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She would do it.
Energised, she leapt from the bed and went to ring for the maid. Instead of dreading the dusk tonight, now she was almost eager to see the sun set.
* * *
On the other side of Bath, having also slept badly and thus not wanting to face his perspicacious sister, Alastair elected to breakfast in his room. Sipping his second cup of coffee, he was feeling more like a rational human being when a footman brought in his correspondence.
Idly he flipped through it, then halted at a gilt-edged note. Disquiet stirred when he read the card: Lady Randolph, who before her marriage had been one of Diana’s bosom-bows, had for some inexplicable reason invited him to tea.
Lady Randolph being the same Miss Mary Ellington whom, in the near insanity of his rage and grief after Diana’s stunning rejection, he’d subjected to a most improper, most insulting offer of carte blanche.
He felt his face redden at the memory. Luckily for him, the offended lady had merely slapped his face and sent him on his way with the tongue-lashing he deserved. Had she revealed his dishonourable proposal to her brother, he probably would have been shot before ever making it to his regiment.
Mary Ellington had gone on to make a good match to a viscount’s son with political aspirations, and, by Jane’s account, was now a happily married wife with a quiverful of children.
He’d neither spoken to nor seen her since that disgraceful afternoon. Why would she invite him to tea?
He debated sending a polite refusal, but given the colossal insult to which he’d subjected her on their last meeting, decided that he owed it to the lady to appear in her drawing room long enough to apologise.
Hopefully, Jane’s assessment was accurate, and she wasn’t now a bored wife, looking to take him up on that long-ago offer. Though if she were, he could sidestep it, a manoeuvre with which he’d had a fair amount of practice.
One didn’t earn a reputation as a man who disdained marriage and preferred pleasant, short-term liaisons without attracting the interest of Society matrons long on available time and short on commitment to their marriage vows. Particularly, he thought cynically, when the potential lover possessed a deep purse she might try slipping a hand into.
With Diana waiting for him, he certainly wasn’t interested in another mistress.
But Mary Ellington had also been Diana’s closest female friend. Might she have some insight into what had happened to the girl he’d once loved?
With a sigh, he tossed the card back on the tray and rang for another cup of coffee. It appeared he was going to have tea with the chaste virgin he’d once propositioned.
* * *
More anxious than he’d like to be, Alastair presented himself at the appointed hour at another elegant townhouse on the Circus. Shown by the butler into a salon, he had only a few moments to wait until his hostess arrived.
‘Mr Ransleigh, thank you for coming to see me on such little notice,’ she said, nodding to his bow. ‘Let me pour you some tea.’
Seating himself where she indicated, Alastair held on to his patience over the next few minutes as they exchanged the conventional cordialities.
Finally, he said, ‘If you intend to take me to task over my inexcusable behaviour the last time we met, let me relieve you of the obligation. I behaved despicably, for which I am truly sorry. I do hope you’ve forgiven me.’
She looked startled for a moment, then laughed. ‘Oh, that! No, your, ah, regrettable behaviour then has nothing to do with my reasons for asking you to come today. Or at least, not directly. Besides, we all knew that you weren’t yourself, that soon after the...break with Diana.’
That being unanswerable, he merely nodded. ‘What did you want with me, then?’
She sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure how to begin. Let’s just say that I’m...aware you have recently seen Diana.’
Inwardly cursing, Alastair struggled to keep a smile on his lips. Blast! Did everyone in Bath know he’d encountered Diana?
When he said nothing, she continued. ‘Please hear me out, for what I’m about to say, you could with justification point out, is none of my business. But knowing Diana so well years ago, I felt it important that you know it.’
Hoping what she revealed might shed light on Diana’s situation, but wanting to say nothing that might hint of the renewed relationship between them, he’d not decided what to reply when his hostess forged on.
‘I know how deeply Diana wounded you. It would be entirely understandable if you wished to seek some sort of...retribution, especially as she is now in the city without benefit of husband or anyone else to protect her.’
Nettled, he rose. ‘Are you suggesting, madam, that I would seek to harm her?’
