Swallowing back a sigh, Diana assessed the crush of guests present.
Though in fairness, the plump hostess who’d braved Society’s scorn to issue Diana an invitation had been nothing but kind. The marchioness and her devoted husband had warmly greeted Diana like she was any other lady, and not the daughter of a madwoman complicit in a murder scheme.
No, it was not the host and hostess responsible for Diana’s misery, but rather the sea of gossiping guests. The same guests who’d stared at Diana since the moment she was announced. Stared at her as though she were an oddity escaped from the Piccadilly Circus. Which, in fairness, she wasn’t much different from.
With a Bedlamite for a mother and a faithless father who’d sired and then lost his illegitimate issue, Diana, by association, could never be anything but odd.
And now there was a fierce guard stationed in the corner of the ballroom, intently watching Diana’s every movement, who only added to the whispers that went with her name.
Though, seated on a neat shell-back chair alongside the handful of other partnerless ladies, Diana admitted there was something comforting in Niall being here. Something that made her feel less alone.
He stood with his hands at his back and his chiseled face set into a hard mask daring a person to venture near. Diana unabashedly studied him. Her mother had often stated that lords of London held the power, but seeing how Niall inspired fear in an entire ballroom of those same ostentatious peers, there was no refuting that he was very much master of any room he entered.
Lady Milford’s guests cut a wide berth around him, and Diana stared on, bemused.
Not even three weeks ago, she’d felt that same panicky fear in Niall’s presence. Even as the primal rawness of him had set her heart racing, it had done so with a blend of her body’s awareness of him as a man . . . and an equal part terror.
Peering around the dancers who performed the intricate steps of a quadrille, she continued her study of him. Four or five inches taller than the majority of guests present, he stood out among the crowded ballroom not for that great height or the crimson neck cloth expertly folded at his throat, but for the powerful aura he exuded. He was a living, breathing reason men had been made subjects of sculptors.
Just then, a colorful dandy passed too close, and Niall scraped a gaze over him. The young man tripped over himself, scurrying off in the opposite direction, and Niall promptly resumed his watch of the ballroom.
There could be no doubt that the man at the edge of the room was no guest, but in every way a guard. The thickly corded muscles of his arms and shoulders strained the fabric of his elegantly cut garments, hinting at a man braced for battle. Occasionally his lip peeled back in a visible testament of his derisiveness to the frivolity he was forced to observe. He wanted no part of the haute ton . . . and in that, Diana felt a kindred connection to him. He no more wanted to be here than Diana herself. Despite all his statements of the contrary, he’d proven to be more like Diana than he’d surely ever credit or like.
From across the dance floor, their gazes clashed. It was a bold, unapologetic locking of their eyes that sent heat unfurling in her belly. Niall subtly angled his head, breaking the connection. Diana let her shoulders sag against the miserably stiff shell-back chair.
No man should possess that dangerous smolder. A glimmer that had the power to set her ablaze with the mere promise of what had come before.
Diana’s heart kicked up a wild beat as the floodgates of her memory opened with the remembrance of his kiss. His touch. An embrace that had not been the one stolen, regretful exchange in the park, but another with her framed between his thickly muscled arms. In Niall’s arms, Diana didn’t think about the bleak future awaiting her or the misery of this past year. Instead, she relished in simply being alive. While Niall’s intent gaze continued its sweep of the ballroom, Diana continued to devour him with her eyes. I want to know more with him. She ached for the coarse drag of his callused palms over her skin. For in his gloriously splendorous embrace, Diana was not “Diana the Mad” or the “Lady of Madness,” but rather a woman who was very much alive and free.
A young lady stepped between them, and Diana gasped. She glanced up and started. The vaguely familiar woman, Lady Penelope Chatham, who’d found herself embroiled in scandal earlier in the Season and then married Diana’s half brother, stared back.
Registering the patient smile on Lady Penelope Chatham’s lips, Diana sprang to her feet. “My lady,” she greeted quickly, sinking into an automatic curtsy. She searched that smile for a hint of malice, but nothing but gentle warmth reflected back in the tilt of her lips that reached her kind blue eyes.
