“Did you paint all these?” he asked, not glancing back.
She acknowledged his words with a nod and then remembered he could not see her. “I did,” she ventured cautiously. What would he say if he knew what they really were for? Or rather, whom?
Niall rolled his broad shoulders, and his muscles strained the black brocade tailcoat. It was a surprisingly bold garment for a man given to silence. As though he dared others to venture close, so he could cut them with his steely edge.
Diana wet her lips. After her mother was sent away, Diana sought to bury herself in art. Anything other than the depth of her mother’s evil and the future awaiting Diana inside that bleak institution. One day she’d visited the Royal Arcade and found a book that contained painting after painting of men, resplendent in their nudity. For endless minutes she’d flipped through those pages, riveted by the strength and power captured in each still. In this instance, a shamefully wicked part of her wished to peel back those garments and memorialize Niall Marksman’s warriorlike frame upon the pages of her sketch pad.
He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, and she burned hot from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hairline. Niall jerked his chin. “Have you been to these places?”
She’d been nowhere, and sadness at the wholly empty life she’d lived kept her silent. It was that cage her parents had confined her to that she’d sought out Helena’s assistance to escape. What would a man such as Niall Marksman think of Diana’s plans to leave this world behind? Would he be one of those who believed a lady shouldn’t have freedoms and instead be locked away in a gilded cage?
He cast a questioning look back.
Diana shook her head. “No,” she replied, belatedly answering his query. “I haven’t.” But I will.
Clasping his hands at his back, Niall rocked on his heels. “I should return to my post.”
Did she, in her desperate need for company, imagine the regret there? “Of course,” she said, coming to her feet.
The scarred planes of his chiseled face set, and his gaze again wintry, he bore no hint of the winking man from moments ago. Staring after his retreating form, she mourned that loss. “Diana,” she said.
He froze in his tracks.
“My name isn’t princess or ‘my lady.’ My name is Diana.”
Giving no indication he’d either heard or intended to honor that request, Niall took his leave, and she was left alone.
Just as she’d always been.
Chapter 8
In the following days, Diana and Niall settled into an easy truce.
There were no more deep talks of tea and treason, but he didn’t refer to her as “princess,” and so Diana took that as a testament of that truce.
And for the first time since the attempt on her life two months earlier, Diana didn’t feel fear. It was hard to feel fear with a man like Niall always close. With his strength, size, and ability for silence, she’d wager he could sneak a blade on the Devil himself.
Strolling at a brisk clip through the empty grounds of Hyde Park, her maid trailing at a distance behind, Diana stopped and perused the landscape. Thick gray clouds rolled across the early morn horizon. She lifted her hands over her eyes, narrowing her scope.
Niall moved into position beside her, so close their bodies brushed. Through her thin muslin cloak, little shivers of heated awareness raced through her. Her heart knocked within its cage, and she glanced over at Niall. He briefly dusted one hand over his squared jaw. The artist in her clung to that slight movement. There was even strength in Niall Marksman’s bone structure. Unlike the pasty lords with their padded chests and soft cheeks, he exuded a raw, primal strength better suited to warriors of old. “It’s going to rain,” he observed, shattering the spell cast by his body’s nearness.
Recalling the purpose of her visit to Hyde Park, Diana looked out. Her visit here today had been with that hope in mind. “It’s not going to rain. It’s a perfectly lovely day.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, making a mockery of her assurance.
He snorted, the casual sound at odds with the tension pouring from his broad frame. His hand remained in a familiar position at his waist, his fingers never far from his pistol. “I swear you are the only duke’s daughter who’d prefer to stroll in the rain,” he muttered, as she resumed her search.
Helena had married the Duke of Somerset a year earlier. Ryker was titled the Viscount Chatham shortly after by the king for saving the Duke of Somerset’s life. Even with his connections to the nobility, Diana hadn’t spied him at a single event hosted by Helena. “Do you know a good many duke’s daughters?” she asked. Her curiosity with the enigmatic Niall Marksman grew.
“You’re the only one.” By the dry edge there, he was glad for it.
