My Reckless Surrender

by Anna Campbell

  “You should still hate me.” She swallowed, her slender throat working, and the next words emerged with difficulty. “Your injuries are my fault. Every moment of pain you’ve endured during the last two months occurred because I wanted something I had no right to possess. Burnley might have given the order for his men to attack you, but the responsibility is mine.”

  “It takes more than a few beef-witted thugs to kill me, my love.”

  She chopped the air in an emphatic gesture of negation. “Don’t make light of what you went through. I look at you and…and I despise myself.”

  “Burnley used you.”

  He extended his hand in her direction, but she backed away across the grass as though he threatened her with violence. Cynicism tightened her features. “And I was so eager to be used. Don’t blame Burnley for my transgressions. You must know I lied to you from the beginning.”

  He frowned, lowering his hand to his side. Awareness of danger lurked at the back of his mind. But right now, Burnley and his minions seemed a minor risk to his happiness compared to the corrosive self-hatred he read in Diana’s face. “Diana, for the love of heaven, let’s put this behind us.”

  Straightening, he gingerly tested his weight on his injured leg. Red-hot pain lanced through him as he released the bough. He gritted his teeth and rode out the agony. At this moment, he couldn’t countenance any possibility of appearing weak.

  He had a question of his own, although he already knew the answer. He was surprised to realize he’d always known it, even when his misery made him curse Diana as a traitorous witch.

  “Was it really all lies, what happened between us in London?”

  “Why should you believe anything I say?” she said unhappily, refusing to meet his eyes and folding her arms in front of her in a defensive stance.

  He fell back on the unadorned truth. “Because I believe in you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” she said in a thick voice, still not looking at him. Her quivering tension made him resist the urge to fold her in his arms and insist he didn’t care about her sins.

  He understood why she wanted his anger. Although he could tell that the turmoil she’d suffered in the last months had already punished her to the point of destruction.

  For a moment, a taut silence extended. A silence broken by her ragged breathing. Then she chanced a glance in his direction. A frown darkened her face, and she stepped closer, although not close enough to touch him. Again, he had to battle the impulse to drag her into his arms.

  “Ashcroft, you shouldn’t be standing.”

  His jaw hardened in stubbornness. “Bugger my injuries. Answer me.”

  “Please…” She drew a shaking breath. “Please sit down, and I’ll tell you everything you want.”

  For the thousandth time, he consigned his physical infirmities to the deepest realms of Hades. “Very well,” he said unwillingly.

  He limped the few steps to a weathered oak bench not far from the graves. He imagined it was a place Diana had often sat during the quiet, lonely years of her widowhood. Carefully, he lowered himself. While he hated to admit she was right, he couldn’t remain upright much longer.

  Biting her lips, she laced trembling hands at her waist. Her tone turned low and intense. “Of course it wasn’t all lies. The desire was always real.”

  “Just the desire?” He tensed as he awaited her answer.

  “And the love,” she said in a choked voice, turning away and staring into the distance as if she made a shameful confession. “I fought against loving you, but how could I stop myself? You’re the man I’ve waited for my whole life.”

  His hands fisted on his knees even as her admission made his heart lurch with raw joy. The craving to touch her was like a scream, but he beat it back. “You still love me. Or at least you told Burnley you did.”

  “Yes, I do love you,” she said huskily. She went on as if she hadn’t said anything extraordinary. “That only makes what I did worse. I could have stopped. I should have stopped. Once I realized what you were like, once I recognized how I wronged you.”

  “You were afraid of Burnley.”

  “No.” She looked directly at Ashcroft, and the stark honesty in her face stabbed him to the soul. “Well, of course I was afraid of him. I’m not a fool—he’s a frightening man. But the truth is once we became lovers, I couldn’t bear to leave you. I knew if I confessed what I did, you’d hate me and send me away.”

  He derived some consolation from learning that during those tumultuous weeks in London, when he’d felt so helpless against his hunger for her, she’d felt equally helpless.

