Diamond Dreams

by Sandra Heath

Her shoulders shook as she choked back fresh sobs; then before he knew it, she’d pulled the bedclothes aside and flung herself down to curl against him, flesh to flesh. Her little whimpers seemed all that were innocent, but the same could not be said for her roaming hand, which somehow, by accident of course, came to rest against his groin. Her breath caught, and a delicious shiver passed through her.

  “Oh, Athan, Athan, please make me yours,” she begged, her lips moving against his shoulder.

  He closed his eyes. It was Ellie he wanted, Ellie who’d stirred his body so that desire pulsed fiercely through him; but Fleur was here, yearning for him to take her....

  Chapter Twenty

  Athan believed Fleur was being carried away by erotic feelings unknown to her before now. She pressed to him so that he felt the brush of her nipples, and her fingers, trembling and tentative, moved toward his virility.

  “Let me show you the sort of wife I will be,” she whispered. “Let me prove that you do not need Caroline’s likeness to know happiness again.”

  “Fleur, this really isn’t right,” he said, beginning to pull away from her, but her perfume was like an opiate to his resistance, and to his shame he allowed her to coil around him like a serpent. She put her lips to his in a kiss that was meant to convey a confused, irresistible yearning, but that actually revealed how very long it had been since she’d known virginity.

  He was even fooled by her shuddering little gasps as her fingers ventured to enclose his virility, for her actions weren’t those of a chaste young woman driven instinctively by overpowering love and desire, but the skills of a calculating woman of the world. Fleur knew that if she could seduce him now, then nothing could halt their marriage. She would be compromised beyond redemption, and he’d have to marry her.

  But just as temptation had the better of him, and he was about to slake the tormented need he had for Ellie, he glanced again at the portrait in the other room. His arousal faded into shame, and he rolled away to get out of the bed on the other side. The moon was pale upon his lean but muscular body as he went to put on his dressing gown, which lay at the bottom of the bed.

  Fleur was shaken. She had been so sure of him, so certain he’d passed beyond the point of no return ... and now this.

  Still doing up the dressing gown, he came to look down at her. “I think it best if we forget all about this, Fleur.”

  “Forget it? But that’s not possible,” she replied, pretending to look stricken to the point of heartbreak. She was genuinely shaken by her failure, so it wasn’t too difficult to feign.

  “Then you must pretend to forget it,” he said, beginning to regain his proper wits, “for that is what I intend to do. When we meet at the breakfast table tomorrow, there will not be a word about tonight. Is that clear?”

  “How cruel you are,” she whispered, and slipped from the bed to don her robe.

  “This is for the best,” he said again. “The fact that we are to be man and wife doesn’t allow us to flout the rules as we choose.”

  She paused. “We’re still to be married?”

  “Nothing has changed.”

  Her green eyes took on a different light. “Then I am content,” she said softly. “I do love you, Athan. I know ours is supposed to be a marriage of convenience more than anything else, but I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  He hesitated, then took her hand and raised it briefly to his lips. “I’m touched to be so honored, and flattered that you came to me like this, but it would be wrong.”

  Her fingers closed timorously over his. “I know that now. Do you forgive me?”

  He smiled. “There is nothing to forgive.”

  She bit her lips, blinked back tears, then hurried from the apartment.

  Racked with remorse, Athan remained by the bed. Fleur—and her mother—were dependent upon him, and had become his responsibility in every sense of the word. He loved Ellie, and always would, but he owed a debt to General Tudor that had to come before a quest for personal happiness.

  Even now, just when he’d found Ellie again and knew more than ever how deeply and truly he loved her, he knew he would have to give her up. He was obligated to Fleur, who plainly needed him far more than he had ever realized.

  Athan went through into his dressing room and began to select clothes suitable for a ride to Nantgarth through the cold misty air of a March dawn. His heart felt as if it were breaking, and the sting of salt blurred his eyes. Word of his betrothal to Fleur had spread, which meant that any hint of romance with Ellie, no matter how devoted and true that romance might be, would compromise the latter’s reputation, perhaps irreparably. He had to consider Ellie in all this, before he sacrificed both her and his own integrity.

