The more she thought about that stupid, pigheaded, typically male edict, the angrier she became. Hence she was now striding toward his bedchamber, furious and determined to give him a thorough piece of her mind!
She raised her fist to knock then hesitated from banging a hole in the wood when she realized that announcing her presence would only give him another excuse to send her away. In his blinkered, pious state he’d probably lock his door before he stuffed a couple of handkerchiefs in his stubborn ears to drown out her bellowed arguments. So instead, she grabbed the handle and barged in unannounced.
Giles shot up from the mattress stunned but his eyes were too focused as he blinked at her to have just been roused from sleep. Given the undisturbed state of covers, he had been lying upon them like a corpse staring at the ceiling while he contemplated his fate. All stoic and noble and self-sacrificing and beyond annoying.
“You should be plotting your next move, not wallowing in a pit of self-pitying martyrdom!” She shook a quaking finger at him as he jumped to his feet, trying not to notice that those feet were bare and that the only thing he had on apart from his breeches was an untucked and billowing linen shirt that was wide open at the neck. The last thing she needed when she wanted to remain righteously indignant at the wretch was a rumpled, crumpled, and much too physically appealing Giles.
“Get out, Diana. I have nothing to say beyond what I have already. My decision is made—”
“And you will not be swayed. Yes, I heard that nonsense loud and clear but have decided to ignore it because it was ridiculous! In fact you are ridiculous to even think for a moment I would cut and run when the hornets start to buzz. Hornets are my stock in trade and I haven’t been stung by one yet!”
He started toward her with murder in his dark eyes and in casehe manhandled her out onto the landing, she turned the key in the lock then dropped it between her breasts. The metal was cold as it slithered beneath her nightgown to rest against the barrier of her belted robe at her waist.
His eyes narrowed as his hands went to his hips and he loomed over her. “If you think that is a deterrent, harridan, think again.”
“If you think your empty threats intimidate me, idiot, you can think again, too. We both know that you would rather die than hurt me.” She put her own hands on her hips and glared up at him, defiant. “We are in this together whether you like it or not, Giles Sinclair, and trust me, I am twice as difficult as you are and quadruple as resourceful. I did what I did on the full understanding of the consequences and there is not an icicle’s chance in hell that I will not confess to the authorities that I stole the page in the parish register if it saves your pigheaded bacon, so unless you want to wave my prison ship to the Antipodes goodbye from Tilbury Docks, you will hear me out!”
He folded his arms. “Say what you came to say and go.” Although his belligerent stance made it plain he was in no mood to listen. Aware that hers was no better, Diana forced her shoulders to relax and exhaled.
“Why don’t we sit?”
“Why don’t we not.”
She could waste precious time with the petty argument he seemed determined to have or she could take an unfamiliar leaf out of Vee’s book and try to be the peacemaker. Instead of reacting as she usually would in the face of such idiocy, she glanced around the candlelit room for a suitable place to park her bottom. As the only place was the bed, she sat there. “I would have thought the duke’sbedchamber would be the most impressive in the house. This room is tiny.”
As she had hoped, the unexpected change of subject disarmed him enough to answer even though he still did so resolutely upright, his stance as unyielding as his pigheadedness. “The duke’s bedchamber is impressive.” He jerked his head toward the door, unwittingly informing her that even after all these months he couldn’t bring himself to sleep in it. The emotional wounds inflicted by his father were just too deep.
“Is this your old room? The one you slept in as a boy?” There was a casual air of easiness about the place that was all Giles. The real Giles and not the superficial façade he presented to the world. The furnishings built more for comfort than to impress and nothing like his ostentatious Egyptian-themed ballroom back in Tavistock Square. His penchant for luxury was evident in the soft blanket and crisp sheets beneath her fingertips. The sumptuous feather mattress and pillows were the sort you would sink into. The artworks on the walls were bold, striking, and filled with color, like the man who owned them. The eclectic pile of reading material on the nightstand was a window into his soul—a witty novel filled with social satire, a weighty tome on modern farming techniques, a history of the feuding Plantagenet kings. On the rug next to the nightstand an illustrated encyclopedia of the flora and fauna of Shropshire sat on a pile of well-readLondon Tribunes; the fragment of the headline visible announced it as the edition where she had first exposed the Camden Canal swindle. There because he was proud of her.
Cared about her.
Loved her with all his stupid, misguided, noble heart.
His gaze followed hers to the newspaper and he winced. “Say what you came to say, Diana. Please.”
“Give me some time to do some more digging into your parents’ relationship and on Gervais. The Derbyshire abduction cannot possibly be his only crime. Olivia told me there was an incident with a maid that your grandmother covered up, and a hundred more rumors of goodness knows what. There will be more rattling skeletons in his cupboard, I know it. I’ll find something else and once I do, we can use that as leverage. I’ll wager everything I have that he’ll run away to save his own skin again.”
“Ifyou can find something in time? And evenifyou do, it will only be a temporary deterrent until the next time he comes back or Galahad does and demands what he is due. No matter what we might think of them, the law is on their side. They both have a stronger legal claim to Harpenden than I ever had.”
“I still think it is worth a punt.”
He laughed without humor, his dark eyes bleak. “The only thing that separates the good gamblers and the bad is their ability to know when to walk away. I was dealt a bad hand, played it as best I could, and bluffed for all I was worth, but Gervais found the ace and once he plays it this game is done.”
“So you are just going to give up?”
He shrugged. “Giving up suggests I have a card up my sleeve when I don’t. I never did. I always knew the duke’s lie would eventually run its course. What I did not know was how long the sands of time would grant me before I had to surrender to the truth. Depending on your point of view, the best and worst possible circumstance was always that the dukedom died with me because before I met you it was inconceivable that I would ever considerpassing that burden on.” He reached for her hand but withdrew it at the last moment. “Now that I know my noble piety only stretches so far, and as much as it terrifies me to relinquish the fate of my tenants to Gervais, I cannot deny that a part of me is also relieved because I am so sick of all the lies. The pretense is exhausting.”
“But…” She sighed, frustrated, and tried to think. There had to be something she could do. Something she had missed. As if he read her thoughts he shook his head.
“There is no but, Diana. That is the trouble with a hornet’s nest. When it gets kicked, there are buzzing hornets everywhere. But these hornets are mine, just as the sting in the tail is also mine to contend with. I dragged you into this but I will not drag you down with me. I will turn myself in tomorrow, plead no prior knowledge to the deception, and pray for leniency. That is the only card I have left.”
“I want to help you.”
“No, Diana. You want to rescue me because that is what you do. But you really can’t. Nobody can. If anything, if your part in any of this becomes public, if the authorities learn that we tried to circumvent justice being done, then I risk losing my freedom on top of everything else. Much better that I was on a quest to find the truth and once I did I surrendered to it. Or you’ll be the one waving my prison ship goodbye at Tilbury.”
He was right as he so often was, drat him. Any whiff that he had tried to perpetuate his father’s lie would damn him in the eyes of the law and the public. Everyone enjoyed seeing a cheat brought to justice, and the higher the fall from grace the better. “You do not have to do that alone. I could…”
He pressed a finger to her lips, his smile sad. “Yes, I do.” Giles did not need to repeat that he loved her because she saw it shimmering in his eyes. Felt the length and the breadth of it to the depths of her soul. “You have worked hard to get where you are and will not be the one to destroy all that because you feel a misguided sense of loyalty to me. I thought, in a moment of madness, I could ignore my conscience because I wanted there to be an us so badly it was worth it. Now I realize I love you too much to ruin your life with my scandal. That wouldn’t be fair, so I have to do what is right.”
