To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(52)
He cut himself off abruptly and looked away from her again, making an awkward sort of shifting gesture from his shoulders all the way down to his hips that was striking for its unfamiliarity—he was many things, but never awkward. “Weren’t we supposed to be discussing my lovemaking technique? I can’t imagine how we strayed so far from the topic at hand.”
Diana gave him a long, considering look. “This must be a remarkably uncomfortable subject for you if you’d rather discuss your shortcomings in the boudoir.”
“I beg your pardon, madam, but when I attended you in your boudoir, I do not recall hearing any complaints.”
Diana rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, we did not make it very far in the proceedings on that occasion.”
He arched an eyebrow. “As opposed to today? I daresay I had not quite achieved my aim before being rather forcefully interrupted.”
“Because I had—notes!” she burst out. “I had notes!”
“This is rather like a conversation with my secretary,” Jeremy murmured. “Though, mercifully, he has never offered me any notes on this particular matter.”
“Willingham,” Diana said between clenched teeth, “if you continue to speak, I am going to stab you with a hairpin.” She found it frankly astonishing that she had felt uncharacteristically tender toward the man only a moment before. “Now, as I was saying several minutes ago before we were sidetracked, you are not accustomed to considering the needs of the women you go to bed with. As a marquess, you likely hear nothing but panting and exaggerated moans and then heaps of lavish praise regarding your shoulder muscles.”
“You’ve noticed my shoulder muscles, then?” Jeremy asked, preening a bit.
Diana saw no point in denying this when, after all, some things were simple fact. “They are… admirable,” she said grudgingly.
Jeremy grinned. “I can feel my head swelling already. Although,” he added, his grin slanting into something slightly more wicked, “the resentful tone did prove effective at preventing certain other portions of the anatomy from swelling.”
Diana decided that, under the circumstances, her only option was to ignore that particular bit of commentary. “In any case, I think that you need a lesson in paying attention. There is a world of difference between a lady who is in the throes of passion and one who is merely pretending, and it’s past time you learned to spot it. Ladies also often offer subtle cues—you missed me raising my hips to attempt to direct you earlier, and that was a fatal mistake. Next time I’ll expect you to pay closer attention.”
“Ah, so I am to be granted another chance?” Diana was irritated to note that his voice still held a trace of amusement.
“You are,” she said briskly, lowering her knees and stretching her feet out so that they peeked beneath the underside of the curtains that hid them. “But if you don’t learn to take your time and notice when I am clearly not enjoying myself, I don’t think it will end any better than this interlude.” She could feel herself growing agitated again as she spoke, and inhaled deeply. “In any case, now is hardly the moment to continue. We’ve been tucked away here for quite a while—surely we must be on the verge of being discovered.”
As though her words had summoned them, the sounds of voices in animated discussion suddenly became audible—Diana wondered if she and Jeremy had simply been so wrapped up in their conversation that neither of them had noticed. She detected Rothsmere’s voice, of course, but also distinctly heard those of her brother, Emily, and Belfry as well.
She hastily shuffled as far to the right as space would allow, hugging herself into the curve of the window and pulling the curtains around her, leaving Jeremy exposed just a moment before the group rounded a corner and entered the room.
“Not much of a hiding spot if you’re in plain sight, Jeremy,” Penvale said amiably, to the sound of collective laughter.
“And yet I still remained hidden longer than you did,” Jeremy replied. Diana heard him stand and join the group. Exchanging barbs with his friends, he left the room without revealing Diana’s hiding spot, which she thought quite decent of him—she might be a widow and therefore granted more leniency by the rigid rules of society, but being found tucked cozily in a window seat with a gentleman would still be taking things a bit far.
She waited for the sounds of their voices to fade a bit before getting up—she would follow them down the hallway and then hail them, pretending that they had overlooked her in some alcove or another, professing her boredom with the game. Which was true enough, she supposed—she found parlor games a trifle tiresome at times. But nothing about the past half hour had been tiresome. It had been maddening and passionate and, unexpectedly, enlightening—she felt as though she had learned something about Jeremy that he would rather she hadn’t, and she felt a bit giddy with the power. But beyond that she also felt sad—for this man who was torn between his fear of becoming his father and his own expectations that he would never manage to do much else. For his determination to live down to those expectations, in the wake of his brother’s death. For the complicated mixture of emotions he still held for his brother, and the circumstances of his death—grief, yes, and yet also something sharper-edged, angry and raw.
Something within Diana told her that Jeremy would need to come to terms with this on his own. And yet, equally strong was another feeling within her—one that made her want to turn toward him, take his hand, and walk with him down that path. And it was this feeling that gave her the first signal that she might be in trouble.