Diana couldn’t help it. Her own smile broke over her cheeks, stretching up toward her ears. She blinked several times, trying to force sudden tears back into her skull. There was no reason for such emotion.
“There he is,” she murmured, hardly recognizing her own voice. “The man of my dreams.”
These words seemed to surprise the stranger. They certainly surprised Diana, as well, as she wasn’t ordinarily so forward with people she didn’t know. She pressed her lips together, waiting for some kind of wretched response—something that told her she’d overstepped. Yet instead, the stranger’s smile widened, ensuring her ultimate comfort.
“You’re awake. You’re fully awake, now, aren’t you?” he asked. His voice was deep and warm and strangely familiar, despite Diana knowing she hadn't heard it before. She shifted her shoulders against her pillow, blinking up at him.
“Perhaps,” she ventured. “Although I cannot fully describe to you how delicious it was to live in that constant daydream. How long was I asleep?”
The stranger seemed not to know how to answer the question. His eyes flickered to the side of the room, which piqued Diana’s interest. She, too, brought her eyes throughout the space, discovering it to be far more ornate than most rooms in her own mansion. The wallpaper was gold, lined with flowers, and a chandelier hung over the bed, twinkling with the spring daylight that crept in through the windows. She adjusted against the pillows, noting that she was at the centre of an enormous bed, with pillows like enormous clouds holding her half-way upright.
On the other side of the bed, Diana’s aunt Renata was seated, her embroidery spread out across her lap. Her head was knocked back, her lips parted and her eyes closed delicately, showing the thinness of the skin of her eyelids. As she watched, her Aunt Renata let out a wild, pig-like snore, before returning to her shallow breathing. Diana quivered with laughter, returning her eyes to the stranger.
“How long has she been asleep, is the better question,” she said, hoping this would make the stranger laugh.
But in the midst of her own laughter, Diana grew aware, suddenly, that her lungs ached. The laughter crumbled, becoming raucous coughs. She pressed her hand over her mouth, her stomach clenching. With each cough, different images returned to her mind—ones that she sensed were far more real than the dream-like ones she’d been living with.
These images spoke of fire, of smouldering walls, of hallways thick with smoke.
She remembered awaking in her bed at home, smoke flickering in through the bottom of her door. She’d bolted up, blinking at the door with panic, hearing the shrieks of the mansion’s staff.
Now, she operated similarly: drawing herself fully upright, far too quickly, in the midst of another throttling cough. She gaped at the stranger, tears welling up in her eyes. Before she even forced out the question—what had happened to her home?—she sensed the answer lurking behind the stranger’s eyes. It was clear that she was there, in this bed, because her beloved home had burned to the ground.
Her lips formed a round O.
“Your lungs must hurt a great deal,” the stranger remarked. He reached for a glass of water on the side table and passed it to her, watching to ensure that her hands gripped it without dropping. “I don’t know how long you were unconscious before I found you. But you must have inhaled a great deal of it.”
Diana hadn’t the strength to sip her water. Her heart felt squeezed. She forced out the question she needed to know, beyond anything, “Did I find her? Did I help her?”
There was no way to know if this stranger would understand what she meant. But, to her surprise, he lowered his chin to his chest and slowly whispered, “You exhibited incredible bravery, going in after your maid. And due to this, the maid lived through the fire. In fact, everyone lived. Thank goodness.”
His eyes returned to hers, twinkling. One of his enormous hands stretched out across her arm, soothing her. Immediately, her heart stopped its wild, off-kilter beating. She forced herself to inhale, exhale, and then took a gulp of water. Anxiety dissipated. The maid was all right. Everything was all right.
“Who are you?” Diana finally asked, recognizing that the words sounded almost rude, yet unable to care.
The man sniffed, as though he found this to be a stellar joke. “Who do you think I am?” he asked.
“How could I possibly know that?” She grinned, loving that he’d yanked her into this child-like game. “I’m clearly in your home, that’s true. But I’ve never seen you before in my life. You’re a stranger.”
“And yet, you say that I’m the man from your dreams,” the man returned, arching his thick black brow.
“One cannot blame my inner psyche for making up stories whilst unconscious,” Diana informed him, her smile widening.
“I suppose not,” the man said. Now, he drew himself up, altering his posture as though he was poised to announce himself as a king or a prince. “My name is Lord Ernest Bannerman. I’m the earl of this land. Freshly-titled earl, that is.”
Diana hadn’t expected such a thing. Her cheeks grew hot. She tapped the glass of water to the side of the bed, blinking at him with half-panic. “An earl? My goodness.” She swept her hands across the chest of her nightgown, suddenly and horribly and painfully aware of just how underdressed she was in the presence of this earl, Lord Bannerman. How could he look at her with such a glowing expression, when she surely looked afright?
