She dropped her arms to her sides. “I have already told you,” she gritted out, “I don’t plan on stabbing anyone or punching you.” He had been the only person who’d treated her as his equal in every way. He’d let her inside his world and encouraged her to share hers. Saved her life. She was not striking him no matter how many times he demanded it. Diana again cut a berth around him.
He quickly stepped before her, cutting off her escape. “Let me give you the damned lesson, princess.”
This princess nonsense, again. Diana set her jaw. “All right.”
Some of the tension went out of his frame.
“As long as it does not involve me striking you,” she clarified.
He let loose a stream of expletives. Alas, Diana had ceased to shock long ago. A year to be precise. “One day I’ll be gone, and you’ll be left with those rakes and rogues who want to steal a kiss and sneak a feel.” A savage glimmer lit his nearly obsidian irises.
Her heart jumped a beat. What was to account for that barely restrained fury? Did the possibility of her with another man fill him with some resentment? Why would that be if he didn’t care for her in some way? Regardless of what Niall Marksman felt or didn’t feel for her, however, there would never be a man after him whom she’d allow to caress her. “There are no worries there, Niall,” she said softly, stroking her palms down the front of his chest. It was a mistake.
Her mouth went dry. The heat of his flesh singed her hands even through the fabric of his linen shirt.
His thick, charcoal lashes swept down, concealing the raw power radiating from within those blue orbs. “Because you think gentlemen are honorable?” He peeled back his lip in a derisive sneer.
Pain stabbed at her breast. Did he truly believe she was like her father and the rest of the ruthless ton, who viewed those titled lords as superior? “Because they’ve already demonstrated their lack of interest.” Men who’d not give a second thought to committing her the moment she showed signs of madness. As such, she’d no interest in binding herself to one of those faithless, spineless cowards.
A savage growl better suited a primal beast shook the walls of his chest, breaking that charged awareness. “For Christ’s sake, Diana, how can I teach you if you’ll not strike me?”
“I’ll not hurt you, Niall,” she said simply, lifting her shoulders in a little shrug. As long as she was able, she would never put her hands upon another person in violence, and certainly if she did, it would not be Niall.
Like one of those fierce lions she’d stared on with awe at the Royal Circus, he took slow, menacing, predatory steps closer, stalking her. “Hit me,” he whispered.
Diana retreated a step. “N-no.” She didn’t know what to do with Niall when he was this enraged, snarling predator.
“Hit me,” he barked, sticking out his chest, and the fabric of his shirt rippled, displaying defined muscles suited to a man who’d fought in the streets and risen up. Diana’s eyes went to the midnight tufts of hair that peeked from the top of his fine linen shirt. Her mouth went dry.
“Are you paying attention?” he barked.
Cheeks awash in heat, she whipped her head up. “I’ll not do it, Niall.”
“You’re a coward.”
She gasped. He thought so little of her. That thought shouldn’t cause this keen ache, and yet it did. “How dare you?”
“Don’t like the truth?” A smile, cold like a winter’s frost, iced his lips. “That you’re nothing more than a pampered princess who expects to be guarded but who’s unwilling to stick her nose into the fight.”
Agony sluiced away like a dull knife, carving a place in her chest. She fought to move her lips, to bring forth an indignant reply—and came up empty.
He marched forward, unyielding. “Nothing to say?” he taunted with harsh mockery, a shell of the man she’d come to know.
“I’m no coward,” she breathed through her fingertips, hating that wispy quality to her rebuttal.
“Prove it,” he jeered, closing the space between them, and Diana hastened her retreat, glancing about. Of their own volition, her panicked eyes went to the door. Niall swiftly cut off her path of escape, and she gasped. “Hit me,” he urged on a steely whisper. “You know you want to.”
She balled her hands into fists. She’d not let him bait her. That is all he sought to do. Squaring her shoulders, she looked through him.
“You’re furious right now.” He walked a slow path around her. “That’s good. It is pumping through your veins, princess—”
She whipped her furious gaze to his. Fire burned in her depths. “Do not call me princess.”
