From the understanding on Edmund’s face, she wondered if he had guessed her thoughts.
“Would you like me to arrange for the carriage to be ready shortly? There is no need to be here late if you would rather go home to your parents. I must speak to Lady Katherine and will then see to it if you give me the word.”
Diana glanced back at Andrew and noticed him now looking at her with slightly narrowed eyes, another drink in his hand. She did not like the expression on his face.
“Please do, yes. Thank you,” she managed to say to Edmund, and he slipped away with a nod back to Kitty’s side.
Andrew detached himself from the drinks tray and walked towards Diana then. She steeled herself for a further uncomfortable conversation. Would it be another story of drunkenness and gaming exploits or more inappropriate comments?
“Would you take a walk with me tomorrow, Cousin Diana?” he asked abruptly.
“Walk with you?” Diana repeated, startled and confused.
“Well yes,” Andrew said impatiently, misinterpreting her surprise. “There’s no need to be so shy. We’ll be sharing a bed in a few weeks’ time, so I hardly think taking a walk is inappropriate."
“Oh, Andrew! You have been out of England a long time,” his mother chided, affection overlaying any attempt to be truly severe. “You must mind your manners when you talk to a lady. Look how the poor child is blushing.”
“Well, she is going to be my wife,” Andrew said, irked by his mother’s fussing and clearly unable to see any problem in his address to Diana.
The rest of the room had fallen silent around them. Andrew’s indelicacy was acutely embarrassing, and Diana did not immediately know how to respond to it.
“You will get used to his ways, dear,” Lady Birks said to her niece in a stage whisper, as though Andrew had merely said something eccentric or puzzling.
Diana’s instinct was to refuse Andrew’s crude request outright, but how could she? Henrietta was now smiling beatifically at them again in joyful anticipation of their forthcoming nuptials. Percy was looking on with helplessness and expectancy. Diana thought of her father lying semi-conscious in his sickbed with her mother by his side.
“Of course, I will take a walk with you, Cousin Andrew. When shall I expect your visit?”
“Andrew and I will come to Fernside for nuncheon, and the two of you can walk together after that,” Lady Birks proposed. “It will be quite wonderful for your mother to see the two of you getting along so well. Perhaps I will bring Kitty too if these young gentlemen will keep her entertained.”
Diana found herself giving yet another silent nod and wishing that the ground would swallow her up.
Andrew was already back at the drinks tray fixing himself another whisky and soda, indifferent to his mother’s arrangements or Diana’s discomfort. She noticed how careless and clumsy his hands seemed as he rattled the bottles and glasses, and his lack of consideration for anyone else as he again failed to offer drinks to his guests.
Jacob had moved to the table with the coffee pot tray and offered the ladies more coffee before he poured his own. Again, Diana was struck by the relative lack of attendants at Hayward House. Normally, after dinner at Fernside, at least one member of staff would help to serve coffee and drinks in the drawing room unless dismissed by the family.
The lack of staff present might also explain the thick layers of dusk apparent on mantelpieces, shelves, clocks, and ornaments. It seemed as though little housework had been done for far longer than Henrietta had been ensconced in the Dower House at Fernside.
Miserably, Diana watched Kitty conversing easily with Edmund, a beaming smile on her face, and his own features as kindly, handsome, and attentive as they always were. Diana looked away and occupied herself for some minutes by examining a selection of small ornaments in a glass case in the corner.
“All worthless rubbish,” Andrew commented, appearing suddenly at her shoulder again. “Pater was a collector, but not one with any taste. When I had that lot valued, they were only worth a pittance. Silly old fool.”
Shocked at how he spoke about his dead father, Diana did not know how to reply.
“I must speak to Kitty,” she said, turning away from him with the first excuse she could think of and walking blindly across the room, wishing again that there were somewhere she could hide.
“Diana?” Edmund asked her for a second time as Kitty put her hand on Diana’s arm to attract her attention. She had almost walked straight past them. “Kitty and I have made the necessary arrangements, and the coach will be ready in fifteen minutes. Would you like more coffee while you wait?”
“Oh, no, thank you so much. I won’t sleep,” Diana said once she realized that she was being addressed and then looked away quickly from Edmund’s face to smile unconvincingly at her cousin instead.
Looking into those green eyes now, even for one brief moment, was both compelling and painful.
While she had hoped that her experiences with Edmund would make it easier to experience the physical side of marriage, she realized that it was only going to make it harder. Because Andrew wasn’t Edmund and never could be.
ChapterNine
Diana awoke early the following morning, a feeling of utter hopelessness enveloping her as soon as she opened her eyes and remembered the previous evening and all that lay ahead for her in the coming weeks, months, and years.
“…you will still be going to London, but as the wife of a man of consequence rather than a foolish young débutante…”