How long until she was found? Dianna did not even want to hazard a guess. It was taking all of her willpower and concentration simply to stay awake, for she feared if she closed her eyes there was a very good chance she would never open them again.
After everything she’d endured, surely this was not how her life was supposed to end. She only needed to hold on a little bit longer. Rescue would soon come. Rescue had to come. Didn’t it?
When she first heard the drum of hoof beats against the earth and a shrill whinny cut through the night Dianna thought it was her imagination at work, conjuring up that which she so desperately wanted to be true. But the horse whinnied again, and the hoof beats grew louder, and when she squinted through the slashing rain and the nearly impenetrable darkness she could just make out the shadowy silhouette of a man approaching swiftly on horseback.
“H-here.” Her voice escaped as a watery croak, vocal chords as frozen as the rest of her body. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Here. Here. HERE!”
“Dianna. My God.”
Strong, steady hands seized her shoulders, pulling her upright. Her shawl fell to the ground and was immediately forgotten as she found herself wrapped in a coat and pulled up against a man’s chest. Against Miles’ chest. Even half frozen and teetering on the edge of unconsciousness Dianna recognized the timbre of his voice and the scent of his skin.
“W-what are you doing here?” she gasped.
“I think the better question is what are you doing here?” His arms tightened around her trembling frame and she burrowed into him, instinctively seeking the warmth his body heat provided. Rain continued to fall, but wrapped in Miles’ waistcoat she no longer felt the harsh sting of it upon her skin.
“I went for a walk and I fell asleep beneath the willow tree and when I woke it was d-dark and-”
“Shhh, love.” Miles rubbed his thumb across her cold cheek. Pressed his lips to her wet, tangled hair. “You can explain it all later, when you are warm and dry and sitting before a roaring fire.”
“A fire sounds n-nice.” Now that the relief of rescue had settled in, exhaustion was quick to follow. After forcing herself to stay away for so long, it was a nearly impossible struggle to keep her words from slurring or her eyes from closing.
Safe, she thought with a whimpering sigh. Well and truly safe.
When Miles picked her up, cradling her against his chest as though she were a babe, she let him, nestling her cheek over his heart, its steady rhythm giving her the reassurance she needed that everything would soon be all right. When he carried her over to his horse, however, and raised one muddy boot up towards the dangling stirrup, she reacted like a cat being held over a bucket of water.
“No. Miles, no. I cannot ride. I won’t!” If there was one thing Dianna feared more than freezing to death, it was sitting astride a horse. She could not remember the last time she’d ridden. She could not even recall what incident had prompted her terror. She only knew that her fear of the four-legged beasts was absolute, and she would rather walk ten miles in the pouring rain than ride ten yards on a horse.
Legs kicking wildly, she shoved both palms with surprising force into Miles’ chest. Her vehement protest startled his mount who spooked to the side, the whites of its eyes flashing in the darkness.
“Dianna, stop. Stop!” Miles turned away from his horse, but did not lessen his grip on her squirming body. A streak of lightning suddenly lit up the sky in a jagged line of blinding white, illuminating Miles’ countenance. Plastered against his skull from the rain, his hair looked black as pitch. Water ran in rivulets down his face, drops beading on the edge of his nose and chin. His eyes were a piercing green, his mouth a hard rigid line of determination. He looked savagely beautiful, like an avenging angel sent from the heavens above.
Dianna abruptly ceased her struggles.
“We need to find shelter.” Even though his mouth was a hair’s breadth from her own, Miles was forced to raise his voice to a shout as thunder crashed and the winds began to howl. What had begun as a drenching rainstorm had turned into a tempest, and it seemed they were standing right in the middle of it. “Are you certain you cannot ride?”
Eyes wide, she shook her head. “No. I - I can’t.”
“Then we will go on foot.” But instead of setting her down he continued to hold her cradled protectively against his chest, using his own body to shield her from the worst of the rain. He whistled a short, sharp command and his horse obediently followed, trailing behind them as they made their way across the open field. Rain lashed against Miles’ face and powerful winds buffeted his tall frame, but his grip on Dianna never lessened and his step never faltered.
