The Lady's Guard (Sinful Brides Book 3)

by Christi Caldwell

  With that he spun on his heel and marched out into the hall, closing the door hard behind him. The broad oak shook in its frame.

  Diana’s knees gave out, and she sank into the nearest seat.

  Mayhap, dangerous. Yes, mayhap that.

  Chapter 6

  Niall should be breaking up a fight.

  He should be deterring foul play in the Hell and Sin.

  There were any number of other things he should be doing.

  Instead, here he was playing nursemaid to a spoiled English princess.

  An English princess now humming happily some unfamiliar tune as she strolled down the carpeted halls of the Duke of Wilkinson’s lavish town house.

  He’d been here three damned days, and there had been not a single cause or call for alarm. Not an unlocked window. Not a door left agape. Nothing. Even so, here Niall was to remain, until the spoiled chit wed.

  Following behind Lady Diana, the lady now in his care, he scowled at her sashaying frame.

  How long until Ryker was assured of the girl’s well-being? One month? Two? At most, three? God help him. Then he made the mistake of dipping his gaze ever so slightly. Just a fragment . . . and yet enough that his stare landed on the generous swell of the lady’s flared hips sashaying as she walked. Hips that fair begged a man to sink his fingers into and—he groaned. Mad. After three days in this goddamned household, he’d gone and lost his bloody mind. He’d be for Bedlam before this assignment was done.

  The lady paused and angled her head back. The wide smile on her crimson bow-shaped lips was at odds with the calculated grins worn by all the women Niall had dealings with in bed and in business. “Are you all—?”

  “Fine,” he snapped. He lied. He’d not been fine, good, or any variation of the sort since he’d been yanked from his role as head guard at the only home he’d ever known.

  Undeterred, Lady Diana gave a pleased nod, another smile, and resumed her forward march. “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Like fairy-gifts, fading away,” she sang.

  He dusted a palm over his forehead as she continued singing. Adair and Calum would be having a bloody laugh at the sight of it. Niall, trailing along like a dutiful pup after a singing miss, who couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen years old. The lyrical, whimsical quality of her voice was not flawless as one might expect of a duke’s daughter. Instead, she sang with gusto and abandon that made mockery of the title affixed her name.

  “Here we are,” she said, coming to a stop outside a closed door framed by a stone archway. Here they were, just as they were every damned day since he’d arrived.

  The lady shifted the burden in her arms and made to grasp the handle.

  She’d still not learned. “Get out of the way,” he said bluntly, and a breathy gasp exploded from her lips as he shot a hand out, reaching past her. Every day, she visited the same room first. And every day, she made to open her own damned door.

  “I’ve told you at least ten”—thirty-two—“times, I can open my own doors.” Yes, every single room they approached, she always sought to see to that task herself. He opened his mouth to at last deliver a stinging lecture on the perils of a lady, by her own fears and worries, hunted, who’d see to that dangerous task herself, but she gave him a benevolent smile, and he froze.

  He’d done an admirable job of looking at Ryker’s blue-blood sister, but never truly seeing her—until now.

  Her creamy white skin was smooth and unblemished. Her eyes were wide aquamarine pools that put him in mind of a pirate’s tale of the Caribbean waters that Niall had struggled through when he’d first been learning to read. Endless blue depths that a man could happily lose himself in.

  A small, delicate hand settled on his arm, and he blinked slowly, following those long, graceful digits up to the face of the person who’d dared touch him. Worry marred Lady Diana’s features. “Are you certain you are all right? Mayhap you need to rest?”

  Rest?

  He recoiled and wrenched his arm back.

  He’d wager he found the single pampered peer, outside his sister-in-law, who didn’t insist a servant or her social inferior see to that task for her.

  “Have you ever walked into a room and had a man pull a blade on you?” he asked harshly.

  Her mouth worked, but no words were forthcoming.

  “Or stepped inside a darkened space to find the butt of a pistol jammed against your back?”

