London Ladies (The Complete Series)

by Eaton, Jillian

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The storm caught Miles unaware. One moment the skies were a clear, flawless blue and the next they were a dark, boiling stew of black and gray. He made it from the stables to the manor just as the first strike of lightning lit up the sky and a boom of thunder shook the ground, bringing with it a torrent of freezing rain and hail.

  Inside of Winfield there was another storm taking place, albeit a silent one. His mother looked up from her embroidery as he walked into the front drawing room, but other than an icy flick of her eyes she gave him no acknowledgement. Bowing his head he stepped out, closing the door behind him before heading for the privacy of his study.

  Since he’d returned two days ago and told his mother he planned to once again leave England, this time for good, she had refused to speak to him. Given that their relationship was tenuous at best before he made his announcement he couldn’t say he was surprised, only disappointed.

  He needed someone to understand him and his reasons for leaving. Harper hadn’t, not that he could blame her, and he knew Dianna wouldn’t, which left his mother… but for once in her life Olivia Radnor was withholding favor from her only son and it didn’t seem she was keen on giving it back anytime soon.

  Running a palm down the middle of his face, Miles sat at his desk and stared blindly down at the pile of ledgers he still needed to sort through. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, but he wouldn’t allow himself the bitter luxury of putting as much distance between himself and Dianna as possible until he’d seen to all of his family’s finances. When he left, he wanted it to be with the assurance his mother and Harper would want for nothing and the estate would pass without hindrance to Harper’s firstborn child as he had no intention of ever fathering his own children.

  For one weak moment he allowed himself to think of what a child with Dianna would have looked like. A boy, he imagined, with his sturdy build and Dianna’s dimpled smile. Or perhaps a girl with soft blonde curls and bewitching blue eyes.

  With a pained groan Miles buried his head in his hands. This was why he needed to leave. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. If he wanted retain whatever shred of sanity he still possessed, he couldn’t remain in England.

  Which meant he needed to finish sorting through these bloody ledgers.

  Wearily pinching the bridge of his nose he applied himself to the task, tuning out the crash of thunder and the pelting smack of rain against the windows.

  The work of sorting through financial records wasn’t hard so much as it was tedious, and when the numbers began to blur together in one long stream of black Miles closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, hands flexing as he fought the urge to go to his private stock of liquor and pour himself a drink.

  His mother’s shrill scream had him jolting out of his chair and racing for the front foyer. Olivia Radnor was not a woman given to dramatics and he’d only heard her raise her voice in such a manner once before when her beloved lady’s maid had suffered a serious burn on her arm.

  A feeling of terrible forbidding settled like a heavy weight upon Miles’ shoulders as he discovered his mother peering out one of the front windows, her hands cupped against the glass as she strained to see something through the driving rain.

  “What is it?” he demanded, coming up behind her.

  “A horse. A horse without a rider just came galloping up the drive and went towards the stables.” Turning to reveal a face drained of all color, Olivia clutched her son’s arm. “Miles… it was Damsel.” Green eyes wide, she took a staggering step back, bumping into the window as she brought a trembling hand to her mouth. “The horse was Damsel.”

  Harper.

  With a savage curse Miles threw open the front door and sprinted out into the storm. Rain blinded him and the force of the howling wind nearly knocked him off his feet, but he gritted his teeth and fought back against the tempest, forcing one foot in front of the other, one arm stretched out in front of his face to deflect the worst of the stinging rain.

  He’d nearly made it to the stables when he thought he heard a muffled shout. Whirling, he squinted into the darkness, eyes widening in disbelief as he made out the dim shape of someone rapidly approaching on horseback.

  “HARPER!” he shouted, waving his hands to gain the rider’s attention. The horse spooked as it drew near, the whites of its eyes flashing in visible distress. Half falling, half dismounting as the horse swerved to the right before bolting past Miles and into the barn, the rider landed in the mud on their hands and knees.

