Those other words might well describe Lord Bryant, but she couldn’t actually call him any of those things.

Lord Bryant frowned. “You don’t want their heads turned by a gentleman?”

“By a gentleman like you,” Diana repeated.

Lord Bryant held both hands over his heart as if he had been wounded, but Diana knew him well enough to know that disparaging his character didn’t actually wound him. If anything, he seemed to enjoy it.

With an extra adult, there weren’t quite enough chairs at the table, so Charlotte pulled Drue onto her lap. Tommy and Diana both took their seats, leaving the last chair open for Lord Bryant. All the chairs in the nursery were built on the smaller side, but not so small as to make them uncomfortable for Diana and Charlotte. Lord Bryant seemed to dwarf his. He managed to get his knees under the table but only just.

Mrs. Jenkins arrived with another tea setting for Lord Bryant, then dallied about until Charlotte told her she could go.

Tommy’s and Drue’s eyes never left Lord Bryant. It seemed as though everyone was captivated by this new stranger.

Diana didn’t blame them.

“How did you and Lord Bryant meet?” Charlotte asked.

Immediately, visions of her standing outside Lord Bryant’s home in the rain flashed into Diana’s mind. She couldn’t tell her friend that she had rushed to his home in the late evening and demanded his help.

Lord Bryant curled his lip, as if he could read her mind. He knew exactly what she was thinking. He turned to Charlotte, and Diana held her breath. What would he tell her friend? “I first met Miss Barton at her brother’s wedding.”

Oh, the truth. Her back relaxed. Lord Bryant may not be on her side, exactly, but he had proven himself very capable of subterfuge. He would manage to keep the worst of Diana’s behaviors to himself. She didn’t need Charlotte thinking any worse about him than she already was.

“You are a friend of Mr. Barton’s?” Charlotte’s question was innocent enough. She was doing an excellent imitation of someone who hadn’t warned Diana to stay away from Lord Bryant.

Lord Bryant placed both hands on his thighs and straightened. “Yes.”

One of his good lies. Diana tucked her lips into her mouth, begging herself not to laugh. Nate would never call Lord Bryant a friend. Lord Bryant was one of the very few people Nate despised.

The more Lord Bryant talked, the more Tommy and Drue relaxed, until they even answered a few of his questions. Charlotte managed to smile at a few of the things he said. She wasn’t charmed by him, like so many women were. Charlotte was much too intelligent for that, but her words did come out less forced.

“Where is your little sister?” Lord Bryant asked Tommy.

“She is sleeping,” Tommy said, and Drue pointed to the adjacent bedroom. “She sleeps a lot.”

“Ah, to be young again,” Lord Bryant said.

“Young as a babe?” Diana asked. She couldn’t imagine Lord Bryant as a child. He would have been handsome. He probably caused his mother all kinds of trouble. Actually, she could picture him quite well. A spoiled young Lord, given anything he ever wanted and never being punished. It was no wonder he had turned out the way he had, expecting everyone to do his bidding.