The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  “That’s good. Now stand real slow.” As Niall complied, the man’s grip slackened on Diana’s throat, enough for Niall to detect the muscles of that long, graceful column bob. Fury went through him like a slithering serpent poised to strike, and he fed the dark seed of hatred. Not allowing himself to give in to fear. Fear would only see Diana with her throat slit. His heart thudded hard against his rib cage. “Ya weren’t supposed to be ’ere,” the man rebuked, dragging Diana close.

  She whimpered, and her eyes slid closed.

  An unholy bloodlust gripped Niall, strengthening him. The man’s moments were limited. Except, with his advantage, he was too cocksure arrogant to see as much. To see that Niall would end him, in this very chamber. Niall forced his lips up into an indifferent grin. “I have excellent timing.”

  The pockmarked brute grunted. “Shut your goddamned mouth and drop your gun.”

  “Don’t do it, N-Niall,” she urged, the tremor in her voice gutting him.

  “Shut your mouth, bitch.” The knife trembled against Diana’s throat, and she bit her lower lip. Dark, beady eyes darted about. So, he saw he was trapped. To use a pistol would bring down the Duke of Wilkinson’s household, and the bastard would be found out. To kill Diana would only spare Niall and result in the bounder’s death. “Oi said drop it, Marksman,” the man hissed.

  Desperate men, however, did desperate things.

  Niall took a step closer, his dagger pointed at the floor.

  “Don’t take another step,” the bastard said loudly and nicked Diana’s flesh. A strangled cry stuck in her throat, and a crimson drop trickled down her neck to the modest décolletage of her nightshift, staining that white fabric.

  Diana looked at Niall beseechingly, imploring him with her eyes.

  His stomach dipped, and for a dizzying moment he was sucked into the terror—numbed, powerless—of that scared boy forced to choose between Ryan and his own soul’s worth. Niall forced his gaze over to the hulking brute. “Who sent you?” he forced himself to ask, inching closer.

  The stranger snorted. “Ya think Oi’d tell ya? Ya weren’t supposed to be ’ere,” the man said again, reiterating that revealing admission.

  “Well, I am.” He continued coming.

  “Oi said stop and drop your weapon,” the stranger repeated. The shaky timbre of his gravelly tones hinted at a man on the fringe of losing control. He pressed the blade against Diana’s throat, and a little moan spilled past her lips.

  “Oi said drop—”

  Niall tossed the knife sideways. The assailant’s panicked gaze went to the weapon. It was a mistake. In one fluid movement, Niall yanked the pistol up and fired. The loud report was met with an agonized scream as the assailant dropped his weapon and staggered back, clutching at his shoulder. Niall bolted over, but the attacker stole over the balcony and was gone.

  Rushing outside, Niall looked over the grounds, finding the stranger just as he hit the ground with a loud groan.

  Niall cast a quick look briefly to where Diana stood ashen-faced and then back at the assailant—gone.

  Cursing himself for having let the man go, he turned back to where Diana remained so motionless. He swiftly pulled her into his arms. He buried her face against his chest. “Shh,” he whispered. His opponent gone, the reality of how close she’d come to death sent blood roaring to his ears, muffling the sounds of her weeping. “You’re all right,” he said harshly, his reassurances as much for him as they were for her.

  Her body convulsed as she sobbed brokenly against his chest. “Niall.” Her tears soaked the front of his chest, and here he’d thought himself immune to those crystalline drops, only to be proven a liar by the woman in his arms. “I—I thought . . .” Her voice caught and then broke as she dissolved into another torrent.

  Niall layered his cheek to the crown of her hair. “You’re all right,” he continued, the words a litany. A reminder that she was safe. With him, still.

  Footsteps pounded outside the hall. The handle resisted the person attempting to break their way in. “Diana,” the duke’s frantic cry filtered in. “Open this door.” The handle jiggled.

  Reluctantly setting her aside, Niall retrieved his gun and opened the door a fraction.

  Swiftly taking in the liveried servants and duke, he admitted the small contingency inside.

