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Chapter Three
After admonishing the boys that the hoydenish behaviour allowed in the park would not be tolerated in an establishment that served cakes, Alastair shepherded his young charges and Lord James Mannington’s nursemaid across Pulteney Bridge, down High Street, around the Abbey and into the bakery off North Parade that served the famous buns. In a mechanical daze, he ordered cakes for the boys and the blushing maid, dismissing with a distracted wave her protest that he need not include her in the treat.
It was good that both boys had learned their manners well—or that the presence of the nursemaid restrained them. For with his mind whirling like a child’s top, he could not afterwards recall a single thing they’d said or done at the shop.
Melted butter congealing on the bun set before him, Alastair went over again and again in his mind the exchange between himself and Diana—particularly the last bit, when he, incredibly, had offered her carte blanche and she, even more incredibly, had accepted.
If he’d had more time after that fraught final exchange, he probably would have retracted the hasty words, perhaps covering the naked need they’d revealed by delivering the stinging response that he’d only been joking, for Diana did not meet the minimum standards for beauty, wit and charm that he required of a mistress.
Instead, he’d done nothing, standing mute as a statue while she walked away.
Regardless of how he felt over her former treatment, he should be ashamed of himself for tendering such an insulting offer. To a dowager duchess, no less, who now outranked him on the social scale by several large leaps! As soon as he arrived back at his room at the Crescent, he should write her a note of apology, recanting the offer.
And yet... For the first time, he admitted to himself what meeting Diana again had made only too painfully clear. Despite the bold assertion to the contrary he’d given his sister, he had never really got over losing her. Every woman he’d met since had been measured against her and found lacking; every mistress he’d bedded had been physically reminiscent of her, unconsciously chosen to blot her out of his mind and senses.
None ever had.
Since Diana had accepted his offer, maybe he should go through with it. After all, there was no way the real woman could measure up to the romantic vision his youthful, poetic soul had once idolised...especially after how she’d treated him. Marrying a duke to ‘save’ him? What kind of dupe did she take him to be?
Maybe possessing her now would finally burn out of him the pain and yearning that had haunted him so long.
Like a thief lured into a dwelling through an unlocked window, now that his mind had tumbled on to the possibility of an affair, he couldn’t keep himself from exploring it further. The desire she so readily evoked, banked rather than extinguished, raged back into flame.
Anticipation, excitement and eagerness boiled in his blood, and only by reminding himself that two young innocents and their virginal nursemaid sat mere feet away, was he able to restrain his mind from picturing himself possessing her.
He’d do it, then. Unless Diana sent a note rescinding her acceptance, he would go through with it.
After sending her son and the maid home in a sedan chair, Alastair hurried the now-sleepy Robbie up to the heights of the Crescent. As soon as he’d dispatched the boy back to the nursery, he descended the stairs at a run, bent on finding the most exclusive leasing office he could.
It was imperative to find just the right property for their rendezvous—in a location elegant enough for the purpose, but well-enough hidden that the ever-vigilant Jane was unlikely to discover it.
* * *
An hour later, the bargain concluded, he was escorted out by the beaming proprietor, whom he’d paid double his usual fee for his silence and to obtain possession of the property immediately. Holding the key to a fine townhouse in Green Park Buildings, a respectable address but one well to the west of the most fashionable streets, Alastair set off back to the Crescent.
He’d wait one night, to see if a note arrived from Diana, reneging on her initial acceptance. If he did not hear from her by tomorrow, he’d send her a note, arranging to meet after supper that night.
Excitement shivered and danced in his blood, sparkled in his mind. He couldn’t remember ever being this consumed by anticipation.
An exalted state that was sure to end in disillusion, once he became better acquainted with the real Diana. Which was exactly what he wanted.
The sooner the affair began, the sooner it would be over—and he would be free of her at last.
* * *
In the evening of the following day, Diana sat at her dressing table, a note in hand. As she glanced at her name inscribed in Alastair’s bold script, another memory pierced her chest like an arrow.
