Читать книгу The Regency Season: Forbidden Pleasures - Julia Justiss - Страница 16

Chapter Seven

Having fled Green Park Buildings without waiting for a footman to call her a sedan chair, Diana quickly traversed the dark streets, keeping herself into the shadows. Arrived safely at Laura Place, grateful for the enveloping cloak that had allowed her to travel with her gown not fully fastened and to be able to remove it without having to wake up a maid, she crept up to her bedchamber. Knowing she was too distraught to think rationally or worry over what Annie would think of this sudden ability to get herself out of her gown without assistance, she’d shed her garments, thrown on her night rail and wrapped herself, trembling, in the bedclothes.

With her dissatisfied body humming and her mind racing in panicked indecision, she slept poorly.

* * *

Diana woke early, hardly more rested than when she’d laid her head on the pillow. But the last hour before dawn was the only time she’d have alone to think before the household was stirring.

Escaping Alastair and his too-persistent questions last night had been the most temporary of solutions. She was still bound to return to him tonight, where she was likely to face even more pointed enquiries.

She could just tell him everything, rather than waiting for him to trick and dig it from her. But, with Graveston having methodically isolated her from everyone she’d known, she’d lost the knack of making confidences. Besides, how could she revisit those scenes of misery and despair, without the risk that some of the ugly emotions she’d worked so hard to bury might escape the pit into which she’d thrust them?

She was free of that place now, of him. She didn’t want to remember any of it.

She could still send Alastair a note, breaking off all contact.

The possibility tantalised. With no Alastair Ransleigh to challenge her control and distract her thoughts, she could bend all her energies into preparing herself to counter the move from Blankford she knew would soon be coming.

At the cost, of course, of whatever honour she had left.

She tried to talk herself out of that conviction; after all, ‘honour’ was a concept invented by the same gentlemen who wrote the laws allowing husbands to beat wives with impunity, assume control of all their assets and property to use or waste as they chose—and take away their children.

She tried to convince herself, but it wouldn’t wash; she was too much her father’s daughter. The idea that a pledge once given must be followed through, that a wrong done must if at all possible be righted, were precepts ingrained in her from earliest childhood.

But hard upon the swell of despair brought by that thought, a new, much more promising possibility occurred to her. One that set her needy senses racing.

Why not give Alastair what he wanted? What he truly wanted, which wasn’t the sordid details of her marriage, or some sloppy flood of emotion, but her physical surrender. If she allowed herself to respond to him, the nights at Green Park Buildings could be pleasant for them both, rather than exercises in frustration, as she tried to resist his touch. After inciting her to passion, he would be too satisfied and replete for conversation.

Excitement feathered through her, dissipating the lingering fatigue. She’d burned and hungered for his touch during their courtship days, eager for the feel of complete possession. What a dolt she was being, to have been offered that and refused it!

Even better, passion would possess her completely, too, eliminating any thought or emotion beyond the physical. No frustration and anxiety, nor any need either to armour herself against a revival of the love for him she’d buried deep, where its loss could no longer hurt her. There’d be only a firestorm of sensation and then the peace of fulfilment.

Best of all, she knew she could do this. Resisting his touch had been an exhausting, nerve-fraying battle of will. Letting go of that control, her secrets and emotions securely hidden, would be sweet as slipping between silken sheets.

Perhaps some day, when she’d learned to love her son again and figured out how to keep him safe, she might risk remembering the joy of that long-ago spring with Alastair. Their attachment had lacked only physical fulfilment to make it complete. If she claimed that now, in that far-away future she might merge the two memories into one shining, jewelled brilliance of a recollection—the image of a perfect love to sustain her the rest of her days.

She would do it.

Energised, she leapt from the bed and went to ring for the maid. Instead of dreading the dusk tonight, now she was almost eager to see the sun set.

* * *

On the other side of Bath, having also slept badly and thus not wanting to face his perspicacious sister, Alastair elected to breakfast in his room. Sipping his second cup of coffee, he was feeling more like a rational human being when a footman brought in his correspondence.

Idly he flipped through it, then halted at a gilt-edged note. Disquiet stirred when he read the card: Lady Randolph, who before her marriage had been one of Diana’s bosom-bows, had for some inexplicable reason invited him to tea.

Lady Randolph being the same Miss Mary Ellington whom, in the near insanity of his rage and grief after Diana’s stunning rejection, he’d subjected to a most improper, most insulting offer of carte blanche.

He felt his face redden at the memory. Luckily for him, the offended lady had merely slapped his face and sent him on his way with the tongue-lashing he deserved. Had she revealed his dishonourable proposal to her brother, he probably would have been shot before ever making it to his regiment.

Mary Ellington had gone on to make a good match to a viscount’s son with political aspirations, and, by Jane’s account, was now a happily married wife with a quiverful of children.

He’d neither spoken to nor seen her since that disgraceful afternoon. Why would she invite him to tea?

He debated sending a polite refusal, but given the colossal insult to which he’d subjected her on their last meeting, decided that he owed it to the lady to appear in her drawing room long enough to apologise.