Diana frowned. “Helena,” she reminded him. When he turned his questioning gaze on her, she clarified. “Helena is also a duke’s daughter.” A beloved one, at that. Helena and Ryker would forever hold a special place in their father’s heart because they’d been born to the only woman the Duke of Wilkinson had ever loved. Nor did Diana resent her siblings for their father’s regard. After the misery and hardship they’d endured, they were both deserving of a lifetime of love and happiness.
“Helena is not a duke’s daughter.”
Another deep rumble shook the ground, almost as if nature punctuated Niall’s angrily spoken denial.
Forgetting her search for the ideal spot to sketch, Diana folded her arms and met Niall’s gaze squarely.
Meredith reached them. She took one glance at their mutinous positions, swallowed hard, and then turned on her heel, fleeing.
“Do you believe just because Helena and Ryker share only some of my father’s blood that they are not, in fact, my siblings?” Diana asked, after the girl had gone.
“I’m saying that blood doesn’t make a bond.” He pounded his right fist against his chest like a primitive warrior laying down law. “Loyalty does.”
His meaning rang clear: the Duke of Wilkinson had been a disloyal cur to his illegitimate offspring. She jutted her chin. Damn him for being correct in this instance. “It might not make”—us—“him family.” Not to Niall. “But it can’t be erased from who they are.” Niall had it only partially accurate. Blood made for some bond. Just as Diana would be forever marred and linked to her own mother’s evil, Diana and Ryker were connected, too. “No matter how much they might wish it,” she added softly, to herself.
Feeling his piercing gaze on her, Diana called over her maid. She’d not come here to lament her past or present, or the future that awaited her. “Meredith?” Her maid came rushing over. “I will take those,” she said, relieving the servant of the supplies. “You may return to the carriage.”
Meredith hesitated. “My lady?” Swallowing loudly, her gaze flitted over to Niall.
The irony of that was not lost on Diana. “He is Lord Chatham’s brother,” she said gently, dimly registering Niall’s body coiling tight. “And he is here for my benefit. No harm will befall me.” Still, Meredith hesitated. “Go,” she insisted. “Before the rains come.”
“His Grace—”
“Would not want you sitting about in the rain.” That fabrication came out easily. The truth being the duke would care little for either Meredith or Diana. That hadn’t always been the case. He’d once been a devoted, doting papa. The muscles of her chest tightened. “Go,” she repeated. This time her voice emerged harsher than she intended.
Meredith dropped a stiff curtsy, skirted a wide path around Niall, and bolted back down the graveled walking path.
A gust of wind stretched through the park. The cool gale sent the branches overhead swaying, and the green leaves danced in an uneven rhythm to that movement. Feeling Niall’s gaze on her, Diana started forward.
“I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain,” he reminded. With his every forceful step, his black leather Wellington boots kicked up rock and gravel. Where most men had a lace-up and a slight heel, Niall’s footwea
r spoke of a functionality and power, with little regard to fashion dictates. They perfectly suited him.
“I lied,” she said, clutching her books close. She stepped off the neatly paved walking trail and started for the edge of the lake.
“You also lied to that girl about your father.”
She drew herself up tight.
“The duke wouldn’t want you in public without a maid about to guard your virtue.”
Diana scoffed. For that to be true, one required a father who’d care and a gentleman interested in claiming her virtue. “I require a guard, Niall, but not one to protect my virtue.” As soon as the bitter admission escaped her lips, she wanted to call it back. Humiliation streaked a blazing hot path over her cheeks. Please, say nothing more. Please, let the matter rest.
And mayhap he was more of a gentleman than he’d credited, for Niall didn’t probe. Coming to a stop at the shore, Diana sank onto the ground so close to the lake, her hem nearly brushed the softly lapping water.
With her charcoal pencil in one hand, she opened her sketch pad, turning to a blank page. Then she focused on the rippling water. Or she attempted to.
Frowning, she tipped her neck back. Niall loomed over her. It was nigh impossible to clear one’s mind when there was a ferocious bear of a man blocking out the light. “Would you care to sit?”
