"You beat her?"
"Don't be stupid, Diana! Your ten minutes are up. You may now take your leave."
"And you will go back upstairs to her?"
"Listen, you twit, a gentleman does not install a mistress in his home."
"She is hidden away, then."
"Not exactly. Well, just a bit. A gentleman is discreet."
"Not very if you make yourself sick with overindulgence."
He was forced to smile at that image, a very real one in this case. "Yes," he said, "I did overindulge." He caught himself in that instant, fully aware that this conversation was most improper and that he was, at least normally, a gentleman. "I want you to leave now. And remember, little Diana ---"
"Little Diana? That is most inaccurate of you, Lyon."
"Oh, just leave, Diana. I am exhausted and I will not take you to Almack's this evening if I do not garner my strength."
"What shall I tell Aunt Lucia?"
"That, you silly chit, is your problem. I do recommend, however, that you do not inform her that you burst into my home with only your footman in attendance and threatened my butler that you would roust me out of my bed."
"Then what shall I say?"
"All right. Now that you have admitted that you are in need of my superior intelligence and experience ---"
"Lyonel, you are drawing dangerously close to drowning in two inches of water."
"--- I will send Kenworthy about again to inform her of the plans. Come along now."
She rose, frowning at him, and walked beside him into the ornate entrance hall. She stopped a moment and stared around her. "This place is rather overwhelming."
"What you mean to say is that it is blessed with nauseating bad taste. You will have to take that up with the spirit world. My grandfather is responsible, not I."
"And now, of course, you have no time to redecorate."
She chuckled, unaware that Jamison was standing stiffly in the shadow of a very large, dead-white and naked Greek statue, eyes agog and ears at attention. "I trust you will be in a better humor by this evening?"
"It will tax me, but I shall try." He lowered his voice. "And, Diana, do remember that when I decide to beat you, you will be beaten, and most thoroughly."
"When? How certain you are of your own strength. I look forward to your howls of pain."
"That is ridiculous. Jamison!" He cursed again, and Diana, curse her, laughed. "Get thee gone. Now."
"More Shakespeare." She leaned closer and said in a stage whisper, "Surely you must now admit to the rake part.
"
"Yes, most thoroughly," he said through his teeth. He nodded to the now-present Titwiller, and the butler opened the door.
"Until tonight, Miss Savarol."
"I look forward to it with great interest, my lord."
"Impertinent chit," he said under his breath, and made his way back upstairs to bed.
Almack's on King Street, was a disappointment to Diana. She looked around, sighed even with her feet happily encased in new, larger slippers, and prepared to be bored. The place was drafty as a barn, the refreshments, she quickly noted, niggardly, but the company, the glitter of jewels, the sound of the orchestra playing a country danceShe rather hoped that Charlotte would be here. At least it would enliven the evening when she wasn't dancing. Lyonel, in the requisite evening garb of black knee breeches, looked lovely, at least that is what Diana thought, forcing herself to utter objectivity. Odd how the black evening clothes made his blue eyes all the more vivid.