On These Silken Sheets by Sabrina Darby

Author:Sabrina Darby
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Earnestina had decided, at the very last minute, that she wanted to throw another little soiree before she moved her household to Brighton for the summer season. She had confided in Diana that she feared she’d have to stretch to fill the rooms. Apparently more people were still in London than other social events suggested, for her rooms had grown stiflingly hot with the press of human bodies and the summer heat lingering in the evening air.

Diana found little enjoyment in the evening. For the first time in years, she had no wish to flirt, no wish to be near any but her closest friends. Even there, pleasure was forestalled. Maggie and Oakley were nauseatingly in love. Watching their little touches and glances when they thought no one noticed made her feel vaguely ill.

Diana escaped to the terrace as soon as she could.

She should be happy for her cousin. Love was rare currency. Diana wasn’t even certain she knew what it looked like.

For a week she had been infatuated with her first lover, Patrick, the first man she had slept with who wasn’t her husband. But that had paled when she learned that her late husband had hired the man to satisfy her since he no longer could.

The romantic glow had faded quickly.

When she had run into the Irishman, her former lover, a year later, at a benefit for the theater, not even the slightest twinge of desire flittered through her body. He was just a man. She knew now how similar and interchangeable all men were.

Still, these last years she’d courted male attention, basking in the flirtation and sexual undercurrents.

Perhaps all she needed was the change of scene another week would bring.

“There you are!”

Diana shifted slightly to face Lord Ashburton as he joined her by the rail. “Here I am,” she agreed, smiling. She considered Ash a friend as much as she considered his wife one.

“I am sent to drag you back inside, to meet my cousin, Colonel Tiptain. He said, ‘Introduce me to the fairest woman in London,’ and here I am. Although I’m not certain I should.”

“And why is that?” Diana asked, knowing he wanted her to. She turned to lean against the rail, her elbows resting on the polished wood.

Ash leaned closer to her, a teasing grin quirking his lips.

“Because I’ll be awfully jealous if he manages to snatch up the loveliest, shapeliest woman I know.”

“You’re too kind.” Diana looked away, a smile curving her mouth. She almost couldn’t help the intake of breath that pushed her breasts up, enlarging the exposed upper curve of flesh. The flirtation was too much second nature to her.

She laughed and turned back to him, meeting his eyes to let him in on the joke, that it was silly that they should talk this way, two friends who would never in reality choose to mate.

“He was in India, right?”

“Yes, and wounded, too, which is why he’s back, but it hasn’t taken away his sense of fun. He’ll be accompanying us all to fair Brighthelmstone.

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