“I know,” she said, then laughed. “Please, Father, credit me with more sense than that.”
“I should hope so, too,” Henry said, looking aghast. “It was, after all, only your first soiree. Not unlike your Sister, who has attended…how many now? Without finding a suitor.” Diana merely glowered at him, eyes narrowed, and Celine continued talking as though he had said nothing at all.
“I am after a younger, more handsome gentleman,” she said. “A good dancer, a conversationalist, someone who can make me smile.”
“Someone like a certain Lord—”
“Ahem.” Celine interrupted Diana with a stern look. “Someone more fit to look after my needs. There is no one in particular yet, Diana.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Henry said, not noticing Diana’s smirk. “You have a few years in you yet, My Girl. No need to go rushing into things—just don’t leave it as long as your Sister.”
He widened his eyes at Diana again, and she sighed. He would not let this go, she knew it.
“Yes, Father. I promise I am looking. I have already told you, love is the one thing I seek above all else.”
“Perhaps it is not love you need to seek so much as someone you can—”
“Father please,” Diana said, “not at the breakfast table. What would Mother have said?”
“No,” he said, looking suddenly down at the dry bread on his plate. He glanced at their mother’s empty chair, as though seeking her approval. “You’re right. Another time.” He picked up the bread and ripped a bit off with his teeth, chewing with such an expression of distaste that Diana wondered why he didn’t at least butter it.
Pig-headedness at its best.
“Diana,” Celine whispered, leaning over to Diana but keeping a careful eye on her father, “will you walk with me after breakfast? I have so much I want to discuss.”
Her eyes shone with excitement, and Diana felt a bubble of it in her own chest, too, despite her words to her father. She glanced at her father and then back at Celine, nodding rapidly.
She returned her attention to her breakfast, taking a little more toast and jam. She had fruit, too, but she would savor that later. For now, she avoided eye contact with him. She didn’t want him to see the sparkle in her eyes or the smile she couldn’t quite keep from her face, all thanks to the one she had met last night.
It is far too soon to tell Father—or anyone, for that matter.
They finished their breakfast in silence, each wrapped up in their own thoughts, until Henry threw his napkin onto the table and rose with a weary smile.
“If you’ll excuse me, Girls, I have a Dukedom to run. I shall see you at dinner?”
“Have a good day, Father,” Celine said, nodding her acquiescence over dinner. But as soon as he was out of the door, she turned to Diana, giggling.
“Come,” Diana said. “Let’s not talk here, where unwelcome ears may hear.” She indicated the maid who stood, stock still, in the corner and Celine nodded her understanding.
“All right,” she said.
As the maid began to clear away the debris from breakfast, they rose from their chairs and tried to walk normally out of the room. Once they were through the door, though, they scuttled through the hallway and out into the garden, giggling and whispering all the way. Cocoa romped behind them, yapping his contribution to their conversation.
“Oh Diana, I had the best time last evening,” Celine said, turning to Diana after they had rounded a corner and were surrounded completely by shrubbery. She pleaded with her sister to understand, almost begging her to take her back, and Diana laughed, so very happy for her sister who had, until the very last moment, been so full of nerves.
The garden was already warm, and the flowerheads stretched up, soaking in the rays. The colors popped in the morning light and, as always to Diana, it was the most peaceful place in the whole grounds. She inhaled deeply, the smell of the hand-cut grass so sweet.
“I’m pleased for you, Celine,” she said eventually. “I really am. Isn’t it such a lovely day?”
“It is,” Celine said, looking annoyed. She marched to the bench just ahead and sat heavily down. “But as you know, Diana Florentina Allen, that is not what we are here to discuss.”
Diana laughed, then sat down next to her sister, enjoying the light breeze that whipped around the bushes.
“Then what, Dear Sister, are we here to discuss?”
“Oh, you rotter,” Celine said, turning away from her sister and crossing her arms. “You are pitiless at times.”
“You’re right,” she said, unable to take the smile from her face. “I am being cruel and that is unfair. I know you so badly want to talk about last night. Tell me, then. I want to hear all about it.”
She bent down and picked Cocoa up, allowing the dog to rest in her lap as she ran her fingers through his long fur. He sighed happily, his beady eyes gazing up at her as his tongue lolled from the side of his mouth. He really was the cutest thing.
“I met someone,” Celine said after a pause. She looked at Diana with a suppressed smile, but Diana could tell she was about to burst with it. Diana, for her part, looked at her in complete surprise. She suspected she knew who it was but…at her coming out? That was rather rare in itself.
“It wouldn’t be the Earl of Wensworth by any chance, would it?” Diana teased, but Celine looked back at her confused.
“The Earl of Wensworth? Who’s that?”
“Lord Percival,” Diana said, unable to stop herself laughing. “Heavens, Celine, you are smitten already and you cannot even remember his title.”
