Henry had trusted Diana with his heart. He’d shared everything he was, good and bad, knowing she would accept all of him—want all of him. He wanted all of her. He’d meant what he’d said before. He needed more than her love; he needed her to trust him with her heart.
She didn’t even trust him with her fears. He needn’t have understood his Oxford professor’s ramblings about logic to understand Diana’s reasoning. If she didn’t believe he would remain faithful to her, she obviously didn’t think their marriage would last. Any child of theirs would end up torn between the two of them, or maybe she thought he’d abandon his children as well.
“Mr. Weston?”
He forced himself to focus on the housekeeper. “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Timms. I hadn’t realized the tea might be causing my wife’s ill health. I’ll speak with her. Please, don’t say anything; she would be terribly embarrassed.”
“I wouldn’t want that, sir. Shall I make a cup of chamomile tea instead?”
“Chamomile, yes, that’s fine. I’ll be in the library. Let me know when it’s ready, and I’ll take it up to her.”
“I can have one of the maids bring it up, sir,” Mrs. Timms offered. “There’s no need for you to wait down here.”
“It’s no trouble,” he assured her. He needed time to compose himself before he faced Diana. He paced around the library, his thoughts disordered and discordant. His mind leaped from the fiercest outrage to a tender understanding, from resentment to pity, and he alternately wanted to reassure her and rant at her.
When he went upstairs, he found his room mostly dark. A single candelabrum remained lit on the table, and Diana was asleep in his bed. As he set aside the tea and the books, he glanced at the door to Diana’s room. He considered sleeping there, but he heard his father’s voice in his head: Try not to go to bed angry, but if you cannot, at least sleep in the same bed.
He quickly undressed, doused the candles, and climbed into bed. He turned on his side, facing away from her, and decided he’d leave for London at first light. As he stared into the darkness, listening to Diana breathe, dawn seemed damned far off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As you know, James indulges Bride’s every whim. Yesterday morning at breakfast, I asked him what he thought I might have been like if my father had given in to my every demand. He grew very pale at the thought, I must say, but his solution is simple. We cannot be at war with France much longer, so by the time Bride is sixteen, we will place her in a French convent—preferably one surrounded by a moat containing carnivorous fish. Naturally, I told him the plan is both brilliant and flawless, and I encouraged him to put it down in writing. Someday I will show it to Bride and we will all laugh… assuming Bride has not already thrown her father to the sharks.
—FROM THE COUNTESS OF DUNSTON TO HER SISTER THE MARCHIONESS OF SHELDON
IF SHE’D KNOWN WHAT LAY in wait for her on the other side of sleep’s gates, Diana would never have allowed herself to pass through. The monsters from her past captured her before she could put up a struggle. They dragged her back to Swallowsdale, back to her hiding place beneath the desk. She pressed her palms against her ears, but they didn’t dim the sound of her parents shouting at each other. Two more angry voices joined the fray—Henry’s and her own.
“Stop,” she whispered. No one heard her. She couldn’t hear herself over the clamor of accusations and denials. “Stop!”
Something shattered in a bright clash and the room fell silent. Her breath caught on a sob. The pitiful sound echoed into the empty quiet. Henry called her name. She wanted to go to him, but she had to hear the rest of it. She wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her head on her knees, and braced herself for the words she knew were coming. She’d relived this nightmare so often that its power over her should have diminished.
It hadn’t. She flinched as her father gave her up without a second thought, and then exploded out from under the desk with a cry ripped straight from her heart.
“No!” The word burst from her lips, at once pointless and poignant in this room full of broken people with fractured dreams. Just another accusation, another denial. One more plea for love that would go unanswered.
Behind her, someone moved; the heavy tread ground pieces of pottery and glass with every step. Henry called her name again, but she only had eyes for her father.
“Please, Di,” Henry pleaded. “I’m here. Come on, love.”
She shook her head. “I hate you!” she yelled at her father.
“Diana!” Henry’s voice demanded her attention.
She took a step back in his direction, but she couldn’t look away from the man who’d sired her.
“You can’t decide between us,” her father said. “You’re stuck between going back and moving forward. You’ll choose me, you know. You always come back to me—”
“Leave me alone. I don’t want you. I want Henry.” She turned, but he was gone.
“Did you think to go with him?” her father asked. “It’s too late for that. Don’t you know by now that this can only end one way?”
She clapped her hands over her ears and ran from the house. She ran into the woods, farther and farther, until she found a safe place. A place so secret, no one would ever find her again.
She felt cold inside, and as night came on, the chill spread until she shivered uncontrollably. If only she had Henry beside her. He always radiated such heat. He would stave off the chill, but he’d left her. Oh, why hadn’t she gone with him when he’d asked? Now she was alone again, in hiding once more.
She thought she heard Henry call her name. The desperate imaginings of an unhinged mind, or—? She heard him again. She scrambled to her feet and spun about in a circle. She couldn’t tell which direction his voice had come from, or how to get back to where she’d been. She was well and truly lost, but she wanted Henry to find her. She needed him to find her. She shouted his name.
“Diana, wake up!”
