My Reckless Surrender (23 page)

He raised his head, his face drawn with tension. “Don't you hear that?” he asked sharply.

She frowned. What on earth was wrong?

Then she heard the knocking. Someone was at the front door. Someone insistent on entering if the peremptory banging was any indication.

Don't let it be Burnley. Anyone but he.

Horror flooded her, turned her heart to stone. Hurriedly, she pushed Ashcroft away.

This time he didn't resist. She scrambled up against the arm of the sofa, tugging at her dress. She needed a maid. She needed a fresh gown. She needed time to present an appearance of composure she didn't feel.

How debasing for the marquess to discover her tousled and half-naked and smelling of her lover. She felt sick at the prospect.

“Are you expecting someone?” Ashcroft rose to his feet and watched her with a shuttered expression in his beautiful eyes.

“N…no,” she stammered, knowing fear was clear in her voice and her face. She acted as if she had something to be guilty about.

The problem was, she had.

Nervously she glanced at the closed door. The knocking had ceased, so she guessed whoever it was had been admitted.

She pulled at her bodice in another futile attempt to appear as if she hadn't made love most of the day. Ashcroft
extended a hand to help her as she staggered to her feet, but she ignored him.

A grim knell of foreboding tolled in her heart. She felt like a whore awaiting her pimp.

How could she face Lord Burnley like this?

But when the door soundlessly opened, the man who walked through on Laura's arm wasn't Lord Burnley.

It was her father.

S
truggling to dampen his rampant arousal, Ashcroft watched Diana. Her face was white as parchment and filled with acrid shame. Miss Smith's eyes settled on her friend with visible concern.

He stepped forward to speak, but Diana stopped him with an emphatic gesture he couldn't misunderstand. “Papa,” she said in a strangled voice.

Shock held Ashcroft motionless. The suspicions that had always lurked beneath his endless desire reared up like venomous snakes ready to strike.

His expression severe, the old man turned in his daughter's direction. He still wore his hat and coat, and he leaned heavily on a cane. He was tall and gaunt, neatly but inexpensively dressed. Ashcroft guessed he was a lawyer's clerk or small-scale merchant. An incongruous parent for Ashcroft's gorgeous, modish mistress. This man couldn't have funded Diana's house, clothes, servants.

So who in Hades had?

Diana ventured forward to press a kiss to the old man's cheek. He stiffened in rebuff. Ashcroft caught the lancing hurt that darkened her eyes as she turned in his direction. He
had a feeling she didn't see him at all. She looked sick with fear and humiliation.

Ashcroft remained silent because clearly that was what she wished, but questions multiplied. He was grateful the old man didn't glance at him. He still trembled with frustrated desire. Nor had Diana's hurried attempt at a toilette achieved much. Her bright hair tumbled down her back like a lascivious milkmaid's.

“Papa, what…what are you doing here?” She sounded uncertain, afraid, unhappy.

He hated to see her proud spirit brought low. His Diana always met the world with her head high.

His Diana?

Hell, what was wrong with him?

He felt disoriented, disconnected, as though a perfectly solid floor had suddenly collapsed beneath his feet. He'd long ago recognized that Diana kept secrets. But the passion always seemed real. Tonight, he couldn't help wondering if the woman who had shared his bed with such enthusiasm comprised nothing but falsehood.

Anger tightened her father's features, forcing Diana to retreat a few steps. “That's a question I should ask, daughter.” The man's voice resonated with perplexed rage. “You've told me for weeks you and Laura are staying with Lady Kelso, yet when I call on her, I'm informed you're not there. In fact, they've never heard of Mrs. Carrick, supposed companion to the countess.”

Diana winced. Her hands twined at her waist, and her distress was a tangible presence. “I'm…I'm sorry, Papa,” she said almost soundlessly.

Her father continued as if she hadn't spoken. His cultured accent made Ashcroft place him slightly higher in society than his plain appearance indicated. But no way was this man aristocracy or even gentry.

“I prevailed upon George Coachman to bring me from
Surrey. The fool should have come straight here. He must have known the Kelsos would turn me away. Apparently everybody in my vicinity is party to this conspiracy.”

“Is there trouble at home?” Diana shook like a reed in a gale.

Her father looked more austere. Ashcroft noted little resemblance between them, apart from perhaps the height and the stubborn line of the old man's jaw.

“I think any trouble is in London, don't you, Diana?” her father said in a frigid tone.

With every cold word her father spoke, each as pointed and deadly as a dart, Diana looked more devastated. Ashcroft shifted restlessly, burning to defend her but knowing his championship was the last thing she wanted. After that first begging, terrified glance, she hadn't looked at him. It was as if he didn't exist.

