Except that Lachlan had never said that he loved her. The night Diana had given herself to him, he had implied it certainly, but he had also stated that he was incapable of love. Or of giving away his heart to a woman completely. Yet Claire claimed otherwise.
The rational, logical side of Diana knew the woman had to be lying. Lachlan had not made a secret of his stepmother's desire to seduce him into her bed and claim the title of marchioness for herself. He had been honest with Diana about that.
Or had he?
The completely irrational side of her whispered that perhaps - just perhaps mind you - Lachlan had, in fact, lied. What if he could not tell Diana he loved her because in truth he loved another? The man was capable of love, certainly. Diana had seen the truth of it within him when he had taken her to his bed a few evenings past. Lachlan had worshiped her body. But was that all their moment together actually was? Still, he had called Diana his love. There was that.
But then, in the whirlwind thrill of the proposal, Diana had said that she loved him. Until this moment, she had not realized that Lachlan had not even so much as acknowledged her words. It was as if he had not heard them. Or as if he did not want to hear them. What if... What if Claire was right? What if Lachlan could not love Diana because he had already given his heart to another? What if he had lied?
After so long of being trapped in a similar limbo with Lord Hathaway, a man who had lied - yes, lied, she had come to realize - about his interest in her, Diana knew that she could not afford to make the same mistake again. No matter how much she loved the marquess. And love him she did. Deeply. Almost painfully at times.
Determination flaring inside of her, Diana knew she had to find out the truth. Today.
With Candlewood's words still ringing in his ears, Lachlan felt the sense of panic growing inside of him as he searched the streets of London in vain for his Diana. He had to reach her before Claire did. The time he had spent speaking with the duke and then preparing to go out had taken far too long. It had cost him too much time.
At first, Lachlan hadn't been concerned, thinking that he could locate Diana quickly. After all, he knew where she liked to go - the bookseller's, the jeweler's, and Gunter's were among her favorite locations. There was also the perfumery and a few other shops as well, including the milliners. Except that she had not been at any of those places either and with each minute that had ticked by, Lachlan grew more and more worried.
What if Claire reached Diana first? The woman had been thwarted in her plans, though why she expected Lachlan to simply give in to her demands he could not imagine. Was she truly that delusional? Perhaps. He could not discount the possibility. If Claire was, then it was likely that nothing would stop her from wreaking havoc on his life to obtain what she wanted. No such thing as proper decorum would stop her, he feared.
Lachlan had been racing though London like a madman for the better part of an hour, the same thoughts continually spinning through his head over and over, with no luck in locating either Diana or Claire. For he had a sinking suspicion that where he found one, he would find the other.
As he searched, his mind constantly raced. What if he lost her? What if Diana believed Claire over him? But why would she? Diana was devoted to Lachlan and he to her. She knew that. They were going to marry and share a future together. She loved him, after all. She had said so.
Except...
Except that Lachlan had not acknowledged her declaration of love the other evening. In fact, he had gone out of his way not to mention that she had spoken the words he so feared. Diana had not indicated that his lack of response had hurt her in any way. But what if he had? Hurt her, that was.
What if, by not saying anything, he had left room for doubt to creep into her heart? He would not be the first man to make such a foolish mistake, but that same mistake might very well cost him the woman he cherished most in his life.
Lachlan knew he could have said the words, even if he did not mean them. He did not lie, which was why he had not spoken those three words that he was certain Diana had longed to hear. Was he that desperate to cling to his morals and honor that he could not have said them if only to make her happy? Stupidly, it seemed he was.
Now it might be too late. He could only hope and pray that he reached Diana first. If he did, he would say those words. He would not hesitate. She had to know. She had to believe him.
"Looking for someone, my darling marquess?"
Those words and their icy cold delivery froze Lachlan in his tracks, despite the heat of the day. Slowly he turned to see Claire standing on the sidewalk in front of him. She wore a decidedly nasty grin, one that was at odds with her fine gown, the same one she had worn when she had confronted him in his study earlier.
