“Come, My Lady,” Sarah murmured. “Let’s retire to your room, where it’s quiet.” Eleonora allowed herself to be led inside, but not before she glared at Elijah.
“He’s a liar. I know it.”
Diana and Elijah stood there, watching her sister be led into the house. They were both silent. Diana swallowed the painful lump that had formed in the back of her throat. She was determined not to cry.
She thought about how easily things had gone—how smoothly—with Elijah. Eleonora’s upset had Diana in a whirlwind of confusion.
* * *
Elijah didn’t recall ever having met Lady Eleonora before. Her reaction to him had been so severe. When he looked at Diana, she was clearly upset.
“Diana?” he asked.
She looked at him. “I think you should go.”
“Let me see you inside,” he said, concerned for her well-being. She looked as though she were going to faint.
“Mary—Mary will help me.” She turned to her lady’s maid, who walked over to her immediately.
“Can I do nothing?” he asked.
“No.” She shook her head. She looked very pale. He knew that her sister’s reaction to him had upset her. He watched as she returned to the house, her maid clasping her arm.
He didn’t know what to think. He supposed that she needed some rest. It seemed as though she hadn’t slept well the previous night. So he turned toward the stables, to retrieve his horse.
He planned to return home, to read his mother’s diary that he’d found the night before. He figured that he would call on Diana later, perhaps the next day, when she had rested.
After all, it was no one’s fault that Lady Eleonora had been confused. It was understandable, given the trauma that had occurred.
Everything will be fine. I know it.
Chapter 14
Sarah helped Eleonora upstairs to her room, then into bed, where she curled up onto her side underneath the covers. It was only there that she was safe. The world was such a wide and confusing place.
Eleonora had never been more befuddled in all of her life. There had stood the gentleman she dreamed about. She supposed that, in her dreams, he looked different.
That day, he had looked at Diana with such love. She had thought that he was playing a trick on her. So, perhaps, she had merely dreamed him.
She became lost in her own mind. There were long, dark corridors that she slipped down. She remembered riding her horse through the woods. Though, she didn’t remember falling.
She remembered flashes of a room, bathed in firelight. The gentleman, his hand cupping her cheek. His lips on hers, then his hands.
She loved him, even then, when she couldn’t remember his name. She remembered his lips, forming her name. Eleonora.
Frustrated tears fell down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the important things. The things that would have solved everything.
“Eleonora, what’s the matter?” Sarah asked. “You’re so pale.”
“I’m so confused. My mind is…” She began to sob. Sarah wrapped her arms around her, and rocked her.
* * *
Diana sat in her bed chamber, alone. After what had just happened, her thoughts were disordered, confused. She couldn’t make sense of them. She stared out of the window, which was open to allow a breeze through. Her room overlooked the gardens.
She would have liked to have discounted Eleonora’s claims, but couldn’t. That was the problem that everyone else had. She trusted that her sister hadn’t taken leave of all of her senses. She hoped that she was getting well again.
She was starting to get fragments of her memories back. Which meant that she had either met Elijah before, or a gentleman who looked like him.
It wasn’t too far of a leap to believe that Elijah had met Diana on purpose. He could have followed her out into the garden. She could see how she was ready to open her heart that night.
She cursed herself for thinking it, but she had been fully open to a whirlwind romance, particularly after five proposals, all of which she had turned down. Elijah was far more interesting than any of the gentlemen that her father had put in her way.
Was I too blind to see? On the other hand, I don’t want to doubt him.
After all, if he wasn’t Eleonora’s gentleman, then it would destroy everything if she accused him of being duplicitous. She wanted to believe the best of him.
The door to Diana’s bed chamber opened, and Mary came in, her arms filled with gowns that had been cleaned. She stopped when she saw Diana.
“My Lady! I didn’t expect you in here,” she said. “I can go.” She went to leave again.
“No, Mary,” Diana replied. “Finish what you need to. Don’t mind me.” She didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. Mary’s intrusion was a godsend.
“My Lady? Are you well?” Mary asked. “You look very pale.” She crossed the cream-colored carpet to the armoire. She opened it, and then began to hang them up.
Diana shook off her thoughts. “Yes,” she lied. “I’m just tired.”
“Perhaps you should take a rest.” She was hanging up the gowns quickly.
“I think you’re right,” she replied. “Some rest would do me good.”
“May I help you with anything?” Mary was done with her chore. Her hands were folded in front of her.
“No, you may go. Thank you, Mary.”
Mary curtsied and then left, closing the door after her with a soft click. Diana breathed a sigh of relief. She did feel very tired, her limbs heavy. The past six months had taken their toll on her. She felt like she was grieving for a sister who was not entirely lost.