‘No! Not at all!’ she protested, waving him back to his seat. ‘Only asking, if you should be required to have any dealings with her, that you...treat her gently.’
At his raised eyebrow, she rushed on. ‘The manner in which she jilted you was inexcusable, but though she may have captured a duke, save for the son finally granted her, it appears she had little joy of her prize. You may have heard that after her marriage, Diana ignored all those who knew her before she became a duchess.’
‘Jane told me as much.’
‘So it appeared, but it wasn’t true. I was as aghast as anyone after she broke your engagement—and in so shocking a fashion! Though normally, one could believe that a duke’s offer of marriage would be preferred over one from a mere mister, Diana had never been interested in social advancement. I truly believed she was as besotted by you as you appeared to be by her. After the hasty marriage, I was curious, of course, but also worried about her happiness. The Duke of Graveston was known to be a cold, forbidding, unapproachable man. So I called on her...and was told the Duchess did not wish to receive me. Then, or at any time in future. I was shocked, and hurt, of course.’
‘I can imagine.’ Having received just the same treatment.
‘As I was walking back to my carriage—I’d told the coachman to circle the square, as I didn’t intend to remain long—Diana ran up to me. Speaking all in a rush, she told me she’d seen my arrival from a window, slipped out the kitchen door and come through the mews to catch me. The Duke had decreed that since her former friends were not of suitable rank—I’d not yet married Randolph—she was no longer permitted to associate with them. Saying she must return before her absence was discovered, she gave me her love and said goodbye. I—I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but I do know she never received any of her other friends, either.’
‘“No longer permitted”?’ Alastair echoed. ‘Could a husband enforce such a stipulation? Or was that a convenient excuse?’
Lady Randolph shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her again until years later, after Randolph won a seat in Parliament, and we were invited to a political dinner hosted by the Duke. There had already been rumours that the match was a most—unusual—one, and I was quite anxious to have a chance to speak with Diana again.’
She paused, looking troubled. ‘Did you speak with her?’ he prompted, impatient for her to continue.
She started a little, as if she’d been lost in memory. ‘No, for reasons I will soon make apparent. The Duke came down after the guests had assembled, but as the hour grew later, Diana still had not appeared. Finally, just after the butler announced dinner was to be served, she suddenly arrived at the doorway through which the guests must pass to reach the dining room. She wore a striking white-silk gown with a very low décolletage, but neither gloves nor jewels. Instead, circling her neck and wrists were...bruises, the ones beneath each ear clearly fingerprints. In the shocked silence, she walked up to the Duke, and as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, said she was ready to go in to dinner.’
‘What did the Duke do?’
Lady Randolph laughed shortly. ‘What could he do? I’m told he seldom exhibits any emotion, but those near him said his face reddened. Without a word, he offered his arm—and ignoring it, she walked beside him into the dining room. It was the most magnificent bit of defiance I’ve ever witnessed.’
It was all Alastair could do to guard his expression. To hear of any woman abused would have aroused his anger and pity—but Diana! Sickened, furious, he struggled to find a comment that expressed a degree of outrage appropriate for a former fiancé—rather than a man once again involved with the woman in question.
Giving him a sympathetic look, his hostess continued. ‘I know what a shock that news must be, even for one who no longer has any warm feelings for Diana. It’s simply wicked, what a wife can suffer without any legal remedy, and makes me daily grateful for my Randolph! Sadly, I’ve known several poor souls whose husbands treated them...ungently, and without exception they tried to hide the abuse, were embarrassed by it. And afraid. Whereas Diana flaunted the Duke’s lack of control for all his world to see, embarrassing him. With utter disregard for how he might make her pay for it later.’
The thought chilled him. He’d seen no evidence of current bruises—but her husband might have been ill for months, for all he knew. Had she suffered his hand raised against her through all her marriage?
‘As soon as dinner concluded,’ Lady Randolph continued, ‘the Duke took her arm and escorted her upstairs, saying she was feeling “indisposed”, then returned to his guests.’ She shuddered. ‘I hesitate even to imagine what must have happened later. In any event, it was the last time I saw her. Soon afterward, the Duke took her to Graveston Court, and though he returned to London for Parliament and occasionally entertained there, she never again accompanied him. I heard from guests who dined with them before her banishment that she always conversed freely at table, giving no deference to the Duke or his opinions, pointing out discrepancies as she saw them in his arguments or those of his Parliamentary supporters.’
