Free Jo Beverley - [Malloren] by Devilish

heart missed a beat, but she instantly recovered. “He doesn’t worry about passing on his madness through her?”
    “Rumor says she is barren.”
    “Convenient.” Diana realized that yet again she waswrapped up in the marquess and his affairs. It seemed like a thorny thicket, snagging her whichever way she turned.
    “She’s very striking, too,” Rosa was saying. “In a foreign style.”
    Something suddenly struck Diana. “Are you saying the Mallorens introduced you to her? To a member of the demimonde?”
    “Of course not. I really shouldn’t have called her his mistress. It’s only hinted at. She’s a scholar and poet who holds select salons. I went to one with Brand.”
    A scholar and poet. Though well-educated, Diana was neither of those things. A painful little knot formed inside her, and she had the dreadful feeling that it might be jealousy.
    Obsessive curiosity was bad enough. Jealousy would be the final ridiculous straw!
    “A formidable mind?” she asked, only because she had to say something. “So that is what draws the marquess to a woman.”
    They had reached the big open doors to the barn, where merry dance music greeted them. “They certainly seem to have a great deal in common,” Rosa said. “Elegance. Intellect. They both seem as self-sufficient as silky, aristocratic cats.”
    “Cats?” Diana queried in surprise. “Hard to imagine Lord Rothgar sprawled bonelessly on someone’s lap purring.”
    Rosa smothered a hoot of laughter. “Oh, I don’t know. He must be human once in a while.”
    Diana forced a grin, but she knew she was blushing. Comments like that made her sharply aware of how little she really knew of the business of intimacy.
    Men sprawled on laps? Purring?
    Lord Rothgar?
    She couldn’t help trying to imagine it, but despite having read books of the most explicit kind, she failed. All the same, as an imaginary notion, it swirled in her brain …
    Flute, fiddle, and drum rang around her, and within the barn happy couples skipped up and down lines. Other people sat around chatting, and she glimpsed quite a few young couples in quiet corners stealing a moment for courtingconversation or even kisses. One swain rubbed his head against his companion’s in a movement that was strangely catlike—
    “Curiosity satisfied?” Rosa asked.
    “I’m not curious,” Diana instinctively protested, but then pulled a face. There was no hiding it. Seeing a group of young children, she allowed herself one more indulgence. “I saw him with his little nephew.”
    “Remarkable, isn’t it? Even shocking in a way. Like seeing an infant with a tiger. But he seems genuinely fond of them all.”
    Lord Steen’s daughters—flushed and bright-eyed—were being included in the adult dances, but Diana saw young Arthur stamping and swaying to the music with the other small children.
    Lord Bryght’s copper-haired infant sprawled asleep in his mother’s arms where she sat with two local matrons as if she were just another gentleman’s wife.
    One of the other ladies, Mrs. Knowlsworth, broke off what she was saying to pay attention to a young girl who had run up with a complaint of some sort.
    A dancing child—her cousin Sukey’s second, she thought—tumbled and was picked up and soothed …
    Another world.
    The world of mothers and children.
    Not for her.
    Never for her, for she had rank and privileges granted to few women.
    “You’re right,” she said crisply. “The marquess should marry. I’m surprised someone hasn’t persuaded him.”
    “That his mother wasn’t mad?”
    “That it’s worth the risk.”
    “Apparently Lord Bryght tried not long ago. I gather it was not a pretty scene.”
    Diana might have weakened and probed for details on that if Lord Brand hadn’t come into the barn then. The look in his eyes, when he spotted his bride almost stopped her breath.
    “I think your husband is growing impatient, Rosa.”
    Rosa turned, lovely color flushing her smiling face. Shelaughed