How many times during their courtship had she opened just such a note, finding within a beautiful verse in honour of her? Praising her wit, her virtue, her loveliness.
How unworthy of them she’d felt.
How unworthy of them she’d proved.
This current missive could hardly be more different. Instead of elegantly penned lines of clever metaphors, similes, and alliteration, there wasn’t even a complete sentence. Merely an address and a time—this evening, nine o’clock.
Despite her hard-won self-control, uneasiness and something more, something dangerously like anticipation, stirred within her. Stifling it, she debated again, as she had off and on since receiving the summons this morning, whether or not to dispatch a last-minute refusal of his shocking offer.
It was risky, allowing him to be near her. Graveston had possessed the power to restrict her activities and movements, to hurt her physically, but had never been able to touch her soul—a failure that had maddened him and represented her only victory in their battlefield sham of a marriage. Alastair Ransleigh would never touch her in anger...but it was the touch of tenderness, the touch of a man she’d once desired above all else, that threatened her in a way the Duke had never managed, despite his relentless cruelty.
She’d certainly have to be on guard, lest he get close enough to threaten her emotional reserve. Still... Once, she’d been so happy with Alastair. Might giving herself to him bring her a glimpse of that long-vanished happiness?
But then, she was reading much too much into this. The insulting nature of Alastair’s offer was proof he despised her.
Would it have made any difference, had she explained just how the Duke intended to destroy him? Probably not, she concluded. He hadn’t even believed the Duke’s threat of debtors’ prison for Papa, and what the Duke had promised for Alastair had been far more outrageous.
No, there wasn’t any question of warmth or affection between them. She’d humiliated him before all of Society, abused his trust, and like any man, he wanted retribution. She was fair enough to think he deserved it.
Not that yielding her body would prove much of a humiliation for her, not after years of submission to a man who believed he had the right to use her whenever and however he pleased. Whatever his reasons for proposing the liaison, giving herself up to Alastair would be an improvement over the subjugation of her marriage. Alastair, at least, she’d always admired and respected.
In any event, the arrangement probably wouldn’t last long. Once Ransleigh had his fill of her, he’d cast her aside, leaving her free to...do what with the rest of her life?
Frowning, she dropped the note on the dressing table and rose to take a restless turn about the room. Alastair Ransleigh’s sudden reappearance had distracted her from focusing on how to deal with Lord Blankford, a matter of far more importance.
There was a chance Blankford might simply ignore her and Mannington. With a sigh, she quickly dismissed that foolish hope. Her husband’s eldest son had been raised to believe that a duke’s desires were paramount, and that he could manipulate, reward or smite all lesser beings with impunity. It was highly unlikely, given how closely the character of the heir mirrored that of the sire, that the injury he believed she’d committed against him and his mother would go unpunished.
At the very least, he would try to take Mannington away from her. Even if he didn’t have evil designs upon the child, she wouldn’t allow a dog, much less a little boy, to grow up under the influence of such a man. She might not, up until now, have proved herself much of a mother, but she would do everything in her power to prevent her innocent son’s character from being distorted by the same despicable standards held by his father and elder brother.
Even as she thought it, she shook her head. How could she, whom her husband had methodically isolated from any friends and family, prevail against one of the highest-ranked men in England?
Putting aside, for the moment, that unanswerable question, then what? Even if she managed to protect her son from Blankford, Mannington needed more than rescue from evil influences to grow into the confident, compassionate, honourable man she’d like him to be.
She first needed to re-establish some sort of normal, motherly link with the boy—something she’d been forced to avoid while Graveston lived. Now that she need no longer fear showing him affection, how was she to retrieve, from the abyss into which she’d buried it, the natural bond between a mother and her child? That she’d hated the man who sired him was not Mannington’s fault. Like every child, to grow and thrive he needed love—of which, until now, he’d received precious little.