  Miles was at the rider’s side in an instant, crouching down and throwing a shielding arm around their back. “Who are - Eddie?” Stunned, he stared blankly at the face of his groom as Eddie picked himself up off the ground and, with Miles’ aid, staggered to his feet.

  “Aye,” the younger man said miserably, raising his voice to a scratchy yell to be heard above the relentless pounding of the freezing rain. “I came as quick as I could.”

  Miles took the groom by his shoulders and gave him a hard shake. “Harper. Where is she? Did she fall? Is she hurt?”

  Turning his head to the side, Eddie spit out a stream of water. “I didn’t travel here with your sister, my lord.”

  Miles’ feeling of unease returned, doubling in its intensity. “Then who was on Damsel? Who was it Eddie? Damn you, tell me!”

  “Miss Dianna Foxcroft!” the groom said hoarsely. “We came from London this morning and were nearly here when the storm overtook us. Damsel reared and Miss Dianna was thrown. She - she’s injured, my lord. I don’t know how badly.”

  Fear seized Miles in a vice-like grip, tightening around his throat until he struggled to draw a full breath. “Take me to her.”

  They headed down the drive towards the woods at a run, running as fast as the elements and Eddie’s exhausted legs would allow. Lightning struck in the distance, illuminating the sky in a flash of white hot brilliance followed by a boom of thunder that shook the very ground.

  “There!” Eddie suddenly shouted, pointing to a clearing several yards ahead. “She fell there.”

  It took a second burst of lightning tearing across the sky before Miles could make out Dianna’s lifeless silhouette. She lay crumpled on her side in a bed of leaves, one arm flung out in front of her, the other twisted beneath.

  He fell to his knees before her, face a mask of dawning horror as he touched her pale skin and instantly recoiled, appalled by the icy coldness of her flesh. “Your jacket,” he demanded of Eddie when the groom kneeled beside him. “Give me your jacket.”

  Eddie shed off the outer garment at once and Miles wrapped Dianna in it before he picked her up and cradled her against his chest. Her head lolled to one side, revealing a four inch bloody gash on her temple. Miles’ stomach clenched.

  “Return to the stables,” he ordered Eddie. “Take the fastest horse and ride for the closest doctor. Wake him up if you have to, but for God’s sake get him to Winfield as quick as you can.”

  His face white and slim body trembling without the protection of his coat, the young groom nevertheless gave a determined nod of his head. “Consider it done,” he said before he dashed away, sprinting pell-mell for the barn.

  Returning his attention to Dianna, Miles pressed his trembling lips to her wet brow. Doing his best to shield her from the worst of the rain, he began a seemingly endless trek back to the manor, careful not to jostle her any more than necessary. “I’ve got you now. I’ve got you,” he repeated, “and you are going to be alright. Just hold on, love. All you need to do is hold on a little bit longer and everything will be just fine.

  It was not a promise Miles intended to break.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dianna spent the next three days recovering in one of Winfield’s ornately furnished guest bedrooms. Attended by a bevy of servants intent on fulfilling her every need, she lacked for nothing while she rested.

  Nothing except for Miles.

  She waited in vain for him to come see her,
every night staying up as long as her body would allow, straining to hear the sound of floorboards creaking outside her door. But he never came, and by the beginning of the fourth day her patience had worn thin. At the end of it her patience vanished entirely. Every bit as much determined to speak with Miles as he seemed determined to avoid her, she slipped into the same dress she’d arrived in, now clean and freshly pressed with only the tiniest of rips on one sleeve.

  Carrying a candle she descended the grand staircase one careful step at a time, still nursing a few bumps and bruises including the welt on her head that had closed and begun heal courtesy of a local doctor’s care, but remained visible as a streak of red running across the right side of her temple.

