“Stop!” she cried when he took a prowling step towards her. “I… Please. Just stay where you are.”
Chest heaving, Miles obeyed, but the hard clench of his jaw revealed he wasn’t happy about it. “Dianna…”
“No. No.” On a sob she shook her head from side to side, sending her short curls whipping across her face. “That… that was mistake. It never should have happened.” And it wouldn’t have if her head had been stronger than her heart. Feeling betrayed by her own body, Dianna retreated one step further, the back of her heels bumping up against a hard jut of stone.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Miles said harshly. Green eyes glinting like twin shards of glass, he reached for her and hissed a curse when she cowered away, shoulders hunching. “Do not,” he bit out. “Do not look at me like that. I would never hurt you.”
Perhaps not physically, Dianna thought. But there is more than one way to hurt.
“I - I cannot trust you,” she whispered. How could she, when she couldn’t trust herself?
Miles did not hesitate. “I am not asking you to.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“For one more chance.” His dark, tumultuous gaze captured hers, demanding something Dianna did not know if she was ready to give. If she was even capable of giving. “For both of us. I know I have made mistakes, and I know I have hurt you, but I am different now. I’ve changed. I’m not the boy I was. I am ready for things I wasn’t ready for four years ago. I want a wife. A family. You. I want you, Dianna.” He drew a deep breath. “I was careless with you before. I will not be again.”
Overwhelmed, Dianna closed her eyes.
The girl she had once been would have lapped up his words like honey. The girl would have flung her arms around his neck and wept tears of joy. The girl would have forgiven all.
But she was not a girl any longer.
“I made you happy before,” Miles continued in a voice gone raw and ragged. “I can do it again if you only give me the chance. Give me the chance, Dianna. Give us the chance. You felt what is between us. I know you did. I know it.”
“You also broke my heart.” Feeling as though she were being torn asunder, Dianna opened her eyes and clung to the pain he’d caused her instead of the passion.
Passion was fleeting. Here one moment, gone the next. But pain… pain lingered. Pain lasted. And it was that pain, that horrible, soul consuming pain, which she never wanted to feel again. “If you leave a second time, I fear I shall not recover. That is no way to live,” she said achingly. “That is no way to love.”
As her head once again took control of her heart, the need inside of her slowly subsided, like a candle flame flickering down to the wick. Steeling herself, she forced her mouth to say the words that needed to be spoken. The words that would severe the last tie that bonded them once and for all. “I do not love you anymore, Miles.”
Agony flashed like a lightning bolt across his face. “Dianna-”
“If you truly want me to be happy, then you have to let me go.” Decision made, she stared at him without blinking, her mind oddly devoid of any thought or feeling, as though she were a chalk slate that had been wiped clean. “Let me go, Miles.”
“And if I do not want to?” he demanded.
“You did it before. You can do it again.”
He stepped back as though she’d slapped him, green eyes filling with bewilderment. “You were filled with dreams once. With warmth and laughter. With love. Now your heart is as cold as snow and hard as a frozen lake. What happened to you?”
“You did.” Turning gracefully on her heel Dianna walked away without looking back, the train of her robe fluttering silently in her wake.
Chapter Thirteen
Stricken to his very soul, Miles watched the woman he loved more than life itself walk away from him once again. He silently willed her to stop. To turn her head. To give him some indication, no matter how small, that a flicker of hope remained between them.
When he heard a door open and quietly close his heart sank like a stone inside of his chest.
This was it, then. Her final decision. Dianna did not want him, and he would be damned if he begged more than he already had. She’d made her choice… and now they would both be forced to live with the consequences.
Dawn painted the sky in vivid strokes of pink and yellow by the time he returned to Winfield, having forsaken the road for a moonlit ride through field and forest. Carrying the sharp, leafy scent of autumn into the house with him, he began to wearily climb the stairs only to stop short as a dash of movement caught the corner of his eye.
