Hunt sat back and regarded her. “I’m still not comfortable with your solution.”
“Do you have a better one? I cannot pay the man twenty thousand pounds. That’s impossible. I will not turn over my entire life to him.”
“I agree. But you must give me some time to consider our next step.”
She smiled brightly for the first time in days. “Our next step?”
* * *
Diana awoke the next morning with a sense of well-being that had been noticeably absent for the past week. Hunt was going to help her. She still believed the best—and possibly only—resolution was to remove the portrait from the studio and burn it.
She told Hunt that when Mr. Mallory came to her house with the portrait, he said he would give her two weeks, and then he would sell it. One week had already passed while she went around in circles trying to think of what to do, and then chasing down Hunt to help her.
She tossed aside those gloomy thoughts, along with the counterpane, and leapt from the bed. Marguerite knocked softly and entered the room. “Good morning, my lady.”
“Good morning to you, as well. ‘Tis a fine day, is it not?”
Marguerite crossed the room, opening the drapes. “You seem quite chipper this morning.”
“Yes.” Diana stretched. “I feel good. In fact, I believe I will take a ride to the park this morning. Can you ask Briggs to notify the mews to tack my horse? And I’ll take one of the footmen with me.”
“Yes, my lady. I will lay out your riding habit.”
Feeling quite uplifted, Diana washed and dressed and sat for Marguerite to do her hair in a fashionable chignon. With one quick look in the mirror to adjust the feather in her hat that curled toward her lips, Diana smiled and left the room.
As if to match her mood, bright sun warmed the balmy morning air, casting a glow over the tree-lined street. Diana headed down the steps to where Charles, one of her footmen, held the reins of her Chestnut mare, Lady Poppy.
She loved the horse that was given to her by her father before he became more interested in his second family. Diana spent many hours flying over the hills at her estate, her hair streaming behind her as she flew over hedges. Of course riding in London was a bit more decorous, but it felt good to be out and about.
She fed Lady Poppy the apple she had in her pocket and ran her palm down the mare’s velvet nose.
Once Charles helped her mount, he climbed onto another mare from her small stable, and they trotted down the road, turning right, toward Hyde Park.
She breathed in the fresh air and relished the warmth from the sun on her face. Grandmama would certainly chastise her for not keeping her face covered, but occasionally it felt good not to worry about maintaining her pure white skin.
Her good cheer dimmed a bit. Grandmama had been her chaperone and champion for many years, and every day without her etched another hole in Diana’s heart.
Only a few months after Papa’s second wife had taken over the only home Diana had ever known, Lady Abbott had arrived on Diana’s doorstep, along with numerous pieces of luggage, trunks of books, and a small dog clutched snug against her side by a hand with more rings than fingers. She had swept past the butler and announced to the startled governess that she had come to raise her g
randdaughter.
Diana had hidden behind her governess’s skirts, taking peeks at the formidable woman who smelled of roses and stood only a few inches above Diana. In a very loud and determined voice, Grandmama declared to anyone listening that, despite a new stepmother—she sniffed—she, and she alone, would see to the welfare of her only child’s only child. It was years later that Diana learned Grandmama had never approved of the match between Diana’s parents. More telling was the fact that Papa had not objected to the removal of his daughter.
Diana, Grandmama, and Diana’s governess, Miss Blackstone, departed a few weeks later. Papa, and particularly the new Lady Rockingham, were not happy with the addition of the formidable woman to his household.
They then traveled to Grandmama’s manor home, right next to Hunt’s family estate, far from London and nestled in the lovely hills of Yorkshire, full of wild flowers, woods and snug cottages.
That was where she’d spent the next nine years before they returned to London for Diana’s come-out, two years before Grandmama’s death. They were marvelous years of learning, growing, exploring, and becoming the woman with whom she was quite happy and satisfied. All thanks to Lady Abbottt.
Lord, how she missed that woman! Lady Abbott had been eccentric and outspoken and loved her granddaughter to distraction. From the time Diana had arrived at her estate, she’d received more attention and care then she’d seen all the years under her parents’ ministrations. Or lack thereof.
Pushing those memories from her mind, lest she turn maudlin, she and Charles began their ride on Rotten Row with a few others out for an early ride. ‘Twas not usual to see members of the ton out and about so early since most would have attended some sort of social affair the evening before and arrived home barely before dawn.
She stopped and chatted with the few people they met and, after about an hour, feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world, Diana returned with her groom to her townhouse in Mayfair.
“Please ask Cook to send in breakfast. I am quite hungry, and I will be down as soon as I change my clothes.” Diana spoke over her shoulder to Briggs as she made her way up to the bed chambers where Marguerite had already straightened her room and had her day gown laid out for her.
She loved the yellow, thin-striped, linen dress; ‘twas one of her favorites. Marguerite added a bright yellow ribbon to her hair and, with a very unladylike grumble in her stomach, Diana entered the breakfast room.