“Papa, I…” She faltered into silence and bit her lip.

“Well should you stammer and blush, daughter,” he snapped. He leaned more heavily on his stick, but his expression remained accusing. “Who pays for this house?”

“I…” Diana shot a helpless, begging glance at Miss Smith. Miss Smith remained silent.

“Don't pretend you do. William left you some money, but not enough to fund an extravagant visit to London. I can't help but feel Lord Burnley is behind this.”

Burnley?

Appalled disbelief paralyzed every muscle in Ashcroft's body. The sensation of falling through plain air intensified.

That unmitigated blackguard, the Marquess of Burnley, knew Diana?

Burnley was the sort of aristocrat he despised. A brute who believed his rank gave him the right to transport children for minor crimes or hang them if he could get away with it. A man who fitted perfectly among those other fools and powermongers whose overweening arrogance and blind
conservatism consigned most of the nation to poverty and ignorance.

Ashcroft and Burnley clashed frequently and bitterly in Parliament. Thanks to the draconian politics of most of the ruling class, the contests usually ended in Burnley's favor.

So why should Lord Burnley's protégée, if that's what Diana was, seek out the dissipated Earl of Ashcroft? Burnley must have described Ashcroft to her as the devil incarnate. Yet she'd brazenly offered herself with some humbug about wanting sexual experience.

Bewilderment, suspicion, wild surmise juggled for a place in Ashcroft's mind. Nothing made sense.

Was this a plot? He couldn't see what she or Burnley hoped to gain. If the affair became public, Diana would suffer, not Ashcroft. His reputation with women was so tainted, the world hardly expected him to act the knight in shining armor. If word got out he'd debauched a virtuous country widow, the ton wouldn't raise a hand to hide a yawn of boredom.

Nonetheless, Ashcroft's skin itched with wariness.

While his brain winnowed contradictory facts, he watched Diana. She looked stricken, lost.

She looked guilty.

Ashcroft didn't understand. Mysteries piled on mysteries, and every time he thought he'd solved one puzzle, a hundred more sprang up in its place. Unraveling Diana's secrets was like trying to kill the damned Hydra.

Her hands curled in her skirts, and her tiny pants of distress punctuated the discussion. “It's not what you think.”

Her father scowled at her. “No more lies. You've told me enough to last a lifetime. I'm ashamed of you, Diana. Ashamed.”

“I can tell you…”

“I don't want to know. Come home now and leave whatever sins you've committed behind. You have work to do in Marsham.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said in the most subdued voice Ashcroft had ever heard her use.

Yes, Papa?

What the hell was this? Was she really submitting to her parent's will and returning to the country? What about him? Ashcroft shifted, every sinew resisting what she said.

At her ready obedience, her father's voice lost its edge. “George is outside. We can be home and safe tonight. Laura will…” He stopped abruptly and turned in an odd, unfocused way in Ashcroft's direction. “Who's there?”

Diana's horrified gaze bored into Ashcroft, silently begging him to be still. “N…nobody, Papa,” she said shakily.

What was the woman wittering about? Ashcroft stood next to her, large as life. Unless she meant her denial as an insult. His belly knotted in angry dismay.

“Heaven forgive your deceit, girl,” the old man said with returning anger. For the first time, he stared right at Ashcroft.

Diana's father's face was alight with angry curiosity. His eyes were blank and milky.

The old man was blind.

 

When Ashcroft turned up at her house, Diana's tower of lies had tottered. Now with her father's arrival, it collapsed into rubble.

A ghostly cracking filled the air around her. The sound of her entire world crumbling to dust.

Or perhaps it was just the sound of her heart breaking.

“Who's there?” her father said in a sharper voice, banging his stick on the floor. “Make yourself known.”

“My name is Tarquin Vale.” Ashcroft stepped forward.

His beautiful baritone was neutral, and Diana couldn't read his expression. By now he must know she'd lied to him from the start. He'd guess she was involved in some conspiracy with Burnley. He must loathe her for the deceit she practiced, even if he didn't yet know how that deceit revolved around him.

Her heart thundered out an anguished protest. She wanted to beg him not to hate her although she knew it was far too late to redeem herself in his eyes. Far too late to save him from devastation.

“Vale?” her father asked in astonishment and with audible displeasure. He reached out as if to test for the reality of this man. Her father would assume Ashcroft was her lover. His eyes might fail, but his brain was frighteningly acute.