Brave man, she thought sluggishly. After forcing herself to stay awake for countless hours her body was teetering on the brink of exhaustion and her mind wasn’t lagging very far behind. It felt as though tiny wisps of fog were stealing across her brain, draining every single thought from her head. Brave, she thought again. So very brave. Like my own knight in shining armor.
“What was that, love?” Miles said, making her cognizant of the fact that she must have spoken out loud. A blush stole across her cheeks, taking her ashen skin from pale white to dusty rose.
“N-nothing,” she managed to stutter.
“There is an abandoned cottage on the other side of these woods. We can stay there until the worst of the storm blows over.”
Young ladies do not stay in abandoned cottages with men they are not married to.
Oh do shut up.
Dianna nodded her head, brushing her cheek up and down along his white linen shirt. The fabric smelled of him. Other things may have changed, years may have passed, but his scent remained the same as always. She closed her eyes and inhaled. Sandalwood and sky. An odd combination to be sure, but she could think of no way else to describe it.
Once, long ago before life grew complicated and adult responsibilities outweighed the innocence of childhood, she and Miles had played a simple parlor game. One child was blindfolded while the others stood in a long line side by side with their shoulders brushing. Using only touch, the blindfolded child had to try to identify at least one other person by name. When it had been Dianna’s turn, she had not hesitated. Confident in her decision she’d marched to the far left of the line, held out both hands… and placed them squarely on Miles’ shoulders. When the others admiringly asked how she did it, she told them the truth: she’d simply identified him by his scent. But what she never told them - what she never told anyone - was that even if her nose had stopped working, she still would have known precisely where to go for she’d felt him.
He’d always been her candlelight in a dim room. Her sun on a cloudy day. Her shining star on a dark night.
And now he was her safe harbor in the middle of a storm.
Lulled by the gentle rocking of Miles’ step and the familiarity of his scent, Dianna finally succumbed to exhaustion even as another bolt of lightning lit up the sky and thunder boomed in the distance.
Miles knew the exact moment Dianna fell asleep.
Her slender body went limp in his arms, head lolling to the side until it nestled in the crook of his shoulder. Daring a glance down at her upturned face he saw her lashes were spread like golden fans across her ashen cheeks and her red lips were slightly parted, her breaths short and even.
Even in sleep, with circles beneath her eyes the color of bruises and her skin milky white and cold to the touch, she appeared almost too beautiful to be real. He would think he carried a delicate angel in his arms, if not for those tiny breaths and the nearly indiscernible rise and fall of her chest.
Now that she slept he allowed his sigh of relief to come.
Bloody hell.
If Miles thought he’d felt fear before, it had been nothing compared to the terror that plagued him while he scoured the countryside for Dianna. He had run his first horse to ground looking for her, and very nearly broken the leg of the second on a jump over a ditch only a fool would have attem
pted… or at least that’s what Charlotte had shouted angrily at his back as he landed safely on the other side and galloped away, leaving the search party far behind.
His second sigh was big enough to lift Dianna a fraction of an inch off his chest. She murmured sleepily, slender fingers sliding across his shirt before they found an opening between the buttons. Miles bit back a gasp as she pressed her cold hands against his bare skin, but instead of pushing her away he held her closer, willingly offering her the warmth of his body at the sacrifice of his own comfort.
Truth be told he would have cut his own hand if it served some purpose in helping her. Perhaps finally then his heart would stop threatening to pound out of his chest and the fear that had coiled in his stomach like a serpent from the first moment he learned Dianna was missing would slowly begin to unwind itself for even now, with Dianna rescued and resting safely in his arms, he could not get the image of her huddling beneath the willow tree out of his mind. How bloody pale she’d looked when he had ridden up. How vulnerable. How scared and alone.
