On These Silken Sheets

by Sabrina Darby

  “If I weren’t so near my confinement,” Mary complained, “we could go into Exeter. Perhaps to one of the assemblies at The Hotel, but you know how it is for a woman when she is in my condition.” Her dark eyes flittered toward Diana as if sharing a secret. “Oh, but perhaps you’ll marry again and then know. You are still young after all.”

  “Perhaps,” Diana admitted, unwilling to let the woman goad her. For the sake of her father she would be polite. For the sake of her little brother and whatever new sibling would be born in three months’ time.

  “I’m sure you’ll be such a help when there are two babes,” Mary continued. “If you’ll condescend to stay so long. To be sure, you’ll be wishing for a more lively place.”

  Diana sighed. Mary wanted her gone. She rather thought her father did as well. Although he was perfectly happy to accept the money she had sent over the years. Even Diana wanted to leave. The only reason she dawdled was that she hadn’t the faintest idea where to go.

  Last year this time, in the middle of October, she had left Brighton to return to London. Then she had spent all of December at the Ashburtons’ annual house party at their country seat in Sussex. Most definitely she would not attend this year and she was equally loath to return to London.

  So where? Sighing again, Diana tried to focus her mind back on the line of stitches before her. She’d go wherever she didn’t need to think.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Diana accepted Maggie’s invitation to join her and Oakley for the season in Bath. Within minutes of arriving at the spacious house at the top of the hill, she knew it had been the right decision. For three months, she had been running from place to place searching for comfort, for solace, and here it was, in the company of friends. Of family, really, even if Maggie was a second cousin.

  Now, in late October, the house was not so full with just Maggie, Oakley, Maggie’s daughter, Emma, and her stepdaughter, Olivia, in residence. In another month, the rest of Oakley’s family would arrive.

  “Finally,” Maggie exclaimed, closing the parlor door firmly behind them. “I have so much to tell you, and I’m nearly certain that you have much to tell me.” She underscored her pointed look with a raised eyebrow.

  “Marriage definitely agrees with you, Maggie-doll,” Diana said with a laugh as she took a seat in one of the green brocade chairs.

  “Yes, it does,” Maggie smirked. “I’m pregnant.”

  “How wonderful!” Diana exclaimed.

  “I’ve started to show already, but with the extra petticoat I think the bump is rather obscured.” Maggie pulled the fabric taut across her belly to show off the nascent curve. Then, abruptly, she let the dress fall back and turned the full force of her intent stare on Diana.

  “Your turn, now.”

  “I don’t have any news, Mags,” Diana returned, fidgeting despite her usual poise. “I’ve been moldering in Devon, with my father, and the only thing I’ve heard is that our men are going to Spain.”

  “Then you didn’t hear all the scandal about Sir Jason? You never mentioned anything in your letters, but I thought…I thought perhaps…well, after that brawl that happened between him and Sir Robert in Harridan House. Your Harridan House, I thought for sure…”

  “I’m thinking of getting rid of it,” Diana interjected, putting voice to the idea for the first time. Maggie’s eyebrows flew upward, her mouth in a comical O of surprise.

  “What happened?” she demanded. “Whyever are you going to? Is this because Sir Jason disapproves of it?”

  “There’s nothing between me and Sir Jason,” Diana answered truthfully. There wasn’t nor would there ever be. But there had been. For the briefest time there had been something so tantalizing growing between them. Diana didn’t think she could be the person she had been before, the person who hadn’t understood such a possibility existed.

  “Well, at the very least, you owe me a hat.”

  Diana laughed. “I’d forgotten! But of course, you’re right.”

  “In any event,” Maggie continued, “I heard Sir Jason nearly killed Lord Ashburton. Quite a mess it was in Brighton. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Maggie looked at her suspiciously.

  What? The new information sat heavily in Diana’s head. Jason had…had fought for her honor? Was that what had happened? “I didn’t hear about Ashburton,” Diana said slowly.

  “Earnestina didn’t write you?” Maggie said incredulously. Diana understood her cousin’s disbelief. After all, she and Tina had been inseparable for years.

  “We’re on a bit of the outs,” Diana admitted.

  “You do know something.” Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “What happened, Diana? I’ve never seen you like this before.”

  “Please.” Diana held up one hand in entreaty. She didn’t have it in her to protest ignorance, she simply couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. It may have been three months since everything had fallen apart, but she still felt raw.

  “At some point you’ll have to talk, Di,” Maggie insisted.

  Diana simply nodded. Perhaps she would someday, but just not quite yet.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Perhaps we should take advantage of this and enjoy a cup of chocolate?” Olivia asked. They’d been walking back up the hill to the house when the skies had opened up and let loose torrents of rain. Maggie, Diana and Olivia had ducked into a confectionary shop for cover while Oakley went to procure umbrellas.

  Diana enjoyed the rhythm of life in Bath. There was a calming routine to the mornings at the pump room and the evening concerts. Most of her usual set never came to the town and Diana was grateful for that.

