Forgotten Fiancée (London Ladies Book 3) Page 18

  Seeing Dianna with a pistol pressed against her temple and her eyes glassy with terror… He’d never known such fear. Even the memory of it was enough to send a chill down his spine, and his grip on her unconsciously tightened until she made a soft, mewling sound in her sleep.

  Little fool, he thought fondly as he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. She’d always had a secret stubborn streak - no matter how much she tried to deny it - but he’d never witnessed her bravery until tonight. The courage it must have taken for her to stand up to the robber and refuse him her necklace was nearly unimaginable and even though Miles wanted to wring her pretty little neck for being so bloody harebrained, he also felt an immeasurable sense of pride.

  It made him realize he wasn’t ready to give her up. Not yet and, if he had his way, not ever. They belonged together. After the events that had just transpired, he was sure of it. As sure of anything he’d ever been in his entire life.

  Now he needed only to convince Dianna of the same.

  Gazing down upon her sleeping countenance with her rose colored lips slightly parted and her lashes spread out like pale crescent moons upon her cheeks, Miles knew the battle to win her affections would be an uphill one. As innocent as she looked in slumber, the moment she woke her blue eyes would frost over and she would pull away from him, both in body and in spirit.

  He needed a way to get through the wall of ice she’d built around her heart. A way to melt her defenses and turn her back into the girl she’d been.

  As soon as the thought entered his mind, however, Miles dismissed it with an inward shake of his head.

  The girl Dianna had been would never have been able to look death in the eye without flinching. She wouldn’t have had the strength or the courage to stand up for herself, and although a part of his heart would always be dedicated to the girl she used to be, he wanted the woman she was now. A strong, resilient, independent woman. A woman with her own hopes. Her own beliefs. Her own mind.

  As children she’d relied on him for those things, and he’d found himself drowning beneath the weight of their combined dreams, unable to sustain them both when he so desperately wanted to make his own come true.

  Dianna began to stir, lashes fluttering. Her eyes slowly opened and for a moment, a moment so quick if Miles blinked he would have missed it, she gazed up at him with a love so pure it struck him like a lightning bolt inside his chest. Then recognition dawned, and love was replaced with wariness and distrust.

  “What happened?” She sat up and simultaneously slid to the side, moving as far from him as the bench seat would allow. Her gaze flicked to the window, then back to his face. “What… Where are we?”

  “I told my driver to take another lap around,” he explained, and even though he wanted to go to her, to wrap an arm around her shoulders and gently run his fingers through her tangled curls while she rested her cheek against his chest, he knew the moment for such tenderness had come and gone. “We should be at your townhouse very soon.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you were sleeping and I did not want to wake-”

  “No, not that.” Eyes shimmering like sapphires in the moonlit carriage, she gave a hard shake of her head. “Why would you… Why would you risk your life for mine?”

  “Dianna.” Consequences be damned, Miles reached between them and captured her gloveless hand. Her skin was cold to the touch. He squeezed her pale fingers before he met her gaze and softly said, “Why wouldn’t I?”

  She pulled her hand free. It disappeared beneath the folds of his greatcoat as she crossed her arms and leaned away from him. “What are you doing? Why are you being so kind to me? You know how I feel. My mind has not changed. I - I still do not want you, Miles.”

  Mouth curving into a humorless smile, he parried her questions with two of his own. “Why did you not run for safety when you had the chance? Why didn’t you leave me?”

  “Because I… I…”

  “Because there is still something between us, and you feel it as much as I,” he said when she grew too agitated to complete her sentence.

  “No,” she said with a glare. “That is not true.”

  “It is,” he pressed ruthlessly. “Admit it, Dianna. You care for me now as you did then. Admit it.” A part of him recognized he was being a bastard for taking advantage of her in such a weakened condition, but the need to get her to admit her true feelings was all encompassing.

  Her bottom lip quivered. “No,” she whispered, vehemently shaking her head from side to side.

