My Reckless Surrender (31 page)

She must be somewhere finishing up a last task before she left. Still, he set off at a broken run through every room, then the back garden. No sign of Diana. He damned his imperfect body, which moved so slowly when he needed to be in fighting condition.

His heart thumping in panic, he dashed up to the carriage. “Diana's missing.”

Miss Smith started to rise, her face tight with concern. “She went inside when we got back from the church.”

“Have you seen her since?”

“No.”

“Mr. Dean?”

The blind man curled his hands over his stick and frowned thoughtfully. “Have you tried the churchyard?”

“Why would she…” Ashcroft stopped, knowing he wasted time, and turned back.

If her father thought Diana might be in the churchyard, that was where he'd look. He had to find her before Burnley did. Grotesque images of the marquess making her pay for her defiance danced through his mind.

“There's a gate through the back garden,” Miss Smith called after him.

He paused and turned back briefly. “Go to London. I'll follow.” He looked at Tobias, who stood holding the carriage door. “Leave me the gig, the two strongest footmen, and mounts for both of them.”

Drawing his pistol, preparing for the worst, he set off at an uneven gallop, ignoring the agony from his injured leg. His pain didn't matter. He had to find Diana. Behind him, carriage doors slammed, and the vehicles rattled away.

His imagination bursting with gruesome possibilities, he barged his way through the gate and into the small graveyard behind the church. Only to find himself in a haven of peace.

No mayhem. No violence. Just late roses, moss-encrusted gravestones, and birdsong.

Ashcroft drew in a deep breath as relief quieted the wild pounding of his blood. Feeling mildly sheepish, he pocketed his pistol.

Diana stood close by. She concentrated so hard on the markers in front of her, she didn't raise her head at his arrival. She'd taken off her bonnet, and her gold hair was lustrous in the sunlight.

Ashcroft limped over to stand behind her. Traversing the rough ground was hell on his leg. He'd left his stick in the house when he'd set out on his frantic chase after Diana.

He immediately guessed why she was here, in spite of the looming danger. The moment her father mentioned the churchyard, he'd known. So he felt no surprise when he found her before two graves, one much newer than the other.

He remained silent as she bent to lay roses on the graves. One for Maria Caroline Dean, beloved wife of John Dean, the other for William Addison Carrick, beloved husband of Diana Charlotte Carrick.

Once Ashcroft had been petty enough to resent William Carrick. No longer. The man had loved Diana, and he'd died far too young. All Ashcroft felt was a piercing compassion for what William had missed.

I'll keep her safe, William. I swear it on my life.

“You're saying good-bye,” he said quietly, reaching up to cling to an overhanging tree branch.

His heart clenched when she turned around. She dashed tears from her cheeks, and her voice was raw with regret. “And asking forgiveness. Neither of them would be proud of me.”

A
shcroft abhorred seeing his strong, vivid Diana so hurt and despairing. From the depths of his heart, he vowed to revive the glowing, confident girl who had promised herself to him in the church.

“Diana…”

She spoke before he could go on. “You make me so ashamed.” Her eyes were the color of slate as they focused on him. “What you did in that church was the bravest thing I've ever seen in my life. It took my breath away. You risked such humiliation, you risked further injury, yet you still did it.”

He shifted to ease the strain on his leg. Her unstinting praise was undeserved. He hadn't felt brave. He'd only felt desperate. “I had to try.”

“But you should hate me.” Her voice cracked with distress. “You
must
hate me.”

What purpose lying? She'd immediately see through any comforting falsehood. And there had already been too many lies between them. “Believe me, I did.”

She flinched so quickly if he hadn't been watching, he'd have missed it. Her chin rose to its familiar angle but without her usual spirit. He knew her conscience tortured her. She'd set out to deceive, but deceit had never come easily.

“You should still hate me.” She swallowed, her slender throat working, and the next words emerged with difficulty. “Your injuries are my fault. Every moment of pain you've endured during the last two months occurred because I wanted something I had no right to possess. Burnley might have given the order for his men to attack you, but the responsibility is mine.”

“It takes more than a few beef-witted thugs to kill me, my love.”

She chopped the air in an emphatic gesture of negation. “Don't make light of what you went through. I look at you and…and I despise myself.”

“Burnley used you.”

He extended his hand in her direction, but she backed away across the grass as though he threatened her with violence. Cynicism tightened her features. “And I was so eager to be used. Don't blame Burnley for my transgressions. You must know I lied to you from the beginning.”

He frowned, lowering his hand to his side. Awareness of danger lurked at the back of his mind. But right now, Burnley and his minions seemed a minor risk to his happiness compared to the corrosive self-hatred he read in Diana's face. “Diana, for the love of heaven, let's put this behind us.”

Straightening, he gingerly tested his weight on his injured leg. Red-hot pain lanced through him as he released the bough. He gritted his teeth and rode out the agony. At this moment, he couldn't countenance any possibility of appearing weak.