Hopefully, Jane’s assessment was accurate, and she wasn’t now a bored wife, looking to take him up on that long-ago offer. Though if she were, he could sidestep it, a manoeuvre with which he’d had a fair amount of practice.

One didn’t earn a reputation as a man who disdained marriage and preferred pleasant, short-term liaisons without attracting the interest of Society matrons long on available time and short on commitment to their marriage vows. Particularly, he thought cynically, when the potential lover possessed a deep purse she might try slipping a hand into.

With Diana waiting for him, he certainly wasn’t interested in another mistress.

But Mary Ellington had also been Diana’s closest female friend. Might she have some insight into what had happened to the girl he’d once loved?

With a sigh, he tossed the card back on the tray and rang for another cup of coffee. It appeared he was going to have tea with the chaste virgin he’d once propositioned.

* * *

More anxious than he’d like to be, Alastair presented himself at the appointed hour at another elegant townhouse on the Circus. Shown by the butler into a salon, he had only a few moments to wait until his hostess arrived.

‘Mr Ransleigh, thank you for coming to see me on such little notice,’ she said, nodding to his bow. ‘Let me pour you some tea.’

Seating himself where she indicated, Alastair held on to his patience over the next few minutes as they exchanged the conventional cordialities.

Finally, he said, ‘If you intend to take me to task over my inexcusable behaviour the last time we met, let me relieve you of the obligation. I behaved despicably, for which I am truly sorry. I do hope you’ve forgiven me.’

She looked startled for a moment, then laughed. ‘Oh, that! No, your, ah, regrettable behaviour then has nothing to do with my reasons for asking you to come today. Or at least, not directly. Besides, we all knew that you weren’t yourself, that soon after the...break with Diana.’

That being unanswerable, he merely nodded. ‘What did you want with me, then?’

She sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure how to begin. Let’s just say that I’m...aware you have recently seen Diana.’

Inwardly cursing, Alastair struggled to keep a smile on his lips. Blast! Did everyone in Bath know he’d encountered Diana?

When he said nothing, she continued. ‘Please hear me out, for what I’m about to say, you could with justification point out, is none of my business. But knowing Diana so well years ago, I felt it important that you know it.’

Hoping what she revealed might shed light on Diana’s situation, but wanting to say nothing that might hint of the renewed relationship between them, he’d not decided what to reply when his hostess forged on.

‘I know how deeply Diana wounded you. It would be entirely understandable if you wished to seek some sort of...retribution, especially as she is now in the city without benefit of husband or anyone else to protect her.’

Nettled, he rose. ‘Are you suggesting, madam, that I would seek to harm her?’

‘No! Not at all!’ she protested, waving him back to his seat. ‘Only asking, if you should be required to have any dealings with her, that you...treat her gently.’

At his raised eyebrow, she rushed on. ‘The manner in which she jilted you was inexcusable, but though she may have captured a duke, save for the son finally granted her, it appears she had little joy of her prize. You may have heard that after her marriage, Diana ignored all those who knew her before she became a duchess.’

‘Jane told me as much.’

‘So it appeared, but it wasn’t true. I was as aghast as anyone after she broke your engagement—and in so shocking a fashion! Though normally, one could believe that a duke’s offer of marriage would be preferred over one from a mere mister, Diana had never been interested in social advancement. I truly believed she was as besotted by you as you appeared to be by her. After the hasty marriage, I was curious, of course, but also worried about her happiness. The Duke of Graveston was known to be a cold, forbidding, unapproachable man. So I called on her...and was told the Duchess did not wish to receive me. Then, or at any time in future. I was shocked, and hurt, of course.’

‘I can imagine.’ Having received just the same treatment.

‘As I was walking back to my carriage—I’d told the coachman to circle the square, as I didn’t intend to remain long—Diana ran up to me. Speaking all in a rush, she told me she’d seen my arrival from a window, slipped out the kitchen door and come through the mews to catch me. The Duke had decreed that since her former friends were not of suitable rank—I’d not yet married Randolph—she was no longer permitted to associate with them. Saying she must return before her absence was discovered, she gave me her love and said goodbye. I—I didn’t know what to make of it at the time, but I do know she never received any of her other friends, either.’

‘“No longer permitted”?’ Alastair echoed. ‘Could a husband enforce such a stipulation? Or was that a convenient excuse?’

Lady Randolph shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her again until years later, after Randolph won a seat in Parliament, and we were invited to a political dinner hosted by the Duke. There had already been rumours that the match was a most—unusual—one, and I was quite anxious to have a chance to speak with Diana again.’

She paused, looking troubled. ‘Did you speak with her?’ he prompted, impatient for her to continue.

She started a little, as if she’d been lost in memory. ‘No, for reasons I will soon make apparent. The Duke came down after the guests had assembled, but as the hour grew later, Diana still had not appeared. Finally, just after the butler announced dinner was to be served, she suddenly arrived at the doorway through which the guests must pass to reach the dining room. She wore a striking white-silk gown with a very low décolletage, but neither gloves nor jewels. Instead, circling her neck and wrists were...bruises, the ones beneath each ear clearly fingerprints. In the shocked silence, she walked up to the Duke, and as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, said she was ready to go in to dinner.’