  She shook her head wildly, and a golden curl slipped free of her chignon and cascaded down her back. “N-no.” A deserved wariness settled into the delicate planes of her face, and, clutching her throat, Lady Diana pressed herself against the wall.

  Of course she hadn’t. He’d already known the answer.

  Most men would feel some compunction in the terror that lit her innocent eyes. Niall, however, wasn’t here to coddle or pacify Lady Diana Verney. Ryker might be fairly confident there was no threat, and Niall was of like opinion, but he was here to look after her. He’d learned as a boy, when a small girl had begged him for a scrap of food and rewarded his kindness with a knife to his side, the perils that came in not being sufficiently wary—of everyone.

  Hand on his hip, his fingers close to the heavy pistol that had saved his life more times than he deserved, Niall pressed the crystal door handle.

  Sunlight streamed into the hallway, momentarily blinding, and he blinked several times to accustom his eyes to the brightness. Withdrawing the blade he kept in his boot, he entered the cluttered parlor. Every last corner contained an easel, table, or chair littered with art and books.

  Hardly the tidy, impeccable room he’d expect in a duke’s household. It had taken but his brief stay here for Niall to determine this was the girl’s sanctuary. It was a place she’d laid claim to, that her father had allowed. Every day she worked like a woman possessed, sketching and painting, filling every spare corner with art.

  As he slipped farther into the parlor and verified there were no enemies lurking, his gaze snagged on a solitary figure sketched upon an easel, and he briefly halted his search of the room. A faint curiosity stirred. A curiosity that went against everything and anything Niall was, and he battled it back, attending to the only task at hand that mattered. Cursing himself for that momentary distraction, he searched under the sofas and behind the carved walnut lounge chairs.

  Moving with a methodical precision, he combed every corner of the sloppy parlor. Reaching the final, uninspected full-length window, he held his blade close and dragged back the gold velvet curtain. Surprising flecks of dust, his only company, danced in the morning sunlight.

  Empty.

  As he let the rich fabric go, it fluttered heavily back into place.

  He turned to give the call for Lady Diana to enter, but his gaze snagged once more upon that figure roughly sketched on the otherwise stark white page. A lone woman in a cheerless brown dress. She stood at the edge of an ocean, with the waves lapping at her skirts. Even in the still imposed by art, Lady Diana had expertly captured the faint tug of the faceless subject’s curls, giving movement in an imagined breeze. He moved closer, peering at it. Pink sands and crystal-blue waters? He scoffed. Pink sand and blue—

  “Can I come in?” Diana’s too-loud whisper slashed across the quiet.

  He hastily backed away from that unfinished painting. “Aye.”

  Ryker’s sister entered. Her gaze went from him to the canvas.

  His neck heated. He’d not been studying the painting. He’d been . . . He’d been . . . Well, bloody hell, he’d just happened to note it in his search.

  Wordlessly, the young lady came forward and deposited her armload onto an already overflowing table. The books tumbled noisily onto the surface, knocking other volumes strewn haphazardly about. She fetched an immaculate white apron that hung from a gold hook in the corner of the room. Niall stared on, momentarily transfixed, as she pulled the garment over her head and co
ncealed her slender frame . . . but not before he detected the stretch of her pink satin dress as it clung to her curves. The lady paused, midtie, and looked to him. “Perhaps you would—?”

  Not allowing her to finish that question, or formulate another, he stalked from the room and took up position in the hallway. Prior to his forced stay, Niall had believed the only thing a lady of the peerage gave a jot about were shopping trips and baubles. Diana Verney, however, didn’t attend a single ton event or venture out onto Bond Street.

  Regardless, he’d not come here to make friendly with a lady. He’d come to do a job. And as soon as he verified there was no threat, Niall would be free of this place and at last be able to return to the only place he’d ever been at ease—the Hell and Sin Club.

  Standing at her canvas, Diana contemplated her painting. Determined not to be bothered with Niall’s brusqueness. Determined not to give a jot whether or not he liked her. Which he decidedly did not.

