“Everyone please take your seats!” she called out, clapping her hands together to punctuate the command. “Cook has outdone herself with the meal so Rocky and I ask that you eat, drink, and be merry as this will be our last formal dinner for quite some time!”
Having endured far more formal affairs than she cared to remember, Dianna knew this particular gathering was anything but formal. The mood was too light, the smiles too jovial. As everyone sat around the table they laughed and exchanged broad winks, chortling at some inside joke or another.
Beside herself, Charlotte, Abigail, and Reginald they were joined by a middle-aged couple whom Dianna vaguely remembered from the wedding and two other women who she knew not at all. It didn’t matter. Everyone was in celebratory spirits and as the wine flowed freely those who had been strangers at the beginning of the first course were fast friends by the end of the third.
Careful to drink only water spritzed with lemon, Dianna soon relaxed enough to join the conversation, and even found herself laughing once or twice, mostly at Abigail whose antics were rapidly approaching the outrageous though no one seemed to mind. She couldn’t keep herself from glancing at the empty chair across the table, however, and as the evening dragged on it became more and more conspicuous until at last the cook, a curly haired woman with laughing brown eyes and a girth as big as her smile, sat down to much applause.
“Excuse me.” Leaving her bread pudding mostly untouched, Dianna stood up. No one seemed to notice except for Charlotte, who grabbed her arm as she passed and brought their faces side by side.
“Are you alright?” she whispered, the corners of her mouth tightening in concern. Following Dianna’s gaze to the chair that should have been occupied by Miles, she uttered a short, explosive curse. “I am so sorry, Di. I never should have invited the bastard. I do not know what I was thinking.”
“It is not your fault,” Dianna said automatically even though it was, at least to some small degree. Still, she harbored no ill will towards her dearest friend. Charlotte had only been doing what she thought was right. Having found her own happily-ever-after, she wanted the same for Dianna.
Unfortunately, Dianna was quickly discovering some things, no matter how badly you wanted them, were simply not meant to be.
“Stay for the rest of dessert,” Charlotte urged with a coaxing smile. “Being in the company of others will help cheer you up and take your mind off him.”
“I think it is best if I retire early,” Dianna said with a tiny shake of her head. “Especially if we are to depart for London at first light.”
“As you wish.” Charlotte kissed her cheek. “Sleep well, sweetling.”
Time and distance, Dianna thought as she slipped out a side door and, wanting to get upstairs without being noticed, used the narrow servant’s staircase off the main pantry. That was what she would need to get over Miles.
All things considered, it was actually a good thing he had not come tonight, for his appearance would have only spurred her secret hope for a reconciliation to new heights, when in truth there could be no future for them. She saw that now. Any dreams to the contrary had been merely that: dreams, no more substantial than mist rolling across the field in the morning or smoke trickling out of a chimney at night.
Ringing for a maid to help her undress, Dianna stood in contemplative silence while the hooks to her gown were undone and the stays of her chemise loosened. When the maid asked if she would like a bath to be drawn, she shook her head.
“Only a basin of warm water, please.”
Washing her face by candlelight, Dianna glanced up at her reflection in the looking glass, studying the tilts and curves of her countenance with a critical eye. Devoid of artificial pigments and glittering jewels she found her face to be almost painfully plain. With the exception of her blue eyes and blonde hair - the color combination currently all the rage according to the ton - there was nothing striking about her features. Oh, she supposed her complexion was without blemish, but then many other women’s were as well. There was nothing remarkable about the height of her cheekbones. Nothing memorable about the angle of her jaw. Nothing notable about the curve of her lips.
Was it any wonder Miles did not want her?
At the sobering thought her mouth pinched tight. Ladies, she instructed herself sternly, do not feel sorry for themselves.
Dianna may not have been sensationally beautiful like Charlotte with her flame colored hair, but enough men had expressed a passing fancy to let her know she wasn’t completely undesirable.
“I could have a husband,” she told her reflection assertively. If I wanted one.
The words she couldn’t make herself say aloud, even to an empty room, weighed heavily on Dianna’s shoulders as she donned a plain white nightgown and slipped into bed. A cool breeze, bringing with it the scent of leaves and freshly turned soil, blew in from an open window, brushing across her exposed flesh and leaving goosebumps in its wake.
Feeling restless, she rolled to her side and then her stomach before finally settling onto her back, arms crossing beneath her head as she stared blindly up at the ceiling. Moonlight danced across the plaster, bringing a silvery glow to the room long after the final candle sputtered out. Still she remained awake, unable to sleep with so many conflicting emotions swirling inside of her.
Charlotte had been right when she said Dianna was keeping herself closed off. Whether unwittingly or not, she’d ended up devoting the past four years of her life to Miles.
She could have forgotten him after he left. She could have moved on. She could have married another man and been raising a brood of children. But she did not, and she had not, and surely, surely that meant something.
Or perhaps, Dianna thought with a defeated groan as she draped a forearm across her face, it simply meant she was a fool, and Miles a scoundrel, and she’d wasted nearly half a decade being in love with a man who was incapable of loving her in return.