If he hadn’t found her… Miles’ grip tightened, as though his body were unconsciously seeking reassurance that Dianna was alive and well. Smooth brow knitting, she murmured a soft protest, and he instantly loosened his hold.
“I am sorry love,” he whispered, needing to say the words out loud even if she couldn’t hear them. Rain spilled from his lashes as he turned his head against the howling winds and blinked his eyes to clear them. “I am so damn sorry.”
In his heart Miles knew he was apologizing for more than holding her a bit tighter than he should have, but those words - the ones that would mean the most - were not quite ready to come. Not yet. Not now. How did one apologize for four years of heartbreak? How did one make amends for being a bastard? He didn’t know, but he was damn well going to find out. Almost losing Dianna to the elements had only served to reinforce what he felt for her which was… everything. She was everything, and after having lost her twice he wasn’t about to let it happen a third time.
When the cottage he was searching for became visible around the next bend, it’s short, humble silhouette illuminated in a strike of lightning, he quickened his pace, eager to get Dianna out of the rain and resting before a warm fire.
Sitting on the edge of Ashburn’s vast lands, the small stone cottage was nearly two hundred years old and had long ago been forgotten except by those who happened to stumble upon it, which Miles himself had done one afternoon seven years ago.
He’d been exploring, as young men were apt to do, when he had happened across the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage. At least, that’s what he had assumed it to be, for without any defining markers it had been impossible to tell its true origin or even when it had been built, although the crumbling stone and sagging roof indicated it to be well over a century in age.
One hard kick of his heel and the door swung inward with nary a protest. Not wanting to track in a trail of wet mud, Miles slipped off one boot and then the other before walking inside the cottage in his stocking feet after an apologetic glance back at his horse.
“Sorry old chap,” he murmured. “No room for you in here.”
Backing into the door to close it, he continued to hold Dianna while taking a quick survey of their surroundings. Not surprisingly it was as dark inside the cottage as it had been out, but as his eyes slowly adjusted he could make out four walls and a stone fireplace easily enough. It was exactly as he remembered it, and even though the air smelled musty the floorboards creaking beneath his feet were dry and no rain fell from the thatched roof, making it a considerable improvement upon the willow tree.
Any furniture that may have once been assembled inside the cottage had either been cleared out or looted long ago, but there was still a stack of wood beside the fireplace and an old brass tinderbox tucked away on the furthest corner of the mantle.
Not wanting to disturb Dianna’s peaceful slumber, but having little choice in the matter for he could not feasibly continue to hold her and start a fire at the same time, he laid her out on the floor as carefully as he could. Whisking off his waistcoat - soaked on the outside, dry on the in - he used it as a blanket and rolled her gently atop the silk lining, pillowing a sleeve beneath her head.
It was a testament to the level of her exhaustion that she sighed and stirred but did not wake. Moving swiftly, Miles piled half a dozen dry logs in the dormant fireplace and opened the tinderbox. Taking the steel and flint in hand, he rubbed them briskly together, igniting a few bright sparks which he fanned to life with his breath. The scorched linen kept within the tinderbox caught fire, and when he held the box beneath the stacked logs the flames eagerly transferred themselves from cloth to wood. Snuffing out the linen, he rocked back on his heels and stood, mindful to return the tinderbox to the mantle in case they needed to start a fire once again.
Within minutes a soft orangey glow had overtaken the room. Flames crackled and hissed with merry purpose. Prowling about the cottage, Miles found two tallow candles long ago forgotten in a drawer. Lighting one, he went to the front window and looked out through the glass, but the night was so dark and the rain so thick the only thing he saw was his own reflection.
It was not surprising he looked tired. His skin a shade too pale, his cheeks gaunt, his eyes dark and moody. The past ten hours had been a misery, his nerves stretched to the breaking point again and again, his mind filled with endless worry. To think if he’d found Dianna an hour later… Banishing the foul thought he turned abruptly from the window to look upon the woman he’d loved and left, but was not yet ready to lose.