Her voice was unsteady. “Papa, this is the Earl of Ashcroft. Lord Ashcroft, may I present my father, John Dean of Marsham in Surrey?”

“Your servant.” Her father's face set with disapproval, and his tone made it clear he considered himself anything but subservient. “I've heard of you, sir.”

Diana fought back the urge to defend her paramour to her father. What was the use? After today, her father would never believe a word she said.

“Mr. Dean. I called on Miss Smith and Mrs. Carrick to discuss antiquities. I was introduced to the ladies at the British Museum, and we discovered a mutual interest in Egypt,” Ashcroft said smoothly. An urbane shell had descended on that handsome face, and try as she might, she couldn't penetrate it.

Not even the stupidest clodpole in the kingdom would believe that story. Why did Ashcroft try to shield her? He should be furiously angry.

“Lord Ashcroft is just leaving,” she interjected quickly.

Ashcroft leaned back against the flimsy desk and folded his arms. He surveyed her with raised eyebrows and a mouth that twisted in sardonic amusement. The stance was heartbreakingly familiar. It generally indicated he'd made his mind up about something and had no intention of budging but didn't plan to make an issue of it. No, he just meant to sail through, his will prevailing.

“I'm at leisure this evening, Mrs. Carrick. I distinctly re
member saying that when you invited me to supper with you and the charming Miss Smith.”

The charming Miss Smith cast him a quelling glance. Diana gritted her teeth and only just stifled a growl of aggravation. Apparently Ashcroft meant to be difficult.

“Well, I'm no longer at leisure,” she said crisply. “I return to the country with my father.”

“I believe it's time you left, my lord,” her father said in the same tone he used to quell dissension among the farm laborers.

She found it in her to admire his courage. He was a humble bailiff, and the Earl of Ashcroft was a powerful nobleman.

Her father always stood up for principle whatever the cost. Which meant he'd utterly despise what she'd done if he ever found out the full story. Dear God, he'd despise her anyway after tonight. He never believed the end justified the means. Harsh experience had taught her he was right.

“I hoped for some conversation with Mrs. Carrick,” Ashcroft said with the suave address he used when he wanted his way.

“My daughter isn't staying in London,” her father said. “And what conversation with you could reflect to her credit?”

Ashcroft's lips tightened at the slight. Although they all knew it was justified. What wasn't justified was for Ashcroft to take blame for her wickedness.

“Mrs. Carrick?” Ashcroft inquired, as if he believed she'd change her mind just for the asking.

For one tremulous second, the idea of flinging herself into Ashcroft's arms and defying Burnley, confessing all, begging him to take her somewhere this couldn't touch them, rose like a mirage. So tempting. So impossible.

If she threw herself upon Ashcroft's mercy, what guarantee he'd want her into tomorrow? Even if he forgave her, he had a reputation for inconstancy. She'd captivated him briefly. Nothing indicated she captivated him further than that.

She bent her head, closing her eyes in a silent prayer to a God who by rights shouldn't listen to such a miserable sinner. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry.

Her father hated her. She abandoned Ashcroft. Her future was a bleak wilderness.

Tears wouldn't help.

Nothing would help. Even becoming mistress of the house she'd always coveted, the house that had exacted a greater price than she'd ever thought to pay.

“I'll fetch my cloak and bonnet, Papa,” she said in a dull voice.

Without sparing a glance for Ashcroft, she slipped through the door, closed it behind her, and rushed across the tiles toward the staircase. Mercifully, none of their small staff were present.

She felt strangely numb although howling pain lurked just outside the glass wall separating her from the world. Some functioning corner of her mind told her she was wise to get out now. She'd broken with Ashcroft and would never have to see him again. A swift, final separation was best, like wrenching an arrow from a wound.

Let the blood flow and cleanse the poison. Then they could both start to heal.

Except she had a grim premonition she'd never heal. She should have listened when Laura insisted she risked more with this scheme than giving her body to a man she disliked, then forgetting him. A transaction as simple and unremarkable as handing over a penny for a cake in a bakery.

Becoming Ashcroft's lover had cost her soul.

Through her clamoring misery, she heard the door behind her open, then close. Her headlong flight didn't slow.

“Diana, wait.”

Oh, heaven save me.

She lowered her head and walked more quickly, hardly seeing where she went. She had a superstitious certainty if she reached the stairs, she was safe. Ashcroft wouldn't
pursue her into her bedroom. Surely not with her father so close and a band of servants on call. Not even the libertine earl was so blind to convention.

She set foot on the first step, placed a foot on the next, and released the breath she hadn't realized she held. Her hand automatically reached for the banister.