“What are you doing here?” she repeated. In the distance she heard laughter and the happy chatter of friends and family, a reminder that even though it felt as though time had stopped the very second she saw Miles’ hauntingly familiar face across the crowded ballroom, her Aunt Abigail’s wedding reception was still very much ongoing.
The sounds of celebration and revelry filled the warm autumn night, carrying all the way down to the stable courtyard where Dianna and Miles stood squared off like boxers preparing to go a round; their body’s stiff, their eyes locked.
Had she known he would follow her after their eyes met across the brightly colored sea of swirling couples, Dianna never would have fled the safe confines of Ashburn Manor.
Most definitely not.
Well…probably not.
Behind her in neatly tended stalls filled with sweet smelling straw, horses either dozed or contentedly chewed their hay. Dianna had never much liked horses – they always seemed to know she was afraid of them and took full advantage – but she drew on their sleepy calmness now, using it to slow the rapid beating of her heart and the quick flutter of her pulse.
If she could survive the public humiliation of being left at the altar, then surely she could get through this. After all, she was no longer the weak, simpering girl who’d cried buckets of tears into her pillow every night. She was a strong woman who knew what she wanted and what she didn’t.
And right now she wanted Miles to leave.
She wanted him to leave and never come back.
Unfortunately, it did not seem as though he was receiving her silent message. Or, knowing him - or at least knowing the boy he’d been - he was simply ignoring it.
“You look well,” he said. “You have not changed at all.”
But you have, she thought silently as she attempted to study his countenance without making it appear as though she were studying his countenance. When her hands began to fidget, an old habit she thought she’d rid herself of years ago, she tucked her arms behind her back and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.
A young lady does not fidget, she reminded herself sternly. A young lady is always calm and collected.
Dianna had begun giving herself tiny boosts of whispered confidence soon after Miles left. The silent mantras had helped her when faced with a drawing room filled with pitying stares and whispered condolences, neither of which she would have ever been forced to endure if not for the man standing before her now. The man so very different from the boy she’d loved…and yet so heartbreakingly the same.
If Miles had been handsome before, he was devastatingly so now. In the four years since she had seen him last his long, lanky body had finally filled out. He’d grown taller. Broader. His eyes were the same vivid green she remembered, but his hair was darker and several inches longer. Unkempt, it touched the collar of his white linen shirt over which he wore only a waistcoat without a customary cravat, leaving his neck and a scandalous amount of tanned chest exposed. A pair of snugly fitting breeches, the color undeterminable in the moonlight, and knee high leather riding boots polished to a dull sheen, completed his casual attire.
Hating that he made her feel overdressed when it was clear he should have worn something far more formal to befit the occasion, Dianna fought the urge to smooth an invisible wrinkle from the skirt of her pale blue gown.
A young lady does not touch her own clothing.
She was falling to pieces.
Again.
The familiar fluttering sensation of panic began to unfurl in her chest, like a thousand butterflies frantically flapping their wings, looking for an escape that did not exist. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, and in an instant was plunged back into the memory of that day, the one she’d vowed to forget.
The day Miles had left her bewildered and broken-hearted.
The day she’d learned happily-ever-after’s did not exist.
The day her life as she knew it had changed forever.
Now the man who’d done the changing was standing a mere two steps away, and it was more than she could possibly bear. More than she should have to bear, she told herself bitterly. For what right did Miles have to come to her tonight? What right did he have to speak to her after all this time? What right did he have to even look at her?
None, she decided. None at all.
“You need to leave.” She spoke quietly, but the underlying command was unmistakable. It was a command she never would have dreamed of making as a young girl with her eyes full of stars and her heart full of love. But she was a woman now.
A woman left.
A woman scorned.
A woman forgotten.
A horse struck out at its stall, the sound of hoof hitting wood echoing in the sudden silence. Startled by the loud noise, Dianna could not help but flinch. In a single powerful stride Miles was beside her and had his hand clasped over her shoulder, the warm weight of it pressing down reassuringly.
“It is only one of the horses moving about.”
“Do not touch me!” She stumbled clumsily out of his grasp and rubbed the spot where his hand had been, as though by doing so she could erase the sudden flood of memories his touch had invoked.
Once she would have relished the gentle caress of his fingertips sliding across her flesh. Once she would have returned the gesture in kind without thinking. But that was then, and this was now. Things were different. She was different. And he had no right to touch her as he once had.
“Don’t,” Miles said roughly. Green eyes flooded with an emotion not easily deciphered, he held out one hand, long, tapered fingers lightly flexing. “Don’t turn from me.” Silver moonlight kissed his muscular forearm, revealing thin blue veins pulsing on one side and a pelt of dark hair on the other.
Staring at his upturned palm as though it held a coiled snake, Dianna gave a jerky shake of her head. “Do not presume to tell me what to do. You have no right. No right,” she repeated. Anger burned like a ball of fire inside her chest, spurring her to say all of the words she’d been holding inside all this years. Words that had played through her mind every night as she lay on her back staring up at the ceiling, silently praying for Miles’ safe return even as she cursed him for leaving her.
