That wasn’t true. He’d known struggle and strife and death and pain. And how she wished she could ease those memories and replace them with new ones that included them together.
“That tree needs to be chopped down. It should have been long ago,” he said, raising a frown on her lips. “The man who invaded your chambers would have never found his way inside.”
She briefly studied the object of his fury. The aging oak reached back to the oldest memories she carried of this place. It had been an incongruity stuck inside the metropolis of London, and she’d been in awe of the tree for it. “If he was determined, Niall, the absence of this tree would have never stopped him.”
He scowled. “It would have at least deterred him.”
“Don’t you dare,” she chided.
He furrowed his brow.
“Speak to my father.”
The ghost of a smile played at his lips. “I didn’t say I was going to speak to him.”
She snorted. “You didn’t have to, Niall.” For, somewhere along the way, their thoughts had begun to move in a synchronic harmony at odds with the icy aloofness between them all those weeks ago. “I thought you were avoiding me,” she confessed softly.
He hesitated, his cheroot halfway to his mouth. Ah, so he had been. Niall took another pull and slowly exhaled a perfect plume of white smoke. “I couldn’t avoid you if I wanted to, princess.”
If I wanted to . . . which meant he didn’t want to. It was silly to feel this lightness in her chest at that vague noncompliment . . . and yet that was all she’d ever have from him. Diana hitched herself up onto the ledge, and with a curse, Niall dropped his cheroot. “’ave ya lost your bloody—” Those words he’d once hurled before, he now cut off abruptly, leaving unfinished. It was a tender consideration most would never expect of Niall Marksman, the fearless guard from the Hell and Sin. “Get back, Diana,” he cautioned.
Mayhap, months prior she would have heeded that warning. Certainly before her mother had been carted off to Bedlam. Dukes’ daughters didn’t shimmy down trees and certainly never to meet a man alone in the gardens. Mayhap even after her mother’s imprisonment, Diana would have honored those same age-old expectations for her. In these months, however, she’d found a much-needed, longed-for control and reveled in it. She shot an arm out and grabbed the long limb jutting toward the balcony. Concentrating on that branch, she pulled herself onto it. Her heart caught and dipped with the sudden drop, and she quickly righted herself.
Rushing to the base of the tree, Niall let loose a barrage of black curses. Her skirts rucked up about her knees, Diana shimmied down the oak. The jagged limb under her grip transported her back to those forgotten days of her childhood.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Niall was at her side. “Wot—?”
“When I was a girl, my mother would not let me in her gardens.” That brought him up short. Rubbing her arms distractedly, Diana wandered along the grass, damp from the late-night dew, the cool soothing on her feet. “I was only permitted with my governess, and only for my lessons on floral arrangements and floral paintings.” Diana stepped out onto the graveled path. The stones bit into the soft flesh of her feet. Ignoring it, she made her way determinedly to the prized pink roses. “In the dead of night, I would sneak out here. I would jump over that ledge.” She turned and pointed back at the balcony. “And climb down that same tree.”
She felt Niall more than she heard him. “What did you do when you were out here?” he asked with none of his usual reluctance.
“I would smell the blooms and then steal one single rose each time I did.” A little chuckle escaped her. “It was such a small show of rebellion, but I reveled in it. Until . . .” Her gaze grew distant on one bush choked in weeds.
You are not to ever enter these grounds. Ever. Dukes’ daughters do not scale trees like a common chimney sweep.
“Until . . . ?” he encouraged.
Niall rested his palms on her shoulders and drew her back against him the way a tender lover might. “She discovered I’d been sneaking out and had the limb closest to my window chopped down.” It was the last time she’d snuck outside. She leaned against him and shifted the discourse to now. “Ryker and Penelope’s dinner party is tomorrow.” Of course he knew that. Niall knew everything where her movements were concerned. She bit her cheek to keep from asking the question on her lips. Would he accompany her? Not as a guard in Ryker’s employ, but as a man who wished to simply be with Diana.