  “Yes.” He closed the distance between them until their thighs were touching and reached inside his oversized coat she wore like a protective blanket to gently grasp her wrists. She resisted, but his grip was unyielding. He forced her palms against his chest, pressing them flat over his pounding heart. “Do you feel that?” he demanded fiercely. “Do you?”

  “Stop it!” she cried. “Stop-”

  “It’s my heart, and it’s beating for you. Dianna, look at me,” he said when her chin dropped and her lashes flicked closed. “Damn you, look at me!”

  “And see what?” Slowly her countenance lifted to reveal blue eyes bright with tears and two angry splashes of color staining her cheeks a dull pink. “See a man asking me for something four years too late?” She shook her head. “I wish you had felt this way before. I truly do. But you didn’t.”

  Seeing the pain on her face, hearing it in her voice, caused the muscles in Miles’ abdomen to clench tight. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “I know.” Her hands flattened on his chest, fingertips lightly pressing. “I can accept that you left. I can even forgive you, for I finally understand why you felt the need to go. They asked so much of us, didn’t they? Our parents. Our friends. Society.” One side of her mouth lifted in a sad, regretful smile. “And I never stopped to think it would be too much. That was my fault, not yours. You were just a boy. A boy who had his entire future planned out for him before his tenth birthday. A boy who wanted to see the world and all it had to offer. A boy who wanted to make his own decisions so badly he did the only thing he could think of. He left. So I forgive you,” she repeated, her chest rising and falling as she took a deep breath, “but I cannot trust that you won’t leave again, and if I cannot trust you how can I ever love you?”

  Dianna’s words, so eloquently spoken, were like tiny barbs piercing his heart. Miles looked past her to the window and, noting they’d at last reached their intended destination, released her hands and slowly sat back. “We’re here,” he said gruffly.

  There was more he wanted to say. More he wanted to do. But any speech or action paled in comparison to what Dianna had said, and so he remained silent until she began to shrug out of his great coat. “Keep it on. There is a chill in the air.”

  Her brows darted together. “But it belongs to you.”

  “If we are not to be lovers, then surely we can attempt to manage as friends,” he said with a humorless smile. “And friends loan each other articles of clothing, do they not?”

  Miles could tell by the way the corners of her mouth tightened that she wanted to refuse him, but with a tiny sigh she reluctantly slipped her arms back into the oversized sleeves and drew the coat closed over her ball gown. “I suppose they do.”

  He waited until the carriage had come to a complete stop and the she was readying to depart before he spoke her name. When she turned at the sound of it he didn’t allow himself time to think, only to feel. Grasping her shoulders he yanked her hard against him. Thrown off balance in the tiny confines of the carriage she fell into his chest, arms instinctively wrapping around his neck to balance herself.

  In the shifting shadows he caught a glimpse of her eyes widened in bewilderment and outrage as she gasped, “Miles, what-”

  He silenced any protests she might have voiced with his mouth. The fingers at the nape of his neck tightened, pulling at his hair, but he ignored the sharp tugs of pain in favor of the sheer mindless bliss of o
nce again feeling her lips beneath his.

  As young, inexperienced adolescents their kisses had been tentative. Pecks of subdued passion that had always ended far too soon for Miles’ liking. Their kiss outside her bedroom window had served to ignite something inside of him he’d never felt before and now he let it take full rein as he buried his hands in her tousled curls and took what he wanted, holding nothing back. Like a ship meeting a wave he sank into her, his tongue boldly sweeping between her lips. When she bit him he growled like a wild animal, but did not relent.

  Finally, he thought, his mind already half gone. Finally I can taste her again. Touch her. Feel her.

  Dianna writhed against him, her tiny fists landing harmless blows on his shoulders and chest. Still the kiss continued, and when he would have finally ended it, when he would have finally drawn back, it was her hands cupping his face that held their mouths fused together.

