Page 20 of To Love and to Loathe
For heaven’s sake, it wasbreakfast time. She hadn’t known that thoughts this inappropriate were possible this early in the day. Surely they belonged to candlelit evenings instead. Did everyone feel like this? How did anyone manage to get anything done? Her eyes landed on Violet and Audley with newfound respect—while she had found their antics since their marital reconciliation a bit tiresome, she now felt that they exercised great restraint. Had she a husband she felt this way about, she wasn’t certain she’d ever leave their bedchamber again. It was somewhat alarming that these feelings were not directed at a husband at all, but at Willingham, of all people—a man she certainly had no intention of ever wedding.
But she had no time for these dangerous thoughts—she had a scheme to enact, a dowager marchioness to thwart, and a marquess to make miserable. In short, she wasbusy. Busy ladies had no time to dwell on kisses.
Ten
After breakfast, everyone returned totheir respective bedchambers to prepare for the day’s outing. Diana stood impatiently as Toogood removed her soft blue gown and replaced it with a sturdier riding habit the color of claret. Toogood redressed her hair as well, braiding it into a knot designed to withstand wind and tree branches. Within the hour, the group had reassembled at the stables, where a lengthy debate was undertaken about the merits of various horses. Diana, who was a competent rider but had zero interest in horseflesh, was thoroughly bored by the discussion, and instead wandered around the perimeter of the stable, her eyes scanning the vista before her.
Elderwild was a beautiful estate and she knew, despite his best efforts to convince everyone otherwise, that Willingham was a careful caretaker. The view from the stables behind the house was magnificent, the lawns sloping gently upward, giving way to scenic woodlands; Willingham seemed to think that the natural beauty of Wiltshire was pleasing enough to the eye without attempting to tame every inch of it, and Diana couldn’t have agreed more. Her fingers itched to get a brush in her hand—it had been an age since she’d done a proper landscape painting, and the scene before her was practically begging to be painted.
“Here you are,” said a voice, and she turned, startled, to see Willingham standing very close to her—she had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the telltale crunch of boots on gravel signaling his approach. “We’ve decided on the horses at last. I thought Audley and West were going to come to blows at one point, but it seems to have all been sorted.”
“Now that he’s given up his own stables, he can’t resist offering his opinion on everyone else’s horses instead,” Diana said, her mouth curling up. She was referring to a recent decision on Audley’s part to return ownership of a country house and lucrative stables to his father, a duke, after having spent the past five years managing them. It was of course incumbent on every aristocratic man to have at least a somewhat tortured relationship with his own father, though Audley took this to a greater extreme than most men of Diana’s acquaintance.
“Quite,” Willingham agreed, his gaze focused on the view beyond her shoulder. She turned as well, soaking it all in, already imagining how to capture the vivid green of the lawn, the darker shade of the leaves on the trees—
“Thinking about painting this?” he asked, interrupting her vision.
She was surprised by his question—she didn’t make a habit of discussing her painting with him, and she was a bit unsettled to realize he’d been paying such close attention when she spoke of it. “I was, actually,” she admitted, not bothering to turn. “I don’t come to the country much anymore, and there are few opportunities for landscape painting in town.”
“Didn’t Templeton have a country house?”
“He did,” she confirmed, “but the new viscount has taken up residence there.” When her husband had died, the title had passed to his nephew, who was a few years older than Diana herself. The newviscount was a kind man, and had told her that Templeton House in London was hers as long as she cared to live there. He maintained his own residence in town, but he had young children and spent much of his time at the family seat in the country, which Diana had been only too happy to give up—she could not imagine herself there alone, wandering the drafty halls with only the servants for company.
She had, on occasion, thought of moving elsewhere in London—her husband had left her a hefty portion of his fortune, and she could certainly afford her own home. She wasn’t certain what stopped her—pure inertia? She feltstalled, somehow, like an insect caught in amber. She watched other lives moving on around her, and yet felt that she hadn’t taken a step since her husband’s death. She slept in the viscountess’s bedchamber, lying in bed each night looking at the connecting door to a room that had lain empty for years now. Why did she do it? Why didn’t she move? Or at least invite someone else into that bed with her?