“No.” He continued to pass his gaze over the empty grounds. He was always working. What must it be to go through life in that perpetual state of preparedness? How did he not go mad from searching for danger in every crevice and corner?
She sighed. “I cannot concentrate when you’re hovering.”
Niall paused in his search to glare at her. “I’m not hovering. I’m guarding you.”
Diana smiled. “It is just past seven in the morning. It is nearly raining. Lords and ladies do not visit Hyde Park at this hour, and in the rain, no less.” It was sound logic.
“It’s not lords and ladies who’d wish you dead,” he said with such brutal realness a shiver iced her spine, and her smile melted.
With the lack of suspicious events in her household, and the absence of danger, she’d allowed herself to forget the threat that had sent her to Ryker. But there could be no divorcing herself from that reality. This man who stood close at her heels at all times was proof of that. She’d simply allowed herself to pretend he was a friend, and not the guard, he, in fact, was. “Fair enough,” she concurred.
His midnight eyebrows shot up.
Did he expect she was an unreasonable lady who’d not see the merit of his reminder?
“But perhaps you might back away, just a bit.” Diana held her index finger and thumb apart a smidgen.
Niall placed several paces between them. Close, but not looming, and enough that she might be able to now attend her latest project.
Looking out once again, Diana took in the surroundings. The air bereft of the kestrel’s song hinted at the storm that hung heavy in the air.
A lady must not be caught in the rain, Diana . . . Rain leads to chills. Chills lead to red noses. Red noses lead to disinterested gentlemen.
Yes, Mama.
Diana curled her fingers tight around the pencil. All those wasted years on lessons that hadn’t mattered. Lessons in securing a husband and being prim and polite. Back then when she’d kept a list tucked away detailing all the traits and characteristics of the man she’d one day wed. Until life had proven just how honorable men were.
Even her mother, on the surface, had evinced those very traits she’d sought to drill into Diana. All she’d earned for it was an empty marriage. One that had twisted her into a heartless woman who’d draw her final breath inside the halls of Bedlam.
I did it for you, Diana, and I would do it all, again . . . You are my daughter. We are the same . . . Someday you will understand that.
Crack. The pencil splintered in half. She stared blankly down at the remaining piece of charcoal in her fingertips. Yes, she was very much the Duchess of Wilkinson’s daughter, for she felt no regret or love for the woman who’d given her life. All Diana felt was a vicious, terrifying hatred.
Feeling Niall’s gaze on her, Diana set aside the pencil and reached for another. A single raindrop hit her nose, and she brushed it back.
“Wouldn’t it be better to come back when it is sunny?” Niall muttered under his breath.
That would defeat the purpose in her being here. “We live in England, Niall,” she reminded him, as she put her pencil to paper. “It is never sunny.”
He chuckled. That sound, rusty and full, brought her head flying up so quickly her bonnet slid backward. In the week since he’d moved into her household, she’d never heard his laugh laced with anything other than cool mockery.
“It’s been sunny two of the last three days,” he pointed out, adjusting his hat and then swiftly returning his hands to their battle-ready position.
Diana resumed her sketching. “I never took you for one who’d be afraid of a little rain,” she teased.
Another distant rumble shook the ground.
“Oi’m not afraid of anything.” His eyes flashed dangerously.
Had he never been teased? Ryker and his siblings from the streets did not strike her as the joking sort. Just like that the icy wall between them was thrown back up. The glint in his eyes would be enough to silence most grown men, but perhaps Diana’s madness had already taken root, for she no longer felt a jot of fear where Niall Marksman was concerned. “Everyone fears something, Niall,” she said softly, not backing down from the challenge in his unforgiving gaze.
Fire flashed in his eyes. “Only people who are weak know fear.” Is that how he saw her? As a weak, pathetic creature who’d humbled herself before Ryker Black? Niall’s tone signaled the discussion was over, and a year earlier, dutiful and obedient in every regard, she’d have let the matter die. Would never have even raised a challenge to begin with. But she was no longer that girl . . . and she was certainly not weak.