  Their tongues met once more, hesitantly at first and then with a passion that left them both gasping for breath. He heard her moan as much as he tasted it and swallowed the tiny sound with a groan of pleasure. Even limited by their environment they fit perfectly together, their bodies instinctively twisting and moving until space was nonexistent between them.

  Shifting, he pulled her between his thighs, pressing her flush against the hardness of his erection. She leaned into him, teeth gently scraping his jaw before she found the sensitive curve of his earlobe and began to suckle. Any breath he might have still had in his lungs escaped in a whoosh of air as his spine arched off the seat.

  “Dianna.” He spoke her name as though it were a fervent prayer and she answered in kind before she pressed her soft mouth once more against his. His hands shoved inside her coat, thumbs brushing against the hard jutting point of her nipples. She threw her head back with a gasp, exposing the slender curve of her throat which his lips hungrily devoured before moving lower, dragging the tip of one breast into his mouth.

  He felt her fingers digging into his scalp, holding him against her. When he took her other nipple between his teeth she cried out his name, the hem of her skirt tangling between her legs as she writhed in helpless desire.

  Knowing if he went any further he would lose any and all semblance of control Miles forced himself to stop. He and Dianna untangled themselves and retreated to opposite ends of the carriage. For a time the only sound that filled the air was their ragged breaths and the whisper of silk as Dianna hastily pulled her gown back into place. After a moment he glanced at her sideways out of the corner of his eye and saw she was hunched forward, hands braced on either side of her thighs.

  “I should go,” she said without looking at him.

  As the enormity of what he’d just done settled like dead weight on his shoulders, Miles could only watch as Dianna tapped a knuckle against the window, indicating to the driver she was ready to depart. He opened the door at once, standing to the side while she gathered her skirts and, bending low to avoid striking her head on the roof of the carriage, stepped out onto the street.

  She took a step forward and then paused, her entire body tensing before she turned and looked up at him. Her cheeks were pale in comparison to her red lips, and there was a scratch of whisker burn on the side of her neck. Seeing the tiny mark filled Miles with a disgusted sense of rage; not at her but himself. He’d acted like a bloody brute, forcing her into a kiss she’d neither asked for nor wanted. It did not matter that she had ended up enjoying their stolen moment of passion every bit as much as he. He’d done the one thing no man ever should, the one thing he’d promised never to do, and the shame of it burned the back of his neck like a hot brand.

  “I - I want you to know this does not change anything,” she said quietly. “You… you do know that, don’t you?”

  All Miles knew was that if she still hated him, she now had a good reason. “Aye,” he said flatly before he turned his back to stare out the opposite window. He heard the hard click of the door as it closed and felt the carriage sway as the driver climbed back up to his seat and reclaimed the reins.

  But what he did not see - what he could not see - was Dianna standing on the edge of the street as the carriage pulled away, her mouth curved in a frown of misery and her eyes filled with secret longing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Harper, never a patient woman under the best of circumstances, waited precisely thirty-one minutes before she went off across the ballroom in search of her brother. She knew the time down the second because she’d been pestering the very devil out of an elderly man who had the misfortune of falling asleep within her general vicinity. Having spied a pocket watch peeking out of the pocket of his waistcoat, she’d asked for the time every minute or so until he’d finally given up and shoved his watch at her.

  “No wonder no one will dance with you,” he’d said, his eyes narrowing into watery slits of brown as he’d glared up at her from his chair. “A more annoying little chit I’ve never come across in all my eighty years.”

  “And you,” Harper had retorted, “are a miserable old man who should have gone home two hours ago. But thank you very much for the watch! I shall have it returned tomorrow.”

  Biting back a smile - as curmudgeonly as he’d been, the old man had been her only company since the other wallflowers departed some time ago - she’d flounced away, cutting across the very middle of the ballroom in search of Miles. By her second circuit around the room her smile was wavering. By her third it had vanished altogether, replaced by a scowl that was at odds with her softly styled hair and flowing ball gown.

