Historical Trio 2012-01

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Her youth is no excuse for the danger in which she placed herself and others.’ He no longer waited for Diana to step up into the carriage, but instead swung her up into his arms and carried her inside himself, the door immediately closing behind them and leaving them locked in the dark confines of the carriage together.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Diana immediately began to struggle in Gabriel’s arms to be released, a move that proved totally unsuccessful as he sat down on the padded bench seat with her still held firmly in his arms and the carriage began to move forwards.

  ‘You will release me this instant!’ she demanded.

  ‘No.’

  She stilled. ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ He did not even glance down at her, knowing that if he did so, he could not be held accountable for what happened next. She had deliberately and wilfully placed herself in danger. Had made herself the victim of any action the Prescotts might have decided to take against her. Damn it, she had calmly sat in a room making conversation with Charles whilst the man pointed a pistol at her!

  “Gabriel!” she protested, squirming at the sudden instinctive tightening of his arms.

  He released her so suddenly she almost tumbled to the floor, only stopping herself just in time to scramble inelegantly to her knees. And still he did not dare risk looking at her. ‘Sit down and do not speak another word until we have arrived back at Westbourne House,’ he ordered autocratically.

  Diana sat. Not because Gabriel had ordered her to do so, but because a reaction had now begun to set in at the realisation of the danger they had all been in only minutes ago; her legs were now shaking so badly they would no longer support her. The time she had spent with the Prescotts had all seemed so surreal whilst it was happening, but now that she thought back to the unscrupulous Charles Prescott and the way he had so calmly sat and aimed the pistol he held in his hand directly at her…

  She clenched her hands tightly together in order to stop Gabriel from seeing their trembling. Although he surely could not have missed the pallor in her cheeks, and the horror in her shadowed blue eyes, if he bothered to look at her. Which he did not. Instead, he sat across from her in complete self-containment as he silently continued to look out of the carriage window at the people milling about on the busy London streets. Almost as if he had forgotten she was even there!

  She turned away as her eyes filled with the heat of her tears, blinking rapidly in an effort to stop them from falling down her cheeks. It was humiliating enough that Gabriel had been put to the trouble of rescuing her from the clutches of the Prescotts; she could not bear for him to see her crying at his haughty dismissal of her.

  ‘Diana—’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ She turned, her face flushing with temper as she glared fiercely across at him as he sat forwards on his seat with the obvious intention of doing just that; her humiliation really would be complete if she now broke down in tears at the slightest hint of softening towards her in his manner.

  Gabriel drew in a sharp breath before sitting back against the plush upholstery to resume his previous silence, his eyes narrowing briefly on Diana’s flushed face before he turned away; she could not have demonstrated any more clearly how abhorrent she now found the prospect of his touch.

  Diana was vastly relieved when the carriage came to a halt outside Westbourne House, the groom having barely succeeded in folding down the steps before she moved down them to hurry into the house. Only to come to an abrupt halt in the hallway as Caroline emerged from the drawing room with Malcolm Castle at her side!

  ‘Malcolm insisted on waiting once he knew that you had returned to town yesterday,’ Caroline informed her happily.

  ‘Indeed.’ Diana turned a frosty gaze on that young man. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘I will tell you everything once we are alone.’ Malcolm’s face was alight with his own pleasure in seeing her again. He was a little under six feet in height, with fashionably styled golden hair and a handsome evenness of features, his brown eyes first widening and then narrowing on the man who had just stepped into the hallway beside Diana. ‘Lord Gabriel Faulkner, I presume.’ He bowed formally.

  ‘You presume correctly.’ Gabriel’s tone was even as he inclined his head. ‘If you wish to talk privately with Mr Castle, Diana, then you may use my study—’

  ‘But I do not wish to talk with Mr Castle, privately or otherwise.’ She did not even glance at Gabriel as she instead gave Malcolm a sweepingly disdainful glance, at the same time wondering how she could ever have believed she found his insipid good looks in the least attractive! ‘Indeed, I have no idea what he is even doing here.’