“Harper?” he said incredulously, turning to find his sister curled in one of the parlor’s drawing room chairs. “What are you doing up so early?”
Still dressed in a white nightgown with her long hair confined in a single dark braid and a thick book open on her lap, Harper glanced up at the sound of her name. “The moon was too bright,” she said. “I could not sleep.”
“That makes two of us.” Descending the stairs Miles went into the parlor and sat across from his sister, ignoring her scowl of annoyance. “How long have you been awake?” he queried, noting the two silver candlesticks at her feet, both burned down to the quick.
“What concern is it of yours?” Already bristling for a fight, Harper set the book she’d been reading aside and hunched forward, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I am not doing anything wrong. I haven’t broken any rules.”
Glancing down, Miles saw her bare toes peeking out beneath the hem of her nightgown, reminding him that even though Harper thought herself a woman full grown, she was still very much a little girl, lost and confused in a world where she’d been forced to learn the bitter taste of abandonment far too young. “No one said you had.”
“Then what are you doing here? What do you want?” she demanded, unwittingly repeating the same questions Dianna had asked him three hours prior.
“I want to talk to my favorite sister.” Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his legs at the knee, making himself comfortable. Having been scorned by Dianna made him only the more determined to earn Harper’s forgiveness. He supposed it was to his favor that she couldn’t run from him, for given the choice he’d no doubt she would do precisely that. “Is that so much to ask?”
“I am your only sister,” she said sullenly. “And I do not wish to talk with you.”
Finding his patience for obstinate females had been worn past the breaking point, Miles gritted his teeth and said, “That is too damn bad, because I have a lot to talk about.”
“Well I do not!” Harper jumped to her feet, knocking over one of the candlesticks. It fell to its side with a heavy thud, and the spent wax, jostled loose from its mooring, rolled across the floor. Hands on hips, steam all but pouring out her ears, she ignored the fallen candlestick in favor of glaring daggers at her brother. “And there is nothing you can do to make me!”
Except there was something. One thing. One thing that gave him leverage over Harper that he did not have over Dianna. As the anger in his abruptly chest loosened, Miles felt only love for his sister. Love and the painful bite of guilt, both for what he’d done and what he was about to do. “I can cut you off. I can take away your dowry and leave you without a shilling to your name.”
Harper’s jaw dropped. “You - you would not dare,” she said even as a betraying hint of uncertainty flickered in her eyes. “Mother wouldn’t allow it.”
“She would not have a choice.”
“Fine!” Harper cried, although the tears in her voice revealed it to be anything but. Miles could not blame her for being so upset. Threatening to take away her dowry was the equivalent of casting her out on the street, for a young lady without a dowry was a young lady without any hope of catching a husband or means to support herself. “Cut me off! I don’t-”
“Sit down, Harp,” he interrupted gently, “and listen to what I have to say.”
Mouth still agape and countenance several shades paler than it
had been when he first came into the parlor, she reluctantly obeyed his command. Hands gripping the armrests of the chair until her knuckles gleamed white, she leaned towards him and spat, “You are wretched, Miles. Absolutely wretched. And I hate you. I hate you.”
Had he been this rash and reckless and filled with prideful anger when he was her age? Even more so, Miles thought with a rueful shake of his head. “I know you do, lamb. I know. But I love you.”
“Well you certainly have a peculiar way of showing it.”
He met her accusing stare without flinching. “Just let me say what I have to say. If you still want to go when I am finished, then you can go. I will not stop you.”
“No, you’ll only take away my dowry,” she said bitterly.
“Harp…”
“Oh, go ahead,” she said with a sharp wave of her arm. “Let’s hear it.”
“I am sorry I left you all alone, Harper. When I left England… When I left England I never stopped to consider what affect my actions would have on those I loved. No, that is not completely true,” he admitted, for what was the point of asking for forgiveness if he did not do so honestly? “I did consider it, and selfishly placed my needs above those around me. Above you. Above Mother. Above Father.”
