“Diana, don’t go.” Ashcroft’s voice played wild melodies up and down her spine.
He grabbed her arm, and this time, she couldn’t evade him. The urgency of his touch only underlined the cruel fact of her betrayal.
She folded her lips together and shook her head helplessly. Trapped between the two men she loved and knowing she wronged both of them, she couldn’t maintain her control.
There was only one thing she could say. It emerged as a tear-thickened whisper. “Good-bye, Tarquin.”
She wrenched free, turned, and stumbled upstairs, grateful beyond words that Ashcroft didn’t pursue her.
Chapter Twenty-three
Ashcroft hammered on John Dean’s door. He’d left London in the dark and arrived in time to hear the church bells ringing out, summoning the faithful to Sunday service.
Although a dog barked inside, nobody answered his insistent knocking. Were they all at church? He was reluctant to barge his way into a public place and make a fool of Diana. Although she’d had little compunction about making a fool of him.
His seething anger surged, but he battened it down. He’d stewed about her and her mysterious purposes all night. Only one thing made sense. That bastard Burnley must have paid for her sojourn in London.
What Ashcroft needed to know was why. And he wanted to know why she’d set out to seduce Burnley’s enemy.
Diana had a lot of explaining to do. And this time, he wasn’t going to let desire distract him, damn it.
He banged again on the stout door. He was tired, he was furious, and he was sick of not getting answers. Last night, he’d left Chelsea in a raging temper, telling himself Diana Carrick could go to hell. Then curiosity and resentment got the better of him, and he’d ridden down here like a man pursued by devils.
Finally, he heard the sound of a bolt shifting. When the door opened, he braced to confront his perfidious mistress.
Instead, he found himself staring into John Dean’s blind eyes. Beside the old man, a decrepit spaniel bared yellow teeth and growled.
“Lord Ashcroft,” the man said in a cold voice.
With difficulty, Ashcroft muzzled his impatience. “How did you…”
Dean didn’t stand back to invite him in. “I can’t imagine any other man would try to demolish my door on a Sunday morning.”
Ashcroft drew a shuddering breath and struggled for composure. His sudden chivalry was devilish inconvenient, but he couldn’t shame Diana in front of her father, however accurate the old man’s suspicions about his daughter’s fall from grace might be. “Mr. Dean. I have urgent business with Mrs. Carrick. May I speak to you inside?”
“No.” Dean gripped his cane as though he intended to beat Ashcroft off if he had to.
Ashcroft kept his tone even. “Is Mrs. Carrick at home?”
“My daughter will never be at home to you, sir.”
Ashcroft stiffened. “Surely that’s her decision.”
“No, it’s mine.” The man faced him without flinching. It was as though those blank eyes read the stains on Ashcroft’s soul, knew what he and Diana had done in London. “I’m her father, and my will prevails under this roof. Go back to your whores, Lord Ashcroft.”
“Mr. Dean…”
“Good-bye, my lord.” Dean started to shut the door. Astonished, Ashcroft realized he’d received an unequivocal dismissal.
“Wait.” He spread one hand against the closing door.
Dean’s eyes narrowed, and his chin jutted in a way Ashcroft found piercingly familiar. “I have no doubt you can force your way in here. I am, after all, old and blind while you are young and strong. The servants as well as Diana and Laura are at church so I’m alone and defenseless. But this is my house, and you aren’t welcome.”
Shame twisted in Ashcroft’s gut. What was he doing here, bullying a man who only shielded his daughter’s honor? Nonetheless, he tried again. “Your pardon, Mr. Dean. My actions must seem precipitate. But all I want to do is talk to your daughter.”
“My daughter doesn’t want to talk to you. And if you had a shred of principle, you’d realize she’s better off never seeing you again. Good day, my lord.”
The door shut in Ashcroft’s face, and he heard the bolt slam home.
For one mad second, he contemplated bashing the barrier down, shoving his way in, ignoring Dean’s refusal. But that would just confirm the old man’s poor opinion of his character. Ashcroft cursed his vile reputation even as he recognized that he reaped what he’d sown. And that any punishment for his multifarious sins was long overdue.
