CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Not since her unfortunate scandal with Nigel Halman had Diana been alone with any gentleman but her husband. But she wouldn’t be in that room for long. She had already decided how to justify her entrance into and exit from it.
As she passed under the transom, the laughter and music from the ball lessened. She perceived a low chaise longue by the unlit stone hearth and an end table with a three-pronged candelabra in the right corner. The candles cast eerie shadows onto a portrait of some long-dead relative of Lord Mandeville dressed in the attire of a cavalier, making the man glower at the viewer even more so than he no doubt had in life.
Edward Langley stood near that dim light from the candelabra, brow puckered, immersed in the note. Diana drew in a deep breath and then stumbled toward the chaise longue, grabbing one of the soft embroidered pillows and clutching it to her chest.
“Oh dear,” she fretted, careful to keep her voice low enough to sound as if she was only speaking to herself. “I shouldn’t have had that last flute of champagne. I fear my stomach ill tolerates such potent stuff.” She collapsed onto the waiting longue and withdrew her fan, rapidly brandishing the panels before her face.
The young man crumpled the missive in his hand but did not have time to deposit it in one of his pockets before Diana cried: “Edward Langley! I didn’t see you here. How felicitous! You know my husband, but I’ve not yet been honored to make your acquaintance.”
“Lady Higgins?” He was still clutching the note, though his fingers quickly closed around it.
“May I impose on you to keep me company for a few short minutes? Only until I regain my senses. I came in here since the fire was unlit. I thought the chill might do me good.”
In truth, she wanted to shiver, but this didn’t seem evident to Edward, not even when she rubbed her arms.
“Should I fetch your husband?”
“Oh no,” she said blithely. “Albion is entertaining His Royal Highness at the card table, and I shan’t deign to disrupt their shenanigans. I need a respite. Please stay here with me.”
“At your service,” he said with a chivalrous bow, though Diana detected a hint of annoyance in his tone.
She closed her eyes, fluttering the fan languidly. When his leather boots pressed against the floorboards, they squeaked. She opened her eyes sufficiently to make out the indistinct images of Edward hovering over the candelabra, note in hand.
Did he mean to burn it?
In the space of five seconds, she sprang to her feet, tossed her fan aside on the chaise longue, and snatched the paper right out of his grip.
“This seems no trifle. Rather, it looks like a love letter. Why, Edward, you Casanova.”
His countenance assumed a disturbing pallor, such that she thought he might attempt to wrestle the note from her. Thankfully, he was far too well-bred for that.
“Now I am all the more curious. Who has the good fortune to have attracted your affection?”
“Please, my lady.”
On instinct, she made a drastic move. While laughing and backing away from Edward, she bumped into the candelabra, knocking one of the lit candles onto the floor. She let out a little cry. He hurried to stamp out the flame with his boot, allowing Diana sufficient time to read the contents of the correspondence.
Meanwhile, satisfied he had averted a fiery disaster, Edward righted himself. Diana leaned over to destroy the rest of the missive in one of the remaining candle’s gentle flames.
“Forgive me for teasing you,” she told him. “I don’t know what came over me. Your affairs are your business alone, and now your secret shall disappear so no one else can see it. As you intended, I imagine.”
He released a breath, and his expression relaxed into a smile.
“Will you be so kind as to accompany me back to the tea board?” she asked. “An orange flower meringue will go a long way to making me feel better.”
During a brief respite from the green baize Faro table, at which Albion had declared lady fortune to be a right rotter, he lounged against the door frame, watching guests come in and out of the tea board, an open room designated for refreshments.
A space not unlike the hidden retreat at Lady Bellingham’s garden party, he thought with a heavy heart, where he first kissed Lady Diana Stewart.
Hanging on the wall outside the door was a watercolor depicting an elegant Georgian-style manse, which he assumed to be Lord Mandeville’s country seat. The current session of Parliament would soon end, and, with it, thetonwould retreat to their summer estates.A decision would soon need to be made. Would he and Diana continue to live together? He doubted it. After a few social engagements, they would probably go their separate ways, as so many married couples in thetondid.
To make him even more morose, wouldn’t you know it? His wife was chatting with none other than Edward Langley as they made their way to the evening’s delicacies: the Prince Regent’s standard bearer shortbread biscuits, orange meringues, elderberry cordials, and a makeshift tree filled with bonbons in colorful wrappers.
That she would speak to Edward of all the gentlemen in the room could be no coincidence. Diana must have been attempting to gather information.
Albion took a step back into the relative darkness of the gaming room, his heart nearly bursting with longing. Everything about his wife was perfect, from her elegant cheekbones, sun-dappled golden hair, and brilliant eyes to her luscious form in the Orcan gown. For all the world, he wanted to cut between her and Edward and sweep her to the dance floor for the waltz. To show her his true self once more, not this ridiculous English fop.
