Still, his hand trembled when he picked up the flimsy missive.
From its plinth on the bookshelf, the wide alabaster eyes of the Roman head mocked him. He smothered the urge to smash the beautiful little sculpture to dust and returned his attention to the letter.
It could be from anyone. It could be from one of his cousins. Or a former mistress. Or someone requesting his assistance for a charity or in support of some reform in Parliament.
Even as he fed himself those sensible caveats, his heart lodged in his throat. And curse him, he fumbled as he broke the seal.
It took a moment to focus. His eyes went automatically to the signature.
Reality slammed down. The letter wasn’t from Diana. Even if it was, what could she say that could possibly compensate for all she’d done?
He drew a deep breath and concentrated on the message. To his astonishment, Miss Smith had written. Two lines only. Informing him Diana was to marry Lord Burnley at St. Mark’s in Marsham on Wednesday, 24 October 1827 at ten o’clock in the morning. Then a signature.
He checked the date. The letter was four days old. Tomorrow was the twenty-fourth. Or today, as it was past midnight.
For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut. The pain in his leg ebbed under the searing memory of Diana’s betrayal, the anguish as powerful as it had been in that sweet summer glade two months ago.
Why did you do it, Diana, why?
The question tormented him as it had tormented him since then. Except he knew exactly why she’d deceived him. Because the mercenary trull wanted to be a marchioness. Because she wanted to hold Cranston Abbey in trust for her child.
His child…
From hard-won habit, he struggled to close his mind to the thought of his baby. As he closed his mind to memories of that baby’s mother.
His efforts were never very effective.
His reluctant attention returned to the note. Miss Smith must believe he cared that his former mistress married her coconspirator.
Miss Smith was fatally wrong. Diana Carrick could rot in hell. He never wanted to see the mendacious bitch again as long as he lived.
With a savage growl that came from the depths of his being, he crushed the letter into a ball and flung it into the fire.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Diana’s wedding day dawned sunny and bright, perfect October weather. Strange to see the world en fête when everything should be gray and stormy to match the misery in her heart.
As she trudged downstairs to go to the church, she looked without optimism for her father. Still, her belly cramped with hurt to notice he wasn’t in the hall to give her his blessing, however reluctant.
Such a different occasion to her wedding to William. She’d left laughing on her father’s arm to walk the short distance to St. Mark’s, and her heart had caroled hallelujahs at the prospect of becoming Mrs. Carrick. Her whole life had stretched before her like a richly patterned carpet, a life of companionship and love and fulfillment.
Today, she knew her heart would never sing again. She felt a thousand years old. Soiled to the bone.
Three months ago, this wedding would have proved her crowning achievement.
Three months ago, she’d been a different woman.
Nervously, Diana smoothed the skirts of her yellow silk gown. The dress was part of her London wardrobe, and when she’d put it on this morning, it hung with unbecoming looseness. It would have to suffice. Even if she’d had the heart to get a new dress made, she hadn’t had time. After obtaining her agreement, Burnley had quickly organized the wedding.
When she expressed doubts about the rush, he’d told her he wanted no questions about his child’s legitimacy. She supposed that made sense, although if she went to full term, the baby would be born six or seven months after the ceremony.
She suspected Burnley was afraid she’d bolt. But she resigned herself to her fate. Where could she go to escape unhappiness? Nowhere. At least marriage provided for her child and gave it a name.
She paused when she reached the base of the staircase and met Laura’s compassionate gaze in the shadowy light. “Has he said anything?”
Laura shook her head, automatically identifying the “he” Diana referred to as John Dean. “No.”
She looked straight at Laura. “Where is he?”
“In his study. With Mr. Brown.”
Pain shafted through her. When she’d told her father five days ago she was marrying Burnley, he’d turned away and he hadn’t spoken to her since. If he encountered her in a corridor, and in such a small, cluttered house, avoiding each other was impossible, he treated her like a stranger. She’d tried several times to breach the wall between them, to explain her good fortune would be his as well. He just kept walking as if he were deaf as well as blind.
Fleetingly, Diana contemplated throwing open the study door and insisting her father acknowledge her wedding day. The impulse died as soon as it was born. What was the point? Her father would never forgive her for whoring herself to Ashcroft, for lying, and now for giving herself in a loveless marriage to Burnley.
“You think I’m wrong, don’t you?” she asked, although Laura had made no secret that she considered Diana’s choices destructive.
“I can’t judge you. I don’t have the right.” Laura touched her arm in a fleeting gesture of comfort. “You’re doing this for the baby.”
It was the first time Laura had mentioned the pregnancy. “I wanted the house. It was madness.” Diana realized she spoke in the past tense, and Laura would notice the telltale slip.
“Yes. Now you know better.”
“Now it’s too late to change anything,” she said bitterly.
Laura’s eyes flashed, although her response was calm. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is,” she said finally.
To her relief, Laura didn’t argue. Instead, she bent her head as if acknowledging the grim inevitability.
Diana paused to check her appearance in the mirror near the door. When she woke up, she’d been sick. Most days started like that now, but her stomach had since settled. She looked pale and composed. Hardly bridelike but not nearly the apparition of doom she’d imagined. She collected her worn prayer book from the hall table and glanced at Laura. “I’m ready.”