Chapter Twelve
Tap.
Tap. Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Opening her eyes to the sound of something striking the window beside her bed, Dianna blinked groggily, momentarily disoriented as she grappled with her surroundings in the dark.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“What in the name of heaven…” Casting the covers aside, she padded barefoot to the window, one hand reaching out to balance on the spherically shaped mahogany bedpost. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could just barely make out the silhouette of someone standing in the bushes beneath her window, a glass lantern at their feet and what appeared to be a small stone clenched in their upraised hand.
Dianna jumped when the stone struck the window. Jumped again when the mysterious trespasser lifted his head… and she found herself staring down into a pair of achingly familiar green eyes.
A hot flood of anger washed through her, giving her the strength necessary to grip the heavy window ledge and yank it halfway open. A gust of breezy autumn air rushed in and lifted her hair from the nape of her neck, but did nothing to cool the flames of her temper.
“What the devil are you doing here?” she hissed, glaring down at the man she would have shyly welcomed into Ashburn Manor if he’d but only showed when he said he would. Now it was too late, and Dianna was not interested in hearing moonlight excuses.
“I needed to see you.” Miles’ voice, smooth as velvet and hard as iron, rang boldly through the night, causing Dianna to flinch and glance behind her at the door.
“Be quiet, everyone is sleeping.” At least, she hoped they were. Otherwise she would have the devil’s own time explaining why the Earl of Winfield was standing outside her bedroom window in the middle of the night. “And go away,” she added belatedly. “You are not welcome here.”
Fishing a crumpled piece of paper from his coat pocket, he held it up for her to see. “This invitation says otherwise.”
“The invitation was for dinner, which has long since passed.”
His teeth flashe
d in a wolfish grin. “Then it seems I am just in time for dessert.”
Dianna’s fingers tightened on the windowsill, neatly tended nails digging crescent shaped furrows into the painted wood. “Go away,” she repeated. “Now.”
“I am sorry for waking you,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic, “and I would leave if I could. Truly. But I cannot.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I can’t get you out of my head,” Miles said before, to Dianna’s shock and dismay, he kneeled down on one knee and gazed up at her with arms outspread.
“If you begin quoting a romantic sonnet,” she threatened darkly, “I am going to retch out this window and it will land right on your head.” It wasn’t the most ladylike of declarations, but having been roused in the middle of the night by the man she’d fallen asleep cursing, Dianna wasn’t feeling very ladylike.
“I think we both know I am not the romantic sort,” Miles drawled.
Dianna could have pointed out that being on bended knee outside her window with the moon hanging heavily overhead indicated otherwise, but this time she managed to bite her tongue. Perhaps it would be best not to nettle him, especially if she wanted him to leave. Which she did. Immediately. It seemed the longer she was in his presence the more traitorous her thoughts became and the more her heart threatened to overrule her head.
“Then what are you doing?” she asked in exasperation.
“Asking for your forgiveness. I had every intention of attending dinner tonight, but Vesper fell ill with a fever.”
Dianna’s shoulder stiffened. She didn’t want to care. She didn’t even want to ask. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Vesper?”
“My horse.”
His horse. Not a mistress or some woman he had seen tonight instead of her. Dianna hated that she felt a flicker of relief. “Fine,” she said with a magnanimous sweep of her arm, “you are forgiven. Now leave.”
Though he stood up, Miles made no attempt to turn around. “We need to speak.”
She began to lower the window. “It is not the time or the place.”
“I am coming up,” he said as though she’d not spoken a word.
Dianna’s eyes widened in shock when he placed a foot on the wooden trellis under her window and, without further warning, began to climb. “What are you - you will do no such thing! Miles Radnor, do not dare come up here!”
He paused with one hand stretched above his head and the other hooked below it. Shiny green leaves tickled his chin. “Then come down here. Either way, we are going to have a conversation.”
“But I do not want to,” she said stubbornly.
Miles chuckled. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression you do not always get what you want?” he asked with a quiet chuckle.
“Yes,” she said stiffly. “I believe I am quite well acquainted with that particular saying.”
Silence fell between them, sharp and sudden. “A few minutes of your time,” he said, his smile slowly fading. “That is all I ask. Please, Dianna.”
The ‘please’ gave her pause. If Miles had ever used that particular word before, she couldn’t recall. And it wasn’t as though he was giving her very much choice in the matter. She didn’t doubt for one moment that he would climb through her window and the only thing worse than being caught with him outside in the middle of the night was being caught with him in her bedroom!
“Very well,” she said with great reluctance. “I will speak with you. But do not come up here. I will be down in a minute.”
More frustrated with herself than with him, Dianna shoved the window closed and stepped to the side of it, spine pressing flush against the wall as she allotted herself a moment to find her composure.
If there was ever a time to be strong, it was now. She needed to hold fast to her anger, for at the moment it was the only thing standing between hating Miles… and leaping into his arms.
Wrapping a silk dressing robe around her nightgown and cinching it at the waist, she started to fluff a hand through her hair in an attempt to bring some semblance of order to the pale mop of curls only to stop abruptly when she realized what she was doing.