  Several footmen spilled into the room, with the portly duke following close. “M-Marksman, what is the meaning . . .” The duke’s blustery demands ended abruptly as he caught sight of the blood on his daughter’s floor. All the color leached from his cheeks as he pulled Diana out into the hall. Niall itched to drag her back and hold on to her, reassuring himself that she was safe. Unhurt. “What happened?” the duke whispered.

  “Your daughter was right.” Niall flexed his jaw. “Someone wants ’er dead.”

  Chapter 15

  A handful of hours after the attack, Diana sat perched on the leather button sofa in her father’s office. Sunlight streamed through the floor-length windows, those soft rays at odds with the hell that had unfolded.

  The constable having come and gone, the men just shown in by the butler were those Niall called family: Ryker, Adair, and Oswyn. Shoulder to shoulder at the doorway, they had the look of a small army prepared to battle. It was a fierce lot. Towering, powerful figures of men who’d strike fear in the breasts of all, and less than four weeks ago, Diana would have included herself in that number.

  From behind his desk, her father came to his feet. “Gentlemen,” he greeted. As though it were a social call. As though a man hadn’t infiltrated their home and put a blade to Diana’s throat, and—her breath coming fast—she shoved the thoughts aside and belatedly stood. “If you will excuse us, Diana,” her father said in the gentling tones he’d used when she’d scraped her knees as a small girl.

  Five pairs of eyes went to Diana. Five men who’d send her on her way and discuss her fate. For the whole of her life, others had made decisions for and about her. She’d been robbed of a voice by governesses, nursemaids, and her own parents. What was worse, however, is that the one truly responsible for that complacency was Diana herself. She’d allowed herself to be silenced. No more. “I’m not leaving,” she said quietly.

  “Would anyone care for a brandy?” Her father made his way dismissively over to that well-stocked sideboard. He passed his hand over the crystal decanters and then stopped, turning slowly back.

  She looked briefly to Niall. Stationed at the edge of her father’s desk, his hands clasped at his back, he stood in wait, his expression revealing nothing.

  “Diana,” her father continued in that patronizing tone that set her teeth on edge, “this isn’t the place for you.” He slid a wary look over at the terrifying group of men.

  Shock slammed into her. Even though Ryker was his son, and Niall had entered the duke’s home and saved Diana’s life, he still saw the men who’d been more family than anyone else to him as somehow different. Lesser. And with all his failings to come to light this past year, the last myth of her father’s greatness tumbled before her eyes. “Where should I be, Papa?” she demanded. “Tucked away, safe in my chambers?” Those same rooms where Niall had been forced to shoot a man again. For me. Because of me.

  She snagged the inside of her cheek.

  “Diana,” her father exclaimed. Shock sent his white eyebrows shooting up. He slowly set the decanter down.

  Yes, for nineteen years she’d been the dutiful, naive Diana, whom her mother had sought to maneuver through life like a chess piece. That girl she’d once been would have never dared do anything as bold as to question her father’s wishes. “I’m not leaving,” she said once more, drawing her shoulders back.

  Niall moved into position beside her. She started at the unexpectedness of his appearance, and a warmth suffused her heart at that show of support, chasing away the chill that had dogged her since this morn. “She stays,” Niall commanded in a steely tone that brooked no room for argument.

  Any other gentleman
would have shut her out. It had taken but her first meeting to determine he was unlike any man she’d ever known.

  Giving a reluctant nod, the duke motioned to the sofa. “Very well,” he said, compressing his lips in a flat line.

  As Diana and her father reclaimed their seats, however, the other men present remained tautly coiled.

  Ryker broke the silence. “Niall?”

  Niall proceeded to methodically recount the events of the early morning. With his detached telling, Diana locked her hands on her lap to still those shaking digits. You insisted on remaining. The very least you can do is listen to him.

  “Someone wants her dead . . . confirmed the previous attacks . . .”

  How could he be so remarkably calm after . . . after . . . ? Her mind shied away from the horror that had unfolded in her bedroom. But in his loud orange wool jacket and fawn-colored pants, he may as well have been any other gentleman discussing mundane matters over port and cigarillos.

