyed herself? Surely he had. He couldn’t be that much of an ass.

Could he?

He didn’t dare ask the question of Diana, of course; he knew precisely what her answer would be. Instead, he took a different tack. “Lady Templeton, are you implying that you have complaints about our interlude last night?”

“Well,” she said slowly, affecting the bored tone that he knew she used to disguise the rapid thoughts racing around inside that beautiful head. “I suppose it was not entirely dissatisfying.”

He grinned; coming from Diana, directed at him, that was high praise. “Of course,” he agreed. “But if you mean to suggest that it was not entirely satisfying, either, then it seems that I’ve some work to do.”

As he spoke, he was leading them into the shadow of the woodland that spread out down one side of the hill, back toward the house. Even a few feet in, they were completely hidden from view; none of the rest of their party could see them, and they were far enough away that they could not be overheard, either. However, the feeling of isolation was false—anyone could stumble across them without much effort, which meant that he had to work fast.

Diana was looking around, confused. “Willingham, I don’t wish to go on a nature hike. What do you think you’re—” She broke off abruptly as Jeremy pressed her back to a tree and lowered his mouth to hers.

It felt like a homecoming, the feeling of tracing her lips with his tongue, of her mouth opening beneath his and her sighs mingling with his own breaths. He broke the kiss after a moment to place a series of small kisses along the underside of her jaw, slowly moving lower until he reached the high collar of her riding habit.

“Who designed this blasted dress?” he muttered as he pulled it back slightly so that he could place a lingering kiss at the base of her throat where her pulse pounded at what he was certain he was not imagining was a pace much quicker than its usual rate.

Diana gave a breathless laugh. “Someone more concerned with the practicalities of horseback riding than with opportunities for dalliance?” she suggested. Her fingers tangled in his hair, which was already a bit windswept from the ride; God only knew what it would look like later, but Christ that felt good.

“Foolish,” he said, his hands sliding up to feel the heavy weight of her breasts beneath the many layers of fabric and corsetry that kept them tantalizingly wrapped up. “Dalliance should always be a consideration.”

At some point, her legs had tangled with his, her skirts wrapped all around. They were pressed together from chest to toe, and the feeling of her soft body molded to his own was doing highly inconvenient things to the state of his breeches. The intelligent thing to do would be to break this off before things got out of hand.

Yes. That would be intelligent. Reasonable.

Instead, Jeremy sealed his mouth over hers once more, loving the small, urgent noises she was making in the back of her throat. One of his hands crept downward to get a firm grip on her hip, keeping her pressed as close to him as was physically possible, given the encumbrance of skirts and jacket and all the other damnable fabric that kept her bare skin from touching his own. That hand grew more adventurous, drifting farther down over a tantalizing curve that the fit of ladies’ gowns these days did far too much to hide—

“My eyes!”

It was as though they’d been struck by lightning. Diana jerked backward from him so quickly that her head smacked the tree, causing her to howl in pain. Jeremy, meanwhile, had sprung back as though he were a puppet on a string, shaking his head to clear it, then leaning forward to grip her by the shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked urgently.

She nodded, her eyes watering a bit. “I may have a knot at the back of my head, but I’ll be fine.”

“But will I be fine?” demanded the voice behind them that had so startled. The voice that, unfortunately, Jeremy recognized all too well.