“I was playing to the gallery, old boy. Having a bit of fun at Diana’s expense—and your mother’s.” Which was sort of true.
Initially.
Hugh, and the vixen hidden behind his ballroom curtains, did not need to know that what had begun as a bit of humorous deflection in an incriminating situation had become so much more the moment his lips fused with hers and decided that was exactly where they wanted to be. “I genuinely have no intentions toward your harridan of a sister-in-law—noble or otherwise.”
“Excellent.” Hugh rocked on his heels. “Excellent… Because I would hate to have to challenge you to a duel over Diana’s virtue.”
“Her virtue is perfectly safe with me.” More was the pity.
“But if you did, say, have a slip, you would do the right thing, wouldn’t you? I mean, we’ve all seen the way you look at her and the kiss under the mistletoe was apparently quite passionate according to Vee and my meddling mother and… well… what with us going to Hampshire for a few weeks and her staying here in London…”
“And my imminent departure back to Shropshire as soon as the first cockerel crows.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Hugh sagged in relief. “You being in Shropshire is certainly a weight off my mind. You’ll both be well out of temptation’s way.” His friend eyed him levelly. Man to man. Friend to friend. Sworn protector to potential despoiler. A stark warning in his gaze. “As much as I am loath to make my mother right about anything, old boy, there is an undeniable frisson and now that I am a married man, my first loyalty has to be to Minerva.”
Giles raised his palm in oath. “You have my solemn pledge Miss Diana Merriwell’s person is persona non grata as far as my carnal urges are concerned. In fact, perish the thought.” He executed a comical shudder. “A fellow wants a bit of warmth to snuggle up to, not an arctic chill.”
“Excellent.” Hugh smiled reassured. “Excellent.Glad we got that sorted.” He shook Giles’s hand and slapped him on the back looking like a man who had just been reprieved by the hangman. “I shall leave you to your account fathoming and biscuit dunking with a clear conscience and no need for pistols at dawn—and shall see you at the christening.”
Diana waited until Dalton shouted the all clear before emerging from her curtain cocoon. “That was close.”
“It was but thanks to my superior acting skills he was none thewiser. Not that I had to act some of that, of course. Frissons and carnal urges indeed.Us.”
“Indeed.” Her voice was clipped. “Perish the thought.” Giles watched her wrap her shawl around her and tie it as tight as her smile. “Thank goodness he didn’t stay long, as Olivia would kill me if I was late for dinner again.” Dalton clonked back in and she hurried toward him as if he were the prodigal son returning from years in the wilderness. “Is the carriage ready?”
He nodded and she smiled at the reprobate. Almost as an afterthought she turned back to smile at Giles. Except this was her strained smile again. The one she reserved for people she was miffed at, yet he had no idea what he had done wrong beyond playing to the gallery again. “Same time, same place tomorrow? I shall school you in everything I can think of to help you dig alone.”
He nodded and selected another biscuit to cover his overwhelming sense of despondency as he watched her leave. But as he dunked it in his tea, he heard her whisper intimately in his irascible and recently head-over-heels-in-love butler’s ear that obliterated all the self-pity and stood his hair on end.
“And I’ll see you in our usual spot at midnight, Dalton. Don’t be late.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thanks to another last-ditch plea from the family for her to change her mind about Hampshire, it was closer to half past midnight when Diana was finally able to sneak out of the back door. She pulled the ratty collar of her sad, patched coat from her Clerkenwell days up against the chilly air, then crept around the edges of the garden wall until she reached the back gate to the mews. With both Vee’s bedchamber and Olivia and Jeremiah’s backing on to the garden, she never took any chances when necessity dragged her out into the night.
As usual, Dalton’s unmistakable silhouette stood at the corner. However, this time he was joined by another unmistakable male shape. A very tense-looking outline of Giles.
“What is he doing here?” She addressed Dalton rather than the man who was glaring at her through hooded eyes. Trying not to notice how attractive Giles Sinclair was in one of Dalton’s scruffy old naval coats. Without his trademark impeccable tailoring and neatly styled hair he looked too rumpled and crumpled. As if he had just tumbled out of bed. Too accessible and sinful and not an image of him that her vivid, and of late fanciful, imagination needed.
“Heis here becauseheis livid.” Giles jabbed the air between them with his finger. “You promised me faithfully, madam, that you never put yourself in harm’s way and yet here we are! It’s the middle of the night and you are apparently headed to the docks! A place filled with cutthroats and scoundrels! If that isn’t harm’s way, then I don’t know what is!” He jabbed the air some more. “And if I hadn’t just happened to overhear the dangerous plans you and my feckless butler made behind my back, I would be none the wiser! Why is that, Diana? When we have spent near every waking moment in each other’s company since Lady Sewell shuddered beside us in the shrubbery?”
“I am working, Giles.” And it was none of his business. Especially as he harbored no intentions toward her, noble or otherwise.
She had no idea why she had taken such umbrage to those particular words of his when he had undoubtedly said much worse and she wasn’t interested in either of those intentions. But she had. “I work for the newspaper, remember, and have responsibilities outside of my charitable favor to you.”
“I’ve tried to explain to him that this trip is the last piece of the puzzle on a long investigation.” Dalton jerked his thumb at their new spare wheel. “And that you are in no danger because you have me to protect you, but he was adamant he was coming, too. If you want my opinion, Miss Diana—”
“She really doesn’t, Dalton, and neither do I!” Giles was still fuming and in no mood to see reason.
“I think he was more jealous than he was angry because he thought you were my ladylove and the pair of us were having a midnight tryst.” Dalton winked his only eye, grinning, unaware that the thought of Giles being jealous went some way toward making her feel less aggrieved about his lack of intentions. “And he’s here to stop us from having one.”
“I am here to make sure the minx doesn’t get herself killed because it appears, Dalton, you lying, deceitful, traitorous wretch, that you cannot be trusted as far as I can throw you!” Giles stomped off in the direction of their waiting hackney, leaving Diana blinking at his broad back.
“I think he likes you, miss.”
“Oh, do shut up, Dalton.”
“And if you want my opinion—”
