Page 59 of To Love and to Loathe
Diana opened her mouth to object—her natural response to any insinuation of deeper sentiment on her part, about anyone at all, but most particularly Jeremy—but then closed it again. And, for perhaps the first time, paused to ask herself:didshe love Jeremy?
She had spent so much time insisting—to Jeremy, to Violet and Emily, to herself—that their arrangement was based on nothing more than mutual attraction and convenience, and brutally suppressing every hint of true feeling the moment it attempted to emerge, that she had not taken even a moment to ask herself this simple question.
She thought of Jeremy—of the man she’d thought she’d known so well, and of the one he was revealing himself to be bit by bit, conversation by conversation. She thought of the laugh lines at the corners of his blue eyes, and of the particular quirk to one side of his mouth when he was bickering with her, waiting to see if she’d rise to the bait. She thought of the intensity of his gaze on her when they were naked in bed, her hand moving with his to find the rhythm she wanted.Most of all, she thought of the thrill she felt every time he walked into a room, every time she scored a point in one of their never-ending arguments, every time his face lit up with amusement at whatever set-down she’d just delivered him.
And she realized that of course she loved him.
Now what on earth was she to do about it?
Lady Helen, of course, had been privy to none of these thoughts, but she’d been watching Diana carefully and seemed to guess at some of what had crossed her mind.
“Not so casual, then?” she asked. “I thought not,” she added, not even waiting for a reply.
“You needn’t sound so smug,” Diana grumbled.
“I rather think I’m entitled to it,” Lady Helen said airily, which, Diana reflected, was true. Lady Helen had successfully enacted an elaborate, yearslong ruse that had fooled the entireton, while Diana couldn’t even carry on a discreet affair without falling in love in painfully obvious fashion.
“I’d appreciate your keeping this to yourself,” she said briskly. “I’ve no intention of risking looking ridiculous by declaring myself to Willingham, so this need go no further than the two of us.”
“Whatever you wish,” Lady Helen said, waving an idle hand. “You might consider that some things are worth the risk, though.”
“And what are you risking all of this for, then?” Diana asked curiously. “What is your plan, precisely?”
“I only need another year or two before I am so firmly on the shelf that I hope to convince my brother to purchase me a cottage in the countryside where I can rusticate in peace with a single servant,” Lady Helen confided. “It has been a great deal of trouble, making it this far, but the end is in sight.”
All at once, Diana felt more than a little ashamed. Lady Helen had risked everything for Sutton, for the chance of some semblance of a happy life together, even if that life would undoubtedly be far less comfortable than the luxury to which she had been born. Was Diana not willing to risk far less than that for the chance of keeping Jeremy—the private Jeremy, therealJeremy?
She had no ready answer, and it was deeply unsettling.
“I think I shall leave you to your thoughts,” Lady Helen said, standing and brushing off her skirts in rather ostentatious fashion. “Please do not allow this discussion to change anything in your manner toward me—I have worked quite hard to craft this particular image of myself, as I have just explained, and I shall be most vexed if you undo all of my labor with a sympathetic glance.”
“You have my solemn vow that I shall continue to speak to you with thinly veiled distaste,” Diana said. “Shall I continue to fling Willingham in your direction, then?”
“That, my lady, is entirely up to you,” was Lady Helen’s reply. “I certainly do not intend to change anything in my manner to him. Whether you continue to enable my attempts to seduce him, however, is of no matter to me—and should the gentleman suddenly find himself otherwise engaged, I shall of course retreat hastily, albeit with very bad grace.”
“Duly noted,” Diana said, not entirely certain what other response she could offer to this.
“Hire a new maid,” was Lady Helen’s parting shot over her shoulder as she floated away through the gardens in the direction of the house, leaving Diana alone with her very complicated, very inconvenient thoughts.
Twenty-One
The gentlemen were not yetreturned from their day of shooting helpless creatures in a rustic woodland setting when Diana returned to the house to seek out Violet and Emily. She found them in the library, tucked into a window seat together, a book spread across their knees. As Diana drew closer, she could see that it had illustrations, which Violet pointed to as she spoke in a low voice to Emily. Emily, it should be noted, sported cheeks even rosier than usual, and was emitting a rather shocked giggle at the moment Diana came within earshot.
“… have found that friction in this particular area produces extremely positive results,” Violet was saying. “But I think it’s likely different for everyone, so it’s particularly useful to discover for yourself what you might enjoy before finding yourself called upon to instruct a gentleman in this regard.”
Diana stopped in her tracks. “Are you looking atlewdillustrations?” she asked. “Not that I’m surprised Willingham would leave such a book lying around the library—it seems entirely in keeping with his character—but you might have found somewhere more discreet to look at it, for heaven’s sake.”
Violet looked up, startled, evidently having been so involved in herinstructive lecture to Emily that she hadn’t heard Diana’s approaching footsteps. “For your information,” she said, with great dignity, “this is an anatomy text.”
Diana blinked, and looked closer. Violet was entirely correct. The book was full of text set in very small type, which seemed dreadfully dull, but also—as Violet illustrated by flipping through a few pages—littered with extremely interesting, and accurate, anatomical illustrations.
“I am merely trying to offer Emily the assistance that no one gave me before my own marriage,” she explained.
Diana arched an eyebrow. “Please, Emily, tell me Cartham hasn’t proposed. I don’t know how I shall bear it.”
“Fortunately, he has not,” Emily said with a barely suppressed shudder at the thought—which was as close as she’d ever gotten to complaining about the situation. Had Diana been in her shoes, she would have been hollering to the rooftops—not to mention plotting how to ruin herself at the earliest possible opportunity, to ensure that Cartham no longer found her company so elevating—but Emily had precious little to say of the years (years!) she had spent in the man’s company, her father rejecting all other suitors who looked twice at the beautiful daughter of an impoverished marquess.
“It’s always best to be prepared, however,” Violet said. “One can’t necessarily rely on a gentleman to know all of these things, though I must confess that I’ve never had any complaints in that regard.” Her lips curved upward in an expression that Diana—who was not, perhaps, feeling her most charitable at the moment—could only describe as smug.