She continued to sleep peacefully. Lured by the warmth of the flickering flames she’d rolled closer to the fire and now rested as a child might with one forearm cradled beneath her head and her knees pulled up against her belly. Firelight bathed her face, illuminating her softly rounded countenance. Miles was pleased to see that some color had at long last returned to her cheeks, adding a welcome glow to her roses and cream complexion. Her hair was a mess of blonde ringlets, and before Miles quite knew what he was doing he found himself kneeling behind her and gently combing the tangled locks away from her face.
Pale lashes flickering, Dianna sighed and he stilled, hand hovering in midair, not wanting to wake her when she so desperately needed to rest. But instead of waking she turned towards him in sleep, one tiny hand reaching out beseechingly.
If he were a stronger man - a decent man - Miles would not have taken her hand in his and brought it to his lips. But with his defenses lowered by exhaustion and worry he was feeling neither strong nor particularly decent, and felt nothing more than a faint tug of conscience as he lowered his body to the hard floor and slowly pulled Dianna into his arms.
She went willingly, a soft murmur of contentment spilling from her lips as she tucked herself against him. Securing one arm around her slender waist he stretched the other under her head, breathing in the soft, rainy scent of her hair.
She felt so right in his arms. So good. Her body fit against his like a puzzle piece clicking into place, her softly rounded curves nestling perfectly into the long hard lines of his body and for the first time in a long time Miles felt true, unadulterated contentment.
Though it had taken him a while to get here, this was where he belonged. This was where he was meant to be. This was where his life had led him: full circle back to the woman whose fate had been entwined with his since the moment they were born.
He closed his eyes. Gently rocked Dianna closer. And drifted off into dream with a smile on his face.
Chapter Nine
Miles may have fallen asleep in peace, but he did not wake in it. A piercing shriek woke him instead, followed swiftly by flailing limbs and an elbow to the ribs. Acting purely on instinct as his mind struggled to free itself from the dregs of slumber, he closed his arms around his feisty assailant and held her in an ironclad grip.
“Let me go! Miles, let me go this instant.”
At the sound of his name he shot inst
antly awake, eyes blinking into focus. In one glance he noted the smoldering fire, the stone walls, and, last but certainly not least, the furious blonde held trapped in his arms, her blue eyes sparking with outrage as she demanded her release.
In a rush the events of last night came back to him. Riding through the rain, finding Dianna freezing beneath the willow tree, carrying her back here, to the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage. After that, no doubt due to exhaustion, his recollection became a bit blurry, but he vaguely remembered laying down beside her and then… well, then this.
“Nothing happened,” he said immediately, hoping to calm her. “You fell asleep in my arms. I brought you here. Started a fire and-”
“And took advantage of me!”
“Now see here,” Miles began, dark brows darting together as annoyance rapidly began to replace any lingering feelings of concern, “you should be thanking me, but putting an elbow through my bloody ribcage. You want me to let you go? Fine.” He opened his arms and gave her a little push. “Go.”
Sputtering, Dianna rolled towards the fireplace and sat up amidst a tangle of skirts, shoving pale chunks of hair behind her ears. “I suppose a thank you is in order,” she mumbled grudgingly.
“I am sorry, but I didn’t quite catch that.”
Her chin lifted, sapphire eyes finding and seeking his. Though her lips twisted in obvious displeasure, as though the words physically pained her, she repeated them once more. “I said thank you.”
A grin broke out across Miles’ face. Kicking his legs out in front of him, he leaned back, bracing his palms on the floor. Bright morning light, unhindered by storm or cloud, flowed freely into the cottage, indicating dawn had broken. They’d made it through the night… and he could think of no greater reward for his efforts than waking beside Dianna. Hearing her say ‘thank you’ was, as the saying went, icing on top of the proverbial cake. “I do apologize, but something must be wrong with my hearing. Must have been all that thunder. One more time, if you would.”
Forgotten Fiancée (London Ladies Book 3) Page 8