  She committed another stroke to the scene taking shape. Leaning closer, she squinted at the waters of St. George’s. Something was off in the painting. The books and all the accounts she’d heard of the far-off island had the sands as pink and the waters as cerulean blue. Diana released a sigh.

  For eighteen years of her life she’d never ventured outside her family’s properties. Her mother had so restricted Diana’s movements, she’d not permitted her to set foot outside in the rain without a servant and an umbrella. I am no longer that same restricted girl, under my mother’s oppressive thumb.

  Giving up on her attempts at capturing that paradise an ocean away, she tossed aside her brush and contemplated Niall Marksman once more.

  For all her earlier silent protestations of the contrary, she did care that he didn’t like her. Despite his tangible antipathy toward her, she felt an inextricable bond with him.

  He’d been cast out of the Hell and Sin to see after Diana’s well-being. And she had been turned out of Society for the crimes of her mother. In that, they were more alike than different. As such, even though servants scurried in fear whenever he came down the hall, it was hard to remain afraid of someone one shared something in common with.

  She sighed.

  Alas, there still remained the problem that Niall was always working and at some point decided that meant he stood in wait outside the rooms she visited. Only after he’d done a search of the space, of course.

  The floorboards outside groaned, and she quickly looked up.

  Her heart sank with disappointment as her maid appeared. Just as she always did. At the same precise time. With the same tray of pastries.

  “I’ve brought pastries, my lady,” Meredith announced, with a deferential curtsy. “Shall I place them over”—here—“here, my lady. Next to your”—latest painting—“current painting?” Diana sighed. Close enough. The maid moved with rote steps that came from following the same dreary routine over and over. The kind of routine of puff pastries and powdered tarts that made a lady want to stamp her foot and scream until she gave in to the madness that surely awaited.

  Fighting back the maelstrom of frustration swirling in her breast, she mustered a smile. “Thank you, Meredith.”

  The young servant waited patiently. “Is there anything you require, my lady?”

  Freedom. Fresh air. Friendship. “No. That will be all.” No sooner had the words left her, Meredith was starting for the door. She disappeared a moment later, leaving Diana alone. She glanced over at the silver tray. Two dozen pastries. An amount better suited to a lady expecting callers. Other than when Helena came to visit, the staff had not admitted a single guest in these walls in a year. Untying her apron, she shrugged out of the garment and then carefully draped it over the back of the sapphire-blue Louis XIV settee.

  She considered the tray and then alternated her stare to the doorway. How very quiet he was out there.

  Not Mr. Marksman, as Diana’s father had referred to him. Not Marksman, as Ryker had. Rather . . . Niall.

  This being his third day in the household, Diana had taken to calling the guard assigned her—Niall.

  “Niall.” She silently mouthed the two-syllable word that was his name.

  It had been a very winding process, in coming to her determination to abandon his surname. After all, ladies did not call men by their Christian names. Most of the starchy matrons referred to their husbands by their surnames, Mr. This-or-That.

  In the end, it hadn’t been propriety or fear of impropriety that had ultimately led to her decision, but rather—his surname. Or, if one wished to be truly precise, it hadn’t been propriety or familial connections that resulted in her silent address of Niall, but rather—a painting. A painting that had evoked dark thoughts.

  Sunlight streamed through the floor-length windows and bathed the room in a soft light.

  Settling into the chair nearest the bronze-mounted side table, Diana ignored the pastries in favor of the single book, forgotten until now, resting on the corner. She snatched the book and flipped quickly through, searching for that dog-eared page . . . and then paused. A Battle on Horseback by Gerrit Claesz Bleker. Diana worked her eyes over the page. It was not the crimson-uniformed soldier, arched back, shield up, in his moment of death that intrigued her. Diana dusted her fingertips over the soldiers sketched in the distance. Rather, it was the marksman, so wholly unfazed by the tumult around him. Looking past the man being felled into the eyes of a victim who’d share that same fate. Some distant figure who existed as nothing more than an imagined person, for the viewer and the marksman there to end him.