Celine blushed a deep red and Diana laughed again.
“What makes you think I am smitten?” Celine asked, her expression betraying her disappointment that it was not she who got to make the announcement. “In fact, I do not know who you are talking about.”
“After the amount of times you danced with him last night?” Diana asked, her fingers still buried deep in the dog’s fur. Other than the first few dances, Diana hadn’t actually seen who Celine spent the evening with, but she could guess from the bright sparkle in Celine’s eyes. “And you certainly talked about him enough.”
Celine huffed and turned away, nose in the air and folding her arms as she leaned back against the bench.
“You don’t know its him, just because we danced,” she said, her bottom lip sticking out in a sulk. “I danced with plenty of gentlemen.”
“All right,” Diana said, still unable to stop her chuckling. “Who is it then?”
Celine looked at her from the side of her eyes, unable to stop the smile from creeping back up her cheeks.
“All right,” she said, then sat up again and turned to Diana in excitement. “It is Lord Percival. I just didn’t want you to guess, that’s all. I’ve been so excited to tell you. I could barely sleep last night for the thought of him.”
Diana’s laughter rang through the silence of the garden, loud and wonderfully easy.
“I knew it,” she said. “You are a minx, trying to trick me like that.”
“He’s perfect,” Celine said, swooning just at the thought of him, and quite ignoring Diana’s admonishment. “So handsome and witty. And he dances so well, Diana. And I think we could talk together non-stop for the rest of our lives. He’s perfect.”
“Perfect for you, perhaps, Celine,” Diana said with a snort. The Earl of Wensworth, although pleasant enough, was far from Diana’s idea of perfect. Not like Isaac. “And you don’t need anyone to talk non-stop with, you talk enough as it is.”
Celine rolled her eyes but ignored the quip.
“And you, my Dearest Sister?”
“What about me?” Diana asked, feeling suddenly defensive. “I am certainly not in love with Lord Percival.”
“No, Silly,” Celine said, slapping her sister’s arm playfully. “Did you meet anyone who caught your eye?”
Diana tutted.
“You’re as bad as Father,” she said, looking away.
&nb
sp; But Celine’s words had brought images and sensations hurrying back to her. The touch of Isaac’s lips, the rush of his breath on her cheek. His words like music, his taste like fine brandy. She whimpered at the memory, and the loss of his touch.
Celine jumped at the sound and looked at Diana with raised eyebrows.
“Are you all right, Diana? You sound—” Celine trailed off, and Diana knew she could not put the sound of whimpering together with anything she understood. Diana herself would not have been able to, only a day earlier.
“Yes,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s awfully warm already, isn’t it? Perhaps we should head back inside.”
Celine eyed her suspiciously, but Diana looked back at her, shaking her head in question.
“What? There is nothing the matter.” She could hear the defensiveness in her own voice, the high-pitched tinge of denial.
“All right,” Celine said. “No need to get so annoyed.” She smirked then, a look of self-satisfaction. “You’re jealous I found a beau and you didn’t.”
Diana rolled her eyes, but she said no more because she feared if she told Celine what had happened, it would turn out not to be true, that the romance she had felt the night before would crumble to nothing.
She had had an evening she would remember forever, but she felt a stab of anxiety. Isaac seemed the most wonderful gentleman in the world, but Diana worried that she had read it wrong.
Or perhaps it had been merely a dream.
It was like the novels she read, so much so that she could not let herself focus on it, lest she think it real, for Lord Gallonon was a gentleman like no other.
As though he stepped straight from the story books.
“I danced with Lord Percy twice,” Celine said proudly, a giggle on her lips. “He is just delightful.”
“Lord Percy?” Diana looked at her with amused surprise. They really had got close on their first evening together. It was not she and Isaac who were to be the gossip of the evening, so it seemed, but Lord Percival Templeton and her sister.
“Percival,” she said, embarrassed, her cheeks pink and her eyes downcast. “I meant Lord Percival.”
“Oh Celine, you have fallen hard, and you have fallen fast.”
“No, I…yes, all right, I have, but isn’t it wonderful?”
Diana smiled, but she didn’t agree. “These things can grow tiresome after a while, and I am glad you have found someone to…entertain you, before it all becomes too much of a bore.”
“Entertain me?” Celine laughed. “I can’t even begin to describe the feeling to you, Diana. It is like nothing I have ever experienced before. It’s like…” she tilted her head, thinking, and Diana watched her beautiful face, “it’s like we are puzzle pieces who fit so perfectly together.”
“Heavens, Celine, you’ve known him for less than a day.”
But as she said those words, thoughts of Isaac bombarded her again. They, too, had known each other for less than a day, and Diana squirmed in her seat as she compared her own feelings to those of Celine.
