“We can return to Newcastle anytime you like, you know,” Mother said, sparing a severe look for Geoffrey.
“No.” Rosy mused a moment. “I like all the things to do in London. And once I marry . . .”
“What happened to your promise to keep house for me wherever I went?” he teased.
“You’ll have Diana for that,” she said simply.
His mother stared at her. “Is there something you know that I don’t?”
“I just think . . . they would make a grand couple,” Rosy said. “Don’t you?”
“I certainly do.” Mother looked over at him. “So you should take care of that as soon as possible, Son.”
He sighed. “I’m working on it.”
“You are not,” his mother said. “You’re sitting here with us.”
“I see,” he said with a faint smile. “You’re trying to push me out the door now.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Mother said.
“And I know it hasn’t been a whole week,” Rosy added, “but since I’ve had thirty visits in four days, I should think you still have every reason to go there and pay them double their fee.”
“How do you figure that?” he asked. “Not that I mean not to pay it—I already told Lady Diana that I would, because I was so impressed by their efforts. But technically four days is not a week.”
“The number of visitors averages out to five a day.”
He lifted a brow. “Five times seven is thirty-five.”
“You said a week. I assumed you meant six days because no one pays visits on Sunday.”
When she shot him a triumphant smile, Geoffrey couldn’t help it—he had to laugh. “You are going to lead some poor fellow a merry dance, poppet. Now, I have to go.”
“To see Diana?” she asked hopefully.
“That will have to wait until tomorrow, I’m afraid. I have to meet with some of my investors at the Old Goat Tavern. The meeting has been scheduled for weeks.”
In the meantime, he had some thinking to do about how to manage a shifting world where more people knew of his father’s issues than he’d realized. Not to mention he needed to consider everything Diana had said. He began to think she had a point. There might be a middle solution to his problem.
Or they might have to just wait it out. And if she was willing to wait it out with him, as his wife . . . “But tomorrow,” he said to Rosy and Mother, “I will put on my best clothes and march right over there.”
After which he hoped he could coax Diana somewhere they could be together for a while. Four days of not seeing her or touching her was too many days by any calculation.
* * *
Diana sat at breakfast, alone as usual, but this time because Eliza was at a client’s house looking over the woman’s pianoforte and harp while Verity consulted with the woman’s cook. Clothes were not the issue in this case. Lady Sinclair had exquisite taste in that respect and always had.
Diana had expected Geoffrey to take a day or two to think through all that they’d said to each other. But four days? It made her despair.
Norris walked in. “His Grace, the Duke of Grenwood, to see Lady Diana. Shall I send him away, my lady?”
She rose, her heart thundering in her chest. “You mean he didn’t follow right on your heels as usual?”
“No, my lady. He was very specific that I should announce him and wait to see if you were at home to him.”
Who said a boorish duke couldn’t learn from his mistakes? The very fact that he was following a few societal rules for a change was taking her breath away. At least he was here at last. “Please show him up.” When Norris lifted a brow, as if to question her lack of chaperone, she said firmly, “Now, Norris.”
“Yes, my lady.”