To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(83)
And yet, she knew that the words she had just spoken were true—and if there was one thing she could not stand the thought of being, it was a coward. She took a deep breath.
“I think I love Jeremy,” she said quietly, forcing herself to state the words simply, without hesitation. “I’ve no idea why,” she added, unable to help herself, “considering he’s vain and maddening and I can barely converse with him without wanting to stab him with a fork, but apparently that is what love looks like for me. And,” she added, her mind lingering on the look in his eye when he gazed at her sometimes, as though marveling at her very existence, “I think he might love me, too—though, being a man, I expect he’s too dense to realize it.” As she spoke, identical grins spread across Violet and Emily’s faces; at the same time, she could not help noting—rather grumpily—that neither of them looked remotely surprised.
“I can’t say this comes as a shock,” Violet said, confirming this impression; next to her, Emily had clasped her hands together, an expression of rapturous joy upon her face.
“Don’t get too excited,” Diana warned. “I’m hardly about to start spouting off sonnets.”
“So what will you do?” Violet asked. There was a gleam in her eye that Diana recognized all too well, and she knew that she would be spending the next fortnight feigning a wasting disease for Jeremy’s benefit if she did not head Violet off.
“I think I will… well, I think I will speak to Willingham.” It sounded rather pathetic, put like that—it didn’t sound like much action at all, no matter what it felt like deep within her. “I shall speak honestly to him at last.”
“And agree to marry!” Emily cried joyfully.
“Certainly not,” Diana said, alarmed. “I was thinking more that I should indicate that we should continue our liaison for a longer duration than we originally envisioned. I don’t wish to spook him, after all—men and horses really are remarkably similar, you know.”
“O, Diana of the romantic soul,” Violet intoned dramatically, clutching at her own chest. “The bards will sing of this most heart-rending of gestures.”
“That is quite enough of that,” Diana said acerbically. She cast Emily, who appeared to be stifling laughter, a withering look. “From both of you,” she added. “I think I shall start small and see how things progress. I’m not…” She trailed off for a moment, hesitating. “I’m not averse to the idea of marrying Jeremy, if I absolutely had to marry again”—even admitting this much made her feel as though she were stripping naked and parading down the street, so vulnerable did she feel—“but I shall begin by simply telling him how I feel. This is all rather new to me, you know. Emotions,” she clarified, seeing their confused looks. “Communication.”
Violet heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It is a shame you were born a woman, Diana, truly it is. You have the emotional range of the most repressed English gentleman at your very core.”
Diana arched a brow. “Coming from the lady who recently spent a fortnight coughing into handkerchiefs whilst refusing to have a single honest conversation with her husband? I think I might be excused for not being overly wounded by your critique.”
To this, Violet—satisfyingly—had no reply.
Twenty-Two
Jeremy, meanwhile, had similarly busy thoughts that day. It was unfortunate timing, really, that the weather had been so fine that morning—the sky a deep, sharp blue, fluffy white clouds floating above on the faint breeze that had whispered against their cheeks all day. There had been no excuse at all not to join the hunting party, not when conditions were so ideal and it was, in fact, his hunting party. But still, Jeremy had never felt less able to be trusted with a firearm in his hands, so distracted was he by his tumultuous thoughts. His aim was abysmal—he was as likely to shoot a member of his own party as a deer—and after a few wild misfires, he limited his participation to unhelpful commentary on his friends’ efforts.
Even this, however, fell far short of his usual standards. When Penvale took a particularly wild shot that hit the trunk of a tree several feet away, Jeremy’s mockery was so halfhearted that he caught sight of Audley giving him a concerned look out of the corner of his eye. The fact was, he couldn’t concentrate on anything, because his mind was so bloody full of the events of the night before—and the way he had almost ruined it all with his foolish question about marriage and his sudden realization of his own feelings.
There was undoubtedly some irony to the fact that he, positively infamous for his reputation as a bachelor, so unlikely to wed that even the gleam of his title was insufficient to entice most matchmaking mamas—that he should nearly destroy an affair before it had properly begun by coming perilously close to uttering a particular four-letter word.
Not his favorite four-letter word, mind you, but one which started with l and which he’d spent years ensuring that no one could ever expect to hear him speak.
For that was true, was it not? Hadn’t he done everything he possibly could since David’s death to make certain that no one would ever expect anything much of him? He certainly hadn’t expected much of himself beyond securing the estate—because, as undeserving as he still felt of the title that never should have been his, he knew that he owed it to his tenants to get Elderwild back on solid ground, and at this, at least—miraculously—he had succeeded.