As Diana flattened down her gown and drew herself higher on the pillows, agitation caused her to begin coughing once more. Her body quaked with it, and pain shot up and down her spine. In her chair, her aunt shifted, allowing her embroidery to swirl to the ground. Suddenly, Diana willed herself to be anywhere else, far from this place—out of this wretched display. How horrific that an earl had been watching her in her pained unconscious state for, what? Days? Weeks?
Lord Bannerman’s grip on her arm grew more firm, forcing her eyes to return to his dark ones. His voice was soft, yet articulate. “Diana, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he assured her. “All that matters right now is that you rest and recover.”
“Yes, but dressed like this—in an earl’s home—” Diana sputtered. “How on earth did you come to find us, anyway?”
Ernest swept his hand down her arm and gripped her hand. Diana linked her fingers with his, unable to comprehend a world in which this wasn’t what she wanted. Something about his skin upon hers felt like puzzle pieces coming together, with that delicious snap.
“I was passing by your estate on my way home from a ball,” he continued. “I spotted the smoke in the distance and rushed there to find your aunt and father and much of the staff already outside.”
“Father? He’s all right?” Diana whispered. With her father’s weakened state, she hadn’t a clue what the smoke could do to his lungs. Her legs shivered beneath the sheets.
“Certainly. He’s had a bit of a rough go the past three days, but I spotted him at breakfast this morning in quite good spirits,” Ernest continued. “He’s spent much time right here with you, in fact. I caught him reading Shakespeare to you last afternoon, though I expect you didn’t soak up much of it.”
Diana chuckled. “He was never one to waste time. Willing to fill my head with knowledge, regardless of my state.”
“I suppose he wasn’t sure what else to do. All the prayers in the world can grow tiresome after a time,” Ernest returned.
At this, Diana was surprised to feel tears well up in her eyes. The intensity of this relief—knowing her house was burned, yet her family (what was left of it, anyway) remained intact—felt like a punch. She forced her eyes closed, allowing little rivers of tears to skate toward her chin.
Although Diana’s courting memories were few, she’d known men to be frightened of emotions such as this. It was quite customary for men to flee the room at the sight of a woman crying. Yet Lord Bannerman remained, with his hand latched to hers, his eyes never flickering away. He felt sturdy and sure, a kind of rock in an ever-chan
ging, quicksand-like world.
“Not everything was lost,” Lord Bannerman continued. “The fire eventually petered out, leaving behind a few choice items. And, of course, you will be able to rebuild the estate eventually and continue on with your life in financial comfort.
“In the meantime, however, I’ve suggested that you, your father, your aunt, and the staff remain on here, with me,” Ernest told her. “I have more than enough room. It’s just my sister and I here, after the recent death of our father. To be quite honest, it’s a pleasure to host people in this once-so-echoey household. My sister is only 15, and she’s absolutely thriving with the newfound social environment. She’s played chess with your father nearly every night since you arrived.”
Diana and her father were frequent chess players. The fact that he’d remained up with the earl’s little sister, playing and keeping his mind at some sort of peace, made her throat feel thick with emotion.
Suddenly, Aunt Renata burst awake, in the style of someone who’d had a frightful dream. She buzzed her lips, her eyes searching the room, before turning her attention to Diana. Immediately, she sprung to her feet, her lips stretched into a grin.
“My goodness, Diana!” she cried. “You’re awake!”
Renata was ordinarily the loudest person in the room, the shrillest and the most excitable. Diana heard Renata’s voice echoing down the hallways, assuredly alerting the rest of the house of Diana’s conscious state. Aunt Renata burst to the other side of the bed, seemingly not noticing—or not mentioning—that Diana and Lord Bannerman held hands, and dropped a kiss upon Diana’s cheeks. She swiped her hand across her own, brushing off a tear, and then collapsed at the edge of the bed.
“You can’t know how panicked we’ve all been, Diana,” she gushed. “Absolutely sick with worry. I’ve had to keep my eyes on your father. You know how he gets. Essentially had to force feed him dinner.”
“I’m glad he had you to care for him,” Diana replied kindly. She noted that her aunt looked fatigued, the lines around her eyes deeper and darker than ever before.
“Why on earth did you go back into the burning house, darling!” her aunt continued, seemingly not hearing her. “I recognize that it’s that immense goodwill you have in your heart, but at what cost! You could have been killed.”
“I wasn’t, though, Auntie,” returned Diana, giving her a sly smile.
“Not this time! But I’d like to ask you to take a really hard look at that intense bravery and ask yourself if it’s worth it.” She leaned closer, her eyes scrunching. “You really haven’t a clue how lost we’d be without you, do you?”