“Then do not act like one.” He spread his arms wide, making himself her target. “Hit me.”
“Stop it, Niall,” she bit out.
“Hit me,” he boomed, pounding his chest. “Come on, surely there is some of your mother’s ruthless blood flowing in your—”
Diana shot her fist out, catching him in the jaw. The force of her blow sent his neck flying back. She hissed as pain stung her knuckles and snapped her from the blinding flash of rage that had caused her to lash out. Quickly jerking her arm close to her chest, she stared on with a slow-dawning horror. I punched him.
Niall chuckled and caught the wounded flesh in his palm, rubbing, a wry smile on his lips. “Impressive, princess.” Pride filled his eyes, and she recoiled. “That—” His words trailed off and he frowned. “Diana?”
Diana’s throat bobbed.
Everyone had a breaking point.
It was the moment where sanity snapped and madness crept in, and you were exposed for the lunatic you were.
Just as she had revealed herself to be in this instance.
Oh, my God. What have I done?
Nausea roiled in her belly and sent bile burning up the back of her throat. She choked it back. With an infinite tenderness that threatened to shatter her, Niall drew her into his arms and pressed her ear against his chest. His heart pounded loudly against that powerfully muscled wall; the steady thump matching her own heart’s rhythm.
A strangled sob caught in her throat.
He stroked the back of her head. “I wanted you to hit me.”
Yes, he had, and she’d not wanted to, but ultimately her fury had spiraled, stealing her control, logic, and reason—and proving her very much her mother’s daughter. For of all people to incite her rage, it had been Niall, the man who’d stolen her heart and—
She froze. No. She’d no intention of falling in love or marrying, or trusting her heart, soul, or any other part of herself to a man. And yet—no. No. No. No. Except repeating that desperate litany in her head did not make it untrue. She, who’d seen the faithlessness of men but who’d also sought to protect herself from hurt and any others from her lunacy, had fallen hopelessly and helplessly in love with a man who at best liked her a little and at worst abhorred her immensely.
Her eyes slid closed.
“Diana?” Those gravelly, guttural tones that whispered around her dreams in the night when the house slept on penetrated her terror, bringing her eyes open. Gasping, she wrenched away from him. Panic twisted away at her insides, knotting them in a vicious, unyielding vise.
Diana fought to draw air into her constricted lungs. It was the height of folly. A mistake that had nothing to do with the station divide between them and everything to do with who Diana was. For even if Niall, a man who hated everything she represented, wished to share a future with her, there was no future she could give him that would be of any worth. A man tied to her would only end up like her father, the Duke of Wilkinson, with a wife shut away and a household of servants and the occasional guest who stared on and pitied. Diana stumbled out of his arms. “Stay away,” she panted, straightening her arms before her and warding him off.
His sapphire eyes darkened, glinting with a fleeting glimpse of hurt. He immediately dropped his arms to his sides. Of course, that was all she was capable of—hurting others. Her gaze fixed on the bright red mark on his square c
hin with that faint cleft.
Diana tossed her hands up. “Why could you not leave me be?” she cried, the frantic timbre of her voice matching the pealing screams of those souls locked away in Bedlam. She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears to blot out those memories.
A muscle jumped in his jaw, only highlighting that faint bruise forming on his flesh.
“Could you not see I’ve not wanted to talk to you?” she rasped. She’d attempted to stay away from him. Had, out of a deep-seated guilt and shame, tried to put distance between herself and Niall. But in the end, he’d not let her. “I stayed away from you.” He flinched, and she continued ruthless. “But you could not leave me be.” There was a darkness in her soul Niall didn’t know about, and one that she’d send him on his way before he could ever see. Her throat tightened.
She darted around him.
Niall scrubbed a hand down his face, and this time he let her go.
Diana’s breath rasped loudly in her ears as she flew from the room and down the halls with such speed her curls tore free of the pearl peigne at the base of her neck. The locks tumbled into her face, about her shoulders, whipping wildly as she ran.