  As Athan dressed for the painful task of ending things with the woman who meant everything to him, Fleur went to speak to her mother. Mrs. Tudor was pacing nervously up and down in her apartment, waiting for the clock to point to half past the hour.

  This was the time Fleur had reckoned to be in Athan’s bed, his seduction underway or possibly even accomplished, so that her shocked mother could walk in and discover them in flagrante delicto. Fleur’s sudden return was therefore quite a shock. “Fleur? But, I ... I thought ...” she began.

  “So did I, Mama, so did I,” Fleur hissed, “but as you can see, I did not achieve what I set out to do.”

  “Oh, dear. Well, perhaps another night?” Mrs. Tudor ventured.

  Fleur flung away exasperatedly. “Not before I’m married to him, that much is for sure!” she snapped. “And do you know what? When he first saw me, he thought it was her, that ... that potter’s niece! He actually said her name. Oh, I was right to fear her.”

  Mrs. Tudor fell wisely silent.

  * * *

  Veils of mist were draped low over the valley, taking on a luminous hue as the sun began its approach to the eastern horizon. The first birds were stirring—a blackbird in the holly bush, pigeons in the woods, and a bird of prey far up on the mountainside—as Athan dismounted in the alley beside Nantgarth House.

  He wore a caped greatcoat over a brown coat and fawn breeches, his shirt was undone at the throat, and beneath his top hat his hair was disheveled. During his hectic ride down from the castle he had wondered over and over what he would say to Ellie. What words could possibly convey the utter desolation he felt?

  Would she understand? Would she think he was callous and unfeeling? Would she accept that this was the hardest decision he had ever had to make? How could she ever forgive him, when as God was his witness he knew he could never forgive himself?

  He paused by his sweating horse, then removed his gloves and hat, and rested them on the wall. Then he took off his heavy coat, and tossed it beside them. “Oh, Ellie, Ellie, my love,” he whispered, glancing up at the darkened window which he knew from Gwilym belonged to Ellie’s room.

  His heart was a millstone within him as he went around to the gate and up the path, pausing halfway to gather a handful of earth from a flower bed. He tossed it up at the window, then waited, but the moments passed without anything happening. So he threw another handful, and this time Ellie’s face, pale and sleepy, peered cautiously out.

  She saw him, and her lips parted. He gestured for her to come down to the back of the house, then retraced his steps around to the alley, past his horse, and down to the wharf, where an empty barge was moored. His boots seemed inordinately noisy on the steeply rounded cobbles, but there was no one around, and the canal was as still as a mirror, its surface reflecting the changing light of the predawn sky. He waited outside the double doors of the cellars, listening for the first sounds within that would tell of Ellie’s approach.

  It was then that he heard the canal water swirling and gurgling, and when he turned he saw that the surface had broken up into something akin to a whirlpool. He took an involuntary step backward as water splashed between the barge and the wharf; then his breath caught as something long, lithe, and silvery leapt out of the whirlpool and twisted in the air abo
ve the water, before plunging down out of sight once more.

  What was it? An eel? A shiver passed through him, for although he knew there were eels to be found in the canal, he couldn’t even begin to explain away the whirlpool. No mere eel, no matter how large, could cause such an effect. For a moment he wondered if the canal had somehow sprung a leak, but he knew that couldn’t be.

  A leak was a leak, and wouldn’t stop and start as this had done. He went cautiously to the edge of the wharf. The black satin water was without a ripple, and he could see his reflection against the sky.

  Then he heard a sound from the cellar doors behind him, and turned swiftly to see candlelight shining beneath them. Then he heard the bolts being pulled back, and at last she was there, her curls in a sleepy tangle, her nightgown white in the shadowy light. There was a warm woolen shawl around her shoulders, and she’d placed the candle on the trestle behind her, so that she was silhouetted against the glowing flame.