“I came here so we can talk about what happened,” he began. “So I can explain-”
“You are too late. I have nothing to say to you,” she spat, her voice lashing the air like a whip. “Do you hear me? Nothing!”
Beneath his scruffy shadow of beard, Miles’ jaw clenched. “You must hear me out.”
“Must I?” she mocked, her slender body vibrating with suppressed rage and a hurt so deep it ran all the way down to her very core. Much like an apple infested with a worm, she was shiny on the outside…but empty where it counted. Empty where it mattered most.
Because of Miles.
He’d broken her when he left. No, not broken, Dianna thought bitterly. Things that were broken could be fixed. Things that were broken could be repaired. He’d shattered her. Mind, body, and soul. Through sheer will and determination she’d managed to put most of the pieces back together, but there were some that could never return to the way they’d been, no matter how hard she tried to make them fit.
“Dianna-” He reached for her again. She twisted away, deftly avoiding his grasp.
“I loved you!” she cried fiercely. To her horror, she felt tears burning in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away. “It may have been young love, but it was pure and true.”
“You love me still,” Miles said.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently from side to side, sending blonde curls whipping across her flushed cheeks. “No, I do not love you. I despise you.”
“Liar.” Closing the distance between them in one long stride, he yanked her hard against him and claimed her mouth with his own.
For a moment, one blissful, reminiscent moment, Dianna allowed herself to be lost in the kiss. She even returned it, lips moving hesitantly beneath
his. Her hands flattened against his chest in slight restraint, holding herself back. Then he deepened the kiss and passion flared, burning as brightly between them as it ever had.
Time has changed most things, Dianna thought dazedly as Miles ran his fingers through her hair and tilted her head back, deepening the kiss as he skimmed his tongue along the seam of her lips, but not this. Never this.
“Dianna.” He groaned her name, and in a fell swoop she came back to herself.
She remembered what he had done. All the pain he had caused. All the dreams he had broken. Shoving hard against his chest she stumbled back and swiped a trembling hand across her mouth.
“Do not speak my name,” she said hoarsely. “In fact, do not speak to me at all.” Gaze darting, she looked over his shoulder at Ashburn Manor. The grand estate stood out in sharp contrast against the night sky, all sloping angles and pitched dormers and stained glass windows glowing with the light of a hundred candles.
“I know you felt that as much as I did,” Miles said quietly. “Say you hate me all you, but don’t deny what is still between us.”
“I need to leave,” she murmured, refusing to look at him. “I should not be here.” Alone with you. The words flickered through her mind, but she held them at bay. She was done speaking to the likes of Miles Radnor. It was too dangerous to open herself up. Too dangerous to invite old emotions back in. What she still wanted to say would have to go unsaid, for although her heart beat with anger, sorrow lurked just beneath the surface, ready to take over and dissolve her courageous facade into a puddle of worthless tears at a moment’s notice.
And she would not, she would not, cry in front of him.
Gloved hands clenching into fists, Dianna pinned them to the sides of her ball gown and started to walk past him, but he stepped directly into her path, his tall, muscular frame blocking out the flickering lights from above.
She stared steadfastly at his broad chest, still refusing to look up at his eyes for fear they would be her undoing. In the past one glance into the warm green depths was all it had taken for her to forgive him any transgression, however grave. She would not allow herself to make the same mistake again.
“Move,” she said through gritted teeth.
Miles crossed his arms, biceps bulging beneath the thin fabric of his rolled sleeves. “No.”
A woman more prone to temper would have lashed out with a curse, but Dianna had learned at an early age to contain her emotions. Ice burned longer than fire, and it was to ice she now resorted, drawing on the bitter coldness that surrounded her heart to give her the strength she needed to face the one man capable of melting her.
“Lord Radnor, I do not know what you hoped to accomplish by coming here tonight, but I can assure you your presence was neither anticipated nor welcomed. In short, I do not want you here. I do want to speak to you. I do not want anything to do with you.” Clinging to the last shreds of composure she possessed, Dianna dared to lift her chin and meet his gaze, wanting him to know he no longer had any effect on her.
At least none she was going to willingly show.
“Step aside and let me pass,” she demanded. “You have embarrassed yourself enough for one evening, don’t you think?”
Green eyes unblinking, rugged countenance hard as stone, Miles held his ground and Dianna’s bravado began to falter. For the first time she considered that she was standing in the dark with a veritable stranger; she may have known the boy Miles had been - or so she thought - but she knew nothing about the man he’d become. What lengths would he be willing to go to get what he wanted? Dangerous ones, she thought with a shiver as she caught the steely glint of determination in his gaze and the hard clench of his jaw.
Seeking another tactic to free herself before her resolve to remain aloof crumbled completely and she fell to pieces, Dianna mustered a thin smile and said, “Please, Lord Radnor. Let me return to the manor. There really is no need to make this more uncomfortable than it already is. If you came here to tell me you have returned to England, then by all means please consider your deed accomplished and let me go.”