Her skin burned with the attention now trained their way. After all, it wasn’t every day two estranged sisters-in-law met amid a crowded ballroom.
“Shall we give them something to truly talk about?” Lady Chatham suggested with a waggle of her eyebrows, and extended her elbow.
Diana eyed that offering cautiously. Unlike the friendship Diana had struck with Helena, Ryker had been plainly clear in his feelings about the Duke of Wilkinson’s legitimate daughter, Diana—he wished nothing to do with her. It was why reaching out to him and asking for his assistance had been humbling and humiliating. Diana hadn’t even been invited to his wedding, of which there had been two. What use did his wife have of her, daughter of the woman who’d orchestrated Ryker’s disappearance years earlier?
Lady Chatham’s smile slipped. “I certainly understand why you would be hesitant.”
Diana stiffened and braced for that onslaught of deservedly vile charges against the Verney line.
“I haven’t been the most loyal of sisters-in-law.”
“Beg pardon, my lady?” Diana blurted.
“Please?” Lady Chatham said this time, lifting her elbow once more.
Having been rebuffed and rejected by family and Society alike, Diana would never be one of those ladies who deliberately saw a person humiliated in like fashion. She looped her arm through the other woman’s.
A loud buzz, like a thousand swarming bees, filled the soaring ballroom.
“As I told you,” Lady Chatham said on a mischievous whisper as she leaned close. “Something to really talk about.”
Despite the misery of suffering through Lord and Lady Milford’s ball, Diana managed a smile.
“That is better.” The viscountess winked. “Confuse them with a smile. Now we should laugh and really watch their mouths hang agape.”
As they strolled the perimeter, Diana carefully studied Ryker’s wife out of the corner of her eye. Near Diana in age, there was a surprising openness to the lady at odds with the mask worn by the stone-faced viscount. Diana searched the crowd and easily found her brother. He stood shoulder to shoulder beside Niall on the fringe. Both looked to be equal in their misery at being forced to suffer through Lady Milford’s ball. Niall, however, followed Diana’s every movement, like a hunter guarding its prey. She shivered, pitying the man foolish enough to defy Niall Marksman.
“Do not be fooled by his scowl. He’s really quite warm and loving.” Lady Chatham cut across her musings and brought Diana’s gaze whipping back.
“M-my lady?” she squeaked.
“My husband,” the viscountess clarified.
Relief flooded Diana. For a horrifying moment, she’d believed the other woman had noted Diana’s interest in Niall. Then the viscountess’s words registered. Warm and loving? Diana flared her eyebrows. She was certain there had been ruthless soldiers in the King’s Army who’d bore more warmth than Ryker Black.
The viscountess patted her hand. “You mustn’t let him know I’ve said as much. He does value that gruff reputation.”
With their every step, whispers followed in their wake, and yet through each one, Lady Chatham gave no indication that she either heard or cared about those gossips. Since the scandal that had rocked society, Diana believed herself immune to that chatter, but walking arm in arm with Ryker’s wife, smiling and wholly unaffected, Dia
na acknowledged the lie she’d also lived. As the viscountess steered them past gaping couples, onward to the corner of the ballroom, Diana’s discomfort grew. Mayhap this is where she wished to take Diana to task for daring to put a favor to Ryker. After all, what right did Diana have to ask him for anything?
As soon as they stopped, Diana spoke quickly. “Is there a reason you wished to speak to me, my lady?” she asked with a straightforwardness that her sour-faced governesses had managed to drum out of Diana for nineteen years of her life.
Lady Chatham looked at her. A flash of regret lit her pretty blue eyes. “I’d ask, given we are sisters-in-law, that you please call me Penelope.”
Diana chewed at her lower lip, searching for the trap.
Ryker’s wife stared back. “I’ve been remiss,” the young viscountess murmured. “I’ve made little attempt”—no attempt—“to seek you out for an introduction, and you are Ryker’s sister.”
