“Is this the part where you threaten me if I so much as touch your sister?” Jeremy asked, taking a leisurely sip of his own. “Because in the interest of honesty, I feel the need to confess it’s a bit late for that.”

“Hardly,” Penvale said, shaking his head. “I’m more concerned about you than her.”

“Me?” Jeremy attempted a devil-may-care sort of laugh, but the effect was somewhat spoiled when he choked on his brandy and collapsed in a fit of wheezing.

“This is precisely what I was worried about,” Penvale said, watching him with what Jeremy was very much afraid was pity. “You’re already a shadow of your former self.”

“I beg to differ,” Jeremy objected. “Or were you not at the same dinner table I was? I am apparently a prime specimen on the marriage mart, judging by Lady Helen’s behavior.”

Penvale ignored this. “I just want you to be… careful.” He seemed to be selecting his words with caution, and there was not the slightest trace of humor on his face. His gaze on Jeremy was razor-sharp, and Jeremy found himself fighting the uncomfortable urge to shift in his seat like a naughty schoolboy. “My sister is… calculating. I don’t want you to fall in love with her and get your heart broken.”

“In love?” Jeremy asked, his voice cracking on the word. “I can assure you, I’m in no danger of that.”

“Mmm,” Penvale said skeptically, but before he could elaborate further, Audley chimed in.

“I have always thought you might be a bit besotted with her, Jeremy.”

“Besotted?” This conversation kept growing worse and worse; Jeremy gathered the remaining fragments of his dignity about himself and stood, chin up, projecting every bit of aristocratic froideur he could manage. “I have never been besotted with anyone in my entire life, and I certainly don’t intend to start with a lady I can barely exchange three civil sentences in a row with.”

“I myself have found recently that the more one denies the existence of deeper feelings, the more likely they are to exist,” Audley commented, studying his tumbler with more interest than Jeremy felt was warranted.

“I don’t wish to quarrel about this, Jeremy,” Penvale said, reaching out to grip his shoulder once more. “Nor, in perfect honesty, do I really wish to spend much time contemplating the idea of you and Diana being romantically involved.” He paused. “But she can take care of herself. And I know you can, too. Just… don’t fall in love with her. I’ve heard her rail against marriage more times than I can count. And of the two of you, I think you’re the one more likely to be disappointed with how this ends.”

Jeremy scarcely knew how to respond. He was indignant at the idea that he would be left brokenhearted by anyone, much less a certain sharp-tongued widow; he thought that Penvale did not perhaps do his sister enough credit—the Diana that Jeremy had grown to know was capable of far deeper feeling than her brother seemed to believe. Underneath it all, though, he was grateful for a friend who he knew had his best interests at heart.

“I do not anticipate Diana breaking my heart,” he said evenly at last, draining his glass in one burning gulp and setting it down on an end table with a heavy thunk. “And I think your sister is a more complicated person than you perhaps understand her to be. I’m not in love with her,” he added firmly, “but I’ve come to realize that there’s far more to her than meets the eye, and I pity anyone who can’t see that—and appreciate it.” Relishing the sight of Penvale and Audley both rendered momentarily speechless, Jeremy nodded to them amiably.

“Good night, chaps,” he said, feeling unaccountably cheerful all of a sudden as he strode from the room.

Nineteen

The clock had barely ceased tolling the midnight hour when Jeremy rapped upon Diana’s door.

For a moment, he experienced a fleeting, entirely uncharacteristic feeling of uncertainty—was he too punctual? Would she think him overeager? They had not been keeping terribly late hours thus far in the house party, but the late stragglers had only broken up downstairs half an hour earlier—was that enough time for her? Despite the number of women he’d bedded, the intricacies of ladies’ toilettes remained something of a mystery to him. Was thirty minutes enough time to undress and do whatever mysterious things they did in preparation for an evening of rest—or of no rest, as the case might be?

Fortunately, she saved him from himself by opening her door only a few seconds after he knocked, clad in a nightgown and wrapper and looking entirely unsurprised to see him. He must not be too early, then.

As she cast a leisurely glance up and down his person, however, new causes for anxiety reared their ugly heads. Was he attired appropriately? He’d dismissed his valet and undressed without assistance, but then had hesitated. She had assured him—in what surely had to be one of the more humiliating moments of his life—that she did not expect to paint him naked, but what did she expect him to wear? He, of course, had failed to ask, and had hovered in his dressing room for a solid ten minutes, casting uncertain glances around at his many, all somehow inappropriate, articles of clothing.

Eventually, he had settled on a pair of fawn-colored breeches and a white shirt, cravat-less under a forest green banyan. He’d no idea if it was what she’d envisioned, but he also refused to spend a moment more contemplating the matter. A man had his dignity to consider, after all.