“That’s quite enough of that, now,” the dowager marchioness said, frowning. “You’re as bad as my grandson.”

“Did mine ears detect the sound of my name?” came Willingham’s voice from somewhere to Diana’s left. Stifling an internal groan, she turned, watching as he sauntered toward them, placing a kiss on his grandmother’s cheek that one could only accurately describe as smug. “About to describe my many charms?” he asked sunnily, a brief nod of his head his only acknowledgment of Diana’s presence.

“It would make for a rather short conversation,” Diana said sweetly.

“Lady Templeton likes to flatter me,” Willingham confided to his grandmother in conspiratorial tones.

“Over before it even had a chance to begin,” Diana continued, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“If you’re finding it so difficult to describe my many charming qualities, I wonder that you were so confident that I’d be married this time next year.”

Like a hunting dog detecting a scent, the dowager marchioness’s attention—which had wandered slightly toward a number of couples in close proximity to them—snapped onto her grandson, razor-sharp.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked in tones of barely concealed glee.

“Er,” Willingham said, clearly intelligent enough—just—to sense danger.

“I wagered Lord Willingham that he’d be married within a year,” Diana explained cheerfully. It was worth every penny she stood to lose, just to see Willingham squirming under his grandmother’s piercing gaze.

“Did you, now?” the dowager marchioness asked slowly, a speculative gleam coming to her eye. “What a positively delightful notion.”

“I should note,” Willingham said, seeming to feel the need to exert some sort of control over the direction the conversation had taken, “that I was quite happy to take that bet. Not considering myself in any great danger, you understand.”

“Yes, dear,” his grandmother said absently, patting his shoulder as one might pat a dog begging for attention. “That is what men always say.”

“Yes, Willingham,” Diana agreed innocently. “Surely you wouldn’t presume to contradict your grandmother, who of course is so much wiser in the ways of the heart than you are yourself.”

“You are laying it on a touch thick, Lady Templeton, but I do applaud the general sentiment.” The dowager marchioness’s fan increased its rate of flapping, seemingly in time with the pace at which the cogs in its owner’s brain were turning. “Jeremy,” she said suddenly, turning to her grandson, “did you receive a reply from my secretary to your invitation to your house party?”

“I did indeed, Grandmama,” Willingham said mournfully, his blue eyes impossibly wide. “It naturally struck at the soft parts of my heart to read yet another crushing refusal from you, but I trust I will eventually be able to recover from the disappointment.”

“Enough, Jeremy, you’re not half so charming as Lady Templeton is.” Diana quirked a single, self-satisfied brow at Willingham in response to this in a show of restraint that she frankly felt worthy of a saint.

“I think I have changed my mind, however,” the dowager marchioness continued. “I really ought to thank you, Lady Templeton,” she added, turning her attention—and the breeze generated by her fan’s vigorous flapping—in Diana’s direction. “You have made me see that I’ve allowed matters to go on quite long enough. It’s time to take charge of things myself.”

“Yes,” Diana said uncertainly, not entirely understanding to what she was agreeing.

“Excellent,” the dowager marchioness said briskly, her gaze flicking between Diana and Willingham. “I shall look forward to this house party immensely. I anticipate it will be most productive.”

Diana was too busy cackling internally at the look of alarm on Willingham’s face to take much notice of the scrutinizing look the dowager marchioness cast her way. She would soon have cause to reflect on, and regret, her mistake.

Two

For the next couple of weeks, Diana’s life continued on much as it ever did. She spent her afternoons painting in her solarium, and her evenings at a dwindling series of dinner parties and balls as the ton began to scatter to their various country estates in early August.

Since that evening at the Rocheford ball, Violet and Audley, whose marriage had been strained in recent years, had reconciled in predictably nauseating fashion. This reconciliation had been the culmination of nearly a fortnight of Violet feigning a case of consumption in order to get her husband’s attention—an endeavor that had severely tried Diana’s patience—but husband and wife were in the throes of matrimonial bliss once more. While this was overall a satisfactory outcome, it did mean that one could not spend too much time in the company of the recently reunited couple without feeling moderately ill. As a result, Diana had not spent quite as many hours at Violet’s Curzon Street house as she was accustomed to—which did have the advantage of meaning that she’d not been forced into Willingham’s company much of late. She’d heard from her brother that he’d wasted no time in taking up with a new mistress, now that his love affair with Lady Fitzwilliam, the former Sophie Wexham, had ended, but this was such quintessentially Willingham-like behavior that it scarcely warranted notice.