Rosy laughed. “To perfection, is it? I daresay I’ve never had anything on my person done to perfection. But my hair certainly needs taming before I can be displayed to our dinner guests.”
Just as Geoffrey was about to pay her a compliment, she darted off. “We have a conservatory?” he asked his mother.
“Of course,” she said lightly, although she seemed distracted. “Don’t all dukes have them?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t yet met any other dukes. I suspect they’re hiding in their houses from the hordes of women who want to snag them as lovers or husbands.” He shook his head. “Do you know that in the past few weeks, every time I show up at a meeting, some fellow I met while speaking somewhere else is waiting to introduce me to his sister or cousin or even his mother? How old do the chaps think I am anyway?”
His mother said nothing, staring off into space. “I didn’t think we had any roses in the conservatory. I believe I shall go check.”
“Wait a moment, Mother. What time is it?” Geoffrey pulled out his favorite pocket watch, which his grandfather had given him upon his coming of age. “Excellent. We have an hour or more, so you have time to go hunting for roses, and I have time to drink a whisky.” And Diana has time to dress.
He hoped she did anyway. His insistence that she join them for dinner wasn’t intended to add to her worries over how everything was transpiring.
“It’s fine,” Mother said. “I’ll look for the roses after dinner is over. It isn’t as if they’d escape the conservatory on their own.”
“True,” he said with a laugh.
Geoffrey spent the next hour in blissful solitude in his study. None of the servants dared disturb him there, and no one other than Mother and Diana knew where he was. That was something to be said for being a duke. At least he was accorded some measure of quiet, especially in a house this large. In Newcastle, they lived in a nice house, but modestly sized, so quiet had been hard-won.
That was probably why Mother kept asking when they would move from Newcastle to the ducal estate, Castle Grenwood, situated on the River Ouse in Yorkshire. His answer was always, “When Rosy marries.” But the move might have to happen sooner, so they could establish themselves in the town before the gossip in Newcastle followed them.
A knock sounded at the door to his study. He sighed. It must be time for dinner.
When he said, “Enter,” it proved to be Diana. But no Diana he’d hitherto seen.
“Your mother sent me to fetch you. . . .”
She trailed off as he sprang to his feet. He couldn’t help staring at her. Her golden dress glittered even in the candlelight, turning her into a goddess. The requisite puffy short sleeves barely clung to her shoulders, and the black trim of the bodice seemed to emphasize the fullness of her breasts. It would be so easy to pull those sleeves all the way off her shoulders and lift her breasts out of their hiding place so he could—
Bloody hell. He had to stop gawking at them, but it was hard. He was growing hard, and that would not do. Swiftly, he shifted his gaze up to her auburn curls, which for some reason drew his attention to her full and winsome mouth. He wanted to kiss it so badly he could taste it. Taste her.
“Will this gown do?” she asked nervously when he continued to be silent.
“Most certainly,” was all he managed to eke out. At her frown, he hastily added, “You look as beautiful as your namesake.” You steal my breath. You weaken my resolve. You are more dangerous to me than a bridge crumbling.
No, he mustn’t say any of that. She would consider it encouragement.
And now she was looking at him oddly. “My namesake is my great-aunt Diana.”
“I was referring to the namesake of all Dianas: the Roman goddess of the hunt.”
She smiled coyly. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a classicist.”
“Newcastle-upon-Tyne Academy, remember? I did absorb some of that education beyond mathematics or physics. Besides, for a while my father had a particularly good oil painting in his study of Diana bathing. You could have been her twin.”
She arched one brow. “Let me guess—she was half-undressed.”
“Not at all. She was fully undressed.” He grinned. “Which, for some reason, my mother found utterly appalling.”
“What a surprise.” She was obviously struggling not to laugh. “I believe my father has a similar painting in his study. The subject seems to be a favorite among gentlemen. Very classical.”
“So your father is a classicist, too?”
“In much the same way you are, I would imagine,” she said dryly.
At that moment, he realized he’d as much as said he’d imagined her without clothes. To which any gently bred woman would take offense.
That he had indeed imagined her without clothes wasn’t the point. He had to move this conversation into tamer waters. “Perhaps I should start over with a more gentlemanly approach. Lady Diana, you look very beautiful in that gown.”