She came awake in a rush. Henry’s anxious face hovered over her, filling her vision. A sob of relief escaped her as she threw her arms around his neck, toppling him back on the bed. “Oh, God. Oh, God,” she whispered. “It was a dream— just a dream. Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”
She molded herself against him, and then struggled to get closer still, grabbing at whatever parts of him she could reach. She wanted to burrow inside him, to bury herself in his strength and his warmth. She needed to hold him and reassure herself that she hadn’t lost him, and she needed him to hold her and reassure her that she wasn’t lost.
As she pressed and wriggled against him, his sex hardened between them. A shiver of desire ripped down her spine. Yes. She needed this—the elemental joining, the primitive act of claiming and belonging. She reached between their bodies and clasped his hot length. He started at her touch and began to set her away.
“No,” she protested. “I need you. Please, Hen—”
He flipped her over onto her back without a word. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and as he came over her, his face was set in harsh, determined lines.
“Is something wr—?”
“I don’t want to talk, Di. We’ve said enough tonight.”
Diana’s breathing came fast as she struggled to pull her nightgown up over her head. Henry eased back as she stripped away the last barrier between them and tossed it away. She reached out her hands, beckoning him back, and groaned in satisfaction when he settled between her thighs.
He muttered something blasphemous when he tested her and found her more than ready for him. She gasped as he entered her, fast and sure, and took her over, body, and soul. Some nights he made love to her gently, taking his time with tender touches. This wasn’t one of those nights.
Henry acted like a man possessed… or a man determined to possess her. There was a wildness about him as he ravished her, and the wanton in her gloried in it. He didn’t coax her body’s response; he demanded it. Repeatedly. By the time he took his own releas
e, she was sated, sleepy, and… settled.
Right here, right now, she belonged. She belonged to the moment. She belonged to Henry. And she began to see that he belonged to her. They’d fought, and she’d made him furious, but he hadn’t walked away. At her most vulnerable, he’d reassured her of how much he loved her. Henry was hers to lose. No, he was hers to keep.
WHEN DIANA WOKE, SHE REACHED for Henry, but she found only empty air beside her. She heard noise coming from his dressing closet, so she hurried over. If he hadn’t dressed yet, she would drag him back to bed. To her disappointment, she found Jasper rifling through the clothespress. Henry’s portmanteau lay at his feet.
“Has he already gone down to breakfast?” she asked.
Jasper wouldn’t quite meet her gaze. “He left for London early this morning, my lady,” the valet informed her. “I’m to follow him. He wanted to make an early start of it. The sooner he leaves, the quicker he can come back, I’m sure.”
“Oh yes, of course, he said as much last night. So silly of me to forget, but I never can think straight when I first wake up,” Diana lied, trying to hide the fact that her husband hadn’t seen fit to inform her that he’d changed his plans. He hadn’t even said good-bye. She told herself he hadn’t wanted to wake her, but she wasn’t very convincing.
Ellie tried to cheer her as she dressed, suggesting they might try styling her hair in different ways so she could surprise Henry on his return. Doubtless, at least one of the servants had overheard their quarrel, and if one had heard, they all knew. Given Henry’s early departure, they probably all thought she’d chased him off. Diana scowled and instructed Ellie to tie her hair back with the ugliest ribbon she could find.
Her week without Henry was off to a poor start, and Diana doubted it would get much better. She’d spent most of her life at The Hall and Lansdowne House, and her education had prepared her to run a similarly large household. The relative simplicity of Ravensfield posed no difficulty, and she had quite a bit of time on her hands.
She liked being in the stables, but they didn’t need her there. There were three grooms in addition to Kingsley and, at this point, relatively few horses. By the third day of Henry’s absence, she knew she must do something or she would drive Kingsley mad, following him about and asking him to recount stories of Henry as a boy.
The older man was patient with her for he was fond of her, but she could tell his nerves were wearing thin. She needed a project, she decided. Something to occupy her mind and her hands, so she wasn’t thinking about missing Henry. Worrying about their argument. Wondering what he might be doing that he couldn’t tell her about.
The nights were worst. After the first night sleeping—or rather, trying to sleep—alone in Henry’s room, she’d moved to her own, where the bed wasn’t quite as big and lonely. She still couldn’t sleep well. As she lay in bed, Diana wondered if she ought to fetch Kingsley to tell her some stories about the great champions of the turf or recite the long litany of their dams. She grinned. The man would likely suffer apoplexy if she appeared at his door at this hour, and she liked him far too much to kill him.
As she contemplated distaff lines, she suddenly knew what her project should be. She would write out pedigree charts for some of the horses at Ravensfield. She’d meant to order some prints for the office in the stables, but this would be much nicer. She wasn’t a particularly good artist, but she had endured enough years of drawing lessons that she thought she could devise some passably handsome ornaments as embellishment. She fell asleep full of plans.
The following morning, she sought out Kingsley. “You needn’t look as though you wish to flee,” she called out to him. “I haven’t come to pester you for more tales of my husband. I want your help.” She explained her purpose, and he agreed to aid her in any way possible. After he assured her that she wasn’t taking him away from any important work, he went with her into the office. She sat down behind the desk, trying not to blush as she remembered how she and Henry had made use of it.