She took the stairs two at a time, tripping over herself in her bid to escape. A sob stuck in her throat, and she quickened her strides.
She reached her chambers and froze with her fingers on the handle. The guard Oswyn exited her chambers and froze. Diana’s own ragged breaths, her assailant’s ruthless threats, the sound of his cries as Niall’s bullet hit him, all ricocheted around her mind in a great cacophony of sound. Her arm jerked back reflexively. She could not go in there.
“It’s safe in there. Oi checked for ya, my lady.”
His deep, threatening Cockney forced her fingers to move, and she quickly pressed the handle.
Bypassing the faint stain servants had been unable to scrub from the carpet, now permanently marked, Diana made straightaway for her armoire. Jerking open the doors, she tugged free her cloak.
Her maid entered the rooms just as Diana shrugged into the muslin garment. “My lady?” she asked hesitantly.
“The carriage,” she instructed as she gathered her valise and a sack full of coins.
The girl hesitated. “Does Mr. Marksman—?” A hard look from Diana silenced Meredith and sprang her into movement.
Diana stepped out into the hall, not far behind Meredith. As a duke’s daughter, neither servants nor lords and ladies dared challenge Diana. Until Niall. He’d not given a jot about her status as ducal daughter. Instead, he’d treated her with raw honesty.
Her bruised knuckles throbbed. And I put my hands upon him . . .
Hastening her stride, Diana rushed back along the same path she’d taken moments ago.
A short while later, she was traveling through the streets of London. She stared blankly out as the fashionable cobbles of Mayfair gave way to the darker, less-traveled roads of St. Giles. As the carriage rocked to a stop, Diana stared numbly through the slight crack in the red velvet curtains across the street to Bedlam Hospital.
The muscles in her chest tightened, and she struggled to draw a breath into her lungs.
He’d provoked her. Had been seeking to provoke her, and she’d known as much. Even knowing it, she’d still allowed him to slip under her thin skin and unleash that violent side of her soul.
Tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked back the useless crystalline drops. One fell, followed by another and another.
It had been inevitable. After all, Diana well knew the blood that coursed in her veins and her eventual fate. A fate that could never, and would never, include a life with Niall Marksman.
Chapter 17
Niall had never possessed Adair’s or Calum’s easy charm around the women and whores at the Hell and Sin. Where his brothers, Ryker excluded, had always demonstrated an innate ease in reading women and placating them, Niall hadn’t the patience to either care or sort through just what those complex creatures were thinking. It did not, however, require the skill of a rogue or charmer to gather the very obvious truth about Diana—she wanted nothing to do with him.
Her silence these days stood testament to that. Since she’d seen him shoot her assailant, she’d not looked at him the same. And did you expect she would?
At that moment, he’d proven himself the mercenary cutthroat she’d insisted he wasn’t. Now she knew. The memory of her horror-stamped features after he’d taught her how to hit and wield a weapon rooted around his brain.
It had been one thing when he was a man standing guard outside her parlor when no threats of danger were about. It was an altogether different thing when Niall demonstrated his effortless ability to kill.
He stared down at the toppled easel and the now-dry painting, making out the early shapes of three figures. Two men. One woman. A familiar bedroom. Diana’s chambers, on the night of the attack. His gut clenched. Was it a wonder that she no longer wanted anything to do with him?
With a curse, he kicked the wood frame and it skidded over the hardwood floor. He hated himself for giving a damn that she viewed him as a monster. In truth, she wasn’t off the mark. He’d used her vulnerabilities—her station, her mother, her gentle spirit—to push her over the edge.
As a resourceful man moved by logic rather than emotion, in doling out a much-needed lesson to Diana, he had done what needed to be done. What Ryker had sent him here to do: he’d taught her how to protect and defend herself and given her tools to arm herself against the rakes, rogues, and street thugs of the world.
So why was he filled with this sick, hollow emptiness?