‘Not an ideal political wife,’ Alastair observed, before his own words came out of memory like a stiletto to the chest: You shall have to marry me, rather than some dandy of the ton, for as impossible as you find it to prevaricate, you’ll never be fashionable.
Anguish twisted in his gut. Never fashionable. Never appreciated.
Never safe.
‘Quite frankly, after what I’d seen and heard, I’m rather surprised she outlived him—but ever so glad! Despite what the malicious are saying about her in Bath, I intend to seek her out and offer her friendship.’
To his surprise, Lady Randolph seized his hands and looked up at him earnestly. ‘Diana made a terrible decision that summer so many years ago. But whatever advantage she thought to gain, she’s paid a dear price for it. Paid enough, I think. I just ask that you have pity, and if you can’t forgive her, at least don’t add to her sufferings.’
‘I can assure you, I have no intention of doing that.’
Releasing him, she sat back. ‘Thank you! Since you are a man of honour—most of the time,’ she added with a smile and a pointed look, ‘I am satisfied.’
* * *
Taking his leave a few minutes later, Alastair scarcely recalled what had been said during the rest of his visit, so preoccupied had he been by what Lady Randolph had revealed—and with not betraying by some comment or expression his full reaction to the information she’d conveyed.
Once free of her restraining presence, though, electing to walk back to his sister’s townhouse so he might think uninterrupted, he methodically reviewed her recitation, looking for bits and pieces that fit with what he’d learned himself.
Lady Randolph’s account seemed to confirm Diana’s assertion that she had never confided to anyone else the account she’d given him of being coerced into marriage. Of course, as he’d told her and she’d readily admitted, the story beggared belief. Even her dearest friend thought it was the temptation of marrying into the highest rank of Society that had, in the end, induced her to abandon him.
Had it been?
His certainty about that, already shaken, wavered further as he allowed himself to recall more about the Diana he’d known. The Diana who, without question, would never lie. The Diana who, even now, could not come up with a plausible evasion.
Equally without question, the girl she’d been would have been capable of sacrificing her own happiness to save those she loved.
A girl who, heedless of her own safety, had had the courage to publicly defy a duke.
Suddenly he recalled her confusion when he’d offered her the paints. The confusion of someone who had received so little for so many years, she no longer knew how to respond to a gift.
The confusion of one who only knew what it was like to have what she loved taken away.
Feeling sick inside, Alastair halted at the street corner, mopping his face with a trembling hand. Had he been wrong all this time, wallowing in self-righteous indignation over her supposed betrayal?
Common sense rejected that conclusion, and yet... Like snow silently accumulating on a windowsill, the doubts that had begun creeping in to trouble his assumptions over what she’d done, and why, redoubled.
He had to know the truth.
Little by little, he promised himself as he resumed his walk, with a tenderness and concern she apparently had not been shown for years, he would coax her to tell it to him.
But before that, he’d need to get a pianoforte delivered to Green Park Buildings.
Chapter Eight
After a session before the mirror to restore her calm—only in the bedchamber could she permit herself any emotion—Diana arrived at the townhouse in Green Park Buildings. So great was her nervous anticipation she’d had to exercise great self-control not to arrive very early, so she might have time to position herself before Alastair arrived.
She’d filled some of the waiting time reading to James. During a walk down Milsom Street this morning, they found a picture book of soldiers. She’d enjoyed reading to him, and he seemed to like it, too. The interlude had been...pleasant. Perhaps she would be able to revive the tenderness she’d once felt for him.
Precisely at the agreed hour, she knocked at the door of Alastair’s townhouse. The same expressionless manservant—having been spied on by her husband’s retainers for so long, she was inured to expressionless servants—showed her into the parlour where, this time, Alastair waited to greet her.