  ‘Diana!’ her sister gasped.

  ‘I believe Malcolm is perfectly capable of speaking for himself, Caroline.’ She gave her sister a quelling glance. ‘Well?’ She eyed the man coldly.

  Malcolm flushed uncomfortably. ‘I have come to beg your forgiveness, Diana, and to ask you to marry me. I made a mistake when I ended our friendship and have told Vera so,’ he continued in a rush as her expression remained distant.

  ‘Then I suggest you return to Hampshire post-haste and beg Miss Douglas’s forgiveness instead of mine,’ she said in a bored voice, ‘for I will not have you.’

  His eyes widened. ‘But—but—’

  ‘But we are no longer betrothed, Diana,’ Gabriel murmured as he stood at her side.

  She turned those frosty blue eyes on him. ‘And?’

  ‘And so you are now free to marry where you also love,’ he explained, scowling at the very thought of her marrying this indecisive young man. Neither was he enjoying being a witness to this conversation in the slightest. Oh, he acknowledged that Diana was perfectly within her rights to want to punish Castle for having ended his friendship with her in favour of a woman with a fortune. But the man had admitted his mistake and was here now pleading for her forgiveness.

  Diana gave a humourless smile. ‘In saying that, are you presuming I am in love with Mr Castle?’

  Gabriel looked surprised. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Of course you love me, Diana.’ Malcolm crossed the hallway to take both her hands in his. ‘You have always loved me—’

  ‘Your conceit really is beyond belief!’ Diana said exasperatedly as she extricated her hands from his clinging grasp. ‘I am going to say this only once, Malcolm, and so I suggest that you listen carefully. I may have believed I loved you once, but I know now that I did not. I have never loved you. I will never love you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You don’t love him?’ Gabriel repeated slowly.

  ‘I have just said that I do not,’ she confirmed irritably.

  ‘But you broke off our betrothal because he’d come back to you!’ he exclaimed.

  She snorted. ‘I did not break off our betrothal at all, my lord—you did! It was very clear you no longer wished to be engaged to me.’

  ‘Diana!’ Malcolm protested.

  ‘Diana?’ Gabriel murmured softly.

  ‘Yes, that is correct, I am Diana!’ She crossed the hallway with a flounce of her skirts, her face flushed, eyes glittering. ‘A warm, flesh-and-blood woman who is tired of being passed between you two gentlemen as if I have no will or emotions of my own!’ She glared from Malcolm to Gabriel.

  Gabriel could only gaze back at her with complete admiration, even though he was still totally bemused by this whole conversation; damn it, he would not have let Diana go at all if he had not thought her to be in love with Castle, would have fought with every measure at his disposal to prove to her he was worthy of her himself.

  She turned as she reached the bottom of the staircase. ‘You, sir, are conceited and lily-livered!’ she told a stunned Malcolm Castle. ‘And you—’ she turned that blazing glare upon Gabriel ‘—are so embittered by the past that you cannot see the worth of marrying a woman who loves you when she is standing right beneath your arrogant nose! Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen. Caroline…’ she nodded briefly to her incredulou
s sister ‘…I wish to go up to my bedchamber now. And I hope not to be disturbed by any one of you!’ She ran swiftly up the staircase.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  He dragged his gaze away from Diana as she disappeared round the corner to turn and look enquiringly at the thoroughly dazed Caroline.

  ‘What just happened?’ she asked.

  Gabriel grinned at her. ‘I believe your sister has at last rebelled against subjugating her own needs and desires in order to please everyone else and has decided to please only herself,’ he said.

  ‘And she was quite magnificent about it.’ Caroline came out of her daze to turn and look pityingly at Malcolm Castle. ‘It would seem that you are not the man my sister loves, after all.’ She began to smile, that smile turning to a chuckle, then to outright laughter. ‘I must say, Gabriel, I much appreciated her comment about your arrogant nose,’ she teased.

