Page 4 of Diana Adores the Puzzled Duke

Chapter 2

Diana Browning was visitingher mother’s art gallery which was attached to the front and side of their cottage style house on the corner of two streets near central Cambridge. It was time for morning tea, and Diana usually took a break from the cramped little desk in her bedroom dormer window where she wrote eachmorning.

Mother was at her easel working on another landscape of rural country England which sold so well to visitors of theuniversity.

“Quaint country landscapes and college courtyards,” Diana sighed. “Why not try something different,Mother?”

“Because those are what sell, my dear. Is it time for tea already?” she asked as she plunged her brush into a jar of turpentine spirits. “My, how the morning hasflown.”

“I shall put the kettle on. Come inside to the kitchen when you areready.”

Mother stood up from her canvas stool and stood back to admire her painting. “Not too bad… I think it needs a steeple in the distance though, don’tyou?”

“A steeple would be just splendid,” Diana said a littlesarcastically.

Mother gave her a sour look. “Now, be nice to your dear oldmother.”

“Mother, you arenotold—justjaded.”

“You will send me to an earlygrave.”

“What in heaven’s name is an early grave? Is it a grave that gets up first thing in themorning?”

Mother waved her hand at Diana. “Now it is you who is beingsilly.”

They both laughed and linked arms and marched toward the kitchen, after putting aback in five minutessign on the gallerydoor.

Mother and daughter looked like sisters—younger andolder.

Diana was of medium height, with straight dark brown hair that she let flow down her back to her waist. At times, she piled it atop her head in a large bun or created a crown—often inserting small flowers from the garden. She was thin but not fragile, and perhaps her best features were her large brown eyes and her delicate mouth—which almost always had a welcomingsmile.

Ann—Diana’s mother—looked just like her daughter, only a little shorter and a tiny bit stouter. And, as there were no other siblings, the two behaved as slightly naughty sisters who loved mischief andplayfulness.

“I’ll have no cream but just lemon today in my tea,” Mother said as she set out the teacups.

“Cream and honey for me, please. I want some of the honey from the comb we found while out walking in the Dailey’s field last September,” Diana said as the kettle came to a boil and she poured water into theteapot.

Mother opened a tin of ginger biscuits and sat at the kitchen table as Diana poured thetea.

“And how is the writing going this morning?” Motherasked.

“Well enough, but I have only just started the new book so I am still feeling my way to someextent.”

“I loved the way you used our banker, Mr. Cropper, as the villain in your last book. Poor old dolt never had a chance, didhe?”

“Mother, it was just fiction. It was nothingpersonal.”

Mother laughed. “It seemed personal to me after he rejected your father’s request for aloan.”

“Perhaps a little personal, then,” Diana said with a slysmile.

“Did I hear the crunch of a ginger biscuit?” Father asked as he shuffled into the kitchen in his bathrobe andslippers.

“Are you still not dressed?” Motherexclaimed.

“I don’t have any tutorials until this afternoon,” he replied. He reached into the biscuit tin and took out a handful ofbiscuits.

Mother gently slapped his hand. “Just two,George.”