"What have you done, Claire?" Lachlan demanded stalking towards her, ready to wring her neck if necessary to elicit the appropriate information from her. "What did you do to Diana?"
His stepmother gave him a look of mock innocence? "Me? Why, I have done nothing. Nothing at all. She is with her friends and not a bit of harm has come to her. Physically, anyway."
Then Claire looked behind her and Lachlan's gaze followed hers. A few doors down was the storefront to Madame LaVallier's dress shop. The most likely place where Diana would have her wedding trousseau created. Why had he not thought of that? Mostly because he was not thinking with his head, he quickly realized. He had been in too much of a blind panic.
"If she chooses to believe that we are lovers? That I might very well be the mother of the next Marquess of Hallstone? Well she did not hear it from me. Not precisely anyway." Then Claire placed her hand over her stomach and Lachlan felt himself go cold, as if his very blood stopped flowing through his veins.
"What did you say to her, Claire?" In two steps, Lachlan was in front of his stepmother, though he resisted the urge to shake her. He needed to be calm and think clearly. If not, he might lose the woman who was most precious to him.
"Say?" She shrugged in a rather offhanded manner. "Not much." Then she smiled wickedly and her face turned into something evil and ugly. "Though I did imply a great deal. How the simpering chit chose to interpret my words is entirely up to her, of course." Then Claire laughed. "With her out of the way, there is nothing to stand between our happiness."
Just as it had the night he had witnessed Diana waltzing with Hathaway, Lachlan's temper spiked and he reached out to grab Claire by the upper arms once more. This time he did shake her - hard - and he drew her close enough so that she might read the dangerous glint in his eyes. "If you have hurt her, destroyed what I have longed for..."
Claire cut him off, clearly angry that Lachlan was not looking upon her actions as a good thing. "She cannot care for you as I do, Lachlan, my darling. It is not possible." There was a manic look in her eyes, one that terrified Lachlan to his very soul. Claire was mad. Well and truly mad. There could be no other explanation. "I love you, Lach. Do you not see that? There can be no other for me. Or for you."
"You love power and wealth and titles," he spat at her, disgusted and more than a little frightened at the rage inside of him that would have had him snap her neck in a moment if he could have. "You do not love me, Claire. You love what you believe I can provide for you!"
"Is that not the same thing?" she cried desperately. "A man and his title are one! That is what I deserve! It is what I want! And that little chit cannot love you as I do! You know it is true, Lachlan!"
Claire reached out to caress his face and she trailed her fingers over his cheek for a brief moment before Lachlan gathered himself and pushed her away roughly before he truly harmed her. He was about to berate his stepmother again when a gasp from somewhere behind Claire made Lachlan look up.
It appeared that Claire had accomplished what she had set out to do after all. Ruin his happiness.
There on the sidewalk, her beautiful face awash with pain and her eyes glistening with tears, stood Diana. The woman who held Lachlan's very heart in her hands. And it was clear she had n
ot understood the scene she had just witnessed.
Diana had seen Lachlan with his hands upon Claire. She had seen Claire stroking his face. That, coupled with whatever innuendos his wicked witch of a stepmother had left in her wake inside Madame LaVallier's shop, had clearly allowed Diana to believe the worst of him.
Then again, Lachlan knew he only had himself to blame for whatever doubts Diana was now having about him. Including doubts about his desire and affection for her.
"How could you?" she whispered and for once Lachlan was thankful that few people were out at this hour of the day, keeping the number of those who were witness to this humiliation to a minimum. "I thought you were different. I thought you cared for me." She sniffed but he could tell that she refused to give in to the tears. She would not cry, not in front of him. "I love you, Lachlan. Or I thought I did."
"Diana. Please. Let me explain." He reached for her but she shook her head and backed up a bit, her eyes flickering every so often to where Claire still stood beside him, obviously looking rather satisfied with herself.