“When the axle of my carriage broke, I was tossed around inside,” she said softly. “I landed on the floor, knocking my head here.” She touched her fingertips to the edge of her temple, drawing his hooded gaze to the place she’d once worn a vicious lump. His eyes darkened like a storm-tossed sea. “The lead windows exploded, spraying me with glass.” Diana turned over her left palm to study the arrow-shaped scar made by a jagged shard of glass on that day. The slightly puckered flesh marked the accident, transporting her back as the terror of that day trickled in. Her cries had blended with the driver’s shouts as the carriage had careened out of control, with moments stretching on into eternity. Diana concentrated on breathing evenly. She forced her eyes away from the scar and met his gaze square on. “Asking Ryker for help does not make me weak. It makes me smart for choosing life over my own pride.”
Before she descended into the same state of madness that afflicted her mother and father, Diana intended to live life to the fullest. And because she knew how faithless gentlemen in fact were, that life most certainly did not, nor ever would, include a husband.
Chapter 9
Niall would hand it to the lady.
Clever and brave, she was far more intelligent than he’d credited a week earlier when he’d discovered her creeping around his alley. Then, Diana did, as she’d reminded him on numerous scores, share Ryker and Helena’s blood. She might not be born to the streets, or able to survive for a day in them, but there was some strength to her, and his grudging respect for the lady grew.
Another blast of wind battered about them, and he quickly righted his hat, tugging the brim down.
“What is it like?” she asked, turning the page in her sketch pad. “Life in St. Giles,” she clarified.
Vile. It stank like heated shite on a summer day. Ruthless. Why did she care to know, anyway? “Ya’ve been there,” he said gruffly, not wanting to talk about home. Not when it only reminded him that he’d been banished for his failures. For failing to protect and defend the people dependent on
him.
“Twice,” she conceded. “The first time I saw barely anything after . . .” Diggory’s attack. Her cheeks went ashen, a marked reminder of her frailty. “And the other when I paid a visit to Ryker.”
Paid a visit. If that wasn’t taking liberties with her clandestine sneaking in disguise through his alley, he was King George’s mad da back from the dead. “If I tell ya, will ya hurry up so we can leave, princess?” That request came not solely from the rising storm, but also a disquiet at visiting a park where peers freely strolled.
“Diana,” she reminded him.
He growled. “Oi’m not calling ya Diana.” The chit was a step below royalty, but that wasn’t all. To remove that proper form of address only took down another layer between them.
“But you are Ryker’s brother . . .” She left that thought unfinished.
“And?” he snapped.
She sighed, and another breeze carried that soft exhalation to his ears. “And I am Ryker’s sister.” He stitched his eyebrows into a single line. “So that nearly makes us”—surely she was not going to say—“siblings.” She’d said it.
“Ya aren’t a sister to me,” he clipped out. Not when he’d appreciated the curve of her hips and trimness of her waist.
He may as well have kicked her pup for the hurt in her gaze. Bloody hell, and here he’d thought himself immune to a lady’s wounded eyes. “Dirty. St. Giles is dirty,” he volunteered, abruptly shifting the discourse back to the question that had preceded all her you’re-like-a-brother-to-me talk. There, he’d given her that. Except she made no move to stand.
She wrinkled her pert nose. “That is hardly descriptive.”
Battling the urge to toss her over his shoulder and carry her from the damned freezing park, he growled. “Ya didn’t say Oi had to be descriptive.”
“Obviously it is implied, if I ask you to tell me what St. Giles is like.”
“It’s not implied.” A person was wise to not make assumptions, unless one was prepared for an outcome alternative to the one desired. By the square set to her narrow shoulders, she’d about as much intention of abandoning her post at the lakeside than he did of giving up his club to Killoran’s care. She wanted a glimpse of his world; he’d give her the details unsparingly. “The streets are crowded with whores and beggars at every corner. Shop doors and windows hang open to rid the hovels of the stench inside.” For even the rancid smells of the rookeries were better than the noxious scents of those homes inhabited by unwashed thieves and whores.
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