It was a lie. She knew that she’d tell thousands of similar lies in the future.
The familiar stone church with its square Saxon tower waited ahead as Diana stepped down from Lord Burnley’s carriage. She’d suggested walking, but his lordship had been appalled that his new marchioness planned to arrive at her wedding on foot, like a peasant.
A sign of how protocol would crowd her in future, she supposed. If she ever started to feel again, she guessed she’d find the rules and regulations tiresome.
Right now, like everything else except the life growing under her heart, it didn’t matter.
To her relief, the ceremony was to be a quiet one. Lord Burnley had promised a general celebration when the baby was born. Even so, someone, the vicar and his wife she assumed, had decked the doorway with garlands, and Fredericks, who waited outside, appeared incongruously carnivalesque, with bright posies on his hat and in his buttonhole.
She paused in the doorway and swayed as the sickly smell of hothouse flowers hit her. Her vision faded, and nausea, thick and sour, rose in her throat.
Laura grabbed her arm, holding her upright. “Diana, are you well? Do you want to sit down?”
And delay this awful encounter? No, if she did this, she did it now.
“It’s just the flowers,” she said, panting through her mouth and fighting dizziness.
She pulled away from Laura and took a shaky step inside. Another. Into the cold gloom of the parish church. A deep breath. The haze receded, and her eyes adjusted. Down at the far end of the aisle, Lord Burnley stood before the vicar. Next to Burnley was a soberly dressed older man she didn’t know. Some parliamentary acquaintance, she supposed.
The overwhelming perfume still cloyed
, but her stomach subsided to a mild rocking rather than a violent heave. The prospect of bringing up her meager breakfast in the nave was too humiliating.
As so often before, pride came to her rescue.
She’d arrived at this pass through her own actions. She refused to faint or cry or cower. She’d confront her bleak destiny with head held high and steadfast heart.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Laura asked at her side. “Lord Burnley won’t mind waiting while you gather yourself.”
“I’m ready,” she said, just as she’d said at the house.
It was still a lie.
She raised her chin, straightened her spine, and took a pace of spurious confidence. Behind her, Laura and Fredericks fell into line. They formed a de facto train as she walked down the uneven flagstones toward the altar. And her bridegroom.
What happened held a terrible inexorability. As if forces she couldn’t control moved her. Once she’d set these events in motion by offering herself to Ashcroft, she’d put herself on the path to this moment.
Around her, the church was hushed and nearly empty. She felt the weight of a thousand watching ghosts in the still air. Not hostile ghosts, but ghosts who whispered that good could never come from a union forged in misery and deceit.
No music accompanied her procession. She was glad. This ceremony was perjury enough without adding the trappings of joy.
Burnley turned to watch. He was beautifully dressed in a black coat she hadn’t seen before. He must have had it made for the wedding. The finery only emphasized the exhaustion in his face. In spite of his best efforts, he looked ill and infirm. Although the sharp green eyes were alight. He knew he’d won, against her, against Lord Ashcroft, against his unknown distant cousin, against the whole world.
And he wasn’t a man to wear victory lightly.
A gloating smile, the image of the one he’d worn when he told Ashcroft about his parentage, twisted his thin lips. It was clear he basked in unalloyed joy as all his plans came to fruition.
The world was ordered on his terms and would stay that way.
Diana bit back the acrid reflections. She was as guilty as Burnley. More so.
Laura took her prayer book from her and sat in the front pew. Gossip would spread when it became known Diana’s father hadn’t attended her wedding. A scattering of people formed the congregation. Long-serving staff from the house, mainly. All of them as familiar to Diana as family.
Their expressions indicated the range of responses she’d already received to her betrothal. Shock. Jealousy. Resentment. Sentimental pleasure. Curiosity. Bewilderment. Neither Marsham nor the wider world would ever accept her as the marchioness. Her humble birth would always be held against her.
Her child would triumph. Her child would hold the title unchallenged and receive all respect and duty owed to the marquess. Surely she’d learn to find satisfaction in that knowledge.
Raising her bonneted head, she stared blankly at the man she was about to marry. One of his hands rested on his stick. The other stretched out to take hers as she mounted the short flight of steps to the altar.
Neither of them wore gloves. Burnley’s skin was dry, scaly. She was reminded of a lizard or some other cold and reptilian creature.
She bit back a shudder and turned with Burnley toward the vicar. The kindly old face was lined with concern as he surveyed Diana and her incongruous bridegroom. Like everyone at Cranston Abbey, he relied on the marquess for his livelihood. He wouldn’t speak against the match, whatever he might think privately.
The service started. She didn’t listen. Instead, she let herself drift in a dark sea of chaos. The only reality was that what she did secured her child’s future.
Odd to think that until she’d fallen pregnant, she hadn’t considered that she and Ashcroft created a new individual. What a foolish, shallow creature she’d been when she entered into this scheme. How she deserved to pay in years of misery.