  “When I started this, I wanted the Abbey.” Her voice was subdued. “It was a kind of sickness. I’d do anything to get what I wanted, even turn thief and liar and whore.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you the house.” He’d bring the moon down from the sky if it would make her happy.

  He supposed that as Burnley’s last surviving offspring, he should summon some interest in Cranston Abbey. He couldn’t. He’d seized Burnley’s greatest treasure when he stole Diana from his father. Anything else, including the impressive baroque pile that was the Fanshawe seat, came tainted with the old man’s evil.

  Diana shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. Justice has been served. Lord Burnley deserved to fail, and so did I.”

  No. No, no, no.

  His heart slammed against his chest in burning denial. “Do you feel like you failed?” he asked sharply. “Really? Even now?”

  Her eyes were stormy with anguish. “I don’t care about the Abbey. I haven’t cared for a long time. I only care about you. And I feel like I failed you.”

  Oh, dear God, he couldn’t bear it. Yes, she’d hurt him. Yes, she’d acted against her deepest principles. But he couldn’t endure hearing her denigrating herself like this.

  Not his Diana. His Diana was proud and beautiful and brave.

  With a clumsiness he resented, he jerked to his feet. As his weight came down on his stiff leg, he stumbled.

  “Damnation!”

  Now was his chance to play the hero, and he proved weak as a kitten. He needed to be strong. He needed to be powerful. In spite of how far they’d come, they weren’t free yet. He still hadn’t won the lady.

  With a choked gasp of distress, she swiftly swung forward to catch him. As her arms closed tight around him, her voice broke with remorse. “Oh, Ashcroft, how can you even bear to look at me?”

  “How can I bear not to?” At last he touched her. Her warmth seeped into him like balm, filled every cold, empty corner. For one blessed moment, he stood silent in her embrace, his cheek resting on her hair. She felt like heaven. She smelled like fresh green apples.

  With a long, jagged sigh, she buried her face in his neck. Her voice was hoarse and muffled against his skin. “I don’t know how you’ve mustered the generosity to forgive me, but I can only be thankful that you have. I’m yours. I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

  As long as he wanted her?

  What the hell was this? He drew away just far enough to look down at her. “What in blazes do you mean?”

  “Oh, devil take these tears.” She lifted shaking hands to her face, but nothing dammed the endless flow. “Do you have a handkerchief?”

  “Of course.” He fumbled in his coat and handed her his handkerchief, still puzzling over what she’d said.

  “Thank you.” Roughly, she wiped her face. “I never cry.”

  This sounded more like the woman who had seduced him against his better judgment. And to his endless delight.

  “I can see that.” Still, he couldn’t let her strange statement go unchallenged. “Diana?”

  Her gaze was unflinching as she crumpled the white square of material in her hand. “I mean I’ll be your mistress.”

  He frowned. She wasn’t making a scrap of sense. “I don’t want you to be my mistress.”

  She paled, and he caught a flash of piercing hurt in her eyes. She stepped back, and he felt the distan
ce between him like a blow. Her voice shook. “But in the church, you asked me to come with you.”

  Ashcroft growled deep in his throat and grabbed her arms with adamant hands. “As my wife.”

  Under his grasp, she trembled like a leaf in a high wind. “You never said.”

  “I asked you to marry me after you left London.”

  Her mouth parted in astonishment. “That was two months ago. When you didn’t know what I’d done.”

  “I know now. I still want to marry you,” he said impatiently. He struggled against kissing her. If he kissed her, he wouldn’t stop, and he reluctantly acknowledged that they needed to put the past behind them. “It’s taken me thirty-two years to propose to the woman I want. It will take more than two months to change my mind.”

  Her gray eyes widened with stunned disbelief. “But you can’t want to marry me. You…shouldn’t.”

  He dragged her against him, curling his arms hard around her as if he feared she might try to escape. “I can and I should,” he said firmly.