Letting go of the armrests, Harper flexed her fingers and sat back, tucking her legs up and leaning the side of her face into an open palm. It was a pose she’d adopted countless times before, when their relationship was well and she never would have dreamed of saying she hated him. “Above Dianna?” she asked, eyes narrowing as she carefully watched for a reaction.
Finding the sting of rejection still too fresh to comprehend, Miles managed a nod but could not bring himself to speak Dianna’s name. “Yes. Her as well.” Her most of all.
“Why did you do it, then?” Tiny grooves of bewilderment formed on either side of Harper’s mouth as she frowned. “Why did you leave?”
Why did you leave?
It was a question he’d asked himself a thousand times over. A question he hoped he was, at long last, finally ready to answer. “Because I was a selfish bastard not yet ready to face his responsibilities.” He closed his eyes. Opened them. “Bloody hell, I was barely more than a boy being asked to marry a girl I thought of more as a sister than a wife. I wanted to experience the world. I wanted to learn about other places and cultures from traveling there firsthand, not reading about them in the pages of a damn book. I wanted to make my own decisions. To be responsible for my own actions.”
“You think of Dianna as your sister?” Harper interceded skeptically.
Had the girl not heard a word of what he’d said? “Thought. I thought of her that way. But that has nothing to do with-”
“And now?”
“Now I - what does it matter what I think now?”
What happened to you?
You did.
“I think it matters very much, whether you are willing to admit it or not,” Harper said, straightening in her chair and dropping her feet to the floor. Her heels fell with a quiet thud, bare toes curling under until they vanished beneath the hem of her nightgown. “I understand why you left. I even suppose, because I am a generous, kind-hearted person and the best sister a brother could possibly ask for, that I can even forgive you.”
Miles exhaled sharply. “Harper, I-”
“I am not finished. You had your time to speak. Now it is my turn.” Toying with the end of her braid, she fixed him with a steely-eyed stare that took him aback and for the first time since his return forced him to see that Harper was no longer the pig-tailed imp he’d left behind with dirt on her cheeks and an ever-pressing need to follow him wherever he went.
Sometime during his absence she had grown into a strong-willed, intelligent, opinionated adult. It seemed almost impossible that only four years could bring about such a change, but the evidence of her manifestation from girl to woman could be neither denied nor ignored.
One thing did remain the same, however.
He still wasn’t letting her marry until she turned forty.
“I am happy you decided to come home, Miles. Truly. I wish you never left, but I know what it is like to feel forced into a space that isn’t quite big enough. To feel like you are a puppet, and someone else is pulling the strings.” The fingers combing through her braid abruptly stilled. “I blamed you for father’s death, you know.”
The admission, so bluntly spoken, caught Miles like a fist to the gut. His throat tightened, vocal chords seizing. “I blame myself,” he managed gruffly when he was able to rein in his emotions enough to speak. “If I had not left-”
“If you had not left he might have still become sick, or been in a carriage accident, or thrown from his horse. It was wrong of me to blame you, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. People come into the world when they are meant to, and leave just the same.” Harper’s narrow shoulders lifted and fell in an absentminded shrug. “It is not for us to decide who is born and who dies. The only thing we have control over is our own actions.”
“When did you become such a philosopher?” Miles wondered aloud. And when did you become wiser than me?
Harper’s mouth quirked. “I do not have anything in common with girls my age. All they talk about is fashion and men and all the latest trends from Paris.” Her eyes rolled. “So instead of going to tea parties and luncheons and shopping expeditions, I spend all of my time reading. I’ve also taken to writing. Silly stories, mostly, but maybe if you would like to read one…” she trailed off, cheeks flushing with color.
“I would love to read whatever you’ve written,” he said sincerely.
“You would?”
The hopefulness in Harper’s voice tore at his heart. For how long had she gone unnoticed in this dark, drafty house? For how long had she been forsaken by a mother who would rather mourn her dead husband and missing son than spend time with her only daughter?