None of which eased his fuming frustration.
His fists curled against the door as he strove to control the restless demons of anger and humiliation. After a few seconds, he slowly straightened on a shuddering breath.
He wasn’t finished with Diana Carrick yet. Not by a long shot. But this wasn’t the way to get her to listen to him.
Ashcroft waited in the woodland at the edge of Cranston Abbey’s magnificent park, landscaped by Capability Brown, owned by a man he despised to the bone, maintained by an army of gardeners he struggled to avoid. Fortunately, thick summer growth made skulking in the bushes reasonably easy, however it chafed his pride.
What pride?
Since Diana’s departure, his pride had disintegrated to dust. Lurking like a homeless vagabond in Burnley’s shrubbery for three days was the least of it.
And he was yet to speak to her, damn it all to hell.
After his previous failure to see her, he’d relied on a more usual form of communication, letters insisting on explanation, demanding her return. After a week of no reply, he’d recognized that his first impulse had been correct. He must confront her physically. She’d find him harder to ignore when he stood before her, reminding her of their transcendent passion.
He’d left London for Marsham nine days after his first visit. How the mighty had fallen. Once he’d have sworn he wouldn’t pursue a woman into the next street, and this was twice he’d invaded this peaceful little village in search of his errant mistress.
He still didn’t understand what had happened to him since he’d met Diana Carrick.
By all that was holy, they’d been lovers a matter of weeks. In that time, she couldn’t change him and everything he believed in. She’d have to be a miracle worker to do that.
He’d forget her soon enough.
Once he discovered why she’d left.
Once he talked her into coming back, and he took his fill.
Which would probably require the next thirty years.
At least.
He insisted he only wanted to talk to her. Too much remained unsaid, unexplained. Unfortunately, he, the cool man about town, didn’t trust himself not to steal her away if he got within reach of her. Every minute without her increased that risk. He hoped a trace of civilization remained under the barbaric savage.
He wouldn’t bet on it.
Whenever he’d watched men make fools of themselves over women, he’d wondered how in Hades the poor saps reached such a pass. Now, to his everlasting regret, he knew.
By the time he arrived in Marsham, he’d reined in his anger long enough to establish a strategy. He couldn’t risk Diana’s father or Burnley discovering him. Nor could he be sure Diana wouldn’t run off if she guessed he pursued her.
He registered under a false name at an inn in the nearest town. While he set up vigil in the bushes, he sent his valet into Marsham to buy drinks in the tavern and learn all he could about Burnley, his bailiff, and, most important of all, Mrs. Carrick.
Unfortunately, so far, his valet discovered little to contradict Diana’s tales. Although he hadn’t managed to identify her prospective bridegroom. The only rich man locally was the Marquess of Burnley.
Diana indeed ran the estate, if nominally as her father’s assistant. Ashcroft’s valet related copious anecdotes about young Mrs. Carrick’s cleverness and diligence.
The glowing reports had been unwelcome. Ashcroft wanted an excuse
to hate her, something to shatter this damnable fascination, which persisted no matter how she’d deceived him. But it seemed she was exactly what she claimed. A country widow of respectable but not spectacular standing. Which made those fashionable clothes and the opulent little nest in Chelsea a complete puzzle.
Questions never ceased to torment him. Had Lord Burnley funded her visit to London? Had her mysterious betrothed? In either case, why?
In spite of everything, Ashcroft couldn’t believe she’d accept money from one man and immediately jump into another man’s bed. He’d always been a complete cynic where women were concerned. Early and extensive sexual experience ensured that. But something about Diana made him doubt she was so venal or so wanton.
And didn’t that make him a credulous numbskull?
Other facts, like her husband’s untimely death, turned out to be true. The impression in the village was she’d worn the trousers in that union, although William Carrick had been a good man, and the couple had been close. Tidings which made Ashcroft’s teeth gnash, God forgive him. After all, the poor sod died too young and with a loving wife left to mourn. He deserved compassion rather than jealous resentment.