His muscles jumped. “Yes.” Just that one syllable, a single utterance that gave no hint of what he truly thought, if anything, of her admission.
“I believe they’re trying to play matchmaker,” she murmured to herself. She cast a glance at him. His tense mouth and hard eyes told her everything she’d believed since that familial invite had been issued. Looking away, she turned her attention to the night stars. Staring up at them, in this overgrown garden, she could almost believe that she and Niall were elsewhere. In the country, mayhap. Away from London and the harsh expectations that followed them both here.
“Your brother wants you to be safe,” Niall said at long last, only confirming her suspicions. “He believes an honorable gentleman will do that . . .” When I’m gone. The words lingered as real as if they’d been spoken.
Annoyance swirled in her breast. He’d defend Ryker’s machinations? “I have learned firsthand how honorable gentlemen are.” Unlike Niall and his brothers, who’d shown greater loyalty than the whole of the ton combined. “And I’ll not marry for it.” She paused. “Certainly not a nobleman,” she reiterated. Not anyone. Or that had been her resolve of a year earlier. Marriage had been an easy dream to let go of because there had been an absolute absence of goodness about her. And then she’d met Niall. And he’d slipped into her heart and made her feel, and yearn, and want again . . . all those dangers she’d sworn to never succumb to.
“There are some good men,” Niall said. That admission came as though dragged from him.
Her stomach twisted. Did he even now seek to foist her off on another so he was no longer responsible for her? “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Your brother-in-law.”
Yes, Helena had been blessed to find that happy union. It did not escape her notice, however, that he didn’t put Ryker into that latter category.
“And?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
He scratched at his brow. “Oi’m sure there’s other good gentlemen,” he groused.
Diana shifted in his arms and passed her gaze over his face. “Is that what you believe? That I should marry some honorable gentleman?”
A muscle pulsed in his jawline, and he instantly veiled his expression. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“To me it does,” she swiftly countered. In his time here, he’d become more than a guard. He’d been the only true friend she’d known in her life. And what was more, she needed to know that it would matter to him if she wed another.
Niall reached inside his jacket and withdrew another cheroot. Diana deftly slipped it from his fingers, holding it from his reach. She tossed the unlit cheroot aside. Did he realize he hid his answers and emotions behind those small lit scraps?
Frowning at his discarded cheroot, he folded his arms.
Did he not know there was no man she wanted other than him? That he was the only one to whom she’d trust her future, knowing he’d protect it and allow her the self-control she’d been denied for the course of her life. “Is that what you want?” she repeated.
His jaw worked. “I . . .” Her heart hung suspended in her breast. “I want you to be safe.”
Safe.
That empty, meaningless wish. She stepped away from him. Folding her arms in a lonely embrace, Diana looked past his shoulder. Up at the sky. Anywhere but in his eyes, which always saw more.
Before he’d entered her life, her course had been set. She would have the freedom to explore and find happiness away from the suffocating folds of London’s Polite So
ciety. With Helena’s help, she’d charted a path and found a way . . . and Niall had merely been a fleeting person in her life until she boarded that ship and sailed away.
Everything had changed. Since Niall, she’d given but fleeting thoughts to that impending journey. Her throat tightened. What would it be like when they were separated not only by the streets of London, but by an entire ocean.
He shot a hand out, caressing her cheek. That coarse, callused palm a warrior’s palm that had known toil. Hands that had built one of the greatest gaming empires in London. And hands that had been forced to kill. “I want you to be happy,” he said hoarsely.
Of course, even he believed that it was one of those respected noblemen who could bring her that elusive gift.
“I’ll not be happy married to any nobleman.” She continued impatiently, over his sound of protest. “Do you see any honorable men at your clubs?” she countered, with a sardonicism that raised a frown. Why, even her father stood as a testament to the perfidy of those noblemen. “I’ll not trust myself to anyone, Niall.” Her voice broke, and she swiftly looked away. She’d already laid herself bare before him. She’d not have him see her reduced to this weakness.