  “Athan? Why have you come here like this? If my uncle should awaken and discover us—”

  He went quickly to her. “Forgive me, I know this is wrong and that I ask much of you, but I simply had to see you.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Her face was in shadow, but the candlelight was bright upon her hair.

  “Oh, Ellie, Ellie,” he breathed, submitting to temptation one last time by taking her in his arms and seeking her lips. Kiss me, kiss me, my darling love, for this must be goodbye....

  His mouth was tender, yet imperative, and he held her to him, consigning to memory every beloved curve of her body. For these few moments he could set duty and obligation aside and be true to the love that had come into his darkness like a beacon. He worshipped Ellie Rutherford, and were he to marry Fleur ten times over, nothing would change that.

  He dragged his lips from hers, and kissed her cheek, her nose, her forehead, and her eyes, before burying his face in her warm hair and sliding his fingers into the soft curls at the nape of her neck. “I love you, Ellie. You do know that, don’t you?” he whispered.

  She nodded, giving herself to the embrace with an honesty that almost frightened her. She belonged to him, and he to her, but she knew that something was wrong. He would not have come here like this if all were well, and as she held him, she could feel his pain. It was the end. Yes, he had come to tell her they must not continue....

  He cupped her face in his hands and turned her so that he could see her eyes, their blue changed to lilac by the candlelight, and her lips, so soft and tender from his kiss. Thomas Lawrence had never seen her like this, yet had somehow caught her very essence in the illicit portrait that had been the start of all this. “Ellie, there is something you don’t know, something about Caroline. You see, she never existed.”

  “Never?” She leaned back in his arms and looked up at him.

  “I invented her to fend off the enormous field of runners in the Marriage Stakes. Well, when I say she did not exist ...”

  “Yes?”

  “She did, except that she was called Ellie Rutherford, and I fell in love with her when I saw her portrait for sale in a London gallery. The sitter had no name, but I lost my heart to her.”

  Ellie was startled. “Are ... are you saying that the portrait you asked me about at Hounslow really was one of me? That Mr. Lawrence painted a second likeness?”

  “Yes, and I fear it was not as demure as it ought to have been, because the fellow had formed a passion for you. He allowed his imagination free rein, so to speak.”

  She blushed a little. “I see.”

  “I don’t think you can begin to imagine how I felt that morning in Hounslow, when I leaned over that gate and saw ... Caroline come to life. Lawrence is no dunce; he captured your face so bewitchingly that I knew you were she. Chance is an ethereal thing, Ellie, contriving to take me past that gallery on the very morning they decided to display your likeness in their window. Chance also caused me to lean on that gate while my horses were being changed, and there you were.

  “It then took me to the bank, where I actually spoke to you without realizing it, and it showed your face to me again as you were leaving, and again at St. George’s Burial Ground. Now it plays the unkindest trick of all by bringing you to Nantgarth. Chance seems determined to prove we should be together, but fate has other ideas entirely.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Something has happened, hasn’t it? It must have done for you to ride down here at this hour. You’ve come here now to tell me we must not see each other again, because you are going to marry Miss Tudor.”

  Her perception cut through him like a knife, and his throat tightened with emotion. “Forgive me, Ellie,” he whispered brokenly. “Forgive me for hurting you, for loving you, for wanting you so much that I have broken rules and made you break them too.”

  “You did not make me so flout propriety that I kissed you within minutes of our having met,” she reminded him.

  “No, but I knew I was betrothed to Fleur, and so I was very much in the wrong. I stepped willingly and eagerly into a fool’s paradise when I saw you and gave in to my heart, but you didn’t know how false I was being; how false I’ve continued to be.”

  He turned away, and ran his hand wretchedly through his hair. “Seeing Fleur again has forced me to confront my perfidy.” He faced her again. “Not because I love her, so please do not think that, for it simply isn’t so, but she is my responsibility. I respected and revered her father, General Tudor, more than any other man, and on his death he charged me to take care of his wife and daughter. I gave him my word, Ellie, and now I have given my word to Fleur that she will be my wife. That has to be the final word.”

