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Perhaps she’d been schooled that an uninhibited response was unladylike—he’d have to re-educate her about that. Or perhaps complete possession was necessary to trigger her reaction—he was certainly ready!
Murmuring, his hands gentle and caressing, he moved on to the bed and straddled her parted thighs, positioning himself over her. Kissing her, he lowered himself, slowly penetrating her.
He thought she flinched, and halted. But as he pressed carefully downward, her body greeted him in hot, slick warmth. Thrilled, he pushed deeper into the soft, yielding depths, until he’d sheathed himself completely.
Sweat broke out on his brow and his rigid arms trembled as he stilled deep within her, battling the urge to thrust and withdraw, thrust and withdraw in wild rhythm to reach the pinnacle that shimmered just out of reach.
But though her body was obviously primed to receive him, Diana did not moan, or tilt her hips to pull him deeper...or move at all; she lay, eyes still closed, passively beneath him.
Knowing that even remaining motionless, he’d not be able to stave off his own climax much longer, and wanting desperately to bring Diana with him on that journey to ecstasy and back, Alastair wondered what to try next.
Granted, his previous amours had all been experienced, or at least enthusiastic participants. Almost, he was ready to withdraw completely—except that despite her self-control, her body didn’t lie. The peaked nipples and liquid heat within told him that she wasn’t unreceptive. The tightly closed eyes, clenched fists and rigid posture told him she was exerting all her will to resist responding.
Well, he’d see about that. Slowly he began moving in her, rocking deep, caressing the little nub with every stroke, then bending to suckle the taut nipples.
But though he was soon riding the razor’s edge, trying to stave off climax, Diana remained stiffly unmoving. Desperate, he redoubled his efforts.
Only to have her place a hand on his sweaty chest. ‘Go ahead, finish now,’ she said, her eyes still closed. And rocked her hips to force him deeper.
He wasn’t sure he could have resisted much longer anyway. But as she finally moved beneath him, the dyke of his control broke and wave after wave of pleasure crested, washing over him with a force that robbed him of breath and consciousness.
Suddenly aware that his weight must be crushing her, he rolled to the side and up on the pillow.
‘May I wash now?’ she asked, not meeting his gaze.
Too passion-drugged for coherent thought, he simply nodded. And watched as she slid off the bed, walked to the bureau, and calmly plied the sponge and linen towelling, then turned to face him, still naked.
Despite the perplexing episode that had just transpired between them, she was still so lovely, still called so strongly to some uncontrollable something deep within him, that all he wanted was to pull her back into bed and love her again.
‘May I dress now? Or do you require...more tonight?’
That prosaic question dashed whatever remained of his sensual haze, unleashing a boiling cauldron of emotions. Disappointment. Puzzlement. Curiosity. Embarrassment.
Anger.
No previous experience had prepared him to deal with an outcome like this. But he’d not take her again tonight, much as he wanted to, not until he’d had time to figure out what had happened and what to do about it.
‘That will be all for now,’ he said curtly, the dismissal eroding what little remained of the euphoria. She nodded, seeming entirely untroubled by the cold, transactional nature of the interlude.
In silence he dressed her. ‘Have Marston summon you a chair,’ he said at last, when the final tape had been tied, the pins replaced and her hair, much too thick for his fumbling attempts to recreate a coiffure, had been thrust under her bonnet.
‘Will you require me tomorrow?’ she asked, still not meeting his eyes.
‘I’ll send you a note. You’ll make yourself available?’
‘As you wish. Goodnight, then, Alastair.’
With a nod, she exited the chamber.
Alastair listened until her footsteps faded down the stairs. Then, with an oath, he poured himself a glass of wine and downed it in one swallow.
What the hell had just happened?
Chapter Five
Frustration boiled up, and Alastair had to exert all his self-control to keep from hurling the unoffending wine glass into the hearth, just for the satisfaction of hearing it smash.
Had Diana been secretly laughing at him, mocking his all-too-evident desire with her ability to resist him?
