Page 20 of Enslaved
By the time they arrived back in Queen Square, Peter Hardwick awaited their return. “Welcome to Bath, ladies. I missed you yesterday,” he said pointedly, taking Diana’s hand to his lips and lingering over it in a proprietary manner. “I’ve come to invite you and your aunt to the Wiltshire Assembly Rooms tonight.”
“Dear boy, we should be delighted,” Prudence accepted immediately. “And Diana is so looking forward to an invitation to Hardwick Hall. The Elizabethan period is her very favorite, is it not, my dear?”
“One of them,” Diana murmured, blushing profusely because Prudence was putting him on the spot.
“I know it is highly improper to leave you alone, but I’m sure I can trust you, dear boy.”
Prudence was so transparent in throwing them together that Diana blushed once more. The moment she quit the room, Diana apologized. “I’m so sorry, Peter. I have no intention of storming Hardwick Hall.”
He looked wounded. “Diana, it is my dearest desire that you will visit the ancestral home. I want you to come tomorrow—early. I want to spend as much time as I can with you.”
“What about your brother? Isn’t he entertaining at the moment?” Her heart thudded whenever she thought of him, and even though she tried, she could not control the emotions he stirred in her.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Peter assured her.
“But I saw him with a charming redhead yesterday.”
“That would be the Widow Vixen. Good God, she isn’t staying at the hall. She’s his—that is, she’s—”
“I know exactly what she is.”
“Then you’re not as innocent as you look,” Peter said, his voice growing husky. He captured her hand again and squeezed it. “Only prospective brides are invited to the hall.”
Diana could not escape his meaning. Though she was vastly flattered, she could not help feeling the jaws of a trap were beginning to close on her. “Tomorrow is impossible, I’m afraid,” she temporized.
“I shan’t leave until you promise to come,” he vowed.
Her amethyst eyes widened as she saw him bend his head to her with deliberate intent. She only had time to draw in a swift breath before his lips were on hers. She felt no romantic stirrings whatsoever, but she was surprised at the gentleness of the kiss.
When she withdrew her lips from his, he whispered, “When will you come?”
“Soon,” she promised.
“How soon?” he pressed gently.
“The day after tomorrow.”
Peter shook his head. “Not nearly soon enough.” He captured her shoulders and drew her even closer. His lips brushed hers. “Tomorrow,” he insisted.
Diana found it difficult to think of a plausible excuse he would believe. “Prudence keeps me on a string. She came on the orders of her doctor to take the medicinal waters and I have to accompany her.” Diana wondered why in the world she was making excuses. She would much prefer visiting an Elizabethan manor house to wearing a hideous canvass robe and standing in tepid water.
“Prudence seemed anxious to come—shall I pull the bell rope and invite her?” He took a threatening step toward it.
Diana’s eyes brimmed with amusement that he had outwitted her. “You are a devil, Peter Hardwick. I concede graciously, we shall come tomorrow.”
“And stay overnight,” he insisted. “To fully appreciate Hardwick Hall, you must walk along her parapet walls in the moonlight, ride through her hunting park in the dawn mists, and of course sleep in the chamber that the Virgin Queen once occupied.”
Diana’s cheeks glowed. “You win, Peter. I’ll bring an overnight bag, but only on the condition that you spare me the assembly tonight.”
Peter grinned. “They are the most god-awful things. It will be my pleasure to spare you.” The triumphant smile reached all the way to Peter’s eyes. “I shall pick you up at eleven so we’ll be in time for lunch.”
When he departed, Diana could hear Prudence in the kitchen still giving orders and waited until she emerged. “You’ll be pleased to know that Peter issued an invitation to Hardwick Hall.”
“Did he include me in that invitation?”
“Of course he did.”
“Ah, the dear boy. His manners cannot be faulted. When are we to go?”