Diana rolled her eyes, but she felt the words like a stone in her belly. It was true: she was the final living daughter, the only one left. After her mother died from the panic and worry and sadness of Margery’s death, Diana, her father, and her auntie had been like the most impossibly scrappy team, a united group of very-sad humans who lived on for one another.
Just as Diana had expected, the sound of footsteps grew louder in the hall. Seconds later, the carriage-boy, Hank, along with several other staff members, burst into the room unannounced, their faces bright as suns. They beamed at Diana, all of them scrambling to reach her bed before the others.
“Look at you! You’re awake!” they cried.
Diana had grown up alongside these people. They’d been beside her throughout that most sorrowful time, they’d watched her go from awkward child to awkward teenager to (perhaps still awkward) adult. In their eyes, she saw her entire life reflected back. There was such safety in this fact.
“Goodness, all of you!” Diana said, her smile almost painfully large.
“Really, far too many at once,” Ernest admonished, although his “stern” voice was far from it. He led a few of the staff members back toward the hallway, requesting that everyone take turns to say hello to Lady Harrington.
In the midst of this, however, the maid, Claire—the woman Diana had entered the burning house to save—peeked her head over the brimming crowd, hungry for the sight of Diana. Immediately, Diana brought her arms into the air, aching to hug the woman. Her last memories before unconsciousness included her—the two of them poised on the staircase which led out toward the front lawn, a place they’d stood countless times before on brighter days. “You must run, Claire,” Diana had instructed. “The ceiling is going to collapse. I’ll find another way.”
It was impossible for Diana to know how she’d understood this to be true. But sure enough, moments after Claire had cleared the foyer, the ceiling had crumbled, casting its ravenous spits of hungry flames toward her. She’d had to rush upstairs—diving through the hallways, searching for an alternate way out. Sometime around then, everything had turned to black.
Claire crept her way through the other staff to appear at Diana’s bedside. Using her last dregs of energy, Diana burst up to hug Claire, a woman who’d spent her life as Diana’s main confidant and helper. When Diana had been a girl, it had been up to Claire to wash her, to comb out her hair, to tell her bedtime stories. And now that she was older, Diana and Claire operated much more like friends, with Diana insisting that Claire allow her to do the majority of her own bedroom chores—
Of course, this had all been before everything had changed forever.
When the women broke their hug, Claire and Diana blinked at one another, their eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t believe you came in after me,” Claire murmured.
“Neither can I,” Aunt Renata chimed in.
Diana ignored her. “You know I can’t go through this life without you, Claire. You’ve been there through my darkest times. And perhaps this, too, is a dark time. But it doesn’t feel so bad, because we’re all still here. We still have one another.”
Diana’s father was the last to arrive in the sickroom. Apparently, he’d been stationed in the garden, reading a book of poems, when he’d heard the hubbub within the house. Frightened, he’d staggered inside, fearful that perhaps his daughter had—well, he couldn’t possibly fathom her leaving him. This is what he verbalized to them now, his eyes welling with now-familiar tears as he limped into the bedroom, his eyes hungry for his daughter.
Diana’s brows stitched together. “Father!” she yelped, her voice cracking.
“Diana,” her father whispered. He perched at the edge of her bed, gripping his cane with both hands. He beamed at her. Although there were at least ten other people in the room, it seemed he didn’t recognize them, didn’t care. In his mind, it seemed that it was only him and his only living daughter, there on that bed. “I was so frightened that…”
“I know, Father,” Diana murmured, knowing fully the weight of losing a family member. “You know I couldn’t leave you behind.”
After a pause, her father turned his eyes toward Ernest. “He’s hardly left your side since he saved your life, you know,” he uttered, clearing out his throat. “There was no stopping him when he burst into that house. My Lord, the way you clambered up that tree—I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Ernest’s cheeks flashed red. He allowed his shoulders to droop. “It was the least I could do.”
“You didn’t owe us a thing, and you’ve given us so much,” said Lord Harrington. “There’s no possible way that we can ever repay you. I hope you understand that. We’re forever in your debt. And in the wake of your father’s death, as well. You’re dealing with your own burdens. It pains me to know that we might be adding to them.”
“That’s not it at all,” Ernest assured him. “Rather, it’s been a welcome relief, knowing that I can care for others, when there was so little I could do regarding my father’s brief illness.”
Now, Ernest rose, giving Diana a final, almost longing look. He strode out of the room, with the servants making a sort of river, a path for him. “I’ll allow you time to catch up,” he said finally, before continuing down the hallway, disappearing into the belly of his mansion.
A Seductive Lady Rescued From Flames (Historical Regency Romance) Page 5