  Diana quickly snapped the leather tome closed and shoved it aside.

  Niall he would only be.

  Which was a good deal better than the hint of death and murder attached to that surname. In thinking of him as Niall, she’d stripped away some of the automatic fear that came from an aloof stranger who waited outside one’s room and who trailed along in one’s wake.

  She chewed at the tip of her index finger. Mayhap he was one of those men bound by proprieties. After all, how many men, women, and children, regardless of station, treated Diana differently simply because she was born a duke’s daughter? Mayhap Niall simply awaited an invitation.

  Diana sprang to her feet. Collecting the tray, she started for the entrance of the room and then stopped in the arch. With a smile, she ducked her head into the hallway. And her offering went straight out of her head.

  Having made her Come Out more than two years ago, she’d had the opportunity to observe many gentlemen. Not a single man had ever looked like Niall Marksman.

  He stood sentry, like one of the king’s guards, hands clasped behind him and his back just a hairbreadth away from the wall. His solidly muscled frame, poised like a serpent ready to strike, hinted at a man who neither wanted, needed, nor would ever take a break from work until the day he drew his last breath. And even then, he’d likely battle the Devil for a post.

  That ruthless focus trained forward, and then he slid his gaze sideways, taking her in from the corners of his eyes. Not allowing his icy exterior to shatter her calm, Diana placed herself directly in front of him. The aromatic hint of cheroot and bergamot wafted about. It was an odd blend, both masculine and sweet, that filled her senses, momentarily distracting—

  “Wot?”

  Startled from her reverie, Diana curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. “I have refreshments.”

  I have refreshments?

  “I see that.”

  Ignoring the sardonic humor lacing that reply, she tried again. “I thought you might join me—”

  “No.”

  “For pastries,” she said, speaking over him.

  “I said no.” His blunt rejection froze the smile on her lips.

  The tray faltered in her hands. She eyed the confectionary offering she held out and tightened her grip on the silver handles. She might wish for company, but Diana had far too much pride to beg this man, or anyone, to join her.

  After a year of confronti
ng that same derisiveness in the world around her, Diana’s patience snapped. She lowered the tray. “You don’t like me much, Niall.” When he made no immediate attempt to refute the charge but just looked at her through those veiled eyes, she took solace in her safe, comfortable indignation. “You, however, do not even know me. What do you see when you look at me? A pampered princess.” Bearing the burden of her tray, Diana stepped out into the hall. The silver platter shook, and she quickly righted it. That jerky movement shattered all attempt at grace and control. “A precious duke’s daughter?” she continued. How far he’d be from the truth on that one.

  He frowned, the slight downturned corners of his mouth a surprising hint of what-his displeasure? Annoyance? What was it? “It doesn’t matter if Oi like ya,” he muttered.

  No, it didn’t. Or it shouldn’t. But, blast it all . . . it did matter.

  “Listen here, Niall.” She took a step closer, turning the unwarranted frustration on this man. “I’m sure you’d rather be at your club . . . guarding.” Did she imagine the ghost of a grin on his hard lips? “And I’d rather not need anyone assigned to me at all. But I do.” In this instance, and any instance, she’d put her desire to live over any other wants or desires. “So the least we can do is be friendly while we’re stuck with each other . . . sir.”

  “I’m no sir, lord, or even a partly fancy gentleman,” he retorted in gravelly tones.

  It was a bloody good thing she had a blasted tray in hand, because by God she ached to throw up her palms. The stubborn dunderhead.

  “Being born into a station does not determine your worth, Niall. How you treat others and how you conduct yourself, however, do.” Her chest rose and fell quickly, and she struggled to rein in her rapidly spiraling, out-of-control-emotions. It wasn’t his fault that her life was . . . well, her life. She did not, however, have to suffer through his miserable company while he was here.

  He flexed his jaw several times but remained silent, as he’d been since their first meeting. “I shall leave you to your company,” she said evenly, and then, dropping an automatic curtsy, she returned to the room.