He had a question of his own, although he already knew the answer. He was surprised to realize he'd always known it, even when his misery made him curse Diana as a traitorous witch.

“Was it really all lies, what happened between us in London?”

“Why should you believe anything I say?” she said unhappily, refusing to meet his eyes and folding her arms in front of her in a defensive stance.

He fell back on the unadorned truth. “Because I believe in you.”

“You shouldn't,” she said in a thick voice, still not looking at him. Her quivering tension made him resist the urge to fold her in his arms and insist he didn't care about her sins.

He understood why she wanted his anger. Although he could tell that the turmoil she'd suffered in the last months had already punished her to the point of destruction.

For a moment, a taut silence extended. A silence broken by her ragged breathing. Then she chanced a glance in his direction. A frown darkened her face, and she stepped closer, although not close enough to touch him. Again, he had to battle the impulse to drag her into his arms.

“Ashcroft, you shouldn't be standing.”

His jaw hardened in stubbornness. “Bugger my injuries. Answer me.”

“Please…” She drew a shaking breath. “Please sit down, and I'll tell you everything you want.”

For the thousandth time, he consigned his physical infirmities to the deepest realms of Hades. “Very well,” he said unwillingly.

He limped the few steps to a weathered oak bench not far from the graves. He imagined it was a place Diana had often sat during the quiet, lonely years of her widowhood. Carefully, he lowered himself. While he hated to admit she was right, he couldn't remain upright much longer.

Biting her lips, she laced trembling hands at her waist. Her tone turned low and intense. “Of course it wasn't all lies. The desire was always real.”

“Just the desire?” He tensed as he awaited her answer.

“And the love,” she said in a choked voice, turning away and staring into the distance as if she made a shameful confession. “I fought against loving you, but how could I stop myself? You're the man I've waited for my whole life.”

His hands fisted on his knees even as her admission made
his heart lurch with raw joy. The craving to touch her was like a scream, but he beat it back. “You still love me. Or at least you told Burnley you did.”

“Yes, I do love you,” she said huskily. She went on as if she hadn't said anything extraordinary. “That only makes what I did worse. I could have stopped. I should have stopped. Once I realized what you were like, once I recognized how I wronged you.”

“You were afraid of Burnley.”

“No.” She looked directly at Ashcroft, and the stark honesty in her face stabbed him to the soul. “Well, of course I was afraid of him. I'm not a fool—he's a frightening man. But the truth is once we became lovers, I couldn't bear to leave you. I knew if I confessed what I did, you'd hate me and send me away.”

He derived some consolation from learning that during those tumultuous weeks in London, when he'd felt so helpless against his hunger for her, she'd felt equally helpless.

“When I started this, I wanted the Abbey.” Her voice was subdued. “It was a kind of sickness. I'd do anything to get what I wanted, even turn thief and liar and whore.”

“I'm sorry I can't give you the house.” He'd bring the moon down from the sky if it would make her happy.

He supposed that as Burnley's last surviving offspring, he should summon some interest in Cranston Abbey. He couldn't. He'd seized Burnley's greatest treasure when he stole Diana from his father. Anything else, including the impressive baroque pile that was the Fanshawe seat, came tainted with the old man's evil.

Diana shook her head. “Don't be sorry. Justice has been served. Lord Burnley deserved to fail, and so did I.”

No. No, no, no.

His heart slammed against his chest in burning denial. “Do you feel like you failed?” he asked sharply. “Really? Even now?”

Her eyes were stormy with anguish. “I don't care about the
Abbey. I haven't cared for a long time. I only care about you. And I feel like I failed you.”

Oh, dear God, he couldn't bear it. Yes, she'd hurt him. Yes, she'd acted against her deepest principles. But he couldn't endure hearing her denigrating herself like this.

Not his Diana. His Diana was proud and beautiful and brave.

With a clumsiness he resented, he jerked to his feet. As his weight came down on his stiff leg, he stumbled.

“Damnation!”

Now was his chance to play the hero, and he proved weak as a kitten. He needed to be strong. He needed to be powerful. In spite of how far they'd come, they weren't free yet. He still hadn't won the lady.

With a choked gasp of distress, she swiftly swung forward to catch him. As her arms closed tight around him, her voice broke with remorse. “Oh, Ashcroft, how can you even bear to look at me?”

“How can I bear not to?” At last he touched her. Her warmth seeped into him like balm, filled every cold, empty corner. For one blessed moment, he stood silent in her embrace, his cheek resting on her hair. She felt like heaven. She smelled like fresh green apples.

With a long, jagged sigh, she buried her face in his neck. Her voice was hoarse and muffled against his skin. “I don't know how you've mustered the generosity to forgive me, but I can only be thankful that you have. I'm yours. I'll stay as long as you want me.”

As long as he wanted her?