For the first time in many years, she allowed herself to think about her own childhood—a time so idyllic and distant that it seemed to belong to another person, or another life. Despite losing his wife in childbirth at an early age, Papa had managed to submerge his own grief and create a home filled with love, security, joy and laughter. How had he done so?
Settling back on the dressing-table bench, she stared at her image in the mirror, digging through the bits of memory.
They’d certainly not had the material advantages available to a duke. As a younger son from a minor branch of a prominent family, no objection had been posed to Papa pursuing a career as an Oxford tutor, nor of his marrying for love a gentleman’s daughter of great beauty and small dowry. After Mama’s death, they’d taken rooms close to the university, where he might more easily mentor his students and pursue his own botanical studies. As both Mama and Papa had no other close kin, it had always been just the two of them.
She’d learned her letters at his knee, studied her lessons in his office, painted and played piano for him in the adjacent studio. Picnics beside the river turned into treasure hunts, often enlivened by games of hide-and-seek, as she helped Papa search for rare plants. Every day ended with him reading to her, or telling her a bedtime story. Later, as his eyesight began to fail and his health grew more frail, she had read to him.
First thing, then, she ticked off on one finger, she’d need to spend more time with Mannington...James, she corrected herself. No longer a tool of the Duke to control her, but simply a child. Her son.
A frisson of long-suppressed tenderness vibrated deep within her, as barely discernible as the scent of a newly opening rose.
Having deliberately avoided him since he’d been a toddler, she wasn’t sure where to start. Other than accompanying him to the park, what did one do with a young boy?
Perhaps she could start by reading to him at bedtime. All children liked being read to, didn’t they? If he enjoyed the interaction, his happiness should warm her, too, and begin the difficult process of dismantling the barriers she’d put in place to stifle any feeling towards him.
But the creation of a true home meant more than just spending time with him. Her father had not been nearly as prominent or powerful as her husband, but he’d been an enthusiastic, optimistic man who inspired love and admiration in everyone with whom he came into contact. Even students not especially interested in botany grew to appreciate the natural universe whose wonders he unfolded to them.
He’d exuded an infectious joy in life, in every little detail of living, from lauding the warmth of the fire on a cold evening, to savouring tea and cakes with her in the afternoon, to the enthusiasm with which he read to her, altering his voice to play all the parts from Shakespeare, or emoting the sonnets with an understanding that brought the beauty of the words and the depth of their meaning to life. He’d loved being a scholar, never losing his excitement at finding and recording in meticulous drawings all the plants he collected.
She could almost hear his voice, telling her how everything fit together in the natural world, with all having its place. She, too, had been designed with particular talents and abilities, her contributions unique, irreplaceable, and a necessary part to the whole.
She swallowed hard and her eyes stung. She hadn’t remembered that bit of encouragement for years. Did she have a place and a purpose? Having lost first Alastair and then her father, was there something more for her than mere survival?
She could start by saving her son from Blankford. She could try her best to unlock her feelings and love him again. She could attempt to create the kind of home he deserved, that every child deserved, where he was wanted, appreciated, nourished.
The last would be a stretch. She wasn’t her father, or even a pale echo of him. Once, another lifetime ago, she’d been a fearless girl who loved with all her heart and met life with reckless passion...
But how could she, who had forgotten what joy was, offer that to a child she might not find her way back to loving?
Sighing, she raised an eyebrow at the image in the mirror. The reflection staring back at her, the only friend and ally she’d had during the hellish years of her marriage, merely looked back, returning no answers.
She’d just have to try harder, she told the image. Once Alastair Ransleigh finished with her, she could close the book of her past and begin a new volume, with James.
Pray God she’d have enough time to figure it out before Blankford made his move.
But first, tonight, she must begin repaying the debt she owed Alastair. Her hands trembling ever so slightly, she rang for the maid and began to dress.
Chapter Four
Alastair paused in his pacing of the parlour of the small townhouse he’d rented, listening to the mantel clock strike three-quarters past eight. Unless she’d changed her previous habit of promptness, in another fifteen minutes, Diana would be here.