Oh, how things had changed! After their engagement, she’d tantalised him, trying to drive him wild enough to overcome his refusal to take her before they were wed. He’d insisted she deserved better than some furtive, hurried coupling in the library or garden, where her father or a servant might at any moment interrupt. When they finally tasted consummation, he wanted them to be able to love each other freely, at length and at leisure.
This time, he had been eager and she’d been...indifferent.
If he’d not had numerous ladies testify to his expertise as a lover, he’d have been unmanned by her total lack of response.
But that wasn’t quite right, he corrected himself. Her body had responded; of that, he was certain. But for some reason, she’d refused to allow herself to experience pleasure.
To punish him for coercing her into this, so he might not revel in her satisfaction at his hands?
He didn’t think so. She’d exhibited no triumph at having resisted his skill; there’d been nothing of gloating superiority in her being able to render him helpless with pleasure, while refusing to allow him to do the same for her.
Besides, though he might have had the bad taste to propose the liaison, he’d done nothing to force her into accepting. As she certainly knew, were she to have refused the offer, he would have left it at that.
Instead, it was almost as if she had withdrawn entirely, not permitting herself to experience pleasure.
How had the passionate girl he remembered come to this?
Was this startling transformation her late husband’s fault? For the first time he began to doubt his certainty that the account she’d given him of her marriage was a complete, or at least exaggerated, fabrication.
A sympathy he did not want to feel welled up in the wake of that doubt.
Stifling it, he jumped up and began to pace. There had to be some way to penetrate that wall of resistance. Break through to reach the body trembling for completion, and bring it to satisfaction.
If she’d been repulsed by him, or truly unresponsive, he would have, regretfully, dismissed her tonight. Instead, there’d been an intriguing disconnect between her will and her body’s arousal.
He’d hoped a few episodes would be enough to set him free of her. But he knew now with certainty that he could never let her go until he’d reached her, coaxed forth the response simmering beneath the surface, until she cried and shuddered in his arms with all the passion he’d not allowed himself to taste all those years ago.
How best to tempt her?
Pouring another glass of wine, he set himself to consider it.
* * *
Dismissing the sedan chair, Diana let herself into the townhouse and crept up to her chamber on legs that were still not steady. Summoning the maid to help her out of the gown—mercifully, the girl made no comment on hair that looked like an escapee from Bedlam had arranged it—she then dismissed her.
Sleep was out of the question. With her body still humming with awareness and her hard-won calm in tatters, she settled into the chair before the hearth, heart racing as she tried to determine what to do next.
Oh, she had been so right to fear letting Alastair Ransleigh get close to her! She’d thought, after eight years of fulfilling a man’s desires in whatever way demanded of her while mentally distancing herself from the activity, she would be able to service Alastair with detachment.
And so she had...but just barely.
The process had been much easier with the Duke, who had no interest in her physical satisfaction. In fact, he’d mentioned on several occasions that he thought it demeaning for a man to have a wife who disported herself in the bedchamber like a harlot; such behaviour was for strumpets, not for the high-born woman chosen for the honour of breeding the offspring of a lord.
Given his opinion, she might have been tempted to ‘disport’ herself on occasion, had it not meant lengthening the time she had to suffer his touch. As it was, she slowly perfected the ability to wall herself off from what was happening to her. Viewing actions, even as she performed them, as if she were a spectator observing them from afar had allowed her to tolerate the bedchamber requirements of her role.
But Alastair was not the Duke she hated. And hard as she tried to block out what he was doing, ignoring it had proved impossible. Alastair’s touch had been more veneration than violation, and it had taken every iota of self-control she’d developed over eight miserable years to keep herself from responding.
He’d always had the power to move her. She’d not allowed herself to remember that. Once she was irrevocably married, it would have been a cruelty beyond endurance to recall the joy of being caressed by a man whose touch thrilled her, while being forced to submit to intimacies with a man she loathed.
She’d given herself up to Alastair completely that halcyon summer, eager for him to possess her, arguing against waiting until after the wedding for them to become lovers.
She smiled wistfully. Would it have made any difference, had she not been a virgin when the Duke sought her out?