Ashcroft leaned against a beech tree and folded his arms across his chest. He directed a disgruntled glare through the leaves at the house where Cranston Abbey’s bailiff lived with his beautiful daughter. The place was on the edge of the estate in its own grounds. A tidy, unpretentious building from last century. Just behind it, the village church’s square tower rose into the sky.
Of course, he’d caught glimpses of Diana since he’d arrived. Never alone. And he needed her alone. Despite his anger and confusion, he didn’t want to ruin her reputation in this village. Another sign of how she undermined his will, devil take her. He should let the hellcat suffer the consequences of lying. Although for the life of him, he still couldn’t work out exactly what her game had been in London.
He wanted to know what she’d been up to. He needed to know.
As if to mock his dark humor, the summer day was perfect. He wasn’t surprised when Diana and her father emerged from the house, and she settled him in a chair in the sun. Ashcroft’s pulse surged at the sight of her. Even at this distance, the stiffness in their interactions indicated John Dean hadn’t forgiven his daughter.
The old spaniel, now familiar, ambled out and flopped at John Dean’s side. The scene was so classically bucolic, it could be a sentimental painting. Not for the first time, Ashcroft felt out of place in this rural idyll. Over the last days, he’d realized Diana Carrick had a life, a family, duties, and purpose. None of which had anything to do with her London lover.
Had she meant it when she called him a passing amusement?
He quashed the thought. He’d never believe that. He wouldn’t let doubt eat away his determination.
Miss Smith appeared at the door and beckoned Diana inside. With a heavy sigh, Ashcroft slid down against the beech. He stretched his booted legs across the leaf-strewn grass and drew a small morocco leather volume from his pocket.
As so often recently, he found himself unable to concentrate on the printed word. Trapped in the leafy woodland overlooking Diana’s home, his troubled mind pricked at him. Undistracted by anything except his angry misery, he confronted a life as barren as a desert.
How lowering to fall into self-pity.
It was all Diana’s blasted fault. He’d been content before she barged into his library with her wanton demands.
Except that wasn’t true. He’d been restless before she arrived, and their affair had lent his existence untold depth and richness. Good God, he couldn’t imagine himself prowling after any other woman like this.
In an attempt to divert himself from his brooding, he opened his book. The beginning of The Aeneid stared up in its neat lines of Latin verse. With a disgusted gesture, he closed the volume. Somehow, reading about a genuine hero made him feel even more like a starving mongrel dog.
At a distance, he heard a door snick shut.
With no great optimism, he lifted his head. Diana would be off to her work on the estate, and as usual, she’d have company.
Yes, it was Diana. For once on her own.
His ridiculous, yearning heart performed a crazy dance. No matter how he told himself he couldn’t trust the wench, nothing cured him of this immediate, primitive reaction. She bent briefly to speak to her father and clicked her fingers to the dog, who staggered to his feet and shook himself.
Sudden, preternatural excitement tightened Ashcroft’s every muscle. Perhaps at last, at last, he’d get her to himself. He refused to acknowledge the bursting elation as the joy it was. Just as since she’d left, he refused to acknowledge the echoing emptiness in his life as a symptom of how he missed her.
Expectation throbbing in his gut, he watched her with unwavering attention. She’d go back inside. She waited for someone. She’d stand talking to her father and never leave her garden, tormenting Ashcroft with her impossible nearness.
For all his anger, he burned to touch her.
The book slipped disregarded to the grass. His hands shifted against his thighs as if they cupped her breasts, stroked her satiny skin, tangled in her hair.
It was wrong that she wasn’t with him. A sin against nature like the sun setting in the east or two moons in the sky.
She didn’t retreat into the house or look up to greet one of the endless stream of tenants. Instead, she clicked her fingers again to the dog and set out across the lawn, the old hound tottering after her on arthritic legs. As if she knew Ashcroft waited, she headed directly for his hiding place.
