My Reckless Surrender (20 page)

A
s Ashcroft had expected, the lovely fluidity drained from Diana's body. She gasped with shock, and the pink leached from her cheeks.

“I told you why I'm in London.” Her voice shook, and she refused to meet his eyes, sure proof, did she but know it, she lied. “I told you the first day.”

He'd studied Diana Carrick with an attention he usually devoted to his latest antiquity, not to living, breathing women he lured to his bed.

And wasn't that a bleak reflection on the depth and value of his relationships?

“I know what you told me,” he said steadily. He'd long ago reached the conclusion she had lied about why she became his lover.

She tried to pull free. “Well, then.”

He tightened his grip, insisting upon her attention. “Not good enough, Diana.”

Startled, she stopped struggling and regarded him directly for the first time since he'd asked his unwelcome question. Like sharks in a shallow ocean, familiar shadows swam in her eyes.

“I don't understand.” She didn't sound angry. She sounded frightened.

He ignored a kick from his conscience. “Of course you do.”

“You make too much of this, find mysteries where there are none.” She drew a shaky breath, and he noted to the second when she decided to elaborate on her unconvincing story.

He might believe it of a thousand other women, but this reckless pursuit of pleasure didn't fit the Diana he knew. She was a vitally passionate woman, but she was also strong-willed and no slave to appetite.

At least she hadn't told him he had no right to interrogate her. That in itself was an admission of the intimacy she resisted.

“At home, my behavior is scrutinized. If I want a man in my bed, the only way I'll get him is with the Church's blessing. I want…” She paused. For all his confidence in his ability to read her, he wasn't sure whether she lied or told the truth. A tangled mixture of the two, he guessed.

She relaxed into his hold, indicating her willingness to answer to a point. Fatalistically he wondered when they'd reach that point. She sighed. “I've had eight years of chaste widowhood. I wanted an adventure. Something to remember in virtuous old age.”

He believed part of this. He didn't believe all of it. “Why now? Why wait eight years? What prompted you to take this risky step?”

She looked at him in genuine shock. “Risky?”

He shot her an impatient glare. “Don't be a damned fool, Diana. Of course it's risky.”

His blood turned to ice when he thought of some of the men she could have selected for her fling. If all she wanted in a lover was a worldly reputation, the list included every rapscallion and whoremonger in London.

He studiously avoided admitting that both words described the Earl of Ashcroft.

The smile she sent him brimmed with unconditional trust. “As if you'd hurt me.”

He quashed the traitorous warmth her immediate faith evoked. “You know that now, not when you approached me. And there are other hurts, like an unwanted child or damage to your reputation.”

“You sound like you regret my choice.”

“Never.” Let her not discover how fervently he meant that denial. “But why come to London now? Something must have changed. You're by nature a virtuous woman.”

She looked cross. “How can you say that after what we've done?”

He gave a surprised laugh. “That wasn't a criticism, my love. You know I find you irresistible.” His tone deepened into seriousness. “Tell me, Diana.”

After a fraught pause, she began to speak in a low, intense voice. “A man at home wants to marry me.”

Ashcroft's gut twisted. He couldn't speak past the great lump of rage that lodged in his throat.

How could she mention another man? Didn't she know she belonged to him? The crazy thought bobbed like flotsam on the surface of his mind, refused to sink into the mud where it belonged. He wasn't a man who offered forever. He was the notorious, inconstant, capricious Earl of Ashcroft who promised a woman only untrammeled pleasure and a summary good-bye once his interest had run its course.

Which didn't make the idea of another man sharing Diana's bed any more palatable.

She seemed to take his silence as encouragement to continue. Or perhaps having launched her confession, she couldn't stop. “He's…he's an older man, rich and well respected in the village.”

“Naturally,” Ashcroft snapped, then was ashamed of his sharp response.

She flushed and glanced toward the window. He had the feeling she didn't see the sky outside, but some other, more
personal image. An image that didn't please her. “You don't approve.”