His pulses leapt as a surge of anticipation and desire rushed through him. Too impatient to sit, he took another turn about the room, then set off on yet another tour of the premises.
He’d arrived at eight, wanting to ensure everything was as he’d ordered. The new staff dispatched by the agency, all with impeccable references, had done their jobs perfectly. The immaculate house gleamed, every wooden surface and silver object polished to a soft glow in the candlelight. Taking the stairs, he inspected the sitting room adjoining the bedroom, nodding dismissal to the maid who’d just finished setting out a cold buffet. In the bedroom itself, a decanter of wine stood on the bedside table, and two glasses reflected the flames of the lit candles on the mantel above.
Wine to lend courage to him—or to her? he wondered with a wry grin. Maybe for consolation, if the joke was on him and Diana simply did not show up.
Which would, he admitted, be a justifiable rebuke for his ungentlemanly behaviour.
Even as he thought it, he heard the click of the front door opening, and a murmur of voices as the new manservant admitted a visitor.
So she had come after all.
Alastair descended the stairs nearly at a run.
‘I’ve shown the, ah, lady into the parlour,’ the servant told him. ‘Will you be needing anything else, sir?’
‘Nothing more tonight, Marston. Thank you.’
Expression impassive, the servant bowed and headed off towards the service stairs. Alastair wondered, not for the first time, what the handful of employees thought of their new situation—and how much they’d been told when the agency he’d consulted had hired them. Certainly upon arrival, if not before, they would have realised they were being called upon to staff the love nest of some wealthy man’s chère-amie. He’d not been able to glean from the behaviour of Marston, the cook or the maid whether they disapproved or were indifferent to the situation.
To tell the truth, he felt a bit uncomfortable. In his previous liaisons, after hiring a house, he’d simply given the lady of the moment the funds to bring or hire her own staff—and had never given the servants’ opinions a thought. But this was Diana—and how she was regarded by the staff, he realised suddenly, did matter to him.
Rather ridiculous that he was concerned she be treated like a lady, when he’d set up this whole endeavour to humiliate her.
No, not to humiliate—simply to slake his desire for her, so that he might achieve the indifference that seemed to come so easily to her. So he could get over her and get on with his life, as she so obviously had.
Heartbeat accelerating, Alastair walked into the parlour.
A lady stood at the hearth with her back to him, enveloped in a black cape with the hood drawn up over her hair. Very discreet, Alastair thought, glad that she was evidently as concerned as he that this liaison be kept secret.
She turned towards him, and the visceral reaction she’d always evoked flooded him immediately, speeding his pulses, drying his mouth, filling him with desire and gladness.
‘Good evening, Alastair,’ she said. ‘Where would you like me?’
Something almost like...disappointment tempered his enthusiasm. So there’d be no illusion of polite conversation first—just a proceeding straight to the matter at hand. She’d always been honest and direct, Alastair remembered.
Which was just as well. She wasn’t here to revive an old relationship, but to bury the long-dead corpse of one.
‘Come,’ he said, motioning to the hallway.
Obediently she exited the parlour, brushing past him in a cloud of violet scent that instantly revived his lust and determination. She mounted the stairs, pausing at the top until he indicated the correct bedchamber.
He let her precede him into the room, already so taut with arousal that his hands were sweating and his breath uneven. In one fluid movement, she swept off her cloak and cast it in a shimmer of satin on to the chair beside the bed, then turned to him, waiting.
He scanned her hungrily. The full swell of bosom, the graceful curve of neck and cheek, the dusky curls gleaming brightly in the firelight, the lush pout of a mouth...the eyes staring sightlessly ahead of her, the face as devoid of expression as a statue. As if she were bored, waiting for the episode to be over.
While he stood, barely able to breathe, gut churning with eagerness and longing.
Sudden fury consumed him. But before he could sort through his wildly varying impulses—send her away or seduce her into feeling something—she sank to her knees before him and calmly unbuttoned his trouser flap. Wrapping her hands around his swollen length, she guided him into her mouth.