He loved her free, hip-swinging walk. She ate up the ground with a countrywoman’s long paces, so foreign to the mincing prance most of the women he knew affected. She wore a dark blue pinafore over a brown dress. The sleeves were rolled up in silent declaration that here was a woman who worked, not one who lounged around eating bonbons and entertaining callers. Her luxuriant hair was confined in a crown of braids, plainer than the elaborate styles she’d sported in London. In the sunlight, the gold shone rich as ripe wheat.
Shock that his ramshackle plan might actually succeed pulsed through him. Waiting like a thief had never seemed a satisfactory tactic. Had proven less than satisfactory. If he’d the vaguest notion of an alternative method of ambushing Diana, he’d leap upon it.
Still she strode toward him. His heart missed a beat, set off on a wild gallop. Now she was close enough for him to see her expression. In spite of her confident progress, she looked pale and troubled.
She looked beautiful.
The dog paused to nose without enthusiasm at a clump of weeds. Then he lifted his head with a sudden tensing of his body. He whined softly and padded toward Ashcroft.
“Rex!” Diana called. “Rex, come back!”
She hitched up her skirts to chase the dog, providing a breathtaking flash of stocking-clad calves. She wore sensible half boots, and as she rushed ahead, her dark blue skirts swishing across the thick summer grass, he caught a flash of crisp white cotton petticoat. A demure sight to tantalize a rake, but it set desire raging like flames through a dry woodpile.
“Rex!”
The spaniel whined again, then barked sharply. He ran toward Ashcroft with surprising speed, given the rickety way he’d trailed his mistress.
Diana swore under her breath. With salty relish. No missish oaths for his woman, he was pleased to note. He’d always liked her earthiness. Especially when she devoted it to pleasuring him. She swerved off the path and pushed through the thick green growth.
Ashcroft lurched to his feet. He hadn’t been nervous with a woman since he was a lad, but he was nervous now. He sought the rage that had fortified him through the last days. It was absent. Instead, a blazing tide of anticipation overwhelmed him.
The dog appeared first, rustling through the bushes to growl and glower at him with rheumy brown eyes. Just behind the dog, Diana burst into the small clearing, frowning, her concentration on her runa
way pet, her hair starting to tumble. She was no better at securing her coiffure here than she’d been in Perry’s gorgeous seraglio of a bedroom.
A thousand memories hit, hard as a hammer, soft as swan’s down. Diana arching under him, crying out her pleasure. Diana naked and languid after love. Diana laughing. Diana arguing. Diana challenging him as no woman had.
Diana…
Words fled. A lump the size of Mount Snowdon lodged in his throat. His hands curled at his sides, and he thought his heart must burst, it thumped so crazily.
“Rex…” Then she looked up and saw Ashcroft.
She stopped on an audible breath, the pink seeping from her cheeks. A shaking hand rose to clench between her breasts.
Still trapped in silent stasis, he observed the expressions flash through her gray eyes. He read a radiant happiness that made his blood sing. Then dismay, then fear and unmistakable guilt. Finally, some complex, dark emotion he didn’t understand.
“Ashcroft,” she whispered, as if the word were a curse.
Diana was trapped in a nightmare. Identical to the cruel dreams where Ashcroft appeared in Marsham and accused her of betrayal. Although the nightmares weren’t as painful as her other dreams. Where she shuddered awake trembling, sweating, verging on climax, wondering why the phantom arms holding her didn’t hold her in reality.
She’d missed Ashcroft so much. He’d latched such hooks into her heart, she’d never shake him free. Since returning home, she felt like she’d had a limb amputated.
She hadn’t expected him to accept dismissal without a fight. It wasn’t in his nature to give up on something he wanted. And she’d deceived him into wanting her, heaven forgive her.
A neighbor had mentioned a stranger asked after her the first Sunday morning she was back. She’d known immediately it was Ashcroft. What surprised her was that her father had managed to turn him away. Her father, who had barely spoken to her since her return, never alluded to the encounter.
The letters that arrived in handfuls last week hadn’t surprised her either. She’d insisted she wouldn’t read them. Of course she had. Over and over.
My Reckless Surrender Page 26
