Page 69 of To Love and to Loathe
Instead, she was seated one row ahead of him. They were assembled in the music room, of course, a row of chairs having been rather hastily erected for the occasion. Jeremy had seated himself in the back of the room, so as to place as much distance as possible between himself and the instruments that were about to be wielded. He’d been under no illusions about the quality of the entertainment he’d arranged: he’d known that there were several ladies in the village who had been taking music lessons for some time—he’d heard enthusiastic reports to this effect from their mothers on his most recent jaunts down to the local shops—and he’d thought it would likely thrill them to have the opportunity to perform at Elderwild.
His charity extended only so far, however, and he was unwilling to place himself directly in the line of fire. He was just eyeballing the candles burning in sconces on the wall and wondering if it would betoo noticeable if he were to use some of the melted wax to fashion earplugs when Diana swept into the room, imperious as a queen, and took the seat directly in front of him.
Meaning that now, while his ears were being assaulted with something that might have, in a former life, been Bach, he was being tormented by the sight of a single curl that had come loose from her coiffure, curling against the smooth expanse of her neck.
It was, logically, a lock of hair. Everyone had them.
It was, illogically, the single most enticing thing he had ever seen in his life.
How long had he been staring at that single curl? Too long, undoubtedly—and yet he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He thought that he might be content to sit here, in this uncomfortable chair, listening to this mildly painful violin solo, staring at this curl, for the rest of his life.
It was in the midst of that undeniably disturbing thought that the violin solo in question mercifully came to an end, and a scattered round of rather unenthusiastic applause interrupted his reverie before he could lose his head entirely.
But, of course, the reprieve was only temporary—the violinist was replaced by sisters at the piano, who he was forced to admit were quite tolerable, though had he been their music teacher he might have steered them away from Italian songs until they could better pronounce even a fraction of the words contained therein.
During this bit of creative linguistic interpretation, it was the delicate curve of Diana’s ear that caught his attention. And, truly, had it come to this? A few kisses and suddenly he was contemplating ears?
And hands, as he learned over the course of a rather lugubrious cello performance, an ensemble piece that hethoughtwas supposedto be Mozart, and some remarkably energetic fluting. And shoulders. And—most pathetic of all—elbows.
He’d never known the female body had quite so many hidden places, all designed to torment him. He was familiar with the more popular haunts, of course, but it turned out that the female form—or perhaps just Diana’s form in particular—had been designed with a seemingly limitless supply of tempting hollows and angles.
All of this was to say that Jeremy heard precious little of the music on offer—which, in truth, might have been a blessing—but became exceedingly familiar with the back of Diana’s head.
For amid all of his emotional, mental, and physical turmoil, not once did she so much as glance back over her shoulder. He was reasonably certain that she was aware of his presence behind her—if she wasn’t, he was a trifle concerned for her eyesight—but she had given no outward sign that there was anyone in her immediate proximity with whom she had recently enjoyed a night of passion and a singularly awful row.
Eventually, the musical portion of the evening’s events ended, and they retreated to the drawing room for tea, brandy, and a fine selection of his cook’s blueberry tarts. Jeremy ignored the brandy entirely as he beat an eager path toward the tarts; while he usually did not hesitate to fill his tumbler at the earliest possible opportunity—and was, in truth, feeling rather badly in need of a drink at the moment—he was helpless to resist the allure of a good blueberry tart, and Mrs. Lucas’s blueberry tarts were the very best. He was just about to lift one eagerly to his mouth when the sound of his grandmother’s voice froze his hand in the air.
“What have you done now?”
He turned, blueberry tart still suspended in midair, to find thedowager marchioness eyeing him through a lorgnette—a ridiculous affectation if he had ever seen one, considering her eyesight was likely better than his own, despite her being fifty years his senior. He considered her comment, decided that he should likely take offense, and then realized that he hadn’t the energy.
“Dear Grandmama,” he said, stooping down to kiss her cheek before taking an enormous bite out of his tart. “How delightful to see you.”
