Resisting the temptation to throw her hands in the air in frustration, Diana mentally conceded that her oh-so-brilliant plan for their walk was not going to end well. “Of course,” she said through gritted teeth. “I should be delighted.”

“We’ll just carry on without you, shall we?” Violet called behind them.

“Do you need any assistance, Willingham?” Audley asked, casting a concerned look at Lady Helen. “I should be happy to fetch the lady’s brother… or a physician—”

“Capital idea!” Jeremy said, as a drowning man might lunge for a raft.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Diana said loudly. She made a shooing motion with her hands, as though Audley were a disobedient sheepdog—not at all an inaccurate comparison for most men, she thought, though it might be a trifle unfair to sheepdogs. “A moment of rest and we’ll rejoin you.” She smiled brightly at him, which Audley looked mildly disturbed by. She cast a speaking glance at Violet, who seized her husband’s elbow and steered him rather firmly down the path behind Emily, who was now conversing animatedly with Penvale. Diana saw, with a sideways glance at Jeremy, that he was watching them as a man marooned on a desert island would watch a ship pass by.

Clearly resigning himself to his current predicament, however, he quickly settled Lady Helen on the bench and then made a great show of offering Diana a hand and seating her carefully next to that lady.

The bench, naturally, was only large enough for two.

Diana could not help scowling; with a sideways glance, she saw a similar expression mirrored upon the face of Lady Helen, who was no doubt fuming that her plans to secret herself away with a certain marquess had been foiled. By the marquess himself, Diana felt like pointing out, since she had a sneaking suspicion that a fair bit of Lady Helen’s anger was radiating toward her own person.

“Well,” Diana said brightly, smoothing her skirts, “here we are.”

Jeremy’s reply was the sort of inarticulate grunt that men seemed to believe substituted adequately for actual words. Lady Helen’s was an eye roll.

“It is a lovely day,” Diana tried again, her companions’ less-than-satisfying reaction serving to only provoke her own contrary nature.

“And how nice it is that we are able to appreciate it in such solitude,” Jeremy said dryly.

“I quite agree,” Diana said. Turning to Lady Helen, she offered, “How does your ankle fare?”

“Tolerably well,” was the lady’s cool response. “I expect I only twisted it a bit in these boats of yours.”

Ignoring the jab at her shoe size, Diana persevered. “And how kind of Lord Willingham to spring into action to come to your rescue.”

“Yes,” agreed Lady Helen. “It was indeed the stuff all romances are made of.”

It was then that Diana noticed it. The oh-so-slight something that was strange about Lady Helen’s tone. For while the words were entirely correct, there was a certain wryness to the delivery that was not at all fitting with the Lady Helen that Diana knew.

Or that she thought she knew.

She cast a quick glance upward at Jeremy, only to see that he had vanished.

Not entirely, of course, but he had moved several feet away, as if desperate to put as much distance as courtesy allowed between himself and an eligible young lady. He was currently giving a great deal of attention to a rosebush.

Suppressing a sigh with great difficulty—and conceding that her plan to leave Jeremy and Lady Helen in cozy seclusion among the flowering shrubs had been destined for failure—Diana cleared her throat.

Jeremy straightened at once, and Diana could not help admiring with a sort of artistic appreciation the graceful, fluid motion of his tall form as he moved toward them. His steps were smooth, almost languid, and the sunlight glinted off his golden head as it would off a new coin. She was all at once full with an almost irrepressible desire to paint him. Portraits were not her line of expertise, as a rule—she enjoyed landscapes and still lifes because of their absence of people, in fact, the way that she could entirely immerse herself in rolling green hills and forget that everything about her bright, glittering, artificial world existed—but her fingers practically itched to seize hold of a paintbrush. She clenched her hands in her skirts instead.

“How might I be of service, fair lady?” Jeremy asked with a wry twist to his mouth as he halted before them, and Diana flattened her lips, refusing to allow herself an answering smile.

“I think Lady Helen is feeling sufficiently recovered to rejoin the party,” she said briskly, pushing herself off the bench and ignoring entirely his proffered hand.

“Actually,” Lady Helen said, rising as well, “I think I should like to retire to my room for a spell. My ankle feels fine, but I don’t relish the thought of walking much farther in these shoes.”

“May I escort you back to the house?” Jeremy asked politely.

“No, thank you, my lord,” Lady Helen said, to Diana’s surprise. She was already beginning to walk in the direction of the house. Diana would have expected her to jump at the opportunity to be escorted by Jeremy—particularly since it would have allowed her to rid herself of Diana’s company.

“You and Lady Templeton must rejoin the party,” Lady Helen continued, “and not allow me to spoil the rest of your walk.” She spoke absently, as though her mind were on something else, and as soon as she had finished speaking she was gone, moving with decisive steps back toward Elderwild and not betraying the slightest sign of a limp.