“You’re afraid, and so you’ve vowed to never marry, but someday you’ll meet a gentleman who isn’t loike your da. A man who’ll make you happy and can give you all those things you wished for.”
I already found him.
A pinprick of pain stabbed at her heart. It was an unnecessary reminder that she’d never be anything more to Niall than an assignment he’d taken on. He might like her, as he’d claimed. He might enjoy talking to her, even share parts of himself. But he’d never give his heart to her. Mayhap he was incapable of trusting that damaged organ to anyone.
Diana drifted closer, lifting her palms. “You make—”
He quickly stepped away in a tangible rejection of the words on her lips. “You should return to your rooms.”
She’d not beg him for a scrap of his affection. Nor would she humble herself before him. “I see.” She saw all too clearly, more than she wished. With a juddering nod, she started on her heel. She made it no farther than the base of the tree. Niall shot a hand out, capturing her wrist, bringing her back around.
Diana’s breath caught on a noisy gasp.
“What do you think you see?” Some unnamed emotion darkened Niall’s eyes, turning those sapphire irises nearly black.
Her throat worked. “That it doesn’t matter to you whether I marry.”
“You’re wrong,” he whispered, resting a hand on the trunk of the tree and effectively trapping her. “When I think of you married, of a man even courting you, I want to become the vicious street fighter I was raised to be and tear him apart with my hands.”
Her lips fell open.
Niall reached his other palm out, and he again stroked her cheek. “I’m not a fancy lord. I’m not capable of chivalry and restraint. I can’t have you, but I don’t want anyone else to have you, either.” Her breath caught, and she tipped her head back, needing his kiss.
He cursed and immediately shoved her behind the tree trunk. “Quiet,” he ordered against her ear.
Diana’s pulse hammered as he swiftly yanked out his pistol and moved to the center of the gardens.
“A servant claimed he heard someone sneaking outside.” Adair’s quiet interruption from the front of the gardens contained a healthy dose of surprise.
Niall’s brother.
Niall’s reply was lost to the distance between them. She peeked around her meager hiding place to where Niall and the other man now spoke.
“You’re getting lazy,” Adair drawled, accepting the proffered cheroot Niall held out and lighting it on one of the lamps.
“I wasn’t sneaking,” Niall muttered, and her lips twitched at the boyish annoyance. Seeing him with his brother, that easy banter, presented Niall in this new, unfamiliar-until-now light of sibling.
Adair chuckled. “Mayhap not, but even when you weren’t, you were always mindful of your steps.”
That sobering reminder of what Niall’s existence had been like left her with an aching sadness. What must it have been like to always watch one’s words or steps . . . with the greatest worry not being the nasty gossips about you, but rather the need for survival?
“Ryker wants you there,” the other man was saying. “He wants us all there.”
Niall scoffed. “First Helena put requests to him about her ball, and now Ryker’d do the same thing with his damned dinner party.”
She stilled as she realized they now spoke of Lady Penelope’s formal dinner party.
“Penelope is hosting it for the purpose of marrying the girl off.” Adair took another pull from his cheroot. “The sooner she’s wedded, the sooner we’ll both be free to return. That should please you.”
She gripped the trunk, and the jagged bark bit into her palms, and it wasn’t until Niall spoke that she was able to release the breath she’d not realized she was holding. “My concern isn’t about when I can return, but Lady Diana’s safety.”
Adair dropped his cheroot and ground it under his boot. “Of course.” His pearl-white teeth flashed bright in the night. “But it would be preferable if she was safe and married to a fancy toff so we could return.” He shot out an elbow and knocked Niall in the arm.
Her brother, her father, her sister-in-law, Adair—they all spoke so freely of Diana marrying a nobleman like Lord Maxwell. They saw in that gentleman wealth, strength, and influence. How very wrong they were. The Earl of Maxwell with his dogs bore not a glimmer of the might and power that Niall Marksman did.
