To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(92)

“You might say that.”

“Does he not share your feelings?” Emily asked hesitantly, drawing her hands into a knot before her, her eyes tracking Diana’s movements across the room.

“Oh, no, he shares them,” Diana said with complete confidence. “But he informed me last night that he intends to propose to Lady Helen today.”

“He what?” Violet screeched.

“But didn’t you just tell us that Lady Helen…” Emily trailed off, blushing.

“Oh, he is perfectly well aware of that,” Diana assured her. “In fact, it is why he thought a marriage between them made so much sense, apparently. You see, if they married, she could continue to carry on with her maid and he could continue to carry on with me and I’d never get any sort of wild ideas in my mind about love or marriage or anything that requires the least bit of commitment on his part.”

Violet held up a hand, effectively halting Diana’s rant just as she was getting into the spirit of the thing. “Let me be certain I understand. He was prepared to marry someone else just so that he might continue to be with you?”

“Yes!” Diana said indignantly. “Isn’t that the most ridiculous, insulting—”

“And,” Violet said, in a slightly raised voice, speaking over Diana, “didn’t you assure him at the outset of this little liaison—and, I’m assuming, many times since—that you had no interest in remarrying, or in any sort of emotional entanglement?”

“I did!” Diana agreed heatedly. “And then, when I tell him I’ve changed my mind—”

“And,” Violet interrupted, “had you given him any prior indication that your sentiments on this matter had changed?”

“Well, no,” Diana was forced to admit.

“And, when he told you that he intended to propose to Lady Helen, was it before or after you had told him that your sentiments had changed?”

Diana paused. “Before.”

“Meaning he had no way of knowing that what he was proposing would not seem like a perfect solution to the situation as he understood it?”

Diana was silent. It was true, blast it all. Jeremy had taken a set of facts as he understood them, and had come up with a solution he thought would suit them both. She’d been entirely unreasonable to hope for anything else—to hope for anything more.

And yet…

And yet.

She had been willing to make a fool of herself. She thought his feelings had changed, it was true, but she hadn’t been assured of that fact. And yet she had been willing to risk outright rejection and bare her heart to him regardless. Was it so unreasonable that she hoped for a similar amount of courage from him?

“I just…” she started, then trailed off. Confessions of this sort did not come naturally to her—nor would they ever, she suspected. But she was trying. “I was willing to be honest with him. Is it so wrong for me to have hoped that he would risk honesty in return?”

Violet’s face softened. “Of course not.”

“Very well.” She sniffed, which made no sense, because sniffing was generally what one did in response to crying, and of the many, many things that Diana did, crying was most assuredly not one of them. She reached a hand up to her cheek and felt a suspicious dampness there.

“Oh, Diana,” Emily said in her quiet, soothing fashion, which did nothing other than make the tears—because yes, they were tears—fall faster. She reached out a gentle hand and took Diana’s own hand in hers.

“This is really too far!” Diana said furiously, reaching into her bodice for a handkerchief. She usually kept one handy, though generally for the purpose of drawing attention to that portion of her anatomy rather than out of actual practical concern. “I refuse to turn into a watering pot for the sake of a man who thinks that discussing marriage to another woman is an intelligent way to woo someone!”

“I feel that I must observe that, based on the behavior of the two of you this summer, love does not appear to be a terribly restful state,” Emily said to the room at large in a conversational tone.

“It isn’t!” Diana informed her. “And don’t listen to anything Violet will tell you about how it is worth all the tears and sleepless nights, because I can assure you that I have never been so miserable in my life. And over a man. The very idea!” She felt somehow offended by herself—as though the rational, cool, cunning mind that had always been so reliable a companion had suddenly let her down.

“So what are you going to do?” Emily asked bluntly.

Diana slumped down into a chair, the righteous indignation that had fueled her pacing leaving her all in a rush.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Are you feeling quite all right?” Emily asked, reaching out a concerned hand to feel Diana’s brow. Diana swatted her away.

“He knows how I feel,” she explained, the echo of the words they’d exchanged the previous night still ringing in her ears. “And it’s his turn to be brave.”

“And what will you do if he doesn’t declare himself?” Emily asked hesitantly.

Diana gave her as dangerous a smile as she could manage at the moment. It was a touch wobbly, it was true, but the spirit was there. “Find another lover, and rub it in Jeremy’s face for every second it lasts.”