Well, she reminded herself, she was taking steps toward the latter, at least, and the person with whom she was taking those steps was still standing behind her; she could feel him watching her intently. She found this oddly unsettling, and so she said, rather briskly, “Am I holding everyone up? Show me this horse of mine, and let’s be off.”
She turned to see Willingham gazing at her with a curious expression upon his face—not at all the usual sort of sardonic one he wore when looking at her, but rather one that implied he was actually curious, that he found her painting interesting. It was vastly different from the half-amused, taunting smirk that she usually found herself on the receiving end of. He reached out and grasped her wrist, stopping her when she would have moved past him. “Did you bring your painting supplies with you from London? I’d be happy to send to the village foranything you might need—or even to London, if we’re too provincial for whatever supplies you require.”
Diana worked hard to keep her surprise from registering on her face, but doubted she was entirely successful—thoughtfulhad never been one of the many adjectives she might have used to describe Willingham.
“I brought my things,” she said, walking past him in the direction of the rest of the party before pausing to look back over her shoulder. “But thank you,” she added, and then turned before he could make any sort of reply.
It was, she was fairly certain, the first entirely civil interlude they’d shared in years.
And it felt both wrong and right in almost equal measure.
Once Diana and Willingham had rejoined the party and mounted their horses, they were off, taking one of the many paths that wound away from the house and into the forest that surrounded it on all sides. This one led steadily uphill, their ultimate destination being a patch of clear ridgeline that, Willingham claimed, offered one of the finest views for miles. The width of the trail only allowed them to ride two abreast, and Diana found herself next to, of all people, her brother.
“Well,” Penvale said after they had ridden in companionable silence for a while, “out with it. What is your plan?”
“My plan?” Diana asked, turning her head to look at him. Her brother, she’d been told often, resembled her quite strongly. They shared the same honey-colored hair and hazel eyes. They even had similar mannerisms, a certain laziness of movement that Diana, atleast, found to be useful. It made people relaxed around her, caused them to let their guards down, never dreaming of the sharp, calculating mind behind the pretty face and elegant slouch. She strongly suspected that her brother took similar advantage of the misconception.
At the moment, he was eyeing her speculatively, the reins held loosely in his hands. “For Jeremy and Lady Helen,” he clarified, casting a quick glance about to make sure that they couldn’t be overheard. There was enough distance between them and the closest riders that they could manage a private conversation.
“Willingham and Lady Helen,” she repeated, feigning confusion.
“Don’t profess innocence with me, Diana,” he said sternly. “I overheard you speaking to the dowager marchioness at breakfast this morning. I know perfectly well that you are up to something nefarious.”
“Dear brother of mine,” she said with a sunny smile, “I am nevernotup to something nefarious.”
Penvale snorted. “You don’t need to tell me that, I assure you.” He paused for a moment, and they rode a few paces in silence. “Truth be told, despite the farce Violet and Audley have enacted this summer, marriage is more often than not a business arrangement—if you’re hoping to pair Jeremy with Lady Helen, you might appeal to his practical side. I understand her dowry is enormous.”
“I’m surprised you’re not dangling after her, then,” Diana said grumpily. “Isn’t that your plan, after all? Amass enough of a fortune that Uncle John will consider selling Trethwick Abbey back to you?”
When Penvale and Diana’s parents had died when they were children, their ancestral home in Cornwall had been sold to cover death duties—it was the rare seat to a title that was unentailed. There had been a very willing buyer at hand: their father’s youngest brother, fromwhom the late viscount had been long estranged, who had made his fortune with the East India Company. Their father’s solicitors had seen little choice but to sell to him, given that there had been no ready money to cover the debts. Diana and Penvale had been bundled off to live with their mother’s sister in Hampshire, and Uncle John had been living at Trethwick Abbey ever since.
Even before he had gained his majority, Penvale had been obsessed with buying back the estate that went with his title. Diana knew he was a dab hand at cards, and he had multiplied his initial holdings many times over through the distasteful business of dabbling in the stock market, but it seemed obvious to her that an advantageous marriage would be a clear path to the fortune he needed with the least amount of effort on his part.