  “The home was searched for additional assailants?” Adair interrupted Niall’s telling.

  A scowl marred Niall’s rugged features. Yes, he would chafe at having his work here questioned. None would be immune to that displeasure, including his brothers. “I interviewed Diana.” Ryker narrowed his eyes on Diana, and her cheeks warmed under his scrutinizing look. If any other gentleman present noted that intimate use of her Christian name, they gave no indication. “I assembled the servants. Questioned those awake during the attack and those who’d been sleeping. Did a search with the constables of every room, window, and door. There was no forced entry.”

  A pall descended over the room.

  The assailant had effortlessly slipped inside, just as easily as he’d gone out. By all rights, she should be dead . . . and would have been if Niall hadn’t been returning to his chambers, and she hadn’t managed to topple that vase as the stranger dragged her from the room.

  Moisture dotted her forehead. The remembered metallic taste of blood in her mouth sent nausea roiling in her belly. Do not think of it. Do not think of it. She briefly pressed her eyes closed, willing back the memories. The terror cloying at her breast. The cry as Niall’s shot found its mark . . .

  That was the last man I killed . . .

  And he’d been forced to lift a weapon again . . . because of me.

  Her breath hitched painfully in her chest. It was in her blood and could not be divorced from who she was.

  “Was it an act of revenge because of that man?” her father put to the group.

  That man. He spoke like a child warned of the Awd Goggie and afeard of being made a meal by that evil fairy. Diana looked away from him over to Niall, who with his fearlessness and boldness, was her father’s opposite in every way.

  The men present stared expectantly at Niall. He rolled his shoulders. “Oi don’t believe he’s one of Diggory’s.”

  Diana furrowed her brow. Which would mean . . . Diana was the one in possession of an enemy?

  Ryker folded his arms at his chest. “On what do you base that?”

  “He didn’t just kill ’er,” Oswyn pointed out, wiping the back of his hand across his bald pate. “’e woulda killed ’er if he wanted ’er dead. Why let her live?”

  Niall rubbed his chin with the heel of his hand.

  “He was bringing me to someone else,” she blurted, the memory forgotten in the panic of the moment rushing forth.

  His gaze shot to hers questioningly.

  “He said I’d proven too difficult to kill, and the man he worked for wished to do that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?” Niall demanded, coming closer.

  She tipped up her chin. “I forgot, Niall.”

  “Ya cannot forget those details, Diana,” he gritted out, bringing her to her feet. “Is there anything else ya forgot?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, hanging on to her sanity by a thread as her mind raced. “If it’s forgotten, I wouldn’t really remember it, would I?” she retorted, finding a soothing calm in her frustration. It kept her from falling over the precipice of fear and madness that her assailant had shoved her to the edge of.

  “Niall,” Ryker barked, and Niall and Diana looked as one to the other forgotten guests watching them peculiarly. “Who would wish the girl harm?” Ryker asked the room at large, bringing them back to the matter at hand.

  The girl. That was how the world treated her. All except Niall, that was.

  Niall frowned. Did he, too, take umbrage with that demeaning address?

  “No one,” the duke blurted, shaking his head so abruptly his hair tumbled over his brow. “Who could wish her harm?”

  A little frown worked at the corners of her lips. There was no shortage of gossip and unkind words for Diana by the peerage. But gossiping about her was vastly different from attempting to harm her.

  “The lady has at least one enemy,” Adair pointed out, needlessly.

  Oswyn captured his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Too bad ya only caught ’im in the shoulder. I woulda killed ’im dead.” How freely this guard bandied about that word to Niall, who was so haunted by it. Diana pressed her fingertips against her temples.

  Niall took a charged step forward. “You’re questioning ’ow Oi cared for her?” he shot back.

  The older man rushed toe-to-toe with Niall. “Everyone knows ya don’t ’ave it in ya to kill again,” he groused. “The man needed killing.”

  Adair hurried to insert himself between them.

  “Enough,” Ryker snapped.