Agreeing to meet Miles in the moonlight was one thing. Trying to improve her appearance beforehand was quite another.
He is not a suitor you need to impress, she reminded herself sternly. He is… He is… Well, she couldn’t be exactly certain what he was, but she did know what he wasn’t.
He wasn’t a man she had any interest in.
He wasn’t a man she wanted to marry.
He wasn’t a man she wanted to kiss.
And she was a rotten liar.
Five minutes. That was all the time she needed to give him. Then in the morning she would be off to London, and Miles Radnor would be nothing more than a distant memory.
Forgetting shoes until it was too late to turn back, Dianna hurried barefoot down the hall, the long train of her violet dressing robe trailing behind her as she used the servant’s staircase yet again. Not daring to light a candle for fear of waking someone, she used the moonlight shimmering in through the many windows to guide her, silently thanking Aunt Abigail for her innate dislike of curtains.
Pulse racing and heart pounding, she slipped out of the manor using a side entrance and navigated a stone walkway on tiptoe until she came around to the side of the manor where Miles stood waiting.
She made nary a sound as she approached but he turned nevertheless as though he could somehow sense her presence. With the lantern at his back his expression was shadowed, making it impossible to read. Remaining on the path just out of arm’s reach, Dianna drew the silk robe a bit more tightly around her shoulders. “Well,” she said, careful to keep her tone reserved, “what do you wish to talk about?”
Instead of answering her Miles took one step forward, then another. His dark gaze was intent. Every muscle in his body coiled and ready to spring.
Feeling very much like a tiny rabbit run to ground by a hungry wolf, Dianna tensed and prepared to flee, but before he reached her Miles stopped short, long, muscular arms stiffening at his sides.
“You are stunning,” he said hoarsely. “Absolutely stunning.”
“I did not come here for empty compliments,” she countered, ruthlessly ignoring the tiny tug on her heart his words invoked. “Either speak your mind, or be gone.”
“It was not an empty compliment. You were always pretty as a girl, but now you’re beautiful as a woman. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I’ve traveled the world over, and never witnessed your equal. Never even come close to it.”
Though her cheeks flushed, Dianna refused to allow her resolve to weaken. Words were one thing, actions were another, and Miles’ past actions spoke louder than his present words ever could. “I will give you one more chance to tell me why you have come here tonight, and then I am going to wake the staff and have you escorted off the property.”
Instead of being intimidated by her threat, however, he seemed to find it amusing and when his mouth curved in a devilish grin Dianna’s tiny hands curled into fists of exasperation. “You cannot keep doing this, Miles!”
“Doing what?” he asked, the very picture of boyish innocence.
“Showing up where you are not wanted!” she cried, momentarily forgetting they were standing out in the open where anyone could overhear them. “I waited for you for four years. Four years! Tonight I waited for you again. And you did not come. I am tired of waiting, Miles. Tired of hoping. I will not do it. Not anymore.” Her chin lifted. “I deserve better than that. I - I deserve better than you.”
“I know you do,” Miles said softly. “I know you do. You always have.” He closed the distance between them and gently took hold of her wrist, the rough pad of his thumb moving in gentle, soothing circles across her sensitive flesh. “Yet sometimes we do not get what we deserve, and sometimes… sometimes we get more.”
Staring down at his hand as it began to slowly travel up the length of her arm, Dian
na felt transfixed and utterly powerless against the sudden need building inside of her. A need that whispered of great passion and lust unfulfilled. A need that filled her mind with all sorts of wicked thoughts. A need she didn’t want… but was helpless to resist.
His fingers skimmed up and over her shoulder, tracing the sharp blade before gently closing at the nape of her neck. She felt his touch like a lick of flame dancing across her flesh, and gasped aloud when his other hand went to her waist and he drew her hard against him.
“Beautiful,” he repeated huskily, running the back of his fingers across one pale cheek before placing his thumb against her bottom lip, following the contours before settling in the middle and pressing down ever-so-slightly.
Dianna didn’t think, she only reacted. Her mouth opened and Miles slipped his thumb inside to the first knuckle. He groaned as she circled the digit with her tongue, gaze never leaving his, taking dark pleasure in seeing his pupils widen.
She tasted salt, and then she tasted him as he replaced his thumb with his mouth.
The kiss was all consuming, a complete assault on Dianna’s senses that she did not have the strength to withstand. Yes, her body moaned, silencing the feeble protests of her mind. This is what I want. This is what I’ve always wanted.
Miles dragged his fingers through her hair, short nails scraping against her scalp before he pulled her head back, affording him unfettered access to her mouth and neck which he took full advantage of.
His mouth scorched her flesh as he dragged her harder against him, hands sweeping down the curves of her body before coming between them to cup her breasts, thumbs flicking across her hardened nipples through the thin layer of her dressing robe.
Only when he began to pull at the bodice of her nightgown, baring her to the moonlight as though she were some pagan goddess of old, did some semblance of rationality return to Dianna. With a gasp she wrenched free of his embrace and stumbled back, dragging the fluttering edges of her robe up and over her chest.
London Ladies (The Complete Series) Page 45