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Had she truly been coerced into marriage? What had the Duke done to turn the vibrant girl he’d known into a woman who turned an indifferent face to the world, who seemed desperate to maintain a rigid self-control?
Now, he knew he couldn’t walk away from her until he uncovered the whole truth about Diana.
Chapter Seven
Having fled Green Park Buildings without waiting for a footman to call her a sedan chair, Diana quickly traversed the dark streets, keeping herself into the shadows. Arrived safely at Laura Place, grateful for the enveloping cloak that had allowed her to travel with her gown not fully fastened and to be able to remove it without having to wake up a maid, she crept up to her bedchamber. Knowing she was too distraught to think rationally or worry over what Annie would think of this sudden ability to get herself out of her gown without assistance, she’d shed her garments, thrown on her night rail and wrapped herself, trembling, in the bedclothes.
With her dissatisfied body humming and her mind racing in panicked indecision, she slept poorly.
* * *
Diana woke early, hardly more rested than when she’d laid her head on the pillow. But the last hour before dawn was the only time she’d have alone to think before the household was stirring.
Escaping Alastair and his too-persistent questions last night had been the most temporary of solutions. She was still bound to return to him tonight, where she was likely to face even more pointed enquiries.
She could just tell him everything, rather than waiting for him to trick and dig it from her. But, with Graveston having methodically isolated her from everyone she’d known, she’d lost the knack of making confidences. Besides, how could she revisit those scenes of misery and despair, without the risk that some of the ugly emotions she’d worked so hard to bury might escape the pit into which she’d thrust them?
She was free of that place now, of him. She didn’t want to remember any of it.
She could still send Alastair a note, breaking off all contact.
The possibility tantalised. With no Alastair Ransleigh to challenge her control and distract her thoughts, she could bend all her energies into preparing herself to counter the move from Blankford she knew would soon be coming.
At the cost, of course, of whatever honour she had left.
She tried to talk herself out of that conviction; after all, ‘honour’ was a concept invented by the same gentlemen who wrote the laws allowing husbands to beat wives with impunity, assume control of all their assets and property to use or waste as they chose—and take away their children.
She tried to convince herself, but it wouldn’t wash; she was too much her father’s daughter. The idea that a pledge once given must be followed through, that a wrong done must if at all possible be righted, were precepts ingrained in her from earliest childhood.
But hard upon the swell of despair brought by that thought, a new, much more promising possibility occurred to her. One that set her needy senses racing.
Why not give Alastair what he wanted? What he truly wanted, which wasn’t the sordid details of her marriage, or some sloppy flood of emotion, but her physical surrender. If she allowed herself to respond to him, the nights at Green Park Buildings could be pleasant for them both, rather than exercises in frustration, as she tried to resist his touch. After inciting her to passion, he would be too satisfied and replete for conversation.
Excitement feathered through her, dissipating the lingering fatigue. She’d burned and hungered for his touch during their courtship days, eager for the feel of complete possession. What a dolt she was being, to have been offered that and refused it!
Even better, passion would possess her completely, too, eliminating any thought or emotion beyond the physical. No frustration and anxiety, nor any need either to armour herself against a revival of the love for him she’d buried deep, where its loss could no longer hurt her. There’d be only a firestorm of sensation and then the peace of fulfilment.
Best of all, she knew she could do this. Resisting his touch had been an exhausting, nerve-fraying battle of will. Letting go of that control, her secrets and emotions securely hidden, would be sweet as slipping between silken sheets.
Perhaps some day, when she’d learned to love her son again and figured out how to keep him safe, she might risk remembering the joy of that long-ago spring with Alastair. Their attachment had lacked only physical fulfilment to make it complete. If she claimed that now, in that far-away future she might merge the two memories into one shining, jewelled brilliance of a recollection—the image of a perfect love to sustain her the rest of her days.
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.