“I know,” Celine said, shrugging as though it was the strangest of things. “I don’t understand it either, but it just feels right, like…like together, we can achieve anything. It’s almost as though we were made for each other. He is the orange peel in my marmalade. Does that make sense?”
“Did you honestly just compare yourself to marmalade?” Diana asked.
Celine laughed, but she nodded, happy and full of life.
“I might have done. Is it nonsense?” she asked. “Do you have even an inkling of what I am talking about?”
“No,” she said, turning her face away, feeling a sudden heaviness. “No, I do not.”
Except I do. You understand completely, when you’ve lived it.
They lapsed into silence again, Diana still running her fingers along the dog’s back, Celine fanning herself against the mid-morning heat.
“Where were you all evening, anyhow?” Celine asked eventually. “I looked for you, but I couldn’t find you.”
“Looked for me indeed,” Diana said, snorting her derision. “You were far too busy dancing.”
“Yes, I admit I danced a lot. But I did look for you, Diana. I suspect you were hiding.” Diana tilted her head, part in concession, part in consideration. What she was actually doing could quite easily be construed as hiding, especially in the beginning.
“I was in the gardens, taking some air,” she said, but then she quickly added, “Reading. I tried to dance, but the gentlemen there—they all bored me to tears.”
“That’s a shame,” Celine said. “It was the dancing I liked the best—after Lord Percy, of course. You know, I thought I saw you talking to Lord Gallonon on more than one occasion, and if I had to judge by your expression, you seem rather taken with him.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Diana asked, taking out her own fan and brushing away her red cheeks in the hope that Celine didn’t notice her embarrassment.
“Me?” Celine asked, a hand to her chest and surprise on her face, wrapped in a blanket of false innocence. “I don’t mean anything at all.”
Diana narrowed her eyes at her and Celine fell back laughing.
“I’ll have you know,” Diana said in her best stern voice, although she struggled to keep the smile from her face. “That I had no such positive interactions at all with the Duke of Gallonon. He nearly knocked me from my feet, rushing around the ballroom like a fool. I was reprimanding him. That is all.”
“Shame,” Celine said with a sigh, although Diana could see—and ignored—the knowing side glances she threw her. “I was hoping you were having some secret meeting with a handsome gentleman, somewhere in the hidden parts of the garden. You know, like in one of your novels?”
“Don’t talk such nonsense,” Diana said, but her cheeks burned as though on fire, and her heart pounded so hard she worried for the state of her chest. How could she possibly know? “What on Earth makes you think so?”
Celine shrugged.
“Just wishful thinking, I suppose. Father is not the only one who wishes to see you happily married, you know?”
“I know,” Diana said, a little solemnly. She felt plenty of guilt at causing her family so much pain. “And believe it or not, I wish it also. But as you saw last night, the choice is not overwhelming.”
“I don’t know,” Celine said, with a sly smile and shrug. “My Percy is just perfect.”
Chapter 12
“No Thomas again?” Isaac asked as he took his place at the head of the dining table. It was already laid with a fine meal of roasted guinea fowl, with trifle for dessert, arranged over a perfectly white tablecloth. Isaac felt his stomach rumble in anticipation. It had been a long day, and his hunger was almost strong enough to overwhelm him.
“No, Your Grace,” Hobbes replied as he poured a deep-red claret into Isaac’s glass. He had a pristine white napkin draped over his forearm, and he held the bottle from the bottom so as not to warm the wine with the heat of his hands.
“Any idea where he is?” Isaac asked.
He shook out his napkin and placed it over his lap, then shuffled forward in his seat, sniffing with irritation. His business meetings had gone on all day, and he was famished and exhausted. In truth, he was glad he didn’t have to make conversation with his brother, but it annoyed him that Thomas disappeared so often without telling anyone where he went, and he was even more annoyed that he had not had a chance to talk to him about the ball yet.
Does he not care for the plan we have worked so hard on?
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Hobbes said, stepping back from the table. “I’m afraid he did not say. But he has been gone most of the day.”
“It would be nice if he was out searching for some form of employment,” Isaac muttered, looking down unhappily at his plate.
What does he do all day?
With a sigh, he pushed the thought of Thomas out of his head and took a bite of his guinea fowl.
“Goodness
, this is delicious.” He spoke to no one in particular, but he knew his words would get back to Mrs. Smith, the cook, and she deserved the praise. It was indeed a delicious dish, as all the dishes she made were. He ate the first few bites hungrily, then slowed and thought back over his day.
Despite the fullness of it, he had found it hard to concentrate on his work. Instead, he thought back to the ball the night before, to the lady he had met, to each of their conversations, each kiss. Something had opened up inside him, a flower blooming in the sun, and he felt a fullness he had never felt before.
Games of Desire for Lady Hellion: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 10