  Gabriel was still trying to decide if that remark had really meant what he hoped it had, or if it were merely wishful thinking on his part. Could Diana, after calling him embittered and arrogant, really have also implied that she was in love with him?

  ‘Is that the same innocent cushion as yesterday that you are destroying, or perhaps another one?’

  She should have known that Gabriel would choose not to listen to her wish for privacy—he had never heeded her wishes before, so why should he begin to do so now? She placed the cushion down on the chaise and stood up, her profile turned determinedly away from him. ‘Has Malcom gone?’

  ‘I am sure he cannot have gone far away if you have changed your mind about marrying him,’ he said, testing the water.

  ‘I have not changed my mind in the slightest!’ Her eyes sparked furiously as she finally turned to him. ‘How he had the audacity to come here at all is beyond me.’ She frowned. ‘What do you want now, Gabriel? To reprimand me once again for what happened earlier this morning? Or perhaps you wish to upbraid me for refusing what is, after all, an advantageous offer of marriage for someone as without funds as I?’

  Gabriel’s admiration for her intensified; Caroline had been in the right of it earlier—Diana in this mood was truly magnificent! Her eyes shone as bright as the sapphires they resembled, her creamy cheeks were flushed, her lips red and inviting, and the gentle swell of her breasts was made all the more eye-catching by quickly rising and falling with her agitated breathing. Truly, wondrously magnificent!

  ‘If that is the reason you are here, my lord, then I believe I should tell you now that I do not care!’ she carried on before he had the chance to reply. ‘Either about the Prescotts or Malcolm Castle.’ She began to pace the bedchamber. ‘The Prescotts are both too despicable and too beneath contempt to waste my time discussing them any further, and Malcolm can just go to the devil!’

  Gabriel was fascinated…no, totally mesmerised by Diana in her present mood of rebellion. ‘I totally agree.’

  She gave him a startled glance. ‘You do?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured softly. ‘Diana, why did you ask to be released from our betrothal?’

  Her cheeks flushed. ‘I told you, I did not—’

  ‘Why, Diana?’

  ‘Because you wished to be free of it!’

  ‘I made no such statement—’

  ‘There was no need for you to do so when your every word and action since your mother’s return to health has shown that you no longer have need of or require a wife.’

  ‘And that was the reason you brought an end to our betrothal?’ Gabriel stared at her in disbelief.

  She raised her proud little chin. ‘You have made it more than obvious recently that you have no further need of my company, let alone wish to take me as your wife.’

  ‘An earl is always in need of a wife, Diana.’

  She gave dismissive movement of her shoulders. ‘Then no doubt once you are established back amongst the ton you will eventually settle for some suitable and accommodating young woman.’

  ‘Suitable and accommodating…’ Gabriel murmured consideringly. ‘And what if I would prefer that my wife be strong-willed and courageous rather than suitable and accommodating?’

  ‘Then no doubt you will find a woman with those qualities amongst the ton, too.’

  ‘And if I have already found her?’ he wanted to know.

  She swallowed hard. ‘Then I would say that you have acted even more quickly in finding my replacement than I had anticipated.’

  ‘And if you are the woman to whom I refer?’

  Diana looked at him wordlessly for several long seconds before her back stiffened and her chin once again jutted proudly. ‘I do not appreciate your toying with me in this way, my lord.’

  ‘But you will agree with me that you are strong-willed and courageous?’ he teased.

  ‘You gave me every indication earlier that you considered me reckless and headstrong!’ she protested indignantly.

  ‘It takes a certain courage and will to be both of those things, too,’ he acknowledged ruefully.

  Diana huffed. ‘You are talking nonsense, my lord.’

  ‘I am indeed,’ he conceded. ‘I am discovering love does that to a man.’

  She gave a snort. ‘Appreciative as I am of Lord Vaughn’s assistance earlier, I have no wish to discuss him now, either!’