What the hell was this? He drew away just far enough to look down at her. “What in blazes do you mean?”

“Oh, devil take these tears.” She lifted shaking hands to her face, but nothing dammed the endless flow. “Do you have a handkerchief?”

“Of course.” He fumbled in his coat and handed her his handkerchief, still puzzling over what she'd said.

“Thank you.” Roughly, she wiped her face. “I never cry.”

This sounded more like the woman who had seduced him against his better judgment. And to his endless delight.

“I can see that.” Still, he couldn't let her strange statement go unchallenged. “Diana?”

Her gaze was unflinching as she crumpled the white square of material in her hand. “I mean I'll be your mistress.”

He frowned. She wasn't making a scrap of sense. “I don't want you to be my mistress.”

She paled, and he caught a flash of piercing hurt in her eyes. She stepped back, and he felt the distance between him like a blow. Her voice shook. “But in the church, you asked me to come with you.”

Ashcroft growled deep in his throat and grabbed her arms with adamant hands. “As my wife.”

Under his grasp, she trembled like a leaf in a high wind. “You never said.”

“I asked you to marry me after you left London.”

Her mouth parted in astonishment. “That was two months ago. When you didn't know what I'd done.”

“I know now. I still want to marry you,” he said impatiently. He struggled against kissing her. If he kissed her, he wouldn't stop, and he reluctantly acknowledged that they needed to put the past behind them. “It's taken me thirty-two years to propose to the woman I want. It will take more than two months to change my mind.”

Her gray eyes widened with stunned disbelief. “But you can't want to marry me. You…shouldn't.”

He dragged her against him, curling his arms hard around her as if he feared she might try to escape. “I can and I should,” he said firmly.

“Tarquin…”

For a moment, she stood unyielding in his hold. He braced for protest, argument. Then it was as if something snapped inside her. With a strangled cry, she subsided onto his chest
and began to sob with a heartbroken fierceness that made him want to smash something.

“Diana, don't cry. Please, for God's sake, don't cry.”

Automatically, his arms tightened around her. She'd been hovering on the edge of control since he'd found her near the graves. But the fury of her breakdown filled him with savage anguish. Feeling completely at a loss, he stood speechless under the torrent of weeping and incoherent apologies.

All the time his brain worked feverishly at what she'd just revealed.

When he'd claimed her in the church, she'd believed he offered her only a temporary liaison. Yet still she'd unhesitatingly chosen an uncertain future with him over a life of luxury and security as the Marchioness of Burnley.

For months he'd wrestled with what she'd done. He hadn't lied when he told her he'd come to terms with the past. He'd thought his forgiveness was complete. He'd thought he trusted her unconditionally.

But somewhere in the murky depths, a drop of doubt must have lingered. Now that last doubt vanished like dew under a hot sun.

Diana loved him unequivocally. She loved him more than Cranston Abbey or her pride or her self-interest. He longed to shout his triumph to the skies.

His arms firmed around her heaving shoulders and she melted against him with a naturalness that made his heart surge. His injured leg protested with standing so long, but this moment was too precious to sacrifice, whatever his pain.

Cry, darling, cry. Then cry no more.

Eventually, the tempest of weeping eased. “You're very reckless with our child's future,” he said softly.

“How do you know I'm pregnant?” She spoke into his chest, her voice clogged. “It was far too early to be sure when you came to Marsham.”

“Because that's why you were marrying Burnley.”

She raised her head and stared up, her face sticky with tears. Her nose was red, and her eyes were awash. He'd never seen her look so beautiful.

“I could have married him for the house.” Even now, she resisted any attempt to let her off the full measure of guilt.

He smiled down at her. “Diana, I'm not a fool. I know what the delay in your nuptials meant. If the house was all you wanted, you'd have married him the instant you returned from London. Why wait to reap your reward? I can only guess that without the pregnancy, you'd never have agreed to marry him at all.”

She raised a trembling hand to his cheek as if afraid he'd rebuff her. Didn't she know by now that she was everything he wanted in the world?

“I told him no at first. How could I marry him when I was so utterly in love with you? It was sinfully wrong to promise myself to another man. But everything was…”

Perhaps one day, he'd accept her declaration of love as his due. But not yet. Perhaps never. “You needed to give the baby a name and a home. I'm sure he threatened your father and Miss Smith too. I know him too well to imagine anything else. Alone and unmarried, what choice did you have?”

The ache in Ashcroft's chest eased as he watched the desperate misery drain from her face. He lifted one hand to press her palm against his cheek.

“I don't deserve your faith,” she whispered, scrubbing at her damp cheeks with the soggy handkerchief.

“Yes, you do.”

Perhaps over the next fifty years he'd convince her of that. It gradually dawned on him that he needed time and an ocean of love to heal the wounds of the past.

Well, he was certainly man for the task. And today, they'd made a good beginning. But the need to whisk her away to safety became urgent.