  It was well after dinner, and the servants that did not live at Winfield had all gone home for the evening, leaving the house quiet and sparsely lit. Spying a flicker of light coming from beneath the door of the library Dianna held her breath as she approached, the candle bobbing in her hand as she raised a fist and softly knocked.

  After a long, interminable pause the door swung inward to reveal the last person in the entire estate Diana would have hoped to come across.

  “What are you doing down here?” Dressed in a nightgown and heavy robe, holding a sewing needle in one hand and a ball of yarn in the other, Lady Radnor looked down her nose at Dianna and gave an exaggerated sniff. “It is late. Go back upstairs,” she said, ordering Dianna about as if she were one of the maids instead of a guest.

  Having waited this long and come this far, however, Dianna was not about to turn around so easily. “I would like to see Miles. Do you know where he is?”

  Lady Radnor’s mouth thinned. “He is not here,” she said shortly. “Now go back upstairs.”

  The library door began to slowly swing shut, leaving Dianna with precious few seconds to decide what she wanted to do. The old Dianna would have stepped meekly aside and let the door shut. Not wanting to incite Lady Radnor’s wrath, the old Dianna would have done precisely as she had been asked and scurried back to bed without a single protest.

  How unfortunate - for Lady Radnor - that she’d left the old Dianna in London.

  Catching the edge of the door with her foot, she shoved it back open and, ignoring Lady Radnor’s sputter of outrage, said, “I am sorry to have disturbed you at such a late hour, but I really must insist on seeing Miles.”

  “How dare you-”

  “How dare you, Lady Radnor.” Lifting her chin, Dianna stared fiercely at Miles’ mother. It was the first time she’d ever dared look the older woman in the eye. “How dare you treat me as you did for all of those years. How dare you act as if I was never good enough for your son and how dare you have the audacity to decide his life for him when he was no more than a child. Miles deserved more than that, as did I. So do not dare me, Lady Radnor. Not anymore.”

  Lips pinched into a bloodless white line and stern countenance drained of all color, Lady Radnor lifted a trembling arm and pointed over Dianna’s right shoulder towards the front door. “The horses. He is with his horses.”

  Dianna nodded. “Thank you.”

  Tucked away behind a towering row of English oaks, Winfield’s stables were larger and more impressive than many a home. Built of stone with a meticulously kept courtyard in front and acres of pasture out back, the main barn was accessed through sliding double doors painted the color of brick.

  Dianna found both doors closed, but seeing a glow of light spilling out from beneath them in the shape of a half-moon she marched forward with single-minded determination.

  Pushing one door open a few scant inches she slipped in sideways, her footsteps muffled by the thick layer of straw on the barn floor. As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting she inhaled the familiar scents of horse and hay and leather, breath catching in her throat when she spotted Miles tending to a chestnut in the middle of the aisle.

  Dressed in dark trousers and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, he groomed the horse with his back to her, moving a brush with rhythmic strokes across the chestnut’s shoulder until it gleamed in the torchlight like a new copper penny. A sheen of perspiration covered Miles’ forehead and dampened the back of his shirt, indicating he’d been in the barn for quite some time.

  He had always gone to his horses when he needed to think, and as Dianna silently approached she could only hope he was thinking of her. There would be no going back after this. She would either leave the stables with Miles at her side… or her heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

  The horse sensed her presence first. Nostrils flaring, it threw up its head and struck out testily at the wall, hoof striking the wood with a reverberating bang that froze Dianna in her tracks.

  “What the devil… Dianna?” Stepping around the side of the horse, Miles did a double take when he saw her, one hand passing down over his face as though he didn’t trust his own vision. Then he blinked, and his expression hardened. “What are you doing here? You should still be in bed. Your head-”

  “Is fine,” she interrupted. “My head is fine and the only reason I am out here is because you refused to come see me in there,” she said, jerking her chin in the direction of the manor.

