Free Diana the Huntress by MC Beaton Page A

come up from the country, made them feel you were an easy mark. It was as well I followed you. I shall put a token protest to the authorities, but I doubt if they will give it much heed.’
    ‘It’s disgraceful,’ said Diana. ‘But why did you follow me, my lord?’
    ‘Because I was already regretting having invited you to London. Also, it is a long time since I have held a woman in my arms and I am not one to scorn such easy pickings … Miss Armitage .’
    ‘You know ?’
    ‘From almost the first. You must be Diana.’
    Diana miserably hung her head.
    ‘I thought so. You are too old to be Frederica and the four married ones are famous for their beauty’ … Diana winced … ‘and for the great love they have for their respective husbands. Why do you masquerade as a man?’
    ‘Because I have a great love of the chase,’ said Diana, sitting down in a chair beside the bedroom fire. ‘Papa said I might hunt provided I disguised myself.’
    ‘Shocking, but understandable,’ he said, coming to stand over her. ‘But what of the rest? Where does your father believe you to be?’
    ‘With Lady Godolphin in Hanover Square. You see, I arrived there and pretended to be my own servant. Although I was supposed to arrive last Wednesday, I altered Papa’s letter so she does not expect me until next Wednesday. I am … you see, it is all very hard to explain. I am to make my come-out next Season and Lady Godolphin is to teach me how to go on. I dread the thought of wearing silly gowns and simpering and flirting and not ever again being able to hunt. No one knew I had been at your home. There was no scandal. I only wanted one week of freedom.’
    ‘And what is wrong with finding a husband and bearing his children? Women are fit for naught else.’
    ‘They must be. There must be more to life for a woman than a life given over to triviality.’
    ‘Most of the gentlemen at this hotel,’ he said drily, ‘live lives completely given up to pleasure. Had you, Miss Diana, been born into a lower order of society, then you would have had to work from sun-up to sundown. The fact that the good Lord has seen fit to put you in a higher station should be enough for you. Think you not that the scullery maid does not envy the ladies who go to balls and routs dressed in their finest?’
    ‘I can ride better than most men,’ said Diana. ‘And my father taught me to fish and shoot.’
    ‘Then, what would you? Do you wish to become one of the half creatures, neither fish nor fowl? Shame on you, Miss Diana. Stand up!’
    Diana miserably rose to her feet and he seized her by the shoulders and twisted her about so that she was facing the mirror above the mantel.
    ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Neither handsome man nor pretty woman. Look, Miss Diana Armitage.’
    Diana looked. Her rough-cut hair was standing out around her face in spiky curls. Soot had blackened her nose at either side of her nostrils and her cravat was a limp, soot-spotted rag. There was a smut of soot on her forehead. She wrenched herself out of his grasp and went and washed her face at the toilet table, noticing, despite her humiliation and misery, that flecks of soot were floating in the washing water.
    She scrubbed her face dry with a towel and then turned to face him, some of her courage returning. ‘If,’ she said coldly, ‘you knew me to be a woman, then whydid you keep up the pretence? Why do you think I sought your company?’
    He smiled, a wicked glint in his eyes.
    ‘I thought the reasons obvious, Miss Armitage. I have possessed a considerable fortune for some time. I am used to all the subterfuges to trap me into marriage. I merely thought this one was more original than the others.’
    ‘You conceited coxcomb,’ said Diana, outraged. ‘You thought that I had a tendre for you .’
    ‘It has been known.’
    ‘Insufferable!’ Beside herself with rage, Diana crossed the room and slapped him full in the face.
    He clipped her arms behind her back and held her