Page 12 of A Marriage is Arranged

While this discussion was taking place, the Earl was directing his steps towards Diane Courtland’s pretty little house on the edges of Mayfair. He had canceled an invitation to an opening night at the opera with that lady in order to comply with his grandmother’s order to be at dinner that evening, and he was sure she would not be happy.

The conversation with his betrothed had unsettled him. What did the chit think she was about, with her talk of the rights of women? He had been willing to offer for a plain, quiet woman. And now this! He conveniently forgot that it was the hint of a challenge that had drawn him to this particular plain, quiet woman in the first place.

When he arrived, he found he was right. Diane was full of her disappointment at not going to the opera.

“Gareth, my dear,” she pouted, “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you were busy all evening. I’m so disappointed, I can’t tell you. I’m sure all the ton was there. It’s most vexing!”

“I told you I was sorry, but my grandmother wouldn’t take no for an answer. If you want to know the truth, my betrothed wife is staying with her for a few days. I would have avoided it if I could.”

“La! Is she such an antidote then? You looked like thunder when you came in!”

The Earl was conscious of having made a mistake both in mentioning Louise and letting his feelings show. Now he was angry with himself for discussing his wife-to-be with his mistress. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with Louise’s assertions, he would never have done so.

“Certainly not.” His tone admitted no further discussion.

“Well, she obviously isn’t charming enough to make you stay.” Diane came to him and wound her plump white arms around his neck.

“Hmm.” He kissed her. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. There are more pleasant ways to pass the time.”

“I don’t see why I should want to pass any time with you after you let me down so disgracefully. You are going to have to make it up to me somehow.”

Gareth sighed. He could see where this was leading.

“What do you want?” he said baldly.

“We…ell, since you ask, you remember the lovely emerald pendant you gave me last month?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Garrard’s have earrings in their window that would match it perfectly.”

“I’ll have them sent over tomorrow.”

Diane was delighted. Emerald earrings were better than an evening at the opera. One could not put an opera in one’s jewel box against a rainy day. For she had no faith at all in the Earl’s protestations that his marriage would make no difference to their relationship.

So much would depend on his wife. Diane wished she knew what she looked like. Obviously she didn’t have the face or the skill to keep him by her side. Or it could be that she didn’t care to. Perhaps she was the sort to ignore her husband while pursuing conquests of her own. There were haut ton couples, she knew, who barely ever saw each other. She was one of the people who believed Lady Southcott’s twins had a father other than her husband. As far as she knew, the Southcott couple didn’t even live in the same house. But the Earl of Shrewsbury was a proud man and she doubted he would ever contemplate an open marriage. And she knew him well enough to know that neither would he tolerate scenes.

Diane had already begun to cast her eye around for her next protector. She had fluttered her very long eyelashes at the dashing Denis Youngbrough, newly arrived in town and evidently with money to spend. She wanted to have someone in the wings in case of necessity. She had always preferred younger men. Her skills beguiled them more than they did their more experienced fraternity. But it wasn’t easy.

She remembered the youth she had attracted when she first arrived in London. He had been prepared to be cut off entirely from his family rather than give her up. She smiled ruefully recalling the delicacy with which she had been obliged to extricate herself from his youthful schemes for their penniless future. She had begged him with tears in her eyes not to ruin himself for her, to go to run the family estates as his papa wanted. She told him he would forget her, and since a few years later he had married an altogether unexceptionable young woman from a good family, she had to suppose he had.

Of course, Shrewsbury wasn’t easy either. He rarely gave away his feelings and she now saw she’d made a mistake in thinking them deeper than they were. That was a pity because she might be the teensiest bit in love with him. Like Louise, she had not found his ugly face and ape-like figure off-putting, quite the reverse. His power often made her shiver with excitement. Perhaps he was right: a wife wouldn’t make any difference. In the meantime, though, she would keep Youngbrough in the wings and play on her justified sense of ill-usage to extract what she could from the Earl. In fact, Diane and Louise had a good deal in common: they were both drawn to Gareth Wandsworth and they both believed in the rights of women. It was just that Diane’s ideas of what those rights were, were different.