The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  He continued his tender caress, the back-and-forth movement a distracted afterthought that elicited delicious shivers. “They are kin.”

  Her heart twisted. Kin. And she was nothing to him. Diana angled her head, breaking that contact. She made to slip out of his reach, but he brought his elbows up, blocking her escape.

  Her breath hitched. She’d scaled oaks in Somerset narrower than Niall Marksman’s powerful frame.

  “Afraid?” The whisper of cheroot on his lips fanned her skin.

  “I’m not afraid of you, Niall.” The airy quality of that denial weakened her words.

  He chuckled, and that slight movement brought their chests together. Surely he felt her heart pounding against his? “No, I do not believe you are afraid of anything, princess.” That moniker, once used to taunt, now rang like a gruff endearment. “I don’t dislike you, Diana.”

  Her lips curled up in a smile. “I believe those are two compliments from a man such as you.” To steady her trembling hands, she rested her palms on his midnight jacket, the kerseymere wool soft under her fingers.

  He dropped his brow to hers. “Oi like you enough.” That admission, as graveled as an old Roman road, was dragged from him. A concession she’d venture Niall Marksman had never made to a person of her station.

  “Is that why you’re staying on as my guard?”

  He placed his lips close to her ear, his breath a wicked caress that stirred a yearning to know his embrace more. “Who said I was staying on?”

  Diana turned her head slightly, so their mouths nearly brushed. “You do not say goodbye,” she whispered against his mouth. “Unless you’ve come to dress me down before you go.”

  He’d sought Diana out for one singular purpose. To lay out the terms that would drive and dictate their remaining time together. Not an unspoken truce. Rather, a real one. One where Niall treated Diana with a deserved civility. It was a feat he had managed toward the nobility for almost ten years at the Hell and Sin, in his role as head of security at the club.

  He was capable of practiced smiles and casual banter. But all of that skill had faded when presented with the danger and treachery that infiltrated their empire.

  Now, three words had thrown him off-kilter.

  Dress me down.

  They were just three words. But breathed to life in Diana’s husky contralto, there was a lusty wantonness to them. Words that conjured Niall releasing the row of pearl buttons along the back of her dress and sliding down the soft satin gown, exposing her naked skin for his appreciation. Moving that mint-green fabric lower, over her breasts, her hips, and then letting it pool about them.

  Niall briefly closed his eyes. The hint of jasmine clung to her skin, intoxicating.

  “Niall?” she whispered, forcing his eyes open.

  It was a mistake.

  Her plump crimson lips quivered, bringing his focus to that generous flesh. His throat moved painfully. What had begun as an intention to lay down a new groundwork for their relationship had shifted to something dangerous and volatile.

  She darted her tongue out, and that pink tip trailed over the plump contours. “What is—?”

  I am lost. With a groan of supplication, Niall crushed her mouth under his in a savage meeting. Her back thumped noisily against the door as he slanted his lips over hers again and again. It spoke to the blackness in his soul that he’d lust after and put his scarred hands on Ryker’s sister. But Niall had never presumed to be or presented himself as anything other than a man who took what he needed, and in this instance, she was what he needed. Never breaking contact with her lips, he roved his hands down her body, learning the curve of her hips, memorizing them. Through the smooth fabric of her silk gown, he cupped her breasts, bringing those large orbs together.

  Diana whimpered, and he swept the inside of her mouth with his tongue. She tasted of peaches and honey, the sweet taste of her more intoxicating than any dangerous opiate. Abandoning her mouth, he trailed kisses along the corner of her jaw, and lower, finding the place where her pulse pounded wildly in time to his own.

  “You’re so goddamned soft,” he rasped against her throat. “Like satin.” And where he’d always sneered at that fine and fancy fabric, he wanted to spread her down upon it and lay her open for his invasion.

  “Niall,” she moaned, clenching and unclenching her fingers in his hair.

  That ragged sound wrapped around his name sent a primal sense of satisfaction through him. She, a golden-haired lady of the ton in her purity and innocence, hungered for him, Niall, a baseborn blighter without even a simple surname as his own. That truth heated his veins and fueled his lust.

