“You don’t pay attention to ladies, because you’ve never had to.” Jeremy opened his mouth, and she forestalled his objection. “And before you tell me that not all men behave this way, I am of course not speaking about you in particular, so you don’t need to go getting yourself worked into knots about it. But the fact remains that gentlemen—and particularly wealthy, titled gentlemen—hold a disproportionate amount of power within our society, and as such are unused to having to consider the needs or wishes of anyone but themselves.

“Now, I’ve no doubt that you’ve had women falling all over themselves to tell you what a brilliant lover you are, ever since you were an inexperienced boy—and come now, Jeremy. Doesn’t that tell you enough?” She was really beginning to warm to her subject now—the longer Jeremy went without interrupting her, the more confident she grew. “What are the odds that a sixteen-year-old boy can possibly be that skilled a lover? Practically nonexistent. But I’ve no doubt she was a milkmaid or a tavern wench or involved in some such similarly rustic profession, and she was leaping at the chance to involve herself with the son of a marquess.”

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Seventeen.”

Diana paused, her next thought forgotten. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was seventeen, not sixteen, the first time I went to bed with someone.”

Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I must give you credit, Jeremy. That displays a degree of restraint I did not think you capable of.”

“My father set a rather appalling example when it came to womanizing,” Jeremy said, his voice uncharacteristically even, his eyes never leaving hers. “And whilst I have certainly had my share of conquests, as you are well aware, I did strive to keep myself at a level of conduct at least somewhat elevated above his. The number of maids dismissed from our house when I was a boy because they were with child—with his child, you understand—numbers at eleven, and I thought that, at the very least, I could behave in a slightly more admirable fashion. So I did indeed refrain until I was the lofty age of seventeen, and the lady I selected was a widow in town. She was, as you correctly surmised, not of an equal social station to my own, but she was not a virgin milkmaid, and she was very… kind.”

She had the distinct impression that he had been searching for another word entirely—he looked faintly surprised, as though that had not been what he intended to say at all. Diana, however, was stuck on something else he had said.

“How do you know it was eleven?”

His brow furrowed as he failed for a moment to take her meaning.

“Eleven housemaids,” she clarified. “How can you possibly know the number with such certainty? Surely this began when you were a very small child—or even before you were born. How can you know the number so precisely?”

Jeremy shrugged, displaying a nonchalance that did not fool Diana for one instant, despite the strange feeling she had that it might have fooled just about anyone else. “It was a guess.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Diana said firmly. “It was not at all a guess.” She eyed him for a moment—he was avoiding her gaze in that clever way that made it look like he wasn’t; he was looking in her general direction without quite meeting her eyes. A sneaking suspicion began to snake through her, growing stronger with each passing second.

“You found them all.” She didn’t phrase it as a question, because the moment she spoke, she somehow knew that that was precisely what he had done. Something within her clenched at the thought.

“I might have done,” he said softly, still not quite meeting her eyes. The weak gray light from outdoors made his eyes appear a lighter shade of blue than normal as he gazed at some point just past her ear, his jaw tight. “It was after David died that I learned of their existence. I was going through my father’s papers—David had started doing it, but he wasn’t marquess for very long, and he hadn’t finished the job. I found letters from a couple of the women, begging for assistance—letters I assume my father ignored,” he added, and Diana noted that he made no effort to keep the bitterness from his voice. Not that she could blame him, of course, but it still surprised her. Even now, even as she had come to realize that the charming, shallow Marquess of Willingham was only the very surface of Jeremy, she still had moments where she was surprised by her glimpses of the man underneath—one with a history of pain and anger that he could never allow to creep across the surface of his always-amused facade.

“I offered my financial support to both the women and the children,” he added, still looking rather uncomfortable with this entire line of discussion. “Not much at first, given what dire financial straits the estate was in, but I’ve been able to increase it in the years since.”

“Jeremy,” she said, and waited until he had made eye contact with her—proper eye contact. There was something embarrassed and self-effacing in his expression, and she knew that she needed to choose her next words carefully. They were not used to being gentle with each other, after all. “Why are you acting as though you did something to be ashamed of? It was the height of honor.”

“No,” he said, just as quietly but with a core of steel underlying the word. “I did what any responsible man would have done in my shoes. I did what my father should have done years ago—but he didn’t do it, of course, so I did. My brother didn’t do it, either—he was only marquess for a year, but—”