The orchestra concluded the lively reel, and as they plucked the strains of the next set, Diana picked her way around her thoughts. “Why should you have?” she countered, stripping away any inflection from her query. Glancing about to verify there were no observers about, Diana went on. “My mother wronged Ryker and Helena, and I wouldn’t expect you to strike up a friendship with me.” Too much had come to pass between their families. Where Helena had forgiven, Ryker never had, and as such, Diana and her eldest sibling never would know peace.
A spasm contorted Lady Chatham’s face, and she gathered Diana’s hands, giving them a firm squeeze. “It was wrong of Ryker or me to cut you from the family because of . . .” She grimaced. “Things that came to pass because of your parents.”
Diana made a small sound of protest and made to pull away.
Lady Chatham, however, retained her hold. “This is not the place for wrongs to be put to right, but I would ask we begin again, as sisters-in-law.”
Diana nodded. “I would like that very much,” she said softly, and Lady Chatham’s smile was restored.
Her sister-in-law cleared her throat. “Ryker and I would like to have you join us for a small dinner party.” A dinner party? “Ryker believed you might—” Lady Penelope immediately closed her lips. Color flooded her cheeks.
What did Ryker believe? “I would be honored,” Diana said cautiously. There was more to that offer.
Penelope smiled. “Splendid.” Her sister-in-law again offered her arm.
Diana automatically looped hers through and allowed the other woman to guide her around the ballroom. The viscountess wrinkled her nose. “Dreadful affairs,” she muttered. “I used to look forward to them,” she confessed.
“As did I,” Diana revealed. Yes, there had been a time when she’d been hopelessly romantic, dreaming of love and marriage and a happily-ever-after found only in books. Though . . . she again glanced at Ryker’s wife. That wasn’t altogether true. Ryker and his wife appeared very much in love, as did Helena and her husband. They, however, were deserving of it.
They shared a look, and Lady Penelope applied gentle pressure to Diana’s arm, commiserating, and just then Diana felt very much un-alone. Humming a discordant tune that rivaled that of the orchestra’s Scotch Reel, the viscountess glanced around the ballroom. “You are doing well, I trust, with Mr. Marksman?”
Diana missed a step, and then, cheeks warming, quickly righted herself. “My lady?” she asked at that abrupt shift in discourse.
Looking around, Lady Penelope found Niall with her gaze and gave a discreet wave in his general direction. His scowl deepened.
“I understand you wrote my husband, and I wanted to be sure that you are not uncomfortable with Mr. Marksman’s presence.” Ah, so in addition to an attempted peace between their families, this was another reason why the lady had sought her out.
“Is that why you believe I wrote Ryker, my lady?” she asked carefully. “That I wished to have him remove Mr. Marksman because I feared him?” Mr. Marksman, who existed in her house and mind only as Niall.
“Is it not?” Lady Penelope pressed. With that directness, this unflinching woman was the only one who would have ever been a match for Ryker Black.
“It is not,” she returned, shaking her head. Diana feared death and her descent into madness. She did not, however, fear a person, man or woman . . . including the ruthless Niall Marksman. “I am not afraid of Mr. Marksman.”
“Truly?” Lady Chatham looked at her with a new appreciation glimmering in her expressive eyes.
“Truly, my lady,” she confirmed. Diana cast a glance over to where Niall and Ryker quietly conversed. Nodding at something the other man said, Niall’s gaze found hers. Her heart fluttered.
“I like you all the more, Lady Diana.” The viscountess beamed. Taking her by the hand, she coaxed Diana onward. “Come, allow me to introduce you to some of the few friendly members of the peerage. I promise there are a few.”
With Niall’s gaze piercing her retreating frame, Diana allowed herself to be pulled along.
Through narrowed eyes, Niall stared on as Penelope introduced Diana to the Earl of Maxwell. The blighter who, with his roguish grin and unscarred skin, had tossed down coin at Niall’s tables and now Killoran’s.
That same blighter collected her hand and raised it to his mouth, placing a kiss on the inside of her wrist.
He growled.
This need to cut through the silly prancing partners on the floor and rip Maxwell’s hand from its bloody socket filled Niall with a bloodlust only previously born of street battles.
“And our liquor suppliers have been fleecing us . . .”