A young lady Harper’s age should have been out experiencing the world and all it had to offer, not locking herself in a library reading book after book from dawn until dusk.
“Absolutely,” he said with a firm nod. “Things are going start changing around here, Harp. Beginning this very moment. I want you to go upstairs and get dressed. We are taking a ride into town to get anything you might need before we leave for London. Which we will be doing… tomorrow,” he decided impulsively. The Season would not begin for another two weeks, but families often moved their entire households two months in advance of the social whirlwind that took London by storm every October. He’d been intending to stay in the country as long as possible… for Dianna. Now there was nothing keeping him here, and even though he was still not looking forward to playing the part of chaperone - if only because it meant his presence would be required at every bloody social function known to man - he would do it for Harper, and because it would help take his mind off the one woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Tomorrow?” Harper said in dawning horror. “But I do not want to go at-”
“Tomorrow. No arguing.” He held up a hand when her lips parted. Expression mutinous, she crossed her arms and slumped back in her chair. Miles chuckled. “Look at me like that all you want, but you are still going. You should have had your debut last year. I will not allow it to be delayed again.”
“But why?” she wailed. “I hate balls and dancing.”
That makes two of us. “You hated me a moment ago,” he reminded her.
Harper stood up, muttered something under her breath he couldn’t quite hear and marched towards the hall. In the doorway she stopped short, however, and cast him a speculative glance over her shoulder. “I am glad things are changing,” she said after a pause, “but if you don’t fix the mistakes of your past you are bound to repeat them.”
“I will not leave again,” he said automatically. It was the truth. The very second he stepped foot onto firm British soil, Miles knew his wandering days were behind him. He hadn’t lied to Dianna. He did want a wife, and a famil
y. In short he wanted everything he’d run from before.
It did not escape Miles that if he had wanted then what he wanted now he would have it. Instead he had nothing, and no one. Except for Harper, he reminded himself as a fierce sense of protectiveness came over him. If nothing else, he would see her life brought round to right. Something good had to arise from the charred ashes of his leaving, and if it could not be his own happiness, then he would make it be hers.
“I will not leave you again,” he repeated. “I swear it, Harper.”
“That is not the mistake I was referring to,” his sister said cryptically before she disappeared down the hall, leaving a deafening silence in her wake.
Lowering his head into his hands, Miles closed his eyes... and tried desperately not to think of what could have been.
“What does a kiss feel like?” Her cornflower blue eyes as wide as he’d ever seen them, Dianna fidgeted anxiously from foot to foot, twisting the bonnet she held in her hands until it was little more than a crumpled scrap of muslin and bent feathers.
“A kiss?” Miles scoffed even as his heartbeat accelerated inside of his chest. Thump thump. Thump thump. Lifting a long, lanky arm over his head he grabbed hold of a tree branch, calloused fingertips digging into the smooth bark. “Everyone knows what a kiss feels like. I’ve kissed you before, remember?”
All around them people talked and laughed quietly in groups of twos and threes, enjoying the picnic held on the sprawling back lawn of his family’s country estate. For most of the afternoon he’d managed to avoid his pesky fiancée, but after dessert she’d finally cornered him under the long rustling bows of a willow tree.
Dianna bit her lip. “I don’t,” she admitted shyly, peering up at him beneath a dusky fringe of golden lashes. “And you kissed me on the cheek. It didn’t count.”
Miles felt his stomach slowly tighten into one hard knot. Another part of his anatomy was growing hard as well, and he hoped his trousers were loose enough to disguise it. “It feels… good,” he said after a pause, for the truth of the matter was that he’d only experienced four kisses of his own, and none of them had been particularly memorable except for the one he stolen from one of the tavern wenches in town and then only because he’d earned a ringing slap for his trouble. “Do you want to see if there is any chocolate cake left?” he asked in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.
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