Diana shook her head and bit her lip in dismay. "No. There is nothing more to say. I was a fool again. I allowed myself to be charmed by you." Then she gave a humorless laugh. "The night we met, you told me you were not a good man, but I did not believe you. It seems now that I should have." Then she raised her chin, defiant now but still every bit as magnificent as she had always been - at least in his eyes. "But I am a fool no longer. Not for you or any man. Go away, Lachlan. I never wish to set eyes upon you again."
Then in a swirl of skirts, Diana was gone, nearly running down the sidewalk to the waiting Westfield carriage, her friends following closely behind her. One of them, Lady Eliza, looked back, a curious expression on her face. Unlike the one Lachlan had seen on Lady Sophia's, her expression was not full of hate but rather of pity. As if she knew exactly what Claire was about.
However he supposed he could have been wrong, for Eliza followed her friends into the waiting carriage, which took off immediately. Just as soon as the door slammed closed.
"Diana! Wait!" Lachlan thought about running after the carriage but a hand on his arm stayed him.
"Let her go, love. You do not need her. You have me, after all. Your true destiny."
Claire had the nerve to touch him again and Lachlan's gaze flicked from her face to where her hand rested against his forearm.
"Madame, I suggest you remove your hand before I forget that I am a gentleman and remove it for you. Perhaps from your body entirely if I cannot restrain myself." Rage, hot and thick, boiled inside of Lachlan and he wished that he was back home so that he could simply drag Claire back to the castle to face swift and harsh punishment for what she had just done. His ancestors had made certain Tinsburg Castle had a very wicked dungeon. Before this, Lachlan had never even once considered using it, but, as he was quickly learning, there was a first time for everything.
"But, Lachlan..." Claire began in earnest, but he cut her off.
"Go! Away from me, you harlot!" he roared, not caring for a moment if anyone heard him. He would make as bloody big of a scene as he liked. This witch had just cost Lachlan the love of his life. When Claire didn't immediately move, Lachlan shoved her away from him. "I said go! Be gone!"
"You will change your mind," Claire snapped. "You might think she is the one for you, but she is not! You will see! I give you three days - until the night of the Devonmont's annual musicale - to change your mind. If you have yet to come to your senses?" She shrugged carelessly. "There is more damage I can inflict upon her."
Claire turned to leave and Lachlan reached for her, hell bent on making the woman pay. If he murdered her here in the street, well, that would not be good, but there was a part of him - the one that despaired at the loss of Diana - that did not care any longer. His heart simply hurt too much.
Lachlan would have reached Claire, too, had another hand not clasped his shoulder. At the unwanted touch, Lachlan's first instinct was to shove whoever it was away. However when he glanced back and saw the dark eyes of the Duke of Candlewood looking at him, he leashed his temper. But just barely.
"Let her go." Candlewood nodded to another man, one Lachlan had not noticed that had emerged from a nearby tailor's shop. "Harry will see to her." He inclined his head towards the direction Claire had departed and the other man started off, clearly not objecting to the duke's orders.
"But she..." Lachlan took a breath, the anger beginning to ebb away only to be replaced by something else. Another emotion, this one far deeper and more painful. "Diana..." Try as he might, he could not find the words to express the depth of the pain that now threatened to bring him to his knees in the middle of the sidewalk.
Gently, Candlewood pulled Lachlan back into the doorway of a store that had long since closed. A bakery from the look of it. "As I said, Harry will see to Claire. Trust that after this morning, she will not be a problem for you again. We will see to it." He looked in the direction the man, clearly a Bow Street runner, had departed. "She is desperate and she will make a mistake. When she does, he will be watching."
Lachlan nodded, too numb inside now to care. As calm took over him, only one thing remained. He had lost Diana. The most precious thing in the world to him. All because he had been a fool.
"Still, that changes nothing. Diana is gone. I have lost her." Lachlan leaned back and rested his head against the old doorframe. Then, without warning, he doubled over in pain, his chest squeezing so tightly that he thought he might die. If this was death, it was preferable to living the rest of his life this way. With this pain and without her. Once more, his heart clenched and he gasped, the sudden knowledge of the true depth of what he had lost spreading through him, his eyes finally opening to the truth.