Niall dusted a hand over the back of his face. Because he’d rather cleave off his blade-wielding hand than be the source of her pain. In the gold-framed mirror across the room, his pale visage reflected back at him. The horror and anguish in her pale-blue eyes would stay with him long after he took his leave and never again saw her.
Delicate footsteps echoed outside the room, and, heart hammering, he looked up.
Disappointment filled him.
Diana’s maid lingered in the doorway, her frame partially concealed around the edge of the door. The pale-faced girl made a clearing noise in her throat. “M-Mr. Marksman?”
“Yes?” he growled, and the maid ducked outside and then a moment later peeked back in, studiously avoiding his eyes. As did every last man, woman, and child of his damned acquaintance.
Only Diana had ever gone toe-to-toe with him. Even in this room a short while ago, hating him as she did, she’d proudly tipped her chin back and challenged him at every turn. “What is it?” he repeated, borrowing those gentling tones he’d heard Calum adopt with the former prostitutes in the hell. Niall’s efforts, however, came out more of a garbled, impatient growl.
The skittish girl darted her eyes around the room, touching on the rearranged furniture and the upended easel. “My lady . . .” She hovered at her doorway.
“She’s not here,” Niall said gruffly, claiming his jacket from the King Louis chair and shrugging into it.
“Yes, Mr. Marksman.” The maid cleared her throat. “That is why I’ve come. She’s gone out.”
“Out?” he echoed, turning slowly back to face the servant.
“Ordered the carriage, sir, and rushed off.”
His heart froze in his chest as he tried to put the maid’s words to right. “Was she accompanied by—”
“No one, sir.” The girl spoke quickly, wringing her hands together. A shriek burst from her lips as he flew across the room and gripped her by the shoulders. “P-please, s-sir,” she pleaded.
“Where—?” Did that hoarse, panicky query belong to him?
Diana’s lady’s maid peeked about the room, and he gave her a slight shake, wringing another cry from her. “St. Giles, sir. She ordered the driver to bring her.”
He abruptly released the maid, and she stumbled away from him. St. Giles? What in bloody hell would Diana be doing there?
“Bedlam, sir.” The servant’s whispery soft p
ronouncement barely reached his ears. “She’s made for Bedlam.”
What in bloody hell? His panic swelled in time to his pounding heart.
“Sh-she’s gone there once before because of her . . . because of her . . .” Her mother.
Unleashing a barrage of curses, Niall raced from the room. He tore down the hall, bellowing for his mount. With each step, terror ran through him. He, Niall Marksman, cutthroat from the Dials, was numbed with fear.
Bypassing the footman waiting with his cloak, Niall charged through the front door opened by the butler and bounded down the steps. His furious movements were met with curious glances from passersby. Ignoring those miserable blighters, Niall grabbed his reins and tossed his leg across his mount.
With a shout, he urged Chance into a gallop. The Mayfair streets, crowded at the fashionable hour, slowed his progress, and with every passing moment, he damned the lords in his way. He focused on that anger, unable to give over to the fear licking at the edge of his senses that threatened to drive him mad.
What was she doing at Bedlam? Was the silly twit visiting her mother, that damned murderer? Diana would risk her life and virtue among those ruthless guards who’d gladly strip her of her virginity.
A half growl, half moan lodged in his throat, strangling him. “Hyah,” he barked, leaning over as the fashionable ends of Mayfair gave way to the darker, seedier parts of London. The less-traveled roads that Diana had no place being—by herself. Nearly two days after they’d determined someone was, in fact, attempting to kill her.
By God, he would kill her himself for this and then do it once more for scaring the everlasting shite out of him. He reached the edge of St. Giles Fields and yanked hard on the reins, slowing Chance’s strides. The spirited mount whinnied its protest and bucked against the commands. Niall adjusted the reins, bringing him under control. All the while he scraped his gaze frantically over the quiet thoroughfare, searching for the duke’s carriage.
Oh, God, what are ya thinking, ya bloody twit? Raising a hand over his eye, he shielded himself from the sun’s glare and glanced around. With a single command, Niall halted Chance.
The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3) Page 21