The earl scribbled his name on her goddamned dance card, which meant for the first time in more than two hours, Diana, who’d been partnerless on those lonely chairs at the back of the ballroom, would have a partner. Nay, not just any partner. The grinning, affable Lord Maxwell.
“Membership is down . . .”
Goddamned interfering Penelope Black. What was she on about, introducing Diana to a lord who drank too much, wagered even more, and often did it with a whore or two on his lap?
“Calum is taken up as head guard at Devil’s Den . . .”
Niall blinked slowly.
Ryker snorted. “I see I have your attention.”
“Go fuck yourself,” he muttered under his breath, earning a deep chuckle from Ryker. Laughing, teasing, lighthearted—what in blazes had Penelope Black done to the ruthless Lord of the Underbelly?
“You aren’t listening to a damned word I’ve said,” Ryker observed, casually folding his arms at his chest. The tension pouring from his frame made a contradiction of that outwardly show of indifference. Ryker Black might be capable of jesting and laughing, but he was not one who took to being ignored.
“I’m seeing to my responsibilities,” Niall snapped, and a servant walking within earshot fumbled the tray in his hands. The liveried footman swallowed loudly and managed to right his load, and then made off in the opposite direction.
“Diana,” Ryker said needlessly.
Yes, Diana. The young lady he’d struck a truce with, whose cheeks even now blazed crimson at something Lord Maxwell said. “Unless there are other responsibilities Oi don’t know about?”
“Walk with me,” Ryker commanded.
The earl led Diana onto the dance floor and put his hand on her waist—Niall narrowed his eyes—too low. The bastard’s bold fingertips brushed just over the generous swell of her buttocks. This is the manner of gentleman Penelope and Ryker would turn Diana over to? “Oi’m on duty,” he seethed. It mattered not that the lady had disavowed marrying any gentleman. It mattered that in this instance, her cheeks were blooming red like those crimson flowers Penelope filled the damned club with, while that fancy toff led her through the steps of a waltz.
“Calum is present,” Ryker reminded him.
“As a guest,” he muttered. Unlike Niall, who was employed here as a guard, strictly to look after Diana’s well-being.
“It’s not for you,” Ryker per
sisted.
And Niall registered the raspy quality of Ryker’s graveled baritone. The faint panic glimmering in his hard eyes. They all carried their own demons. Ryker’s fear of crowds was his. Niall paused a moment more, looking out at the sea of fancy lords and ladies, those men he’d spent his whole life despising, ultimately finding Diana at the center of them.
With the ease of the London pickpockets they’d once been, Niall and Ryker found their way outside to Lady Milford’s gardens.
Once outside, Ryker sucked in a deep, jagged breath. Reaching inside his jacket, Niall fished out two cheroots and handed one over. Sometimes a man needed the fortification that came from a healthy pull of a smoke.
Ryker hesitated.
“She won’t know,” Niall encouraged, lighting the tip of his cheroot to one of the lighted posts lining the graveled path. It was no secret that Ryker had sworn off cheroots for his wife. Just as she’d led to changes with the decor and redefining the role of the prostitutes, Ryker Black was very much second-in-command now.
“She knows everything,” Ryker muttered. Though the little glimmer in his eyes disproved that gruff annoyance.
A rusty chuckle rumbled deep in Niall’s chest, and he took another pull from his cheroot, smoke filling his lungs. They settled into a companionable silence as Ryker regained control of his panic.
Niall flicked his ashes and stared out at the handful of stars that managed to peek through the thick grime coating of the London night sky.
Where do you wish to go? Diana’s question whispered around his mind. He’d only ever slept under the London sky. He’d not allowed himself to think of a life outside it. Whereas she, with her every painting and word, spoke of any world but here.
“There was another fight inside the club,” Ryker said suddenly, unexpectedly.
Niall whipped his head sideways. The same rage and panic that always came with mention of a threat to their security flooded him now.
“One of Killoran’s guards,” Ryker went on. “Carried a warning that if any one of our men threaten their own again, it will be worse. Do you know anything about that?”
The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3) Page 15