She realized both the vicar and her bridegroom looked at her expectantly. They must have reached the part where she indicated her willingness to become the Marchioness of Burnley.
The vicar cleared his throat and asked again whether she consented to become Edgar Fanshawe’s wife.
She opened her mouth, feeling as though she flung herself off a high mountain. Foreboding shivered through her.
Another voice spoke before she could squeeze the words from her tight throat.
“This marriage will not proceed.”
Ashcroft.
For an incredulous moment, she stood stiffly, staring straight ahead. Had she dreamed that beloved voice? She must have. He hated her. He never wanted to see her again.
Burnley didn’t move either, although he tensed. “Go on, Vicar.”
The vicar, to his credit, looked perturbed and glanced past Burnley down the aisle. “I’m sorry, my lord, but if this man knows of some impediment to the match, I must hear him.”
“He doesn’t know of any damned impediment, he’s just here to cause trouble. Go on, I say, or find yourself another living.”
The vicar whitened, either at the language or the furious tone. “My lord, I protest.”
Their contending voices faded to a background buzz as Diana snatched her hand from Burnley’s and slowly pivoted to peer into the body of the church. Someone stood silhouetted against the light in the doorway. The contrast between the dimness inside and the sunlight outside prevented her seeing him clearly.
Only one man she knew stood so tall and straight, conveyed such leanly muscled power.
“Tarquin?” she asked on a frayed whisper. Her legs trembled, threatened to collapse as she realized he truly was here, not a phantom conjured up by her lonely heart.
“Continue with the service,” Burnley snapped, snatching her hand in a grip that hurt for all his physical weakness. He breathed noisily through his mouth as though mustering every ounce of strength.
“This is most irregular.” The vicar sounded worried and unhappy.
Diana stood puppetlike in Burnley’s grasp. She wanted to run to Ashcroft, fling her arms around him, but some force rooted her to the floor.
“Stop this travesty.” Ashcroft’s deep voice echoed off stone walls like a command from on high. He shifted from the archway and made his way toward her.
Immediately, Diana realized something was seriously wrong. He’d always moved with a crackling vigor that set her heart racing. Now he walked with a cane, slowly, awkwardly, as if every step pained him.
“What’s the matter?” She wrenched herself free and darted out of Burnley’s reach down the aisle.
“The result of a slight altercation.” Ashcroft’s wry amusement was so familiar it made her heart clench with longing.
She blinked away the burning tears distorting her vision. Her breath escaped in a shocked sob.
“Tarquin, what happened?”
She lifted her hands toward him, then lowered them to her sides. She still wasn’t sure why he was here, although surely if he hated her, he wouldn’t stop the wedding.
Or did he intend some warped revenge? Was he here to discredit her in the eyes of her neighbors and destroy her chance of marrying Burnley?
How could he do that? A scandal wouldn’t stop her wedding. Nothing could, apart from her anguished yearning for this man and not the man she promised herself to.
“Tarquin?” she repeated on a rising note.
“Ask your betrothed,” Ashcroft said savagely, and the look he sent Lord Burnley scorched.
“Shut your damned mouth, you mongrel,” Burnley snarled, and she heard the tap of his stick as he limped down the shallow steps.
“You’ve been hurt,” Diana said brokenly, losing her battle to keep her distance. She ventured a pace closer.
Her horrified gaze drank in the signs of suffering on his handsome face. A long scar, red and angry, marked one lean cheek.
A vivid memory of his leaving the estate in the company of Burnley’s burliest footmen assailed her. How
could she have missed that the marquess intended Ashcroft physical harm?
In a surge of hatred, she whirled on the man she’d been about to marry. “It’s you. You did this to him.”
Burnley stared her down with a supercilious expression. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl.”
“No, it was you.” Her voice vibrated with outrage. “It wasn’t enough to try to crush him with what you told him. You wanted to kill him in truth.”
Burnley dismissed her anger with a scornful huff. “Don’t be so dramatic, woman. Come back and finish the service. This fool’s interruption is futile. There’s no reason you can’t marry me.”
“Yes, there is,” she said steadily. “You tried to kill the man I love.”
She heard Ashcroft’s soft hiss of surprise behind her.
Burnley clearly wasn’t aware that once she found out he’d hurt Ashcroft, he lost all chance of marrying her. “Oh, for God’s sake, cease this nonsense and say your vows,” he said impatiently.
“Diana, don’t.”
Ashcroft’s voice made her turn. His face was dark and intense and serious as she’d never seen it, even when he’d proposed marriage in the glade. Before Burnley’s louts attacked him.
“He hurt you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” Her voice thickened with tears.
“Don’t be a ninny, Diana,” Burnley burst out behind her. “He’s here because taking you away is the only revenge he can wreak.”
Ashcroft ignored him. “Come with me.”
Burnley’s strident voice became a distant clamor. She felt like she drowned in Ashcroft’s green eyes. For a moment, nobody else existed.
She drew in a deep breath. Her frozen heart began to beat hard and fast. She took another step, although she didn’t yet touch him.
They would have time for touching later, when they left the shadow of this place. Now was time for one word and one word only.
“Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Yes.
My Reckless Surrender Page 31