Shocked that she would play the courtesan so unresistingly, he opened his lips to tell her to stop...but at the touch of the exquisite softness of her tongue, moving over and around his throbbing member, thought dissolved into pure sensation. Gasping, he fisted his hands in her hair, every fibre of his being focused on the delicious friction of her mouth and tongue as she pushed him deep within, withdrew to suckle the sensitive tip, laved it with her tongue and took him deep again. Passion built with unprecedented swiftness until mere moments later, he climaxed in a rush so dizzying and intense he nearly lost consciousness.
Staggering backward, he collapsed on the bed, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. Dazed, he dimly noted Diana rising and walking noiselessly over to the washbasin on the bureau.
Sometime later, his heart finally settled back into its normal rhythm and enough rational thought returned that he recognised what had just transpired. He’d meant to slake his lust, not use her like a doxy—or bolt straight to conclusion, like a callow youth with his first woman.
Shame and embarrassment filled him. Looking around, he found Diana sitting silently in the chair, gazing into the fire, her cloak wrapped around her.
‘I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant for that to be an exclusive experience,’ he said. ‘I assure you, I can do much better.’
And he meant to. Of the many things that had attracted him to Diana during their courtship, one that had drawn him most strongly was her passion. She’d gloried in his kisses, giving herself to him with wild abandon, guiding his hands to her breasts, moulding her hands over his erection. He might not be able to love her again or truly forgive her, but they could at least have the honesty of pleasure between them.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.
‘It does to me,’ he replied, and held out his hand.
This time, he vowed as she took it, he would undress her slowly, as he’d dreamed of doing so many times. Kiss and caress each bit of skin revealed. Use all the considerable skill he’d amassed over nearly a decade of pleasuring women to give her the same intense release she’d just given him.
‘I didn’t hire you a lady’s maid,’ he said, turning her so he could begin unlacing the ties at the back of her bodice. ‘I shall perform that function myself.’
She didn’t reply, which was just as well, for as the ties loosened, the bare nape of her neck so distracted him he’d not have comprehended her words anyway. Unable to resist, he bent to kiss her.
That intoxicating violet scent wrapped around him again as he tasted her skin. Desire returning in a rush, he slid his hands into her hair, winnowing out the pins with his fingers until the heavy mass fell to her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Wrapping his hands in the thick lengths, he pulled her closer, moving his lips from her neck to the shell of her ear.
Already fully erect again, he parted the hair and pulled it forward over her breasts, unveiling the pins and lacing that secured bodice and skirt. Making quick work of those, he peeled off the top and nudged her to step out of the skirt, then guided her to the bed.
Seating her on the edge, he tilted up her head and took her mouth, moving his lips slowly, gently over their silken surface as he dispensed with her stays. At the pressure of his tongue, she parted her lips, allowing him entry to the softness within.
While he licked and suckled, he moved his hands to cup her breasts, full and ripe under the thin linen of her chemise. His breathing unsteady now, he thrust a pillow behind her and urged her back against it, then slid the chemise up, baring her from ankle to waist.
Going to his knees, he slowly rolled down her stockings, kissing and licking the soft skin of her knees, calves, ankles, toes, then moving in a slow ascent back up to her thighs. Urging those apart, he kissed his way slowly higher, while his hands moulded and caressed her hips and derrière.
By now, he was more than ready to enter her and find consummation again. But wanting this time to give maximum pleasure to her, holding himself under tight control, he moved his mouth closer and closer to her centre as he slid a finger over and around the nether lips. Another bolt of lust struck him as he found her moist and ready.
Unable to wait any longer, he moved his mouth to her core, parting the curls to run his tongue along the plump little nub nested within. But though his own breathing was by now erratic, Diana did not, as he’d expected, grip his back or wrap her legs around his shoulders. She didn’t arch into him, her body picking up the ancient rhythm leading to fulfilment. Eyes tightly closed, she simply lay against the pillow, her face tense, her hands fisted.