Diana unpinned her hair, letting it fall loose over her shoulders, then setting the pins on her nightstand. She lay down on her bed. She folded her hands over her stomach and closed her eyes. As she began to relax into the darkness behind her eyelids, she realized that she didn’t believe that Elijah had been Eleonora’s gentleman.
He couldn’t have been. He hasn’t been in this area since he was a child.
Surely, there was a rational explanation, one that would be revealed in time. She drifted off into sleep.
* * *
After his disastrous meeting with Lady Eleonora, Elijah returned home. He suspected that she had mistaken him for someone else. Who, he couldn’t know. It was beyond him. He shook off the feeling that he was missing something important.
Elijah sat down, opening up the diary that he had found. At first, it was in his mother’s hand. It was filled with descriptions of balls, luncheons. He paged through it, until the end. That was where he found an entry in his father’s hand.
He went to where it began. His blood ran cold, when he found that it was a letter to himself.
My dear Elijah,
If you’ve found this, then it has likely been following my own death. I have hidden it in one of the secret places that you found as a child. I hope that you will read it until the end, thus discovering this warning. I can only hope that you will find it before it’s too late.
I have kept you away from here, as long as I was able. If I could, I would keep you away from it all forever. However, someday, you will be old enough to protect yourself as much as you are able. Perhaps, the danger will be gone.
Things here in the countryside are not as they seem. Everyone appears to be noble and genteel, particularly one who poses as a gentleman of worth and honor. However, I have found that this is not the case.
I have long suspected it, but it was not until this evening when my very eyes saw something that perhaps would have been better if I didn’t. This is why I have sent you away. It is why, should you return, you should be forewarned. I don’t know who I can trust. There are enemies everywhere, it seems.
I dare not write his name here, for I do not know whose hands this book could fall into. I don’t want to put you at risk. If possible, you must leave Cambolton House immediately. Go to London. Do not insinuate yourself into society here.
“Well, i
t’s a little too late for that,” he mused. He couldn’t leave—not when he’d just begun to court Diana. He knew that he was falling in love with her. If he left, then that would be the end of it. She might be willing to wait, but he had no doubt that Lord Lutterhall would use Elijah’s absence to find his daughter an Earl or a Duke to marry.
He put down the diary. There were a few more entries in his father’s hand. Elijah let his thoughts wander.
“Why didn’t he say who it is?” he wondered aloud. It was a diary, where he could have been completely honest. And he had hidden it well. It had taken Elijah six months to find it.
It seemed that his father had been keeping secrets. He had been keeping secrets from his own son. And, perhaps, he had died because of them. Elijah wondered if it was going to put him at risk.
The only person that he could trust was Diana. He knew it. He wondered if he should give her the diary for safekeeping. He knelt beside his bed.
He had made a hiding place of his own when he was a child. He pressed on the floorboard beneath his bed. It popped up, and he stuck his hand inside, pulling out the small sack of marbles and stones he’d hidden there.
He smiled to himself at the memory, then placed the diary inside. He put the sack on top of it, then settled the floorboard back into place. With that done, he stood up, wondering what he should do next.
* * *
When she awoke, Diana knew that she wouldn’t be at peace until she had spoken to Elijah. She needed to know his side of the tale. While she loved her sister dearly, her mind wasn’t what it used to be.
If he can look me in the eye and tell me, then I’ll know for certain.
Diana, desperate for answers, wrote to Elijah, begging him to call on her as soon as he was able. He came immediately, instead of writing her a letter in response.
She went to meet him, down in the foyer, Mary walking along with her. Her maid was silent, doing her duty to act as chaperone with aplomb.
“Let’s take a walk in the garden,” Diana suggested. She wanted to speak with Elijah freely. Without her father or any of the other servants overhearing. Though she wasn’t sure how much Mary could be trusted, she had no other choice.
“Of course.” He offered her his arm.
They went out to the garden, with Mary trailing after them. The flowers were redolent with their sweet scents—she could smell the gardenias and the lavender as they passed them. She kept her eyes on the flowers, as a bee landed among the pale white blooms.
Diana didn’t know how to begin. She didn’t want to upset him, but she had questions after what had happened the day before.
“My Lady?” he asked her. She looked up and into his eyes. Eyes which, until the other day, she had found so charming. He was frowning in concern. “What is the matter?”
“I have doubts, which cannot be silenced,” she murmured. Her heart was pounding. She was worried—what could his motives be?
“Doubts? What about?”
“My sister recognizes you, yet I have never met you. I know that I myself was ready to fall in love, particularly on the night that I met you. I know that I was fully prepared to be led.”