  He filled his hands with her hips and pressed himself against her belly. She went limp in his arms, and he caught her against the door, anchoring her close. His shaft swelled painfully in his breeches. He ached to free himself, yank her skirts up, and bury himself inside her. He dragged his mouth along her décolletage, pressing kisses to the soft flesh. Breathing deep the floral scent that clung to her skin. Subtle, and containing the suggestive hint of summer, and so very different from every other woman he’d made love to before whose pungent perfume had stung the senses.

  The tread of footsteps beyond the parlor penetrated this momentary lapse into madness. His pulse pounding loudly in Niall’s ears, he quickly broke the embrace and hurried to right her gown.

  Her eyes heavy with passion, Diana blinked slowly. “What—?”

  He touched a fingertip to her lips, silencing the question there. Tucking a lone golden curl behind her ear, he unlocked the door and moved swiftly into position across the room.

  The door opened, and Diana’s father stepped inside. He failed to either notice or care about Niall’s presence at the far back corner of the parlor. A smile wreathed the man’s rounded cheeks. “Diana,” he greeted, entering the room.

  “F-Father,” she stammered.

  Any man need take but one look at her crimson-kissed cheeks and swollen lips to know just what she’d been doing. Except, it would seem, this man. The duke drew a thick sheet of vellum from his pocket and waved it merrily around. “You will not believe what I have here.” He did a small little jig.

  Arms clasped behind him and gaze trained forward in the ready position he’d adopted at the Hell and Sin, fury wound through Niall. The duke should toss Niall’s arse out on the immaculate Mayfair stoop and only after he’d bloodied him senseless. Guilt sluiced away at his insides. What madness had possessed him? Not once, but twice he’d put his scarred hands upon Diana. A lady off-limits not only for her station, but also because of the blood she shared—she was Helena and Ryker’s sister.

  She snuck a furtive glance in Niall’s direction. With her pathetic attempt at subterfuge, the lady wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Dials. It was a sobering reminder of just who she was and what Niall had done.

  And in this moment, Diana had proven correct more than a week ago when she’d slipped into the alley outside the Hell and Sin for protection. Only, the protection she required wasn’t necessarily from the foe she’d imagined in the shadows, but rather an oblivious, and for it, neglectful, papa. The duke was unfit to care for her.

  “You haven’t asked me what I have,” the duke chided, waving that page under his daughter’s nose.

  “What—?”

  “An invitation.”

  An invitation? As a duke, the man surely had endless invites to those infernal affairs hosted by the peerage. Yet, in the week you’ve been here, the lady and her father hadn’t attended a single one. It was a detail he’d given only a sparing thought. He’d just been grateful for not being forced to attend those ton events. Now he paid attention to those details he’d only fleetingly considered.

  Diana gathered that page with shaking fingers. “An invitation?” That query came as though dragged from her. From the corner of his eye, he detected another stolen peek in his direction from the lady.

  “Lord and Lady Milford are hosting a ball.” He patted Diana’s hand. �
��I told you the invitations would again come. And then there will be suitors and a courtship and marriage.” As he prattled on, Diana attended that sheet of vellum.

  So that was the reason for her solitariness. It wasn’t arrogance or conceit, but rather a lack of invitations from the people who shared her station. And he, who’d prided himself on feeling nothing, felt a slight tug in his chest at the idea of Diana—the humming, singing, winsome lady who sketched in the rain—cast out of Society’s fold. Fools, all of them.

  While the duke prattled on, Niall gave his head a disgusted shake. That was the way of the peerage. Self-indulgent. Unfeeling. Heartless. They had no loyalty to kin or members of their lot. Not unlike a boy born to the streets, who put his survival before anything and anyone, so, too, did the ton with their prized reputations and power. And yet a guttersnipe from St. Giles also gave his allegiance to the gang he called family. The peers knew nothing about family.

  “As you were, gel.” Her father patted the top of Diana’s golden curls like she was a child of nine and not a woman of nineteen. “I’ll let you see to your embroidering.”