For a long, tense moment she thought he would ignore her request, but with a mocking bow he stepped rigidly to one side of the path. “As you wish, Miss Foxcroft.”
Lifting her chin until the tiny bones at the nape of her neck ached for release, Dianna glided past him, careful to take tiny, ladylike steps even as every muscle in her body screamed at her to sprint up the hill, find the nearest closet, and lock herself within it.
A lady never hurries. A lady is always patient. And a lady most certainly never locks herself in closets.
“This is not over.” Miles may have spoken quietly, but his words carried through the night air and reached Dianna nevertheless. “What is between us, it’s not over. Not yet.”
She froze mid-step. Part of her mind screamed at her to keep going, but the other part - the wicked part she kept buried deep within that no one other than Miles seemed able to bring to the surface - demanded she hold her ground.
She turned slowly, jerkily, as though her limbs were attached to strings being controlled by a puppeteer. “Not over?” she repeated in disbelief. Shadows fell like an ebony curtain between them and were it not for the moonlight reflecting off the roof of the stable she would have lost him to the darkness entirely. “It was over four years ago. It was over the moment you left. There is nothing between us now except memories I would rather forget than remember. Let it go, Miles.”
“Is that what you have done?” he drawled, one thick eyebrow rising in silent challenge. “Have you let it go, Dianna?”
Looking at Miles now, his powerful body silhouetted in the moonlight and his eyes glowing with a predatory gleam, it was hard for Dianna to find comparison with the lanky youth he’d been. Instead she found herself imagining him as a rogue pirate lord in a time where men took what they wanted when they wanted it, and the shiver that ran down her spine had nothing to do with the growing chill in the air.
“Yes,” she lied desperately. “I have put it all behind me.”
Up on the hill a shout echoed, followed by a shriek of laughter. Miles waited for the sounds of celebration and revelry to fade into silence before he said, “I was only a boy, you know.”
The ache in Dianna’s chest was sharp and sudden. Had Miles taken a dagger and plunged it into her breast she would not have felt any more pain than those seven words conjured.
“And I was just a girl,” she whispered achingly as she felt one of her carefully mended pieces began to crack and crumble. Wrapping her arms around herself as though she could physically contain all the emotions swirling inside, she bowed her head. “A girl you left brokenhearted and alone without a word of explanation. Not a word, Miles. Not even a note.” The remnants of quiet bewilderment she’d felt on her wedding day still echoed in her voice, the questions she’d had then the same as the ones she had now. Unable to hold them back any longer they burst from her lips, one tumbling into the next. “How could you? How could you do that to me? To us?”
Countenance unreadable, Miles took a step forward. “Dianna, I-”
“No.” She took a deep breath, then another, silently willing herself to gain control. It was better if she not know. Better if her questions went unanswered. Better if she let the past be the past. For in truth, there was no answer Miles could give that would sate the ache and the hurt four years of abandonment had built inside of her. “There was a time when I would have accepted your excuses,” she said softly, glancing up at him through her lashes. “There was a time when I even would have forgiven you. But that time has come and gone.”
The growl that emanated from his chest sounded more wolf than man. “If you will only let me explain-”
“No.” Dianna’s hand shot into the air, palm facing towards him. “I grew up, Miles. I am no longer the girl you left and you are not the boy I loved. Not anymore.”
“That is how you want it to be?” he demanded, green eyes feverishly bright in the
flickering darkness.
Though her heart hesitated, her tongue did not. “That is how it is.”
This time when she turned to go he did not try to stop her. Navigating the narrow path with her head raised high and shoulders pulled back, Dianna slowly made her way up the hill towards Ashburn Manor.
Chapter Two
The closer Dianna got to the sprawling mansion, the brighter the lights glowed. Shying away from the wedding reception still ongoing inside the palatial estate, she went instead to a dark gazebo on the outskirts of the front lawn.
A fine layer of dew clung to the hem of her gown by the time she reached the abandoned structure, dampening the thin muslin and soaking through her dancing slippers. Kneeling, she methodically pried off one shoe and then the other, setting them neatly beside the first step before walking barefoot into the gazebo and sitting in the furthest corner.
From her new vantage point she could just make out the shadowed silhouettes of dancing couples as they swept by the manor’s oversized windows, moving in time to the lively music spilling out through a set of open French doors. It seemed almost impossible that less than an hour ago she been in their midst, carefree and happy, Miles Radnor the very last thing on her mind.
Now he was the only thing she could think about... no matter how hard she tried not to. But like a hot brand his ruggedly handsome countenance was imprinted in her mind, the hard growl of his voice echoing in her ears.
This is not over…
With a sharp cry Dianna jumped to her feet and began to pace the length of the gazebo, heels hitting the wooden boards hard enough to send pain ricocheting up into her calves which she astutely ignored, any physical pain paling in comparison to the agony she felt in her heart.
Why did Miles have to come back now? As her eyes filled with tears she drew a ragged breath and braced her hands on the railing, shoulders trembling with the force it took to contain her emotions as she stared blindly out into the dark.
London Ladies (The Complete Series) Page 34
