Page 6 of The Duke and the Hellion Bride

“Mother...” Diana sighed, finally looking up from her book. “I think you are being a tad overly dramatic.”

“I am being no such thing!”

“She is right,” Evelyn agreed. “I think you have it in you to be far more dramatic than what you are. Perhaps some tears, next?”

That time, both women looked at Evelyn with annoyance.

“Evelyn, will you please not make things worse,” Diana said to her cousin.

“Worse!” her mother then jumped back in, sensing the moment. “How could things be any worse! I find for you a marquess of reputable esteem. Worshipped in theton. Hounded by a plethora of young ladies who would tear out their own eyes for a chance to marry him. A man who, for reasons I struggle to grasp,wantsto marry you!”

“Perhaps he is the crazy one?” Evelyn joked.

“And you refuse!” Diana’s mother continued hotly. “I do not understand it, Diana. Please, make me understand! What was wrong with Lord Herrod? He is handsome. He is rich. He likes you, although only the Lord knows why. What do I have to do? How long can this go on! Do you want to turn out like your cousin!” She waved a hand dismissively at Evelyn.

“Hey!” Evelyn cried.

“Because you will! If you continue down this path, that is where you are headed. So, please tell me. What is wrong with the marquess? And why on earth will you not at least consider him?”

It had been two days since the garden party, and the tenacity at which Diana’s mother pushed Lord Herrod on Diana had not lessened one single iota. If anything, it had only gotten worse.

Diana supposed that she should be grateful that her mother wasn’t completely ignoring her outright denial of the marquess. That she seemed at least willing to wait until Diana changed her mind. Even if in waiting she would carry on as if the ground was opening beneath her feet and might very soon swallow her whole if Diana did not change her tune.

Why does she not listen? And why does she take it so personally? I want to marry, she knows this. Just not to him. Why is the idea that I might wish to like the man who I am to spend the rest of my days with such a bizarre concept to her?

The truth was, Diana had thought little of the marquess these past two days. And if not for her mother, she might have forgotten him entirely. For two days now, Diana’s thoughts had been squarely on that of one man and one man only. A man who’s name she did not know. A man who she had not dared to mention to anybody. A man who had featured in her dreams often, ones which left her waking up hot and covered in sweat.

The embarrassment she had felt in the way she’d acted was still ever present, but with the benefit of time, Diana was able to put that aside and focus instead on far more tantalizing matters. For instance, how scrumptious he had been. There was a man whom she might have liked to have met in another setting. There was a man whom she wished her mother had organized for her to meet.

Surely too, if she had met him in a more normal situation, she wouldn’t have acted like such a fool. She was even willing to look past his churlish attitude, figuring that he must have been caught as surprise by her as she was by him.

“What are you smiling at?” her mother demanded.

“Huh...” Diana blinked herself back into the room, not realizing that she had become lost in her daydreams. “Nothing,” she then added quickly.

“This is not funny, Diana! And I would appreciate it if you treated it as the serious topic that it is!”

“I am, mother,” Diana sighed, putting her book down fully now and standing. She had retired to the library today to escape her mother’s incessant nagging. Now, she knew that plan to be folly. “In fact, I am taking it far more seriously than you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wish to marry. You know this. But what I do not wish for is to be married to a prig like the marquess. For all your talk of how perfect he is, I saw nothing of the sort. I only wish you would listen when I told you.”

Her mother groaned. “Do not stake everything on first impressions, Diana. It is as I have been saying – look at your sisters. If they had been as stubborn as you, they would have left their husbands in the rain the day they met! But they listened to their mother. They persisted. And now, each is as in love as the last. And to dukes, no less!”

Diana rolled her eyes at the dramatic retelling of her sister’s marriages. Where it was true that each began their relationship with their respective husbands in less than desirable fashion, it was not true that their mother had anything to do with the successful outcome. At least not to the degree that her mother seemed to think.

And Diana decided to tell her mother just this. Or she meant to, only for the three of them to be suddenly interrupted by Miss White, one of the manor’s servants.

“My lady,” Miss White said from the doorway. “I am so sorry to interrupt --”

“Yes, yes,” her mother sighed, clearly annoyed. “What is it, Miss White? Can you not see I am in a conversation with my daughter?”

“Never mind me,” Evelyn said. “I am just a part of the furniture, am I?”

“Madam, it is...” She looked nervous. Dammed panicked! “An unexpected guest has just announced himself, asking to speak with you at once.”

“A guest?” Diana’s mother brightened at the same time that Diana wilted. Knowing her luck, it would be the marquess. “Who is it? Lord Herrod? Oh, it must be.”

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