Probably not. He’d regarded her as a treasure like the Maidens of the Parthenon, and like them, she’d have been collected even if ‘damaged’. He’d merely have constructed an inescapable cage to prevent any lapses after marriage, and waited to bed her until he was sure she was not carrying another man’s child.
And simply disposed of the evidence, if she had been.
But that was neither here nor there, she told herself, pulling her focus back to the present. The problem was how to deal with Alastair Ransleigh now.
Perhaps if she had remembered how quickly and deeply Alastair affected her, she’d have armoured herself better to resist him. After this evening, she no longer suffered from that dangerous ignorance. So what was she to do to avoid another near-disaster?
Forbidding herself to react had simply not been effective. Especially since, unlike the Duke, he’d clearly wanted her to respond. Wanted to give her pleasure...as a gift?
Or was that to be the form of his revenge: making her respond to him, making her burn for his touch, then abandoning her, as she had abandoned him? Would he not be satisfied until he’d succeeded in doing so?
Could he succeed?
She didn’t want to feel anything. Not passion, not desire, not longing, not affection. Overcoming the forces ranged against her, doing what she could to safeguard the boy unlucky enough to be her son, would require all the strength she could muster. A wounded bird marshalling all her efforts to lead the predator away from her nest, she couldn’t afford to bleed away any of her limited energy in resisting Alastair Ransleigh.
His reappearance was a complication she didn’t need.
She could simply not see him again. Send him a note saying she’d changed her mind. Follow the instincts for self-preservation that were screaming at her to run. Unlike the Duke, who had ignored her refusals, she knew with utmost certainty that if she sent such a message, Alastair would let her go.
But that would be taking the coward’s way out. All these years, she’d promised herself that if she ever had the chance, she would do what she could to make amends to him. Reneging on their agreement and bolting at the first sign of peril would snuff out what little honour she had left, like a downpour swamping a candle.
Deep within, beneath the roiling mix of shock, dismay, and frustrated desire, a small voice from the past she’d shut away whispered that she couldn’t let him go. Not yet.
She shut her ears to it. She’d made him a promise, that was all, and honour demanded she keep it. However difficult it proved, however long it took, she would endure, as she always had.
Decision made, she walked over to the dressing table, seated herself on the bench, and regarded her image in the mirror. The forehead was puckered with concern; with fingers she refused to let tremble, she gently smoothed the skin there, beside her eyes, around her mouth, until the woman in the glass looked once again calm and expressionless.
She took a deep breath and held it, held it, held it until she couldn’t any longer. Blowing it out, she took another lungful of air, wiping her mind free of anything but the passage of air in and out, the rhythmic ticking of the mantel clock throbbing in her ears.
Over and over she repeated the familiar ritual. Anxiety, foreboding, and worry gradually diminished until all emotion vanished into the nothingness of complete detachment.
She was the lady in the glass—a shadow of a real woman, a trick of light and mirrors, untouchable.
Only then did she rise and walk to her bed...squelching the tiny, stubborn bit of warmth that stirred within her at the thought that tomorrow, she would see Alastair again.
* * *
The following evening after dinner, Diana paced the parlour restlessly. Without the Duke’s overbearing presence to impose a structure on her days, she was finding herself at a loss for what to do.
Long ago, in another life, she’d enjoyed reading, but she’d had no books to bring with her. It might be...pleasant to resume that activity, or do some needlework.
She should visit the shops and look for a book or embroidery silks. Though she needed to carefully hoard her limited coin against her uncertain future, she could spare enough for a book, couldn’t she?
She had gone out today, visiting the park with Mannington—James. It was still a surprise, discovering how...liberating it was to leave the house and walk about freely, with no possibility of being recalled, lectured, or punished.
And she’d followed through on her resolution to try reaching out to her son. Haltingly, she’d talked to him, even thrown him his ball, to the astonishment of his nursemaid.
She should go up to the nursery and offer to read to him now.
