“No,” she managed to get out, bringing herself back under control with some difficulty, though in some sense she felt it was already too late—he had caught a glimpse of a side to her that he’d never seen, one that she took care to never show anyone, and she could not remove that knowledge now that he possessed it. “I imagined you would be entirely clothed, my lord. I know I have a bit of a scandalous reputation, but I do draw the line at erotic paintings.”

“I just wanted to be certain I understood where we stood,” he muttered, still having difficulty meeting her eyes, like a shy virgin. His discomfort was utterly charming, unfortunately.

“And now you do. Everything aboveboard, so to speak. All clothes in their proper places. No one’s virtue shall be compromised—not that I think you’ve much of that to concern yourself with.”

“Well, one still likes to leave something to the imagination.” He waggled his eyebrows in an exaggeratedly lascivious fashion. She rolled her eyes.

“Do we have an agreement then?” she asked, all business.

“You shall paint my angelic visage, and in exchange you will inform me—in unfortunately blunt detail, I have no doubt—exactly what my failings are in the boudoir?” To his great credit, he was able to say this in apparent good humor, and for a moment she thought about how rare and precious this was. How many men in a hundred, or a thousand, would take a woman’s criticism seriously, without taking offense? Without resorting to bluster, or worse? She marveled at this, and at the vast gulf she was coming to understand existed between the man she had thought she’d known, and the man he actually was.

“Shall we say midnight, then?”

“My room or yours?”

“Mine,” she said in brisk tones. “I think your reputation can endure your being caught wandering the halls at an illicit hour better than mine can.”

“Of course,” he said, sounding a bit rueful. “Foolish question.” He looked at her dead-on then, and humor flashed across his face, making him look very much like the boy she had first met a dozen years ago. “I feel as though we should shake on it.”

“As gentlemen?” she asked wryly, extending her hand nonetheless.

“Believe me, Diana,” he said, even as he shook her hand firmly, “I am not in any danger of mistaking you for a gentleman.”

Eighteen

“Jeremy,” called his grandmother feebly as he reentered the house, and he was immediately on his guard. The dowager marchioness might have been rather elderly, but she was astonishingly hale and healthy. “Come here.” She beckoned him imperiously from where she stood on the second-floor landing; he was careful to keep a bland smile upon his face as he ascended the stairs, even as a selection of choice curses ran through his mind.

“Wipe that addlepated expression off your face at once,” his grandmother added sternly, and Jeremy was happy to comply; he was an intelligent enough man to know when his efforts were wasted. Moreover, he was suddenly not at all in the mood to wear the Willingham mask that normally came so easily to him.

“How can I be of assistance, dearest Grandmama?” he asked. She scowled at him; he could distinctly recall being struck dumb with terror upon being on the receiving end of that expression as a boy.

“I would like for you to explain to me what exactly is going on,” she said, taking his proffered arm and leading him back down the hallway in the direction of the bedchamber that she occupied; for as long as Jeremy could recall, she had taken up residence in the grandest of all the guest bedrooms on the second floor during her visits to Elderwild, to the point that he never offered the room to anyone else, so linked in his mind was the room to the dowager marchioness. It was strange to think that she had once ruled over this entire house during his grandfather’s years as the marquess; she spent the whole year in London now, and it was odd to imagine her rusticating in the country for months on end.

His musings were interrupted by a sharp poke in his side as the dowager marchioness led him into the small sitting room that opened onto her bedroom. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve just said?” she asked sharply.

“Not really,” he answered honestly, settling her in an armchair before seating himself in the one next to it. “I apologize.”

“I was asking what on earth happened on that garden walk you young fools went on,” his grandmother said waspishly. “First I see young Weston and Lady Fitzwilliam walking back to the house—very cozily, I might add. I’d wager a hefty sum there are wedding bells in their future at last—”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Jeremy said warningly, with the wisdom of a man who had recently found himself enmeshed in a matrimonial gamble. “I’m coming to think one should never wager on marriage.”

“Worried you’ve set yourself up to lose some blunt, my boy?” the dowager marchioness asked shrewdly.

“Nothing of the sort. I just think it’s bad form.”

“Pot, kettle, and all that. But back to my point: I then see Lady Helen Courtenay stomping back up to the house in quite a hurry—she tried to throw me off with some story of a twisted ankle, but she was moving mighty quickly for someone with an injury, I don’t mind telling you. And then you and that widow of yours return separately from the rest of the group—”