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“He is impossibly handsome, Mama,” Florence said.
“Oh, he is. I would blush if I were not an old widow.”
“Mother!” Florence giggled at the improper statement.
Diana used their distraction to surreptitiously leave the room. She had just reached the door when Margaret called her name.
Lord help me!she prayed as she turned around.
“I knew your coughs were a lie,” Margaret said from where she stood.
“Oh? Then why did you not expose me?” Diana was tired, and although she knew she should not provoke her aunt to do something drastic to her, such as toss her out of the house, she could not keep quiet now.
“I could not allow the duke to have a bad opinion of Florence and I. Why did you do it?” Her aunt placed her hands on her hips, while Florence folded her arms and regarded her with a combination of curiosity and disdain.
Diana shrugged and turned, walking out of the room. She would likely be locked in her bedchamber and denied food, but she did not want to stay there and listen to her aunt curse her.
“Do not walk away from me when I am talking to you!” Margaret yelled after her.
Diana did not respond as she walked up the stairs, resigned to her fate.
Matthew sat on a bench beneath a tree in his garden, stretching his left arm and neck. He had some stiffness that ran from his shoulder down to his ribs, and he attributed it to not doing any vigorous exercises today.
Crunching on the gravel behind him made him turn, and he smiled when he saw Albert, his smile only widening deeper when he did not see his cane. He did not tend to use a cane when his right leg, which took a bullet, was doing better.
“Glover said I would find you brooding here,” Albert said, grinning.
“Not brooding,” Matthew denied. “I was admiring the garden.” He had been walking around, thinking of Florence and Diana, and what had occurred in the Dervin residence. Something was not right, and one of the young ladies was lying to him. He had found proof of Dee being one of them, and Diana had begun coughing just as he had been about to question Florence about the watercolor Dee had sent him a miniature of.
“Then may I join you to not brood?” Albert walked toward him, his limp barely noticeable.
Matthew nodded, a sly smile curving his lips. “The ladies were impressed by you at the ball.”
Albert grinned. “Nothing like a wounded soldier to have them swooning, eh?” Matthew knew his friend did not enjoy the attention he received because of his wound, but he had looked pleased.
“I do not know how you were able to tolerate them,” Matthew muttered as Albert sat beside him.
“Did you see how every one of them wanted to touch me and coo?” Albert laughed. “I will admit that I was irritated in the beginning but their pretty faces revived my spirits.”
A pretty face appeared in Matthew’s mind and he smiled, stretching his arm again.
“That bothering you today?” Albert asked, his brows creasing with concern.
“It has been bothering me for several days. I suppose that is what happens when you have a chunk of flesh missing from your back.” Matthew chuckled as he said that and Albert winced playfully.
“You did not have to say it as you did, Matthew! Where is your sense of propriety?” They jested about their wounds because it helped them cope.
“I never had it.” He reached up to pluck a leaf from a low-hanging branch and twirled it between his fingers. “Bert, have you ever felt conflicted about two women in your life?”
Albert stared at him with wide eyes. “You have two women in your life?”
Matthew smiled, understanding his friend’s surprise. He had not been with a woman for a long while. “I met the loveliest creature I have ever had the pleasure of setting eyes upon last night.”
“You want her but you are still loyal to a memory,” Albert finished for him.
“Yes.” He did not want to tell him that he had found Dee because he was unsure which of them was her.
“Who are these ladies you speak of?”