Her cautious mind immediately retreated from the suggestion. Soon she must leave to meet Alastair, and she’d need all the mental and emotional defences she could summon. Having bottled up any tentative reactions after the walk to the park, she didn’t dare breach the calm she’d re-established by approaching her son again.
But putting her son’s needs on hold, now that it was no longer necessary to do so to protect him from his father, was just another form of the same cowardice that made her desperate to avoid Alastair Ransleigh, she admonished herself.
Mannington had suffered through six years without a mother worthy of the name. She wasn’t sure she could ever become one, but she should at least try.
To do so, she’d need to loosen the stranglehold she’d imposed over her emotions. She’d grown so adept at stifling any feelings, she wasn’t sure how to allow some to emerge, without the risk that all the rage, desolation and misery she’d bottled up for years might rush out in an ungovernable flood that could sweep her into madness.
Still, finding her way back to loving a boy whose face so forcefully reminded her of his father was likely to be a long process. He needed her to begin now.
Resolutely, she made her way to the nursery.
She opened the door to find her son in his nightgown, rearranging a few lead soldiers near the hearth. The nursemaid looked up, startled, from where she was turning down the boy’s bed.
‘Did you need something, my lady?’ Minnie asked.
‘I...I thought I would read Mannington a story.’
Something derisive flashed in the girl’s eyes. ‘I’m sure that’s not necessary, my lady. The lad’s nearly ready for bed, and I can tuck him—’
‘Would you really read me a story, Mama?’ James interrupted, hope in his tone and astonishment on his face, as if she’d just offered to reach out and capture the moon that hung in the sky outside his window.
‘If you’d like...James,’ she replied, his given name still coming awkwardly to her tongue.
His eyes brightening, he abandoned the soldiers and ran over to her. ‘Would you, please? I’d like it ever so much!’
‘Could you fetch me a book?’ she asked the maid, who was still regarding her with suspicion—as if she had evil designs on the boy, Diana thought with mild amusement.
She couldn’t blame the girl for her scepticism. Minnie had been James’s nurse for four years, and never before had his mother appeared at his nursery door with such a request.
How many stories had Papa read her by the time she’d reached the age of six? she wondered. Hundreds.
‘A book, my lady?’ Minnie said at last. ‘Don’t have any, your ladyship. I—I don’t know how to read.’
Diana had abandoned books years ago, and never thought to see that her son had access to them. ‘I see. Well, perhaps we can purchase one tomorrow. Shall we say tomorrow night, then, James?’
His face falling, he reached out as she turned to leave and clutched her hand. ‘Can’t you stay, Mama? You could pretend to read.’
A tiny flicker of humour bubbled up. ‘Very well, I’ll stay. But I can do better than pretend. I’ll tell you a story. That will be all, Minnie. I can tuck him in.’
Still looking dubious and more than a little alarmed, the maid sketched her a curtsy. ‘As you please, ma’am. But I’ll be right near, if he—if either of you need anything. Goodnight, young master.’
‘G’night, Minnie,’ the boy called, then ran to hop in his bed. ‘See, I’m ready, Mama. Can you begin?’
At first, she’d had no idea what to say, but in a flash, it came to her. Now that it was safe, he should learn about his family—her family.
‘Shall I tell you about your grandfather? My father, whom you never met. He was a great scholar, and collected plants. One day, when I was about your age, he took me to the river to look for a very special plant...’
And so she related one of the escapades she’d shared with her father, hunting for marsh irises outside Oxford. She’d slipped and fallen into the stream, and while scolding her for carelessness, Papa had slipped and fallen in, too. He’d emerged laughing and dripping. Then he’d wrapped her up in his coat and carried her home for tea by a hot fire.
James was asleep by the time she finished the tale. Looking at his small, softly breathing form, she felt a stirring of...something. Tucking the covers more securely around his shoulders, she slipped from the room.
That had not been so very hard, as long as she avoided looking at the forehead and jaw so reminiscent of...him. She did not want to spoil the mild warmth she’d felt by even thinking the name. It had been almost like recapturing some of the sweetness of her own long-ago childhood, when she’d felt safe and cherished.