Swallowing hard over a renewed attack of nerves, she made herself walk calmly over to him. He rose, and when he angled her chin up for a kiss, she let him.
Feathering her eyes closed, she opened herself to sensation. The soft pressure of his lips brushing against hers was gentle, sweet, and sensual, setting all the nerves of her mouth tingling. When he broke the kiss, she was disappointed—and eager for more.
‘I brought you a little something,’ he said with a smile, motioning across the room.
So preoccupied was she by this bold new venture of responsiveness, she’d noticed nothing in the chamber but Alastair. Following the direction of his hand, she uttered a gasp. ‘Alastair! That’s hardly “little”—it’s a pianoforte!’
He grinned at her, and a sharp stab of...something struck the barrier she’d erected to restrain her emotions, already shaken by his kindness in remembering how much she loved music. As he stood smiling, the harsh, cynical edge to his expression gone, he looked like the boyish young man she’d once given her heart to.
Good she was about to sweep all thought away with passion, else he might tempt her too much.
‘Play for me.’
‘I haven’t played in years!’ she protested. ‘I’d likely sour milk and set all the cats on the street to squalling.’
He chuckled. ‘I’ll risk it. If it’s been that long, all the more reason to begin again immediately. It’s like riding a horse—you never truly forget.’
‘Who told you that?’ she asked, swallowing a laugh. ‘Certainly no one who played well! Daily practice is essential to remain truly proficient.’
‘And you were wonderfully proficient. There might be a few cobwebs to brush off, but I wager that won’t take long. So, play for me...please.’
She wanted to refuse, get right to bedroom matters; straying on to the topic of music could bring the dangerous possibility of more prying. But even from across the room, she could tell the pianoforte was a beautiful instrument—trust Alastair to choose only the best. She’d missed music almost as much as she’d missed Alastair, the love for it, like her love for him, suppressed but never extinguished.
‘Very well,’ she capitulated. ‘But you might want to leave the room. I expect I shall be dreadful.’
He merely smiled and gestured towards the instrument. Eagerness bubbled out before she could restrain it as she ran her fingers experimentally along the keys. As the bright tones issued forth, her much-denied, atrophied heart gave a feeble pang.
And so she played, slowly at first, then faster, with more assurance. During her clandestine midnight forays at Graveston, before the instrument had been taken away, she’d memorised many of her favourite works, not wishing to risk leaving sheet music about. She found her fingers returning to one piece after another.
Soon she lost herself in the music. Time ceased to matter, and when the final movement ended and she lifted her hands from the keyboard, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been playing.
She looked around to see Alastair in a wing chair by the fire, wine glass in hand, watching her.
Contrition seized her. ‘I’m sorry. I...I lost track of the time. So sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘Not at all. That was lovely. I’ve missed hearing you play.’
He looked as surprised as she was by that remark. Not sure what to respond, she rose and came over to him. Now to put her plan into effect before he could initiate any more conversational delays.
‘You should have a reward for your patience.’ She leaned down to kiss him, her tongue outlining the edge of his lips.
With a murmur, he set down his glass, pulled her into his lap, and deepened the kiss. This time, she let herself respond to the warmth and heat of him, opening to him, fencing back as they tangled tongues, the soft moist heat stoking the passion rising within her.
She brought his hand to her breast, and he caressed her through the material of her gown and stays. Luscious sensation sparkled and shot through her body, setting off a throbbing at her centre as she envisaged how much more acutely she would feel his touch, once his clothes and hers were removed. Revelling in his caress, she rubbed herself against him.
He broke the kiss, his eyes blazing and his breathing unsteady. ‘Upstairs, now,’ he urged, setting her on her feet.
Before he led her off, she turned to him and tilted her mouth up for another kiss. When he obliged, sweeping his tongue in to possess hers, she wrapped an arm around him and inserted her other hand between their two bodies, massaging the hardness pressed against her.
‘More of that later,’ she promised, before taking his hand to tug him towards the door.
Wrapping an arm around her, he caressed her bottom as they walked up the stairs. Once in the bedchamber, she whirled around, offering him access to pins and tapes, which he dispensed of quickly, unpeeling her bodice and helping her step out of her gown. She lifted her hands to let him strip the chemise over her head and stood before him, clad only in garters and stockings.
