To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2)(99)
Violet held up a hand. “I want no details about jawlines or talented hands, thank you very much. It’s all very well to hear Jeremy discussing his mistresses in the abstract, but I’d like to refrain from ever thinking of the two of you together in the carnal sense.”
“I should like all of the carnal details,” Emily said, and Diana nearly fell off her chair.
“Do you have something you wish to tell us?” she demanded. “You spoke to Belfry for quite a while after dinner last night.”
“Not yet,” Emily said vaguely, calmly sipping her tea. “And don’t try to change the subject. Let’s focus on the situation at hand: Diana’s in love. Lord Willingham may or may not be about to propose at any moment. Wedding bells will soon be ringing out from the parish church…” She trailed off, misty-eyed.
“What do you need from us?” Violet asked Diana, more pragmatic. “Emotional support? Crumpets? Brandy?”
“I need—” Diana had no idea what would have come out of her mouth had she been allowed to complete that sentence—what did she need? Possibly to have her head examined—but she was interrupted by a tap at the door. Violet called an invitation, and Toogood’s surly face peered around the door a moment later.
“Yes, Toogood?” Diana asked wearily, already exhausted at the thought of what her maid was here to harangue her about—sleeping too late? Bodice cut too low? Toogood had been the one to dress her, so the latter would have been positively galling.
“Your presence has been requested in the gallery, my lady,” Toogood said stiffly, offering a curtsey so elaborate that it was impossible not to find it a trifle mocking.
“Whatever for?” Diana asked blankly.
“You’ll see when you get there, won’t you?” Toogood asked, her tone carefully calibrated to remain just on the acceptable side of sarcastic; then she vanished.
“Diana, you really must do something about her,” Violet said, rising to her feet, Emily alongside her.
“I’m afraid I’ve grown too accustomed to her at this point,” Diana said with a shrug. “If I had a maid who was actually polite, I would die of shock.” She sighed, rising to her feet as well. “Let’s see what this is about, shall we?”
* * *
As it turned out, Diana’s fear that Jeremy would jump out from behind a piece of statuary was not far off the mark. She arrived at the portrait gallery to find Penvale and Audley there, grinning madly at her in a way that made her instantly suspicious.
“What are you doing here?” she asked her brother with a frown.
“Providing emotional support,” he replied with an infuriating smirk.
“To whom?” she asked, but a throat cleared behind her before Penvale could reply. She turned, knowing exactly who it would be, and found Jeremy standing there, a smile of such maddening self-confidence on his face that she thought it should probably be illegal.
He looked, of course, entirely distracting. It was early enough yet that she wouldn’t have been surprised to find him still abed, or at least clad somewhat casually, but he was dressed to perfection, neckcloth tied just so, hair mussed to such a perfect degree that she wondered if he’d directed his valet to do it on purpose. His blue eyes were trained steadily on her face in such a way that made her suddenly conscious of her hair, which was coming undone slightly around her face, and her gown—the simplest yellow morning gown she’d brought with her for her stay. She hardly presented the picture of the perfectly coiffed flirt that she’d worked so hard to perfect—and, judging by his gaze, he didn’t mind in the slightest.
“Diana,” he said, and despite the fact that she knew Penvale and Audley were hovering somewhere behind her, despite the fact that she could see Violet and Emily grinning in the space behind Jeremy, and—oh Lord, was that the dowager marchioness smirking over in the corner?—something about the low pitch of his voice made a shiver run through her as though they were entirely alone.
“Yes?” she said. She meant it to come out cool and bored, but even she could hear the breathless, questioning note to her voice.
He smiled slowly, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he had heard it, too. “Turn around,” he said.
“I—what?”
His smile widened, causing faint laugh lines to appear at the corners of his blue eyes. It was a smile that made her feel unsteady, off-kilter in the best possible way. “Turn. Around,” he said slowly, enunciating both words very clearly.
It was a sign of how truly flustered she was at the moment that, rather than arguing with him for daring to give her any sort of an order, as would have been her usual habit, she merely followed his instructions and turned.
At first she didn’t know what she was supposed to be looking at. There were her brother and Audley, grinning at her like the two fools that they were—nothing out of the ordinary there. Her eyes scanned the room, confused, then flicked back again, catching on a piece of art on the wall.
It was a sketch of Jeremy, so unlike every other stuffy painting in the room as to be almost laughable. He was sketched in rough strokes, at closer range than any of the other Overingtons of years past depicted in the paintings on the walls around him. His collar was loose, showing the long, seductive column of his throat; his hair was tousled; but it was his face that caught the eye and held it.