  Embroidering? Niall creased his brow. He’d been here a week and a day, and even Niall knew Diana Verney didn’t touch one of those useless wood frames.

  “Mr. Marksman.” The duke called out his greeting as an afterthought. “I’m pleased you’ve chosen to remain on and look after my Diana.”

  He met that with stony silence. The duke’s happiness and desires had been the last thing Niall had considered when he’d fought for his position here. It had been Niall’s stubbornness, an unwillingness to admit failure. And you despised the idea of Calum serving her in your stead.

  Thrusting aside that unwelcome truth slithering around his mind, Niall crossed his arms before him.

  Finally Wilkinson ambled his portly frame out of the room, leaving Niall and Diana—alone.

  She attended the page in her hand, as though she’d not already skimmed it three times. As though she didn’t, in fact, know what was contained upon that expensive cream vellum. She laid it down atop one of her many leather sketch pads.

  Had Niall not been studying her so closely, he’d have missed the faint tremble of her long, graceful fingers. But he had been, and he abhorred that show of weakness. It hinted at her fear and unease, and mayhap a week ago, it wouldn’t have mattered what this woman felt. That, however, had been before he’d known her as a woman. Now he did. And whether he liked it or not, her damned quivering frown mattered. “You don’t want to attend?”

  Diana didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She gave her head a slight shake and then dusted her fingertips along the ruffled edge of the inlaid table. “Do you know my father has not smiled in over a year?” she asked wistfully.

  Arms still crossed at his chest, Niall propped a shoulder against the wall. “Every time Oi see ’im, he’s wearing a grin.”

  “There is a difference between smiling and smiling, Niall.”

  A lock tumbled over his wrinkled brow. He’d never understand a lady’s logic.

  Diana drifted over. She stopped so close a mere handbreadth divided them. So close the summer scent of flowers wafted about him. What fragrance did she dab behind her ears? A lord born of her station would know the names of blooms and mayhap even their smells. But for the beggars hawking their wilting buds and the arrangements scattered about Ryker’s office since he’d been married, Niall wouldn’t know a rose from a weed.

  She curled her lips in the corners, dimpling her cheeks in a smile that did not reach her sad eyes. “That is a false smile, Niall,” she said softly, letting the mask fall. “That is what my father has worn since . . .” Since her mother had tried to have Helena killed.

  “That is why ya don’t attend your fancy events,” he mused, as the pieces of the proverbial puzzle finally fell into place. It was why there were no callers or suitors or jaunts through town. Diana had shut herself away.

  “Do you believe the nobility so heartless they’d be forgiving of a woman who sold off her husband’s illegitimate children and then tried to have one of them killed?”

  There was such a stark pain in her eyes, the muscles of his belly contracted.

  “Your mother’s crimes aren’t yours,” he said gruffly. That was a street truth she wouldn’t know, but true all the same. The merciless duchess who’d made herself an accomplice to Mac Diggory and attempted murder bore no resemblance to Diana, the spirited woman who’d sketch in the rain.

  Diana wandered over to a nearby easel. “No,” she agreed. “But I share her blood.” Those softly whispered words barely reached his ears, but he’d been trained from the cradle to detect a person’s subtle movements and sounds. Sometimes to steal. Other times to pounce on an unsuspecting enemy. And hear Diana, he had.

  Over the years, Niall had served as guard. He’d fought for his siblings and fellow gang members in St. Giles and continued that fight inside the Hell and Sin Club. Never once, in all his thirty or thirty-one or however many years he’d attained, had he sought to provide comfort.

  Nor had anyone looked to him or expected it . . . because they’d been wise enough to know Niall Marksman incapable of anything other than brute force and strength.

  Diana, with her slumped shoulders and distant voice, was new territory. Unfamiliar. Similar to the talk of tea and treason they’d had his third day here, only deeper, for it had moved into the uncharted territory of her emotions.

  Niall yanked at his stiff cravat. He’d rather draw a blade and fight a man to the death than muddle through this. And with any other person, his siblings included, he wouldn’t have bothered to try.