“I think it will be best,” she said, “if I take notes as you speak. Then you can look over it and make sure I have everything correct before I write it properly. Let me get some paper.” She pulled open the desk drawer. There wasn’t much in it, only a couple of quills and a penknife. The only paper was a folded letter. The bold scrawling handwriting teased at her memory. She knew she’d seen it somewhere before. She looked at the sender’s address—
No, impossible. Henry would have told her if he’d received a letter from her father.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?” asked Kingsley.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head as she scanned the contents of the letter. After our meeting… consider what I asked of you… next year, you may be in possession of a future champion.
She scrambled to find some explanation that protected Henry, but it was clear that he was acquainted with her father. She doubted Henry had ever intended for her to find out. He hadn’t intended to tell her about the mare—Penelope—either. He’d told her to think of the horse as a wedding present, but he certainly hadn’t mentioned the sender was her father!
A father who didn’t want her, didn’t love her, but had gone to the trouble of buying her a husband. What cruel twist of fate had led him to settle on Henry, the one man capable of breaking her heart?
So many things began to fall into place.
Like many men of their class, Henry wanted to found a dynasty. For that, he needed a good brood mare. Not in the sense of a wife to bear him heirs—though he needed that, too—but an actual brood mare.
She had known there must be some reason Henry had started to pay attention to her after so many years of casual indifference. Oh, God, had everything that passed between them been a lie? How long had he been under her father’s thumb? Had he come up with the idea of the false courtship to spend time with her after she had expressed her distaste for rogues? Had every word, every gesture been calculated to win her confidence?
She had to know if everything had been some elaborate lie, and she couldn’t wait another week for Henry to return. But even if she went to London and found him, how would she know if he were telling the truth? If he took her in his arms and kissed her, Henry could persuade her of anything. If she couldn’t ask Henry, there was only one other man she could ask. Her stomach pitched at the thought of confronting him after all this time, but what choice did she have?
She focused her gaze on Kingsley. “I need the carriage readied.” Her voice wobbled, betraying the frantic storm churning inside her. Waves of emotion raged up and surged over the ruins of the walls that had once stood around her heart. Henry had torn down those walls, smile by smile, kiss by kiss, until her heart lay exposed and vulnerable—his for the taking.
But what if he’d never wanted it—never wanted her? Had she been the price he’d paid to get what he truly wanted? She needed the truth, and then she would decide what her next step should be. If the worst were true, she wouldn’t be the first woman in her family with a failed marriage. At least she knew how to handle rejection.
While she ached for what might have been, part of Diana was… relieved. This, at least, was familiar. To a certain extent, she’d even expected this. She hadn’t held back from loving Henry. She wasn’t strong enough for that.
She had held back from believing and trusting, though. In him. In them. In their marriage. He’d asked her to let go of his past and trust him. But it wasn’t his past that she couldn’t let go of… it was her own.
Only years spent with the duchess, who disapproved of emotional displays, allowed Diana to regain her control. “I will be traveling to Suffolk,” she told Kingsley in a much calmer tone. “I’ll take my maid, along with whomever you can best spare. Tell the man to prepare to be gone a sennight, and have him make haste. I wish to reach Romford by sundown. There’s a good inn there with edible food and comfortable beds.”
A deep frown creased Kingsley’s wrinkled brow. “I think you had best wait for Mast
er Henry’s return, my lady.”
Diana shook her head as she stood. “I’m afraid this can’t wait. ‘Master Henry’ should be glad I’ve set my sights in another direction. There’s a small chance I will be in a better frame of mind by the time I see him.” She held up a hand. “Don’t try to stop me, Kingsley. I’m holding myself together by a very fragile thread. Unless you wish to see a hysterical woman…”
They were on the road by noon.
SWALLOWSDALE GRANGE HADN’T CHANGED AT all from the last time she’d seen it, Diana thought as the coach lumbered up the drive. Only when she got closer did she see the small signs of disrepair. Weeds had overtaken the flowerbeds near the door, once lovingly tended by her mother. Was there no one to look after the house? And what of the owner—did he need looking after as well? Not that she cared. After today, she planned to put her father out of her mind—and her life—completely.
A lad came running from the direction of the stables to take the reins from Kingsley. The groom had tried to dissuade her from leaving Ravensfield, but when she’d proven firm in her resolve, he’d insisted on accompanying her… though not without a fair bit of grumbling. Diana could hear him muttering as he got down from the coachman’s seat and came around to help her and Ellie down from the carriage.
The door to the house opened then, and a short, wiry man stepped outside. There were streaks of gray in his sable hair, but Diana immediately recognized Barnaby Ramsey. The trainer’s friendship with her father went back to his trick riding days, and he’d been as good as a member of their family.
Bar addressed Kingsley, who stood protectively in front of Diana, blocking her from his view. “Beg your pardon, but Mr. Merriwether is not at home. If your mistress would care to leave her card or return tomorrow, I—”
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