After learning of her father’s betrayal and witnessing the ease with which he’d sent his wife away to Bedlam, Diana had resolved to never wed. She’d failed to know, until Niall, there existed men such as him. Loyal ones who’d battle any demons, real or imagined. Men who could be a partner in life.
And she wanted him.
In her life . . . forever.
There should be a suitable terror at that realization, and yet if he was to leave, she wanted to steal whatever moments she could with him.
Adair started for the doorway, and she held her breath when he paused to look back at Niall.
“I’ll be along shortly.”
The other man nodded and then stalked off.
Niall remained rooted to the same spot, staring at the doorway, and then, after an interminable stretch, returned to the tree.
“Come. You need to return to your rooms,” he said, the way a nursemaid might scuttle off a recalcitrant charge. He heaved himself onto the low-hanging branch and effortlessly pulled her up. They were silent the remaining climb, until he helped her over the edge of the balcony.
He was so determined to push her away.
How to make him see that he wanted her in his life?
Chapter 19
Niall helped Diana over the ledge and followed in behind her. Since he’d arrived, he’d been inside this very room every day and night. Somehow this moment, outside those perfunctory, formal searches, was very different. Tension thrummed in the darkened chambers, emphasized by Diana’s audible breath.
Desperate to break that charged awareness, Niall set about the familiar—searching the room again. While he worked, he felt her eyes on him, following his every movement.
His gaze went to the mahogany four-poster bed, taking in that massive wood frame. The white sheets and equally white coverlet drawn back were wicked temptations that had Chance laughing at Niall for the weakness in him. He briefly closed his eyes.
“What is it?” Diana murmured, her husky contralto closer, indicating she’d moved.
He managed to shake his head. “I should go.”
She sailed closer, and the fragrant hint of flowers and innocence wafted about his senses. “Stay.”
That one word, a single syllable, washed over him. Conjured by his own wicked hunger.
He swallowed hard.
Diana captured his hand, and her delic
ate touch forced his clenched grip open. She pressed his hand to her chest. Her heart pounded under his palm in a steady, frantic beat. Oh, God. “I said stay, Niall,” she repeated in a siren’s voice that entreated and commanded all at the same time. There were a thousand and one reasons he should go.
She was Ryker’s sister, a fraction below royalty, and forever divided from Niall for that birthright alone.
And there was one reason to stay—her. He was a bastard in every sense of the word, for with all those reasons, he wanted her still.
With a groan of surrender, Niall covered her mouth with his. Diana melted against him, her breasts crushing the wall of his chest as she met his kiss in a desperate exchange. Parting her lips to allow him entry, he touched his tongue to hers, swallowing her breathy moan. Almond tinged her breath—heady, intoxicating, and sweet.
Diana wound her arms around his neck and, with a boldness that sent blood pounding to his veins, angled his head as though she needed to be closer. As though she’d been craving this moment as long as he himself had. Sweeping her in his arms, Niall carried her over to the bed and set her down in the center.
Chest rising hard and fast the way it had when he’d bolted from determined constables, Niall backed away several steps, giving her an opportunity to change her mind. Even though turning around and never knowing all of her would be harder than any battle he’d fought in the streets. He’d never blame her for that decision. He well knew she deserved better than to bed a man with blood on his hands.
Diana shoved herself up onto her elbows and eyed him through heavy golden lashes, a question in her eyes.
“Tell me to leave,” he rasped. He’d known since the day he stole his first scrap from another scrawny, desperate urchin that he belonged only to St. Giles. “Remind me Oi don’t ’ave any place putting my ’ands on you.” For reasons that had to do with more than the social divide between them. It had to do with her birth connection to Ryker and Helena.
“Niall,” she whispered, sitting upright in a flutter of skirts. “How do you still not know?”
He gave his head a shake.
The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3) Page 23