“I'm hardly a pattern card of morality,” he said stiffly.

She dragged in a shaky breath. He was dismayed to realize she wasn't far from tears. “If I consent, I'll be marrying him for his money. That doesn't mean I won't be a good wife. He needs me. It's not a one-way bargain.”

“Does he know you sneaked up to London for some…town bronze?”

He chose the innocuous term, although they both knew exactly why she was here. Ashcroft wasn't particularly conceited. He'd always been aware of his failings. But even when she'd tried to treat him as a whore, he'd never before felt like one.

He did now. And he hated the sensation to his bones.

He caught the blossoming shame on her face. “I told you I required discretion.”

“Hurrah for you.” He bit back the outrage he had no right to fling at her head. She'd offered him her body, not her faith or her heart or her love.

He didn't want those things. He never did from a lover.

The insistence rang hollow.

Another silence crashed down, laden with cruel words that hovered unspoken. He forced himself to ask the question even though he didn't want the answer. “Are you going to marry him?”

She didn't meet his eyes. “I'm not sure.”

He could see she'd made her mind up.

Except still this story didn't ring true. He wasn't sure why. Just some finely tuned instinct hinted there was another layer, another set of complications.

A marriage that offered material comfort but no excitement. That perhaps explained a passionate woman's chase after brief freedom before settling to dull respectability. Especially when she'd already suffered eight years of lonely widowhood.

Her story made perfect sense.

But somehow not for Diana.

It was a sign of his woeful state of infatuation that he'd rather she lied than married another man.

Perhaps she didn't plan to marry another man. Perhaps she was already married. Yet again, he couldn't dismiss the possibility of a living, present husband.

The tragedy was he'd convinced himself she contained a core of truth, and he touched it every time he made love to her.

When she lay in his arms, she didn't lie.

While almost twenty years' experience of the female sex taught him that that was when they lied the best.

Not Diana, his idiot heart cried.

“Do you despise me?” she whispered, still looking out the window.

The answer welled up out of the deepest part of him. “I could never despise you. Whatever you did.”

Unfortunately for his pride and for his future welfare, it was true. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it with a fervor lacking before.

When she turned to him, her eyes were cloudy with distress. “Remember that.”

Her slender throat moved as she swallowed. As if she fought back other, more dire confessions. He wanted to beg her to trust him, to insist he'd forgive her anything as long as she told him what troubled her. But the words choked into silence.

He watched her assume a brighter expression. Although her eyes remained glassy with unhappiness. “I need to go.”

Why, if no man waited at home? The wall she placed between them became more frustrating. He threw the sheet aside and rose to his feet.

He wanted to harangue her, demand she tell him everything, save him from having to discover the truth through subterfuge. Instead, he grabbed her and drew her up for a
hard kiss. Her lips immediately opened, and the kiss became a long, passionate exploration. He tasted her desperation, her turmoil. When finally she pulled away, his heart thudded fit to burst, and his thoughts whirled like drunken sailors dancing the hornpipe.

She was the most delicious woman he'd ever known. God forbid she hid poison under the honey. Although he'd reached such a stage of enchantment he'd probably die happy even if she did.

“Tomorrow night? Nine?” she asked in a husky voice.

“Eight.”

Her voluptuous mouth quirked. “Seven.”

“Six.” He smiled back, in spite of the grim thoughts rocketing through his mind. “That's my last offer.”

She nodded. “You drive a hard bargain. Six it is.”

He bit back the invitation for her to spend the day with him. He bit back the urge to grab her and keep her. He hated the uncertainty of this affair. But not so much as he hated the idea of her walking away, even for only a few hours.

“Until tomorrow,” she said softly. God rot him for a credulous numbskull, he heard similar regret at leaving in her voice.

She hid herself under the thick cloak and the ugly bonnet. One lingering glance from luminous gray eyes before she lowered the veiling. Then she was gone.

The door opened a few minutes later to admit Robert. “Madam has left, my lord.”

“Did you have her followed?”