  Diana jumped to her feet, proving herself a coward once more. She could not be with Niall in this moment, knowing the darkness she’d forced on his soul. “If you’ll excuse me?” she said, her throat convulsing. For, ultimately, blood would tell, and her mother’s would continue to shine through in Diana’s every action. Unable to meet Niall’s eyes, she skirted around his well-built frame.

  “Diana?” Niall called after her, the gruff concern of his baritone so very different from the pitiless figure who’d first entered her household. He shot a hand out, capturing her forearm. “I’ll accompany you.”

  Diana registered the focus of the room trained on that possessive, intimate gesture.

  “You’ve searched the home. I do not require an escort.”

  Nonetheless, Niall glanced over at Oswyn. A silent look passed between them, and as she started from the room, the older guard followed close at her heels.

  And with every step she placed between her and Niall, the heavy cloak of guilt about her shoulders grew.

  The meeting with the duke concluded, Niall walked alongside Ryker and Adair, accompanying them to the foyer.

  “You look like hell,” Ryker observed.

  He flexed his jaw as the horror of a few hours ago revisited him. His insides twisted as he was assaulted by the image of Diana, a blade at her throat. One quick flick of the ruthless bastard’s wrist and he’d have opened her neck right there. Nausea broiled in his belly. “Shooting an unknown assailant in the dead of night will do that,” he got out.

  “Yes,” Ryker concurred. “Is it only that?”

  Mayhap it was the absolute lack of sleep, or mayhap it was the fight to the death, but Ryker’s words brought Niall’s mouth opening and closing, with no reply forthcoming.

  “You called her Diana,” Adair pointed out, unhelpfully.

  “Several times,” Ryker added.

  Niall stumbled and then quickly righted himself. Favoring both brothers with a scathing glower, he whipped his head about. This wasn’t the goddamned club, where all were loyal to them. “Shut your goddamned mouths,” he hissed, shoving open a nearby door and forcing his brothers inside.

  He gritted his teeth. Of all the bloody rooms to stumble into.

  Diana’s sanctuary.

  Spoiling for a fight, Niall kicked the door closed with the heel of his boot and folded his arms at his chest. “Well? Say whatever it is you’d say and be done with it.” In their world they spoke with absolute bluntness. There
were none of these veiled hints and prevarications.

  “I believe we did just say it,” Adair suggested, the ghost of a grin on his lips. “You’re inordinately familiar with the lady.”

  Inordinately familiar? Niall sputtered. “She’s . . . she’s . . .”

  Ryker arched an eyebrow.

  “A lady?” Adair finished for him. Niall frowned. “Ryker’s sister? An innocent?”

  “Aye, she’s all of those things.” Or she had been. “Your bloody point is made,” Niall gritted out. Somewhere along the way Diana had become so much more than any of those neatly ticked items off Adair’s list. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Did ya expect me to be a bloody beast to her?” he snapped.

  His brothers spoke in unison. “Yes.”

  Yes, well, fair point there. Niall had only crafted a smile for the nobles he’d so hated for the benefit of the Hell and Sin, and only to grow their fortunes. Beyond that, he’d been perfectly clear that he’d rather dance with the Devil through the flames of Hell than have any other dealings with the haute ton.

  A large hand settled on Niall’s shoulder, and he looked to the owner of it. Ryker met his eyes squarely. “You prevented it.” Niall drew himself tight. What was he on about? “This”—Ryker slashed his palm up and down, gesturing to Niall’s frame—“panicky look in your eyes. You need to stop doubting yourself.”

  Doubting himself? Is that why Ryker believed Niall was out of sorts? Then, why shouldn’t he? When he’d sent Niall from the Hell almost four weeks earlier, Niall had been so fixed on his own failings that he’d snapped and hissed at Ryker for the new assignment handed down. He wouldn’t know that in the nearly thirty days he’d been with Diana, he’d not missed the club for five minutes that he could string together. No, Niall’s sweaty palms and knotted stomach had everything to do with how very close Diana had come to meeting her maker.

  “Tell me what you require.” Ryker neatly shifted the topic, diverting Niall from his tumultuous thoughts and on to matters he could understand and control.