  “Tarquin…”

  For a moment, she stood unyielding in his hold. He braced for protest, argument. Then it was as if something snapped inside her. With a strangled cry, she subsided onto his chest and began to sob with a heartbroken fierceness that made him want to smash something.

  “Diana, don’t cry. Please, for God’s sake, don’t cry.”

  Automatically, his arms tightened around her. She’d been hovering on the edge of control since he’d found her near the graves. But the fury of her breakdown filled him with savage anguish. Feeling completely at a loss, he stood speechless under the torrent of weeping and incoherent apologies.

  All the time his brain worked feverishly at what she’d just revealed.

  When he’d claimed her in the church, she’d believed he offered her only a temporary liaison. Yet still she’d unhesitatingly chosen an uncertain future with him over a life of luxury and security as the Marchioness of Burnley.

  For months he’d wrestled with what she’d done. He hadn’t lied when he told her he’d come to terms with the past. He’d thought his forgiveness was complete. He’d thought he trusted her unconditionally.

  But somewhere in the murky depths, a drop of doubt must have lingered. Now that last doubt vanished like dew under a hot sun.

  Diana loved him unequivocally. She loved him more than Cranston Abbey or her pride or her self-interest. He longed to shout his triumph to the skies.

  His arms firmed around her heaving shoulders and she melted against him with a naturalness that made his heart surge. His injured leg protested with standing so long, but this moment was too precious to sacrifice, whatever his pain.

  Cry, darling, cry. Then cry no more.

  Eventually, the tempest of weeping eased. “You’re very reckless with our child’s future,” he said softly.

  “How do you know I’m pregnant?” She spoke into his chest, her voice clogged. “It was far too early to be sure when you came to Marsham.”

  “Because that’s why you were marrying Burnley.”

  She raised her head and stared up, her face sticky with tears. Her nose was red, and her eyes were awash. He’d never seen her look so beautiful.

  “I could have married him for the house.” Even now, she resisted any attempt to let her off the full measure of guilt.

  He smiled down at her. “Diana, I’m not a fool. I know what the delay in your nuptials meant. If the house was all you wanted, you’d have married him the instant you returned from London. Why wait to reap your reward? I can only guess that without the pregnancy, you’d never have agreed to marry him at all.”

  She raised a trembling hand to his cheek as if afraid he’d rebuff her. Didn’t she know by now that she was everything he wanted in the world?

  “I told him no at first. How could I marry him when I was so utterly in love with you? It was sinfully wrong to promise myself to another man. But everything was…”

  Perhaps one day, he’d accept her declaration of love as his due. But not yet. Perhaps never. “You needed to give the baby a name and a home. I’m sure he threatened your father and Miss Smith too. I know him too well to imagine anything else. Alone and unmarried, what choice did you have?”

  The ache in Ashcroft’s chest eased as he watched the desperate misery drain from her face. He lifted one hand to press her palm against his cheek.

  “I don’t deserve your faith,” she whispered, scrubbing at her damp cheeks with the soggy handkerchief.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Perhaps over the next fifty years he’d convince her of that. It gradually dawned on him that he needed time and an ocean of love to heal the wounds of the past.

  Well, he was certainly man for the task. And today, they’d made a good beginning. But the need to whisk her away to safety became urgent.

  “Diana, we should go.” He drew her hand away from his face but kept sure hold of it. He turned and led her into her father’s garden. “I don’t trust Burnley.”

  She nodded and pocketed his handkerchief. He noticed she seemed calmer, less poisoned by regret. Even her voice was no longer laced with guilt. “He can’t hurt us, Tarquin. Not when we love one another.”

  Joy welled, threatened to overflow. He stopped and lifted the hand he held to his lips. “I’m so happy about the baby. I’ve never had a real family.”

  “We’ll make a real family together.”