‘What did the Duke do?’

Lady Randolph laughed shortly. ‘What could he do? I’m told he seldom exhibits any emotion, but those near him said his face reddened. Without a word, he offered his arm—and ignoring it, she walked beside him into the dining room. It was the most magnificent bit of defiance I’ve ever witnessed.’

It was all Alastair could do to guard his expression. To hear of any woman abused would have aroused his anger and pity—but Diana! Sickened, furious, he struggled to find a comment that expressed a degree of outrage appropriate for a former fiancé—rather than a man once again involved with the woman in question.

Giving him a sympathetic look, his hostess continued. ‘I know what a shock that news must be, even for one who no longer has any warm feelings for Diana. It’s simply wicked, what a wife can suffer without any legal remedy, and makes me daily grateful for my Randolph! Sadly, I’ve known several poor souls whose husbands treated them...ungently, and without exception they tried to hide the abuse, were embarrassed by it. And afraid. Whereas Diana flaunted the Duke’s lack of control for all his world to see, embarrassing him. With utter disregard for how he might make her pay for it later.’

The thought chilled him. He’d seen no evidence of current bruises—but her husband might have been ill for months, for all he knew. Had she suffered his hand raised against her through all her marriage?

‘As soon as dinner concluded,’ Lady Randolph continued, ‘the Duke took her arm and escorted her upstairs, saying she was feeling “indisposed”, then returned to his guests.’ She shuddered. ‘I hesitate even to imagine what must have happened later. In any event, it was the last time I saw her. Soon afterward, the Duke took her to Graveston Court, and though he returned to London for Parliament and occasionally entertained there, she never again accompanied him. I heard from guests who dined with them before her banishment that she always conversed freely at table, giving no deference to the Duke or his opinions, pointing out discrepancies as she saw them in his arguments or those of his Parliamentary supporters.’

‘Not an ideal political wife,’ Alastair observed, before his own words came out of memory like a stiletto to the chest: You shall have to marry me, rather than some dandy of the ton, for as impossible as you find it to prevaricate, you’ll never be fashionable.

Anguish twisted in his gut. Never fashionable. Never appreciated.

Never safe.

‘Quite frankly, after what I’d seen and heard, I’m rather surprised she outlived him—but ever so glad! Despite what the malicious are saying about her in Bath, I intend to seek her out and offer her friendship.’

To his surprise, Lady Randolph seized his hands and looked up at him earnestly. ‘Diana made a terrible decision that summer so many years ago. But whatever advantage she thought to gain, she’s paid a dear price for it. Paid enough, I think. I just ask that you have pity, and if you can’t forgive her, at least don’t add to her sufferings.’

‘I can assure you, I have no intention of doing that.’

Releasing him, she sat back. ‘Thank you! Since you are a man of honour—most of the time,’ she added with a smile and a pointed look, ‘I am satisfied.’

* * *

Taking his leave a few minutes later, Alastair scarcely recalled what had been said during the rest of his visit, so preoccupied had he been by what Lady Randolph had revealed—and with not betraying by some comment or expression his full reaction to the information she’d conveyed.

Once free of her restraining presence, though, electing to walk back to his sister’s townhouse so he might think uninterrupted, he methodically reviewed her recitation, looking for bits and pieces that fit with what he’d learned himself.

Lady Randolph’s account seemed to confirm Diana’s assertion that she had never confided to anyone else the account she’d given him of being coerced into marriage. Of course, as he’d told her and she’d readily admitted, the story beggared belief. Even her dearest friend thought it was the temptation of marrying into the highest rank of Society that had, in the end, induced her to abandon him.

Had it been?

His certainty about that, already shaken, wavered further as he allowed himself to recall more about the Diana he’d known. The Diana who, without question, would never lie. The Diana who, even now, could not come up with a plausible evasion.

Equally without question, the girl she’d been would have been capable of sacrificing her own happiness to save those she loved.

A girl who, heedless of her own safety, had had the courage to publicly defy a duke.

Suddenly he recalled her confusion when he’d offered her the paints. The confusion of someone who had received so little for so many years, she no longer knew how to respond to a gift.

The confusion of one who only knew what it was like to have what she loved taken away.

Feeling sick inside, Alastair halted at the street corner, mopping his face with a trembling hand. Had he been wrong all this time, wallowing in self-righteous indignation over her supposed betrayal?

Common sense rejected that conclusion, and yet... Like snow silently accumulating on a windowsill, the doubts that had begun creeping in to trouble his assumptions over what she’d done, and why, redoubled.

He had to know the truth.

Little by little, he promised himself as he resumed his walk, with a tenderness and concern she apparently had not been shown for years, he would coax her to tell it to him.

But before that, he’d need to get a pianoforte delivered to Green Park Buildings.