  “Do ya know you’re the only person who doesn’t fear me,” he conceded, his words bringing Diana slowly back around. “Not moi brothers or Helena,” he clarified, slashing his hand at the air. “Moi employees. The patrons at moi club. Strangers in the streets.” Regardless of rank or station, they all skirted his path on the pavement, and he preferred it that way.

  “You haven’t given me reason to fear you,” she pointed out.

  Then she was a lackwit if she believed that. “Oi almost snuffed ya in the alley.” How easily he could have crushed her windpipe. The faintest bit of pressure incorrectly applied, and he’d have snuffed out her effervescent light. A wintry chill stole through him.

  “That hardly counts,” she objected, snapping him from torturous musings. “You believed I intended you harm.”

  The corners of her plump lips twitched, and the air lodged in his lungs. This was the look she’d spoken of. That glimmering warmth that softened her heart-shaped features and danced in her eyes like the handful of stars that managed to peek out through the murk of the London night sky. This was the difference she’d spoken of.

  Since the day he’d drawn his first breath, he’d never been capable of such purity. It was an unnecessary reminder of how vastly different they were in every way.

  “The man who raised me . . . Diggory,” he began, giving that monster’s name life. The same man her mother, the duchess, had worked in collusion with. Diana went still and her smile faded, ushering in a somber darkness. How peculiar to find Niall and Diana had been linked early on in the unlikeliest of ways. “He was a killer. A murderer.” Like Niall.

  Kill him . . . or be killed, Niall.

  That mordant command, clear in his mind’s eye. The bite of a dagger against his threadbare garments still fresh. Moisture beaded his forehead. He’d not allowed thoughts of those days in. Had kept them carefully and deliberately at bay. Until now. Do not listen to him—’e’s gone now. Dead and in Hell, burning with Satan himself. He forced out the remaining words. “Diggory was a thief. A rapist.”

  The color bled from Diana’s cheeks, but she remained motionless, not weeping or fainting as any other lady would surely be doing had he spoken to them about such evil.

  “Am Oi the same as Diggory?” he asked. A part of his soul had been tainted by Mac Diggory. It mattered not whom Niall had become, but rather what he’
d once done.

  “Of course not.” She spoke with such vehemence, his numb-until-now heart swelled.

  “He raised me since Oi was a babe.” Though in truth, no person born to the streets was ever innocent. They entered the world on a blanket of hard stone and dirt, and grew into evil. “Do ya see my bond with Ryker as an empty one? Oi don’t share ’is blood but have called him brother.”

  “Of course not.” As soon as the denial left her lips, she froze.

  He winked at her.

  “It is not the same thing, Niall,” she said tightly.

  Niall rolled his shoulders. “It’s exactly the same thing, love.” He touched an imagined brim. “That is, by your thoughts on being responsible for the crimes of another man . . . or woman.” He’d not fill her ears with the truth. He was very much Diggory’s spawn. He’d killed, thieved, and beaten people within an inch of death. Whereas Diana? There wasn’t a mark or crime against her pure soul. That was the distinction even he, a rotted, jaded bastard, couldn’t bring himself to utter.

  He stuck out his hand, and Diana eyed it with a healthy dose of suspicion. “A truce,” he said gruffly. “A real one for as long as I’m here. You won’t write letters to have me sacked, and I’ll . . .” She cocked her head. Niall coughed. “And I’ll not be a miserable bastard every time we’re together.”

  A little laugh spilled past her lips as she trustingly laid her long, elegant fingers in his palm. “A truce,” she said softly.

  He folded her hand in his grip.

  Chapter 12

  The fortnight passed in a blur.

  It was that truth that gave Diana some slight comfort as she sat on the fringe of the Marquess and Marchioness of Milford’s ballroom. For if those fourteen days could pass so very quickly, then an evening inside the home of a leading societal hostess should, too.

  That was the assurance she’d given herself as her maid helped her through her preparations, and then through the never-ending carriage ride, and then through the equally never-ending receiving line.

  Only, time crept by at an interminable crawl.