  ‘Lord Vaughn?’ Gabriel repeated in utter confusion. ‘But—’

  ‘My lord, I have decided that if I cannot have what I wish in my marriage, then I will not marry at all.’ She could see herself years from now, the elderly and spinster aunt to her sisters’ children—

  ‘And what is it that you want from marriage, Diana?’ Gabriel prompted huskily.

  She gave a sad smile. ‘Something that is completely beyond your comprehension.’ Yes, as time passed she would become an aunt to her many nieces and nephews, and no doubt be considered as slightly eccentric by the rest of her family, and as the long and lonely years passed her by—

  ‘Diana, if I were to get down upon one knee and beg you to marry me, would you at least consider it?’ Gabriel suited his actions to his words as he knelt before her and took her hands in his. ‘I have been a fool,’ he continued urgently. ‘A blind, insensitive fool! But I am a blind and insensitive fool who is also deeply, irrevocably in love with the woman who happens to be right beneath my arrogant nose.’

  Diana stared down at him as if he had completely lost his senses. ‘Get up, do, Gabriel.’ She attempted to pull him to his feet and failed miserably as he refused to be moved.

  ‘Marry me, Diana!’ he urged passionately. ‘Marry me and allow me to love you until the day I die and beyond. Say yes, my darling, and I promise I will worship at your beautiful feet for the rest of my life.’

  Perhaps it was she who had lost her senses? Gabriel could not really be kneeling in front of her saying these wonderful things to her! He could not! Could he?

  He gave a choked laugh as he obviously saw the bewilderment in her expression. ‘Dominic warned me of how it would be if I ever fell in love; to my shame, I chose to dismiss his warning.’ He drew his breath in sharply. ‘I do love you, Diana; I realised some days ago just how much. So much, my darling, that my very happiness depends upon your every word and smile. These past days of even thinking of living without you, of some day watching you marrying another man, has been an agony I wish never to be repeated.’

  ‘But you became so cold and distant whilst we were at Faulkner Manor and after we got back,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘I believed you must think less of me because of my blindness to both the events in the past and my neglect of my mother.’

  ‘I could never think less of you because of those things, Gabriel,’ she insisted. ‘You and your family were lied to and deceived by your uncle and aunt, and you could have had no idea of their treatment of your mother. Once you did learn of it, you put the matter right immediately. No, Gabriel, I could never think less of you because of those things,’ she repeated firmly.

  His hands tightened about hers. ‘Then w
ill you not consider marrying me? Will you not put me out of this agony of uncertainty and instead make me the happiest man alive?’

  Diana could see by the lines of strain that had appeared beside his eyes and mouth that he spoke only the truth. The complete, unvarnished truth. Gabriel loved her! Really loved her. He could no more bear the thought of living without her than she could bear the thought of being parted from him!

  She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I do not need to consider marrying you, Gabriel—because I could marry no one else. I love you so very much, my dear darling love!’ She placed her hands on either side of his face as he got slowly to his feet and looked up at him with that love shining brightly in her eyes. ‘Whatever I once thought I felt for Malcolm is nothing in comparison to what I feel for you. What I know I will always feel for you. I love you so very, very much, my darling Gabriel.’

  He could barely breathe as he slowly lowered his head and his lips claimed hers in a kiss that showed her just how deep and overwhelming his love for her was—and she returned it whole-heartedly.

  ‘Everyone will be wondering why we did not appear for either luncheon or dinner,’ Diana said, scandalised.

  ‘The fact that no one has come in search of us shows that Caroline did not leave them wondering for long!’ Gabriel lay back upon the pillows of Diana’s bed, his arms about her and her head resting upon his shoulder as she snuggled into his side, the long length of her golden-red curls a warm caress against the bareness of his chest.

  The hours since they had confessed their love for one other had been ones of pure bliss for both of them, as they made long and delicious love together, and then talked softly of the misunderstandings of the past few days, before making love again. ‘As soon as we have the strength to leave this bed I intend taking you to the best jewellers in town and buying you the biggest sapphire ring we can find,’ he announced with satisfaction.

  Diana glanced up at him. ‘I do not need fine jewels to know that you love me.’