To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(98)
“I want you to expect things of me,” he said hoarsely, never once moving his gaze from hers. “I want you to demand them. I want to be the person you know you can demand everything of, because you deserve everything. You deserve someone…” He trailed off as an idea formed in his mind. He squeezed her hands tightly and leaned in close to give her a fierce kiss.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said once they broke apart for air.
Her mouth dropped open in an expression of genuine shock. “You’ve what?”
“Changed my mind,” he said casually, grinning at her. She dropped his hands, but he merely reached an arm out to seize her about the waist and haul her close. “I’m not proposing tonight,” he said, dropping a kiss on her nose, her eyes looking daggers at him mere inches away. “I fully intend to propose, don’t make any mistake on that front, but I’m retracting my offer temporarily.”
“Would you care to share why, by any chance?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“You’ll see,” he said, and kissed her again.
“I’ve only recently changed my mind on the institution,” she said darkly. “Is your intent to make me reconsider that change of heart already?”
“No,” he said cheerfully.
“Jeremy, if this is about that ridiculous wager, and you plan to hold off for another eleven months until—”
He cut her off with another kiss. “It’s not the wager. Besides,” he added with a grin, “once we are wed, all of your money will legally belong to me anyway, so I really think I’ll be getting the better end of the deal.”
“If you think teasing me about our society’s horrifying laws about women is supposed to make me want to marry you,” she began heatedly, before he stopped her words with his mouth yet again. He supposed that putting his mouth anywhere near her teeth at the moment was a slightly risky endeavor, but when he found his tongue tangling with hers a moment later, he decided that it had been worth it.
Twenty-Four
Diana spent the next day and a half in a state of giddy joy, irritation, and sexual frustration. It was a confusing bit of emotional turmoil, to say the least, and all the more so for the fact that it was, in her opinion, entirely unnecessary.
“He won’t tell you when he’s intending to propose?” Violet asked the morning of the second day since Diana and Jeremy’s emotional interlude in the gallery. Violet, Diana, and Emily were gathered in Violet’s bedroom, Audley having made himself scarce—or, as he put it, “seeking more masculine breakfast company.” Strictly speaking, as an unmarried lady, Emily should have been breakfasting downstairs; this, however, was the advantage to having the Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, rather than her mother, serving as her chaperone: a certain convenient tendency on the part of that lady to turn a blind eye.
“No,” Diana said, taking an irritated sip of tea. She hadn’t known it was even possible to sip tea irritatedly, but leave it to Jeremy to lead her to this revelation.
“Doesn’t it rather take the romance out of it, knowing it’s coming?” Emily asked curiously. She had a plate of toast in front of her and was working her way through it at an impressively steady pace, pausing only to liberally apply butter and jam to each fresh slice.
Diana sighed. “That’s what’s so maddening. It should. And yet… somehow… knowing that he’s preparing whatever it is that he’s planning, it’s… it rather…” She closed her eyes, mortified. “It makes me swoon.”
Emily dropped her toast. Violet dropped her teaspoon.
“Diana,” Violet said in a hushed voice.
“Are you dying?” Emily asked.
“I know,” Diana said, burying her face in her hands. “It’s horrid! I don’t know what’s happened to me.”
“I do,” Violet said smugly. Diana raised her head to see that the expression on Violet’s face rather resembled that of the cat that got the cream. “You’re in love.”
“I know that,” Diana snapped. “I didn’t know it meant I had to act like I haven’t the sense God gave a field mouse, however.”
“Careful observation of Violet and Lord James should have made you understand that already,” Emily said primly. A moment later, she was forced to duck a bit of crust Violet tossed at her head. The thought of what either Violet’s or Emily’s mothers would say, could they see them at this precise moment, was enough to send Diana into a fit of hysterical laughter.
A moment later, she realized that Violet and Emily were staring at her, and her laughter died down. “What?”
“I haven’t seen you laugh like that in…” Violet began, and then trailed off, clearly at a loss.
“Ever,” Emily finished for her, smiling softly at Diana.
“Don’t come over sentimental on me,” Diana warned, shaking a teaspoon at them severely.
“It’s just nice to see you happy,” Violet said mistily.
“I’m not happy,” Diana said, frowning into her teacup. “I’m living in fear that a marquess with a distractingly good jawline and hands that, with careful instruction, proved to be rather talented, is going to jump out from behind a piece of statuary and propose at any moment.”