He ran his gaze slowly over her, from chin to toes. ‘Lovely,’ he murmured.
Kissing him, she unfastened his trouser buttons and urged the garment down, then pushed him to sit back on the bed. As soon as he’d balanced there, she climbed on his lap, straddling him, then wrapped her legs around his back and guided herself down to enclose his swollen member.
Ah, how good he felt, slick hot steel caressing her inner chamber for all his length. Sighing, she leaned back, offering up her naked breasts. Cupping her bottom to secure her, he bent to them, rolling the hard nipples between his teeth, nipping and suckling.
The sensation was exquisite, every sweep of his tongue and nip of his teeth intensifying the throbbing pressure building deep within her, where his member stretched and pulled and teased. Feeling the urgent need for more movement, she began rocking into him, savouring the friction as she pulled almost free, then sank down on him again.
Pressure built and built, lifting her again towards the precipice she’d sensed the night before, driving her to intensify her efforts. If she could just force him deeper, rub against him harder...
Suddenly, in a rush of sensation unlike anything she’d ever experienced, the pressure released in a flow of tingling, throbbing delight. She felt she was soaring, flying above all pain and misery and memory, for long, brilliant minutes before settling softly back to earth.
Boneless, she sagged against Alastair, who simply held her, kissing the dampness of her forehead and her ears. His silence was just as well, for her scattered thoughts were too incoherent for speech.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered at last.
Surprised, her eyes started open. ‘Shouldn’t I be thanking you? Especially since...’ She rocked her hips around the still-hard member still inside her.
‘All in good time. Thank you for letting go, giving me the gift of your pleasure.’
‘Isn’t it time for you to give me the gift of yours?’
‘Gladly.’ He smiled against her lips before kissing her.
She wanted to finish undressing him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Rising, still almost fully clad, he slid back to the pillows and lay back, holding her in place astride him.
‘What would please you most?’ she asked disjointedly, hardly able to formulate the sentence for the pressure of him moving inside her, creating little eddies of pleasure.
‘Watching you again, as you ride me. But first, this.’
He pulled her close, kissing her—throat, shoulders, silky skin of inner arms, down to her breasts. Though he’d pleasured them before, he began again, even more slowly, a meticulous caress of every surface, licking the pebbly nipples as he massaged the full softness.
By now, her core was throbbing again, too. Murmuring encouragement, he lay back, urging her to move on him. Balanced better on the bed, she could spread her knees wider and take him deeper still. The thrust of his hardness along the whole of her passage, from the depths to the tight nub at the peak, elicited a whole new range of sensations.
Faster and faster she moved, each stroke tightening the coil of pressure until at last, in a splendid blaze of pleasure, they flew over the crest together.
For a while afterwards, they both drifted in somnolent contentment. When at last she rose back to full consciousness, she found herself beside him, his arm wrapped around her, her head pillowed on his shoulder.
A wave of wonder and delight washed through her. How many times had she dreamed of waking like this?
And this time, she had no need to thrust away or bottle up the thought.
Instead, she nestled closer. ‘Must I go now?’
‘Go?’ he echoed. ‘Heavens, no, my sweet. We’ve just begun.’
Her eyes widened at that. ‘Just begun?’ she repeated cautiously.
Laughing, Alastair rolled out of the bed, swiftly stripped off his clothes, walked over to pour them a glass of wine and brought it back, while she admired his magnificent nakedness.
‘Here, drink up. We’ve hours yet.’
After taking a long sip, she let herself smile. ‘That’s excellent.’
He chuckled and took back the glass. ‘Let me show you how excellent,’ he murmured. Smoothing his hands down over her belly, he nudged her legs apart and moved his clever, wicked mouth to that needy place between her thighs.
* * *
Slowly Diana emerged from the heavy mantle of sleep, like a sea creature rising from the deep. Her body felt languid, replete with a humming satisfaction. When she finally forced her eyelids open, she saw a dearly beloved visage, smiling at her.