  Maggie and Oakley were gracious and entertaining hosts and Diana even found Olivia’s company diverting. Six months earlier, Diana had found Olivia insufferable and a bore. She was one of those girls raised to think highly of themselves because of the slightest connection to a title. However, it seemed as though the last half year had mellowed the girl, had made her deeply appreciative of the new opportunities offered by Maggie’s marriage to Oakley.

  And Olivia was now making the most of the kind of situation the girl would have complained about only months earlier.

  “Lovely idea,” Maggie agreed with alacrity. As far as Diana could tell in the past two weeks since she’d been in Bath, she hadn’t seen Maggie refuse any offer of food.

  “It’s gotten rather stuffy in here,” Diana said, finding it difficult to breathe in the crush of people seeking shelter from the sudden storm. “I think I’ll wait outside under the awning.”

  She made her way through the crowd of people and through the doorway and finally found a small section of relatively dry pavement just outside.

  She avoided, as she usually did these days, looking at any one person. Her gaze swept over the crowd, focusing on the ornate iron knocker of the house across the street.

  The sky lit with a blinding flash of lightning, spooking the horses of the waiting carriages and one reared up in front of her, obscuring the intricate ironwork.

  So she looked down instead.

  And saw the little girl just as the horse’s legs started to come down. Diana didn’t think, didn’t question, but ran forward into the rain and scooped the child up and out of the way, just as the horse’s hoofs touched stone once more.

  She held the girl to her tightly, looking around for who was responsible for the child. Then a woman ran toward her, a terrified expression across her vaguely familiar face.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the woman said, reaching for the girl.

  Diana peeled the child off of her pelisse, finally sparing the girl a look. A shiver ran down Diana’s spine that had absolutely nothing to do with the freezing rain.

  Shocked, she thrust the child toward the nanny. Looking up, looking away, looking at anything but this child.

  “The carriage is just around the corner…”

  Looking at him.

  Oh, my God! Diana thought, staring at Jason, wet from the rain, holding
an open umbrella that he was positioning over the nanny and his daughter.

  He stopped and stared, just as she stared at him.

  It was laughable really. She wanted to laugh.

  “The lady stopped Miss Cassandra from running in front of the horses,” the nanny explained, taking the child in her arms.

  With his free arm, Jason took the girl quickly from the nanny, trying to protect her from the danger that had already passed. That was when the little girl started bawling, as if suddenly realizing the peril she had faced.

  Diana stood there silently, pulling her sodden hat from her head and wiping her wet, bedraggled hair out of her eyes.

  It was too much.

  “You have my deepest gratitude,” Jason said, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

  She blinked back the tears that seemed ever ready these days and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “May I…may I convey you somewhere?”

  “I…I…” she started.

  “Diana, there you are!” Maggie came flying toward her. “Oakley’s procured us umbrellas. He’s waiting with Olivia. But look at you, it hardly matters now.” She stopped suddenly, seeing Jason. “Sir Jason, how pleasant to see you, I didn’t realize you were in Bath.”

  “We’ve only just arrived, Lady Oakley, yesterday,” he said. “Excuse me…my daughter.”

  Then he was gone.

  “Oh, Di!” Maggie exclaimed, taking her arm. “How uncomfortable that was! Come, let’s go home.”

  Diana followed her through the throng of people waiting under the awning till they found Oakley.

  In the warmth of the cozy sitting room, with a dry dress, India shawl and a hot cup of tea, Diana knew what was coming next. There were questions that had to be answered. She could hardly deflect her friend when so much of the story had been laid out before her in the rain.

  “Please, tell me what happened between the two of you in Brighton,” Maggie urged. “You don’t have to have so many secrets. You don’t have to always be so strong.”

  “Strong, Maggie?” Diana stared at her incredulously. “You think of me as strong? Now, when I can’t interest myself in any of the things I used to do? I’m hardly strong. I’m barely even me anymore.”

  “What happened, Di?”

  “I’ve made such a mess of things. But I never knew, I never thought…Maggie, it was all I knew how to be, how Roger made me!”

  Diana poured out the whole story, the seduction and marriage, the lovers and the inheritance. And how Jason fit into all of it.

  “In Brighton, I came to know him, not just as a potential lover but…for the first time I thought I might actually wish to be married again, to have a normal life, to give up Harridan House.”

  Maggie giggled, covering her mouth apologetically and ruefully, Diana smiled with her.

  “I know, it’s hard to imagine, but truly, Maggie, he made me feel it was possible.”

  “It is possible, Di,” Maggie said with no trace of humor, leaning forward intently. “If that is what you wish. It’s all up to you.”

  “And so I thought.” Bitterness laced Diana’s words. “But then I learned that it’s not really possible. Fate seems to conspire to keep me in my place.”

  Finally, choking through the words, she told Maggie about Ashburton.

  Her friend looked horrified but said nothing, and in those painful moments of waiting for Maggie to say something, she knew the last thing she could handle right then would be pity.

  “Well, that explains Brighton,” Maggie said, at last, a wry little smile twisting her lips. “Good for Blount.”