  “I know,” she whispered. Yes, she knew it was the final word, and had done from the moment she’d realized he was to marry Fleur, but by trying not to think about his betrothal, she too had been in a fool’s paradise. In that she had been as guilty as he.

  He caught her close again, crushing her in his arms as if that would keep her with him forever. “In my heart I will be your husband, Ellie. Nothing will ever change that.”

  Her bitterness was momentarily too raw to be hidden. “She doesn’t deserve you, Athan.” Little did he know how true that was.

  “I know you and she do not like each other, but—”

  She wished she’d held her tongue.

  He looked intently at her. “There’s more to this, isn’t there? Tell me.”

  Her lips parted. The words were there, on the very tip of her tongue, but without evidence she knew she must draw back from the brink.

  “Whatever I say, Athan, it will be my word against hers, but you may believe me when I say she doesn’t deserve you. You may feel obligated to her father, but even so I beg you to think very carefully before you exchange vows with her. If you trust Mrs. Lewis and Gwilym, as I think you do, then give serious thought to whether you ought to also trust their judgment where Miss Tudor is concerned.”

  Athan put a hand to Ellie’s chin and made her look at him. “If you know something, anything, I think you should tell me.”

  “Without proof, your honor would still bind you to her.”

  “Oh, Ellie, can’t you see that I am not so honorable that I would not grasp any reed that might save me from a marriage I do not want? Where is honor in that? Nowhere. I am a sorry creature, Ellie, desiring and loving you so much that I actually hope for a way of escape from a match that is of my own doing. And this, even though I now know—” He stopped, and looked away.

  “Even though you now know what?” Ellie asked.

  “That Fleur loves me,” he answered simply.

  Ellie stared at him, then moved out of his arms. “You really think that?”

  He nodded. “I don’t merely think it, Ellie, I know it. She came to me tonight, so terrified that your likeness to Caroline would lead me to cast her aside that she actually offered herself to me. She was crying, and it was more than my conscience could bear.”

  Resentment flared through Ellie, resentm
ent against Fleur, against cruel fate, against him.... “So you’ve come straight here to spare your scruples by telling me to forget you? Well, I take my hat off to her, for to be sure, her performance must have been worthy of Drury Lane.”

  “It wasn’t a performance, Ellie.”

  “Yes, it was, Athan.” Ellie turned away and pressed her shaking palms to her nightgown to try to compose herself, but it was impossible. She was angry, distressed, heartbroken, and confused, and in no state to keep to herself things that in a calmer moment she might never have said.

  She faced him, her eyes bright, her body quivering with barely suppressed feelings. “Maybe what I am about to tell you will make me no better than she is. It will certainly make you think I am a nasty spiteful cat, determined to have you at all costs, but that is a risk I am prepared to take. You see, while your marriage to her remained solely a matter of your honor, I would have found it painful beyond belief, but I would have endured it.

  “But I cannot stand silently by and watch you and your honor being gulled by the lies and mischief of a bride whom I have come to detest. Fleur Tudor doesn’t love you; she loves herself, and I suggest that before you allow yourself to be completely taken in by her pretty tears and protestations of love, you ask her about your friend, Freddie Forrester-Phipps.” There, it had been said.

  Athan stared at her. “Freddie? What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know exactly what I’m saying, Athan, except that two and two usually add up to four.” Emotion swept all before it as Ellie told him what had happened when she was in St. Dwynwen’s Church, and when she’d finished, she held his gaze. “I cannot substantiate anything, Athan, but I swear that it is all the truth. Fleur Tudor really isn’t the sweet, tremulous creature you seem to think.”

  He was so thunderstruck by the revelations that he didn’t know what to say.

  “Which illusion have I shattered, Athan?” she asked dryly. “The one about me, or the one about her?”

  “Do you honestly believe I would think you capable of inventing such a tale?”