  Miles was not swayed. Closing the distance between them in three rapid strides, he stopped just short of touching her, arms stiff at his sides and hands clenched into tight fists that betrayed the tension running rampant through his body. “You’re not well.” His gaze fell to the welt on her temple, a severe frown pulling at the corners of his mouth as he studied the wound. “The doctor said the cut on your head would take at least a week to heal.”

  “I am well enough,” Dianna snapped. Seeing Miles’ eyes widen, she closed her own and sighed deeply. This was not how she’d imagined their conversation starting out.

  For the past three days while she laid in her bed with nothing else to do but count the cracks running across the plaster ceiling, she had thought about what she would say when Miles finally came to see her. She’d gone over every word and sentence, even going so far as to practice the varying inflections she would use in her tone.

  Now she could remember none of it.

  “Why haven’t you come to see me?” A golden curl tumbled across her brow when she shook her head in bewilderment. Miles reached for the errant tendril before she could, allowing the lock to twist around his finger before he tucked it carefully behind her ear.

  “I couldn’t,” he said after a long pause. “I couldn’t see you laying in the bed, so small and fragile, and know you were there because of me. That you’d nearly lost your life… because of me.”

  “You saved me,” Dianna corrected. “If you hadn’t found me, I do not know what would have happened.” Gazing up at his ruggedly handsome face, she saw a flash of anger spark in the depths of his dark green eyes.

  “There is another reason I did not come to see you,” he said roughly. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” she asked in confusion. “How could you-”

  “You never should have come here!” he snarled, the sudden raw display of ferocity in his countenance and voice causing her to jump back in alarm. “Do you have any idea what could have happened? Do you? DO YOU?”

  Dianna swallowed. “I-I-”

  “You’re terrified of horses! You haven’t ridden since you were a child! What were you thinking? Bloody hell,” he cursed, turning away to rake both hands violently through his hair. “You could have been killed.”

  Realizing his anger stemmed from fear and concern, Dianna followed after him as he stalked down the length of the aisle to stare broodingly out the back doors at the rolling fields beyond. The sun had nearly set, leaving the sky painted in swatches of gold and dusky rose as the moon slowly revealed itself.

  “Harper told me you were leaving to travel abroad. I did not want to risk being too late,” Dianna said quietly.

  Miles’ shirt rippled as his powerful back muscles clenched and tightened. “So you thought to risk yo
ur life instead?”

  She stepped up beside him and took his arm, fingers splaying evenly across the dark dusting of hair. “Does that upset you?”

  He turned his head to look down at her incredulously. “Does that - of course it does! If something ever happened to you...”

  As she gazed up at the man she loved, his face a war of conflict as he struggled to come to terms with the emotions battling inside of him, Dianna realized he would never be perfect, but then neither would she. They were both flawed. They had both brought hurt to the other. But they had also brought strength and happiness, laughter and courage, love and hope.

  She used to believe Miles had broken her when he left.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d made her stronger.

  For even though they had been connected since birth by circumstances beyond their control, they’d each needed to forge their own way in life. For Miles, it had meant leaving everyone and everything he held dear to explore the unknown. For Dianna, it had meant discovering her own voice and learning how to use it to speak for herself.

  If Miles had never left they would have been married on that fateful day four years ago, but they never would have been happy. Miles would have grown to resent her in time and beneath the crushing weight of his resentment and all the things she was too timid to say, Dianna feared she would have grown smaller and smaller until one day she simply… disappeared.

  “I came here to give you an answer to your question. The one you asked me in the carriage after the ball,” she explained when he looked at her blankly.

  Miles’ expression abruptly darkened, the corners of his mouth tightening into a grimace of self-disgust. “That night in the carriage I lost control. I never should have touched you. I never meant-”

  “I know.” She squeezed his arm. “I know, Miles.”

  His chest rose and fell as he drew a ragged breath before looking down at their joined flesh. “I am leaving tomorrow. I cannot remain in England. I just… I cannot. Not anymore. You were right. I don’t deserve you. I never did.”