  The certainty in her tone ignited imperishable hope in his heart. He and Diana would prevail. They’d struggled through the fires of hell to reach this moment, but now the future extended before them like a broad, sunlit plateau.

  His hand tightened on hers. “I’m set on becoming the dullest of fellows. The reformed rake. The faithful husband. The doting father. I hope you won’t rue the change, my love.”

  “Am I, Tarquin?”

  He didn’t immediately hear the quiet question. Most of his attention focused on whether Burnley’s minions skulked ready to ambush them. “Are you what?”

  “Your love.”

  He halted as if he smacked into a pane of glass and released her, Burnley completely forgotten.

  Foolish woman. Of course she was his love.

  Good God, he’d loved her from the first, although it took him an absurdly long time to recognize it.

  Surely she knew. Surely he’d told…

  He’d never said the words.

  Not in the heights of ecstasy. Not when he’d proposed. Not when he’d snatched her away from his despicable father.

  What a blundering dunderhead he was.

  “Diana, you’re my reason for living.” He caught her arm and waited for her eyes to meet his. The doubt he saw there made his gut clench. His voice deepened with sincerity. “After the beating, the memory of you kept me alive. The doctors were convinced I’d die. But I had to live to find you. You’re my shining star in the darkest night. You’re the music that makes my soul sing. You’re the air I breathe. You’re everything to me.”

  A faint troubled line appeared between her delicate brows. She studied his face as if what he said made no sense. “But do you love me?”

  “What do you…” Devil take him, he realized he still hadn’t said the words.

  He paused and sucked in a deep breath. Strangely what he said next emerged from a deeper part of his soul than his earlier declaration, heartfelt as it was.

  “I love you, Diana.”

  For a moment, she was so still, he thought she hadn’t heard him. Then the tension rippled out of her, and her eyes sparkled dazzling silver. “And I love you, Tarquin.”

  He smiled at her. She was his beloved and his life. “Anything else is a mere afterthought.”

  She cast him a glittering glance under her eyelashes. His soul expanded with delight as she became again the alluring siren he remembered from all those decadent hours in London. Apart from the tearstains on her cheeks, little trace remained of the distraught woman who had sobbed in his arms.

  “Don’t
you think you should kiss me?”

  “Already I become a henpecked husband.”

  Her lips twitched. “A mere shadow of your former self.”

  “Indubitably.”

  “A disgrace to the fraternity of rakes.”

  “A complete disaster as a rake.”

  She tilted her head up in unmistakable invitation. “Shall we proceed, my lord Ashcroft?”

  He swept one arm around her waist and drew her unresisting body close. “With all my heart, my dear Mrs. Carrick.”

  For all the lightness between them, his heart gave a premonitory thud. He couldn’t mistake the significance of this moment. From here, his existence started anew.

  Very gently, he placed his mouth on hers. Passion was never absent when he was with her, but right now, reverence emerged paramount. He loved her more than he’d ever imagined he could love anyone. And against all logic, against all justice, against all common sense, even, she loved him back.

  She trembled with swift response and parted her lips, kissing him with a fervor that told him more clearly than words how she’d missed him.

  From now on, she’d never miss him again. His Diana indeed.

  Forever.

  Epilogue

  Vesey Hall, Buckinghamshire

  October 1829

  Diana, Countess of Ashcroft, rose from the satinwood desk in her sitting room. She placed her hands behind her back for a long and satisfying stretch. All afternoon she’d been poring over the estate accounts.

  A child’s laugh outside attracted her attention, and she wandered to the open window. In the garden below, Laura presented the young Lady Hester Maria Catherine Vale to her grandfather.

  Her heart brimming with poignant joy, Diana watched her father settle the usually rambunctious eighteen-month-old child on his lap. Hester was, without question, a hellion, and she caused endless chaos and trouble. But strangely when she was with John Dean, she transformed into a perfect angel. Now she sat with completely uncharacteristic stillness while her grandfather traced her face.