“I couldn’t have been. I was in Paris until six months ago.”
“It’s a very neat alibi, My Lord,” she pointed out. “However, if you can look me in the eye and tell me the truth, then I will know it for certain.”
He nodded. “Very well.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest. She didn’t want to end their courtship, but if he couldn’t tell her the truth, then she was resolved to do so. She turned her gaze upwards, her eyes meeting his. It seemed as though she could see into his soul. She ached for him. If he couldn’t silence her doubts, then she knew that it would be a hard blow, one from which she would never recover.
“I would never use you or your sister in such a manner,” he said. “I could never lie to you like that.” He paused, swallowing. “Do you believe me?”
She nodded, slowly, as she gauged her own reaction. “I do.” There was nothing else she could say. She did, in her heart believe him. “It’s just so strange,” she murmured.
“I myself am concerned about it.”
They were silent as they walked on, together. “I found a message from my father,” he remarked. “Apparently, he believed he was in danger from a gentleman in the area.”
“That is certainly strange,” she murmured. “I know of no gentleman in the whole area who could be mistrusted.”
“Not a single one?”
“No. I’ve known them all for my entire life,” she said with certainty. “I would vouch wholeheartedly for all of them.”
“I was hoping that you would know of someone,” he said. She thought for a moment, of everyone that she knew. But there was no one. They were all so dear to her. She couldn’t imagine any of them attempting to harm anyone else, much less commit murder.
“I can think of no one.” She paused. “You’re not angry with me for doubting you?”
He smiled at her, causing a warmth to suffuse her. “No. Anyone with a reasonable mind would have doubts. Lady Eleonora was so thoroughly convinced that she knew me. Even I had to pause and think.”
Diana bit her lip, watching as his eyes lingered there. “I feel like we’re missing something,” she murmured. “Though I cannot for the life of me think of what it might be.”
They began to walk toward the house. As she looked up at the familiar sight of Lutterhall Manor, she saw her father, watching from the window of his bed chamber. He stepped back, into the shadows.
The only hint that anyone had been there was given by the curtains, moving slowly.
Chapter 15
After Elijah left, Diana returned to her bed chamber, to consider what she had learned over the course of his visit. She sat down at her vanity, looking at her own reflection.
She considered all of the ton who lived in the area. They were all godly people, who would never murder someone. She had known them all her entire life. Everyone around there knew everyone else’s business. Few of them had any secrets at all.
There was a soft knock at her door.
“Yes?” she called out. She didn’t turn, instead, looking into the mirror in time to see as Mary peered into the room.
“My Lady,” she said. “Your Aunt is arriving. We must all go down.”
Diana frowned. “No one told me that Aunt Clarabelle was coming today.” Her father’s younger sister rarely visited. She had come for a time after Eleonora’s accident. She hadn’t been heard from since she had left.
“She is.” Mary shrugged helplessly.
Diana got up, peering into the mirror. Not a single hair was out of place, and there wasn’t a single wrinkle in her pale blue muslin. She walked down the stairs and then out the front door, where the whole household, excepting Eleonora and Sarah, stood there in a neat line.
She went to stand beside her father. “You never said that you invited Aunt Clarabelle.” She didn’t like surprises. Particularly where her aunt was involved. She remembered him mentioning it, back at Lady Southerton’s. But he hadn’t even told her that he’d written.
“You need a proper chaperone,” he replied. “One who will steer you in the correct direction.”
“You know what she’s like.” Aunt Clarabelle was a battle axe. She was the Marchioness of Bolger, yet acted like she was the Queen.
“Yes. I trust her implicitly.” Her father smiled at her. “I can see how passionate you are about the Viscount of Cambolton. I just want to be sure that you’re safe.”
“After what happened to Eleonora.” She knew that he feared impropriety. He worried for her safety. But bringing Aunt Clarabelle was an extreme, even for him.
“Precisely.” He beamed, using an index finger to push his glasses back up on his nose.
Diana was silent, as she recalled when she had come out, several years prior. Aunt Clarabelle had taken both Diana and Eleonora under her wing in order to prepare them both, in the absenc
e of their mother.
It had been an agonizing time for Diana. Eleonora had taken it all in stride, though she was Aunt Clarabelle’s favorite. Eleonora had been doted upon, while Diana had been criticized. She had begrudgingly gone through it all.
Her father wanted her watched, particularly around Elijah. That much was clear. Aunt Clarabelle would be like a hawk, watching their every move. They would never be able to have a real conversation again. At least, not until they were wed.
Sinfully Bound To The Enigmatic Viscount (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 9
