“That is so like my daughter,” Mama crowed. “Always kind to the less fortunate.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
This was ridiculous. Diana couldn’t ruin herself when she tried.
She caught Aaron’s gaze. She knew they were sharing the same thought. They could let the mistaken assumption stand. Everything could be settled without any scandal at all.
But I don’t want to hide it, she told him with her eyes.
He nodded in agreement. “It’s all right. Tell the truth.”
Her heart beat faster. “You’re wrong, Mother. I went to Mr. Dawes’s cottage after he was finished tending to Mr. Maidstone. I . . . I spent the night there.”
Her mother laughed, incredulous. “Well, whyever would you do that?”
Diana smacked a palm to her forehead. Did she have to draw every conclusion with pen and ink? “We were making love!”
Now the tavern went stone silent.
Mama snorted. “I’m sure I don’t believe that. I’d sooner believe you were a thief.”
“It’s the truth, Mrs. Highwood,” Aaron said. “Whether you believe it or not. And I’m here to ask Miss Highwood to marry me.”
From his breast pocket he removed a ring and laid it on the table. A gold band shaped like two entwined vines, with golden leaves bracketing a ruby-and-diamond bloom.
She pressed a hand to her heart. Oh, it was lovely. His best work yet. How he must have slaved over the design.
“Miss Highwood.” Aaron cleared his throat and moved as though he would kneel. “Diana, I—”
“Stop!” Mama cried.
Aaron froze in an awkward half crouch.
“How can you expect me to allow this?” Mama glared at him. “How dare you impugn my Diana’s honor in this fashion! Grasping, awful man. Of course you’d leap at the opportunity to rescue her from these silly thieving suspicions, hoping she’ll marry you in gratitude. It’s not as though a man like you would have a chance at her otherwise. But I tell you, your scheme won’t work.”
“It’s not a scheme,” Diana said. “And he has more than ‘a chance’ with me, Mama. I love Aaron. And I am going to marry him.”
Diana reached for the ring he’d laid on the table.
Her mother smacked her hand away. Smacked it, as though Diana were a three-year-old child.
Diana simmered with anger. She was not a child. She was all grown up, and her mother was about to learn the truth of it.
“Mama,” she said coolly, “listen to me closely. I am in love with Mr. Dawes. I have been for some time. I collected his pieces from the All Things shop because I admired him. We shared our first kiss in the vicar’s curricle. He introduced me to his sister on our excursion to Hastings. I tried to kill an eel for him. I shot at a robber who threatened him. And last night . . . ?” She lifted her voice. “We. Were. Making. Love. In a bed. All night long. It was hot and sweaty and glorious. I left scratches on his back. He has a freckle just to the right of his navel. And if you don’t believe all that . . .”
She ripped her cloak open and threw it aside, exposing Aaron’s black, sooty handprint on her breast. “Here. See for yourself.”
Several moments passed, during which the only sound was the mad thump of her heartbeat in her ears.
Then someone shrieked.
Strange. Diana had expected a measure of shock at her revelations, but that seemed a bit extreme, shrieking.
Now another girl screamed.
And another. “It’s a rat!”
A rat?
Oh, God. It was a rat. A long-tailed, bewhiskered rat, big as a bread loaf, with a pink, twitching nose. The creature scampered onto the table—and absconded with the ring.
Her ring.
Aaron cursed and lunged to get it back.
“Mr. Evermoore!” Miss Bertram leaped to her feet. “Mr. Evermoore, no! You come back here right now.”
In an instant, the tavern was in upheaval. Some of the ladies jumped on chairs and tables. Others reached for any makeshift truncheon close at hand. Pots, pans, stray copies of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom.
“I knew it!” Charlotte cried in vindication. “I knew all along the thief had to be Miss Bertram.”
“I don’t think it was her,” Diana said. “I mean, obviously it was her . . . her pet. She must have left the rat behind last night while everyone went to Ambervale.”
“The little bastard’s over here,” Mr. Fosbury shouted. “In the kitchen.”
There was a crash of glass. Followed by an explosion of flour.
Mama crumpled into the nearest chair, her eyes rolling back in a dead faint. Just as well.
“Oh, please don’t kill him!” Miss Bertram sobbed. “He can’t help taking things. But he’s so intelligent. You don’t understand. Oh, Mr. Evermoore.”
Diana cringed at her sister. “ ‘No one understands our attachment.’ Isn’t that what she always said?”
Charlotte shuddered. “I don’t understand it, either. I don’t want to.”
The two of them laughed uneasily.