The fact that he knew nobody worked in his favor as he cut across the expanse, because no one stopped him to speak to him, and in fact, a few people stepped hastily out of his way. He made it past the looming pots with their wilting vegetation just as the fern whisperer turned away from the wall to face him.
And the ground shifted beneath him.
Or at least he thought it did, but the edges of his vision were a little bit fuzzy and the sound of the crowd behind him faded away to the point that he could hear only the pounding of his pulse in his ears.
She was gazing up at him, her unmistakeable cerulean-blue eyes wide and not a little startled. Yet her eyes were all that was unmistakable, because the woman who stood before him in a Brighton ballroom looked nothing at all like the girl who had waved goodbye to him on the London docks. That Diana, who had hugged him and wished him well over a dozen years ago, had had bony elbows that stuck out in all directions, just like the wheat-colored curls she’d tried to tame into braids. That Diana had had eyes a little too big for her face, a dress a little too big for her body, and a wide, ready grin that told him she didn’t really care.
The woman staring up at him was a stranger. A beautiful, breathtaking, incandescent stranger. Her body had matured from awkward angles into tantalizing curves, and each and every one was displayed in an elegant embroidered gown that fit her to perfection. Her arresting eyes were set into a fair complexion, her cheeks a pretty pink, her unruly curls now glossy waves that fell softly around her face before being caught at the nape of her neck. This stranger who stood before him was the very definition of the classic, demure beauty that this society admired and went to preposterous lengths to achieve.
And then she grinned at him and became simply Diana once more.
“Oliver,” she half shrieked, half gasped before she launched herself into his arms.
“Dee.” He caught her easily, thinking that this was the first time he’d really felt like he was home since he’d stepped foot on England’s shores again. He tightened his arms around her and breathed in, the scent of orange blossoms and woman filling his nose. Joy bubbled up, pure and effervescent and instant, catching him off guard.
“I can’t believe it’s really you. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said against his neck.
Here being the grand country ballroom of the Marquess and Marchioness of Montmartin. Where he was embracing her in a scandalous fashion in public. Not that he should be embracing her in a scandalous fashion anywhere else, for that matter. He pulled back, hating the loss of her touch. It was all he could do not to reach out and clasp her hand in his. “I’m sorry. I might have just put you in an awkward—”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “No one pays much attention to the wallflowers and the widows.”
Oliver didn’t bother to correct her.
“Besides,” she added, smoothing his rumpled cravat back into place, “I don’t know many people here anyway.”
“Is that why you were talking to a fern?” he teased, feeling happier and lighter than he could remember feeling in a long time.
If he hadn’t been watching so carefully, he might have missed the way she stiffened slightly. And then she laughed, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and he wondered if perhaps he’d imagined it. “There is something to be said for a conversation partner that doesn’t ever argue.”
He smiled back, trying to reconcile the fact that he hadn’t seen her in a dozen years, and yet the awkwardness that he might have expected was completely absent. Perhaps because he had heard her voice every week in the letters she had unfailingly sent him. Perhaps this was merely a continuation of a conversation that had last ended across an ocean.
“Well, then,” he said, “maybe I should go. I can’t guarantee myself to be so agreeable as a fern.”
She shook her head. “Two minutes. Meet me out front by the fountain in two minutes.”
“Sounds mysterious.”
“Not mysterious,” she assured him. “Just selfish. I haven’t found you after this long just to lose you again. I’m not letting you out of my sight, and I don’t want to share you.”
Oliver knew that those words were spoken out of friendship, yet a peculiar warmth and longing curled through his chest. A feeling akin to the way he would feel if a lover had spoken them.
She hesitated. “Unless, of course, you wish to stay?”
“God, no. When I saw you, I was contemplating striking up a conversation with the fellow over by the dais.”
Diana shot him a questioning look.
“You know, the one with the orange and black striped outfit?” Oliver prompted. “He looks like he’s enjoying himself as much as I.”
Diana laughed again, and Oliver grinned in response. And wondered how he had lasted as long as he had without hearing that infectious laugh.
“I need to speak to the aunt of a friend before I go.” She ducked past him, heading toward the tall doors looming on the far end of the room. “Two minutes,” she called happily over her shoulder once more.
He watched her go, his grin fading as he fought the urge to bolt after her. Because that was what a lovesick puppy would do, not a man who had just reconnected with a dear friend after a dozen years and had been asked to wait one hundred and twenty seconds longer. But now that he had found her again, he didn’t want to let her go, even for a minute. He wanted to keep her close. Pull her back into his arms and—
Oliver stopped himself. He had clearly been on his own for too long. That urge, no doubt, was simply a side effect of the plaguing loneliness that he had never truly shed in all his travels, but that had evaporated instantly in her presence. He had so many questions for her. So much he wanted to talk about. Things that had been kept from him, things he hadn’t discovered until he’d arrived home. Like, what had happened to his sister? What was going on with Diana that had landed her in the betting books at White’s?