  Diana let out her pent-up breath with a long, shuddering sigh.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jason was in Bath because his mother was in Bath and she wanted her son and granddaughter to spend Christmas with her. Madeline Blount was a simple woman who’d married a younger son of a younger son and had never imagined her own son might inherit any sort of title, lands or wealth. She was grateful that he had, and grateful that he took care of her, buying her a pleasant home in Bath and giving her countenance which she lorded over her friends frequently but without rancor.

  Bath was hardly quiet at this time of year. Society tended to move north from Brighton around Michaelmas. But somehow, Jason had never imagined…Well, he had imagined seeing her again—on some London street, at some London rout, in a dark walk in Vauxhall. The last thought brought a reminiscing smile, which ended in a scowl when he remembered just why he had come across her that night.

  Here, in the stone-cobbled streets of Bath, in the middle of a storm, he had seen her.

  Cassie chattered the entire way back to the house but Jason didn’t hear a word she said. He was still shaking. He nodded and smiled but his thoughts were still out in the rainy street, Diana’s face imprinted over everything.

  He had thought himself over her, had put the whole affair behind him, and…

  But…

  No. He would not think about it. He may have said he would be honest with her, but he did not have to be honest with himself.

  Jason laughed aloud at his own thoughts. Cassie laughed with him, not knowing what he thought was funny but clearly thinking that seeing her father laugh was reason enough to laugh.

  It was stupid, irrational and true. Three months had done nothing but push his emotions down to lie dormant, only to rear up again, fully formed and shocking.

  Three months had done nothing. How was it possible that, bedraggled by the rain, the woman had looked even more beautiful than he had remembered?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Diana slept poorly and then lay in bed late in the morning till finally she asked Julia to draw her a bath. She lingered in the tub until the last warmth had seeped from the water.

  Three months. At the close of any of her other relationships, she would not have waited a week before moving on. Certainly seeing a former lover three months later should register only the briefest smile of memory.

  This hadn’t been the usual relationship and she could no longer deny that.

  More than that, Diana had changed.

  Early in the afternoon, when Maggie was at work on a new reticule and Diana perused the latest fashion plates, Jason called. She had half expected him to come. After all, it was the only polite thing to do and Diana knew that Jason was unfailingly polite.

  The sun-dappled parlor with its cream silk-lined walls and its green-striped chairs felt far too small when Jason entered. Yesterday it had been like seeing a ghost. Today he was all too real, all too male and all too him.

  She struggled to acknowledge him but couldn’t find the easy turns of phrase that should have come effortlessly to her lips.

  “Good afternoon, Sir Jason,” Maggie greeted him. “Such a pleasure to see you again.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Lady Oakley,” he returned.

  “Won’t you have a seat?” She gestured to one of the chairs, the one closest to Diana, and he hesitated for just a moment before he finally sat.

  “I wished to convey my…” He turned toward Diana. His eyes were still blue. Not that they would have had any reason to change, but somehow that constant surprised her, foolish as she knew it was. “My gratitude for your actions yesterday.”

  “It was…of course,” Diana said, lamely.

  “It is terrifying to have one’s child in mortal danger, is it not, Sir Jason?”

  Diana looked at Maggie gratefully.

  “I have a daughter myself. She is six now, which only means she can get into that much more trouble.”

  “Exactly so,” Jason agreed, but he didn’t look away from Diana. She knew this because she felt his gaze on every inch of her body.

  Coward, she chided herself. Look at him.

  So she did.

  “It is an unexpected pleasure to find you in Bath,” he said, as if he meant it, as if three months earlier he hadn’t simply walked away from her.

  “Are you here to take the water?”
she managed to say finally.

  He shook his head, smiling, and she found the expression infectious. “No, you couldn’t torture me to drink that foul stuff. My mother lives here and she wished to see her granddaughter.”

  They sat there for a moment, smiling at each other, until they both seemed to realize at the same time what they were doing.

  “I should be off,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes.

  “Yes, well, thank you for calling.”

  He stood, and bowed to her, then turned to Maggie.

  “Lady Oakley.”

  “Sir Jason, I do hope you’ll join us for dinner tonight,” Maggie said suddenly, smiling at Jason warmly. “I know Oakley would love to have another male at the table.”

  Jason looked uncomfortable. Diana knew without a doubt he would say no. There would be some excuse…a prior invitation, his daughter, a letter he had to write. Perhaps not a letter, Diana allowed.

  And Maggie, what was she thinking, inviting him to dinner?

  “I could hardly refuse such an invitation,” Jason agreed, returning the smile at last.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  That evening, lounging in Oakley’s study after dinner, Jason wished he had refused. He wasn’t quite certain what he was doing. It had been torture to be so close to Diana, just across the table, hearing her voice, seeing her lips, her hair, the dark gaze of her eyes. He’d fidgeted in his chair throughout the meal, wanting her desperately but knowing that he’d given up that opportunity three months ago. Now, closeted with Oakley, he was beginning to feel as though he’d been corralled.

  Jason had nearly a decade on Oakley, but the younger man had a manner that commanded respect, taking his position in life seriously, not as an entitlement but as a privilege and as a duty.

  “I have a fondness for Lady Blount. It was due to her influence that I met my wife.” There was a glint in Oakley’s eye that let Jason know there was a story there, but that was not what the earl intended to communicate.