When he was able to right himself again, he found Candlewood leaning against the opposite doorframe. He looked vaguely bored. "Finally ready to admit that you love the lady? That you have since nearly the first moment you met?" He said the words casually, but it was clear that Lachlan's answer mattered a great deal to the duke.
"Yes," Lachlan gasped, his breath still painful but somehow easier now that he had admitted to himself what he knew in his heart to be true. Had been true for so very long now. "Yes.
"Excellent." There was something of relief in Candlewood's expression though Lachlan had no idea why the man cared so much. "Now that this matter is settled, let us see about getting the lady back for you, shall we?"
Again, Lachlan had no idea why the duke wanted to help him, other than possibly their old friendship, but at the moment, he was also in no position to question. If there was one person in all of London who might be able to help Lachlan win Diana back, it was the Bloody Duke. "Yes. By God, she is my heart and I want her back. I love her. More than I ever thought possible"
This time when Candlewood smiled, there was a softness to it that had not been there before. "Then let us see what we can do to make that happen, shall we? I do so love a happy ending."
Then he laughed a little, but Lachlan could find nothing humorous about the situation. Absolutely nothing at all.
Chapter Eighteen
Diana glared at her door even though she knew that the person incessantly knocking could not see her scowl. "Please go away," she practically pleaded. "I do not wish to see anyone at the moment."
"Not even your mother?"
That brought Diana up short. In the three days that had passed since Diana had witnessed Lachlan and his stepmother Claire practically embracing outside of Madame LaVallier's shop, almost all of her friends had attempted to get past the locked door to Diana's bedchamber. And failed miserably.
Sophia had attempted to gain entrance with sympathy and a copy of a new gothic novel that had just been released. Eliza had tried with reasoning, saying that what looked like a caress might not have actually been so. Marie had attempted to enter with a tisane that she claimed was guaranteed to ease a broken heart. Lady Weatherby had come merely to offer support if Diana wished to recei
ve it. Even Lady Radcliffe and Lady Ardenton had begged for entrance, hoping to plead Lachlan's case for him. Diana had refused each and every last one of them entry. But her mother? Even Diana was not that strong.
With a sigh, Diana rose from her dressing table where she had been sitting for the better part of the morning staring blankly into nothingness, and crossed the room to unlock the door - the first time she had done so in days, at least when there was someone on the other side of it. "Come in, Mama," she said, pushing the door fully open and not resisting when her mother swept her up into a fierce hug. "Though be warned that I am not really feeling up to company. As I am certain you are well aware."
"I know, my darling daughter," Ursula said as she released Diana from the bone-crushing hug that she had engulfed her daughter in. Never had Diana known her mother to be so overtly affectionate. Much like everything else that had transpired the last several days, her mother's actions were confusing. And Diana did not like it one bit. "However, I believe you have hidden up here long enough. It is time to come out and face society once more."
With a plop, Diana sat down on her bed. She winkled her nose, realizing that her entire bedchamber was a complete and utter mess. And it smelled. Just a little. Well, she supposed, that happened when one practically lived there for three days. It could probably stand with a good airing out.
"What if I do not want to go back?" Diana asked, even though she knew she would not hide from the prying eyes of the ton. She was stronger than that.
"I would think that you are not my daughter." Lady Westfield came to sit beside Diana and took her hand gently. "I know that we have not always had the same view of things in the past, Diana, and for that, I mostly fault myself."
Automatically, Diana shook her head in denial. "It is not your fault, Mama. It is mine. I have always been too brash. I act without thinking and follow my heart, often to my detriment."
"No, you have been exactly the sort of daughter I always wished for," her mother corrected softly. "One who is kind and loving. One who cares greatly for her friends and loves so deeply that sometimes she is hurt in the process of giving so much of herself to another. And because of that, my dear daughter, I have only ever wanted what is best for you. Just as I have for all of those that I love." Then she sighed. "Even when I desire the wrong things at times."
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