And of course, where was his intended bride, who had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth?
He shifted, a feeling of restlessness crawling through him. He’d come back to England knowing that it was well past the time he finally honored a promise he’d made long ago. Well past the time he finally made good on the agreed-upon arrangement between families that would neatly unite position and wealth.
Except, his dutiful messages to his intended’s home that he’d sent as soon as he’d arrived in London had gone unanswered. He’d shown up at her door, only to be advised by a stoic butler that the family was summering in Bath. He’d sent messages there, but thus far, they’d gone unanswered too.
Oliver shifted again, trying not to remember how Diana had felt in his arms, or the joy and sense of home that had overtaken him. Such thoughts were not those of an honorable man.
He was getting married.
And not to Diana Thompson.
Chapter Three
* * *
He was getting married.
Married, married, married. Diana repeated this to herself as she slipped from the Montmartin House and out into the dark coolness of the night. Married, married, married.
Not to her, but to Miss Hannah Burton.
Diana had known this since she was eight, when the Burton and Graham families had cordially agreed upon the union. She’d known it every minute of every hour she and Oliver had spent together, exploring the dales up north every summer where their parents had both kept modest country estates. She’d known it as they had played in the ponds and the barns and the forests. She’d known it as they had become older and their time spent together had lessened, but their friendship had strengthened. She’d known it with every letter she’d ever sent to him as he had worked his way through Eton and Oxford, and then after he’d departed for India to seek his fortunes with the East India Company.
She’d known it the entire time she’d fallen hopelessly, irrevocably in love with him.
And now Oliver was back in England, no longer a young buck with something to prove, but a confident m
an who had made his fortune and had come home to claim the bride he had promised to marry and the new life that was waiting for them both.
Somehow, this made Diana want to weep.
Which was indeed selfish, because if she were a better person, this union between Hannah and Oliver, her two closest friends, would be cause for boundless joy. Diana had thought she had accepted this reality. But the second she had turned around to find Oliver Graham standing behind her, she’d no longer wanted to accept it. The moment she had thrown herself into his arms, the moment she had felt them tighten around her as he held her close, she’d known she had made a monumental mistake. In his arms, she’d finally felt whole.
He wasn’t the slim young man she had hugged goodbye on the docks. He was bigger and stronger and harder. His shoulders were broader, his muscles honed to a steely strength that was obvious even through the layers of his evening clothes. His features had sharpened too as they had matured, his cheeks more distinguished, his jaw more defined. His hair was as dark as she remembered, his skin the same rich olive, and his chocolate-colored eyes held the same warmth and humor.
He had transcended handsome to become compelling.
Yet, he still had a quick smile, and the time apart had not dimmed the ease with which conversation had always flowed. Until, of course, he had asked why she had been talking to a fern. And she had dodged his question because Hannah had made her promise not to give her away.
No doubt because the reality of the man Hannah would spend the rest of her life with, the man who would be at her side during her days and dominate her nights, needed adjusting to. She didn’t blame Hannah for wanting time to prepare herself in the face of his sudden, unexpected appearance. Had she been the woman who would marry this man, perhaps she too would have asked for distance—
Diana made a face. Who was she trying to fool? If she were going to marry Oliver Graham, she’d be kissing him right now. Not reminding herself why that could and would never, ever happen.
“Dee.”
She whirled to find him behind her in the shadows, the soft, flickering light of the torches along the sweeping walking paths highlighting his silhouette. “There you are,” she said brightly, clasping her hands behind her back.
“This was a good idea, Dee. You can hear yourself think out here.”
“Yes,” she agreed, thinking that she was thinking entirely too much.
He smiled, his teeth bright in the darkness, and offered her his arm.
She eyed it uncertainly.
“I promise not to kidnap you and ravish you in the bushes.”
Diana’s mouth went dry as she tried not to consider just how much she might enjoy being ravished by Oliver Graham. She pasted on what she hoped was a benign smile, counting on the shadows to hide any deficiencies, and slipped her hand around his arm.
She would not dwell on the heat of his body beneath her bare hand. She would not pretend that he was taking her on a romantic moonlight stroll. She would not imagine that he had come back from India to be hers.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” she said as they began to walk. “You didn’t mention visiting the coast at all in your letters.”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Oliver replied after a brief hesitation. “But what are you doing here? There were no Brighton plans in your last letter either.”
“My last letter was months and months ago. I didn’t know I was coming here until last week, when Belinda and Eugenia invited me.” She was careful not to mention Hannah. “You’ve met them, I think.”
He nodded slowly. “A very long time ago. But you’ve spoken of them often enough in your letters.”
“They thought a break from London would be… therapeutic.”
“I can imagine.”
No, she thought, he couldn’t. Because Oliver hadn’t been reduced to a bloody bet in the ledgers at Boodle’s and Brooks’s and White’s, like a high-priced whore whose services were up for auction. Though she certainly wasn’t going to discuss that with Oliver. Not here. Not now. Probably not ever.