Regardless of whether or not she could revive her own emotions, she would do her best to give her son that security.
As she returned to the parlour, the clock struck half-past eight. Apprehension flared in her gut.
Walking to the mirror, she began breathing methodically, until she’d achieved a state of detachment.
She’d do better tonight, she reassured her image. Alastair Ransleigh had shown himself even more susceptible to her touch than she was to his. She had only to begin at once, to use his sighs and gasps to gauge what ministrations affected him the most, and continue them with all the vigour and imagination she could devise until he was so sated by pleasure, he had neither thought nor strength to attempt touching her. Then take her leave, before he recovered.
She would do that tonight, and for however many nights she must until, inevitably, he became bored with her and ready to move to the next conquest.
Her vow to him fulfilled, she could then concentrate fully on reaching out to James—and decide how best to protect him.
But now, there was Alastair. Giving her impassive image one last look, Diana rose to summon a sedan chair.
Chapter Six
Without her mirror friend to reassure her, Diana had lost a bit of her self-assurance by the time she reached the rendezvous. She arrived before the hour specified, hoping to go up to the bedchamber and ready herself, but the impassive servant who admitted her indicated that Mr Ransleigh was already in residence, and would join her in the parlour.
She damped down an initial flicker of alarm as she followed the man into that reception area. The bedchamber would have been easier, allowing her to implement her plan immediately.
Perhaps their sojourn in the parlour was meant to maintain some veneer of propriety for the servants’ sakes, though since there could be no doubt of the purpose for which she, and this house, had been procured, it seemed rather a superfluous effort. No lady worthy the name would ever meet a single gentleman at his abode, day or night.
Before she could consider the matter further, the door opened and Alastair walked in.
She sucked in a breath, struck by a wave of attraction and longing. He’d always had a commanding presence, his tall, broad-shouldered figure standing out from the others, even as a young collegian. Time had magnified the sense of assurance with which he carried himself, the air of command reinforcing it doubtless a result of his years with the army and his current role as manager of the large estate he’d inherited.
The dark hair was still swept back carelessly off his brow—she couldn’t imagine the impatient Alastair she’d known ever becoming a dandy, taking time over his appearance—and the skin of his face was a deep bronze, a result of much time in the saddle under the hot Peninsular sun, she assumed.
The most notable change between the young collegian she’d loved and the man standing before her was the network of tiny lines beside his eyes—and the coldness in their dark-blue depths that once had blazed with warmth, energy and optimism.
For that chill, she was undoubtedly much responsible.
Suddenly realising she’d been staring, she dropped her gaze. ‘Good evening, Alastair. Shall we proceed upstairs?’
‘No need to rush off,’ he returned. ‘Let me pour you some wine.’
She almost blurted that she’d just as soon get straight to it. Clamping her teeth on the words, she nodded before calmly saying, ‘As you wish.’
So they were to have civility tonight. She could manage that, and bide her time. Especially since, if he meant this to give the appearance of a cordial call, he was unlikely to try to seduce her in the downstairs parlour.
Slow, easy breaths, she told herself, accepting the glass of wine he offered, taking a tiny sip—and waiting. She might not force the issue, but she certainly didn’t mean to draw out this nerve-fraying delay by initiating a conversation.
‘I brought you something,’ he said, startling her as he broke the silence. He walked to the sideboard to collect a package and offered it to her. ‘I hope you’ll like it.’
‘Brought me something?’ she echoed, surprised and vaguely uncomfortable. ‘You don’t need to get me anything.’
‘Nevertheless, I did,’ he replied. ‘Go ahead, open it.’
She accepted the parcel, willing her heartbeat to slow.
‘I’ve brought you something...’ How many times during their courtship had he said that, his blue eyes fixed on her as he offered a bunch of flowers, a book he thought she’d enjoy, a new poem rolled up and secured by a pretty ribbon?
Breathe in, breathe out. Aware her hands were trembling, she fumbled to unwrap the parcel. And found within an elegant wooden box containing a sketchbook, a set of brushes and an assortment of watercolours.