The footman nodded. “Yes, two men are tracking her.”

 

In Chelsea, Diana shut the library door after her and collapsed shaking against it.

She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't.

Every day, her deception became more impossible. And today, today she'd come so close to betraying herself. Still wasn't sure she hadn't. Ashcroft had hidden his reaction, but
she knew that formidable brain worried at her unconvincing answers like a terrier worried at a bone.

The mixture of lies and half-truths she'd fed Ashcroft this afternoon made her belly cramp with disgust. She could hardly bear to live inside her skin, she felt so dirty and fraudulent.

He said he'd never despise her. If he discovered the truth, he would. He should.

She despised herself.

She sucked in a shuddering breath. What should she do? What should she do?

Feeling a thousand years old, Diana pushed away from the door and moved forward to slump into one of the high-backed chairs near the desk.

Like most of the house, this room was on a feminine scale. Not at all like Ashcroft's huge library, where she'd made her outrageous proposal. At the time, she'd regarded that room with contempt, as if the earl claimed an intellectual standing he couldn't justify. Those rows of scholarly books, that imposing mahogany desk, the dizzying array of maps and globes and scientific instruments seemed pretentious, false. She'd since learned better. He was clever and interested in his world in a way she found increasingly attractive.

She desperately needed to find some facet of his character that didn't appeal to her.

It was all such a horrible, tragic mess.

After spending hours in his bed, Ashcroft's scent clung to her hair and skin. Ashcroft's tangy taste lingered in her mouth. It was as if he'd branded her.

Blindly, she stared ahead. She should go upstairs, change out of this crumpled gown, order a bath. She had to write her bulletin, which became terser with each day, to Lord Burnley. She should also write to her father. She'd neglected him lately. Partly because she'd been occupied with her lover. Partly because she hated setting pen to paper with every word a lie.

Wherever she turned, she betrayed someone.

At least here she didn't do active harm. At least here, she didn't look into accusing eyes, even her own.

Although these days, her eyes held secrets beyond her plots with Lord Burnley. These days, she looked into her eyes and saw a woman hopelessly and endlessly in love. She'd battled against admitting the emotion for so long, but her strivings were useless.

She loved Ashcroft.

And still she meant to use and abandon him.

She closed her eyes, knowing she reached the limits of what she could endure. She couldn't lie to Ashcroft anymore. She loved him with all her heart, and she recognized that the best thing she could do for him was to disappear from his life forever.

How would she do this without tarnishing herself in his eyes? Without revealing the plot to bear his child? She didn't know. She only knew she had to break with Ashcroft before she caused more harm than she had already.

She felt like a coward. But she'd reached the limit of her resources. She'd hide for a little while, then armor herself to take up the tangled strands of her life.

 

“Diana, wake up.”

Laura's voice and the gentle shake on her shoulder penetrated Diana's disturbed dreams. Reluctantly, she raised heavy lids to see her friend bending over her.

Laura straightened, hands on her hips, the lamplight revealing a concerned light in her dark eyes. Behind Laura the door angled open to the black-and–white-tiled entrance hall.

Diana stirred in the chair and winced. Her neck was stiff and at an awkward angle. She must have dropped off to sleep. Not surprising. Passion was exhausting. And a guilty conscience kept her awake even when she found the chance to rest.

“What time is it?” Weariness slurred her question. Gingerly, she sat up and pushed back the tumble of hair. During her impromptu nap, her insecure hairstyle had collapsed.

“Eight. James only just told me you came in. I assumed you were still out.”

Not as late as she'd thought. “Have you had dinner?”

“No. Will you join me? Or do you have another appointment?”

‘Another appointment,' as they were both aware, meant meeting Ashcroft. “No.”

Diana was surprised to note that she was hungry. As usual, the suite at Lord Peregrine's had been furnished with an extravagant repast, but she and Ashcroft had been too eager for each other to pay attention to food. Afterward, she could have stayed to share a meal, but she'd been frantic to leave before she gave away the whole squalid scheme.