“Do not play stupid with me, young man,” she said, lowering her lorgnette and fixing him with a beady-eyed stare. Braver men than he had quailed before such a look, but he stood his ground, shoving the other half of his tart into his mouth, which had the advantage of momentarily preventing him from answering.
As he’d expected, she did not hesitate to fill the silence. “You and Lady Templeton could barely keep your eyes off of each other a few days ago—made me deucedly uncomfortable, if you must know. It felt as though we were interrupting something, merely by being in the same room with you. It was positively indecent.” Jeremy noted absently that he distinctly didnotenjoy hearing Diana being called by her late husband’s title, despite the fact that it was, of course, her name, and the only one by which she could reasonably expect to be called. “Now she won’t even look at you. So I repeat”—and here the dowager marchioness reached out a bony but deceptively strong hand, extended her index finger, and jabbed him in the chest with each word—“what. Have. You. Done?”
“A difference of opinion on a trifling matter, no more,” Jeremy said dismissively, plastering his face with his best devil-may-care smile. “I expect we will be right as rain in no time.” He expected nothing of the sort, of course, and in fact considered it a minor miracle that Dianahadn’t yet seized one of the serving knives and used it to pin him to the wall for target practice.
“You think that addlepated smile works to fool everyone around you, and perhaps it does, but please understand that it has no effect on me whatsoever,” his grandmother said crisply. “If you think that drinking and smiling and whoring your way through society will make me forget that you are the most intelligent man in your family, or possibly of my acquaintance, then you are very wrong indeed.”
“David was the most intelligent man in the family,” Jeremy said automatically. He felt as though he had some sort of mental registry of comments about his brother on which he could rely at any necessary moment. All of them true, all of them accurate representations of his feelings for and memories of David, but all of them by now so rote that he could utter them without having to actuallythinkabout David, about the fact that he was no longer alive and that he, Jeremy, was standing here in his shoes instead.
“What utter nonsense,” his grandmother said, drawing him out of his thoughts rather effectively. His eyes flicked to her face and held there, startled by the fervent gleam he saw in her gaze. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?”
“I… well…” He wasn’t at all sure how to respond to such an inquiry, and settled on a feeble “Yes?”
“The man got himself killed in a curricle accident,” she said, clearly enunciating each word. “He was hardly a staggering intellectual giant.”
“West was in the same accident, and I think he’s quite intelligent,” Jeremy said, nodding across the room to where Audley’s brother stood deep in conversation with Lady Emily. His cane was in one hand, as always, though Jeremy thought he didn’t seem to be leaning upon it very heavily. As Jeremy watched, West’s eyes flicked to the side and landedon Sophie, who was chatting animatedly with Violet and Audley. A look of great tenderness mixed with great pain flickered across West’s face in an instant, vanishing before Jeremy could even properly register what he was seeing.
“And young Weston is still alive, is he not?” the dowager marchioness said, effectively bringing Jeremy’s attention back to the conversation at hand. He recoiled—he actually physically recoiled—at this verbal blow, and his grandmother’s face softened. “It was a terrible accident, Jeremy, there’s no way around it. I’ve no doubt Weston regrets it every day of his life, and I’m certain that had your brother survived it, he would feel the same way. It was a mistake, and he should have known better, but he washuman. He miscalculated, and he paid with his life. He was reckless, and he left a younger brother in possession of a title he never wanted, and a whole host of financial burdens that should never have been his.”
This was, Jeremy reflected, uncannily similar to something Diana had said when he’d discussed his brother with her; at the time, he hadn’t thought much of it, and yet now he realized, all at once, how well she knew him. The fact that he had spoken to her of his brother, of his complicated grief and guilt and other, darker emotions—this meant something. He’d already realized he loved her—but now, thinking back on that conversation, on the dark, vulnerable side of himself he’d allowed her to see, he reflected on the fact that she loved him, too.
She’d seen the real Jeremy, the man behind the flirtation and good cheer and reckless charm, and she loved him anyway. She hadn’t spoken the words lightly—it must have taken her enormous courage, in fact. But she had spoken them with full knowledge of the real Jeremy Overington, and of the complicated well of grief and guilt and anger that he held within him. She knew of that, and she loved him still.
And he’d thrown it all away.