“How was your voyage back?” she blurted.
Oliver shrugged, his arm moving beneath her hand. “No storms, no pirates, no outbreaks of anything deadly. By all measures, a positively decadent trip.”
“When do you start at the college?” she asked, continuing with reasonable, rational questions a friend would ask.
“In a fortnight.”
“I’m so pleased for you. You deserve it.” She meant it. Teaching positions at the East India College were rare opportunities, and they were wildly sought after, awarded to individuals who were truly masters in their field.
“Thank you,” he said, putting his hand over hers where it rested on his arm. “But I want to talk about you.”
“I think I’ve talked about me enough in my letters, don’t you? There’s not much more to tell,” she answered. She didn’t really want to talk about herself. Because then there was the risk that she might say the wrong thing and ruin everything.
“I was so sorry to hear about your husband.”
Diana looked at his hand covering hers, a familiar feeling of guilt bubbling from somewhere deep. “Laurence was a good man,” she said. A good man she had married at her family’s urging. A man she had admired and respected and cared for deeply. But she’d never been in love with him, and the guilt that came with that knowledge lingered, as it had right after Laurence Thompson’s death eight years ago. He’d been killed in Belgium fighting the French barely three months after they had wed.
“Did he make you happy?” Oliver asked.
“Yes,” Diana answered. Any shortcomings in her happiness were hers and hers alone.
“Good,” Oliver replied with more vehemence than she’d expected. “Not everyone is so lucky to find happiness in a marriage arrangement.”
Diana resisted the urge to look at him. The arrangement between her family and that of Laurence Thompson’s hadn’t been much different than the arrangement between Oliver’s and Hannah’s, though Diana didn’t point that out. She waited instead for Oliver to bring up his own impending nuptials.
He didn’t.
Though, perhaps he was as reluctant as Hannah was to discuss their planned marriage until he had had a chance to properly prepare and speak to his bride and her family. Diana had, after all, left Hannah hiding behind the wall décor in a ballroom. Not talking about it was fine with her. She’d rather run naked through a forest of nettles than discuss Oliver’s wedding.
They continued down the path, the quiet broken only by the faint crunch of gravel beneath their feet. The torchlight flickered, sending fingers of light dancing wildly across the manicured lawns, and the breeze was laced with the salty tang of the sea.
“How’s your family?” she asked, unable to stand the awkward silence that the topic of marriage had left behind.
“I came to Brighton directly from London,” Oliver said, and without warning, he stopped in the middle of the path. “Madelene never went to Boston.”
Diana stumbled into him before righting herself. She cursed herself, knowing she should never have asked that last question without being better prepared. She knew that this was the part when she was supposed to feign shock. Instead, she felt only faint surprise that it had taken Oliver this long to discover that his sister had never sailed for Boston.
“No,” she said. “She didn’t.”
“You knew that? And yet, you let me believe the same story my parents fed everyone else?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked, his voice rough. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“Madelene asked me not to.”
His muscles went stiff beneath her hand. “Madelene asked you not to,” he repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
“I know why she left.”
Diana hesitated, wondering just how much he knew. “I’m not sure you—”
“I recovered a letter she tried to send to our parents. A letter they didn’t open
and tossed into the hearth to be burned. Our housekeeper saved it and kept it all these years. Gave it to me when I went back to the house.”
“Ah.” Diana sighed. “Then you might know why she felt ashamed. Afraid.”
“She’s hardly the first woman who’s been seduced, believing herself to be in love. What would she be afraid of?”
“When you talked to your parents, your brothers, what did they say?”
Oliver flinched. “They told me that they no longer have a daughter. Or a sister.”
“That. She was afraid of that same reaction from you.”
“My parents and my brothers are punishing her. And they’re wrong to do so.”
“They are. And I’m glad to hear you say it. Madelene would be too.”
“Who did this to her?” Oliver asked, and his voice was like cut glass. “Who took advantage of her?”
Diana cursed herself again for not having a better response prepared. “That is Madelene’s secret.” She’d made a promise to Madelene a long time ago to keep her secret, and Diana was not about to break that promise now. God only knew what Oliver would do. “Does it really matter after all this time?”
“Yes, it matters,” he growled. “It’s all that matters. It matters that the bastard who ruined her life didn’t have to answer for it.” He pulled away from her and stalked a few paces ahead before turning back. “I wasn’t there to protect her then, but such a transgression will not go unaddressed now. Whoever he is, I will make sure he answers for it.”
“And do what?”
“Whatever it takes.” He sounded unnaturally calm.
This was what she had been afraid of. “Oliver—”
“You helped Madelene, didn’t you?” Almost an accusation.
Diana lifted her chin. “She’s your sister, Oliver. And a friend. Of course I helped her.”
No Dukes Allowed Page 13