  If Miles had left her here she was going to kill him.

  “I say, are you lost my lady? My lady? Can you hear me?”

  It took a few moments before Harper realized the young gentleman with tousled hair the color of wheat and eyes several shades lighter than brandy was speaking to her. Stopping short of a door that led out onto one of the mansion’s many terraces, she huffed out an impatient sigh and spun to face him, the toe of her right slipper already tapping out a quick impatient rhythm on the marble floor.

  “I am not deaf, if that is what you are implying,” she said.

  “Ah, just inexplicably rude then.” He grinned when she gaped, revealing surprisingly white teeth and dimple high on his right cheek. “Doyle Flynn, at your service. Might I ask your name, beautiful lady?”

  Harper crossed her arms. “You can ask. It doesn’t mean I will tell you.”

  “Who are you looking for?” He crossed his arms to match and rocked back on the heels of his black leather boots. “I’ve been watching you run about like a hound sniffing after a bone for the past twenty minutes.”

  “How boring for you.”

  Throwing back his head, Doyle laughed loudly enough to earn a few inquisitive stares. Hating the feeling of being watched, Harper took a tiny backwards step towards the door, then another. “Running away?” he asked, his damn grin unwavering. “Funny, I didn’t have you pegged for a coward.”

  Had Harper been a hound, the hair on the back of her neck would have instantly bristled at Doyle’s accusation. “What do you want?”

  A suggestive gleam entered Doyle’s brandy colored eyes. He made a show of looking left and then right before leaning towards her and saying in an exaggerated whisper, “What are you offering?”

  The urge to slap the smug look right off his face was a strong one, but Harper held herself in check. There was already more than enough gossip involving the Radnor name swirling about. The last thing she wanted to do was add more fuel to the flame. “You are a cad and a rake and I want absolutely nothing to do with you.” A lady of higher moral caliber would have no doubt turned an icy shoulder and left it at that, but if there was one thing Harper had never been accused of being it was a lady of high moral caliber. “Now bugger off!”

  Unfortunately, her crude order did not have the desired effect.

  “Marry me,” Doyle said, his grin abruptly fading in an expression of such burning intensity Harper felt an answering twinge
somewhere deep inside a secret, hidden part of herself she’d not yet explored. For once she couldn’t think of a single biting retort and, not wanting to stand in place staring up at Doyle like one of the fat witted ninnies she and the other wallflowers had spent most of the ball mocking, she did what any dignified young woman in her situation would do… she picked up her skirts and fled out the door and onto the terrace.

  Shaped like a half moon, the terrace wrapped around the east side of the house and was edged with a wrought iron fence. Potted plants had been set at every other post with benches in between, almost all of them occupied as guests sought a respite in the cool night air. Steps led down and away from the terrace, but not knowing where they went and not wanting to stray too far from the ballroom in case Miles was looking for her as she was for him, Harper walked briskly to the furthest corner and wedged herself between a towering fern with leafy green boughs and the smooth brick wall.

  It wasn’t a very good hiding spot - not that she was hiding - and so Harper was not surprised (only annoyed) when Doyle appeared, his tall, muscular frame silhouetted in a spill of light before he spied her lurking in the corner and joined her in the shadows.

  “There you are,” he said cheerfully, acting as though she’d stepped away to fetch them both a cup of watered down lemonade instead of blatantly running away from him. Eyes sparkling with amusement, he leaned up against the wall and rubbed his chin. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to my proposal, then?”

  “Of course it is a no!” Harper cried incredulously. “Who in their right mind would say yes?”

  “Quite a few women, I imagine.”

  “Then why not go bother one of them and leave me alone?”

  “Because I find you absolutely fascinating.” Despite his casual manner and easy going grin, Harper suspected Doyle was not as harmless as he seemed and her suspicions were confirmed when he leaned in towards her to whisper huskily, “And I always pursue what fascinates me.”