The Rake to Rescue Her

But Alastair was not the Duke she hated. And hard as she tried to block out what he was doing, ignoring it had proved impossible. Alastair’s touch had been more veneration than violation, and it had taken every iota of self-control she’d developed over eight miserable years to keep herself from responding.

He’d always had the power to move her. She’d not allowed herself to remember that. Once she was irrevocably married, it would have been a cruelty beyond endurance to recall the joy of being caressed by a man whose touch thrilled her, while being forced to submit to intimacies with a man she loathed.

She’d given herself up to Alastair completely that halcyon summer, eager for him to possess her, arguing against waiting until after the wedding for them to become lovers.

She smiled wistfully. Would it have made any difference, had she not been a virgin when the Duke sought her out?

Probably not. He’d regarded her as a treasure like the Maidens of the Parthenon, and like them, she’d have been collected even if ‘damaged’. He’d merely have constructed an inescapable cage to prevent any lapses after marriage, and waited to bed her until he was sure she was not carrying another man’s child.

And simply disposed of the evidence, if she had been.

But that was neither here nor there, she told herself, pulling her focus back to the present. The problem was how to deal with Alastair Ransleigh now.

Perhaps if she had remembered how quickly and deeply Alastair affected her, she’d have armoured herself better to resist him. After this evening, she no longer suffered from that dangerous ignorance. So what was she to do to avoid another near-disaster?

Forbidding herself to react had simply not been effective. Especially since, unlike the Duke, he’d clearly wanted her to respond. Wanted to give her pleasure...as a gift?

Or was that to be the form of his revenge: making her respond to him, making her burn for his touch, then abandoning her, as she had abandoned him? Would he not be satisfied until he’d succeeded in doing so?

Could he succeed?

She didn’t want to feel anything. Not passion, not desire, not longing, not affection. Overcoming the forces ranged against her, doing what she could to safeguard the boy unlucky enough to be her son, would require all the strength she could muster. A wounded bird marshalling all her efforts to lead the predator away from her nest, she couldn’t afford to bleed away any of her limited energy in resisting Alastair Ransleigh.

His reappearance was a complication she didn’t need.

She could simply not see him again. Send him a note saying she’d changed her mind. Follow the instincts for self-preservation that were screaming at her to run. Unlike the Duke, who had ignored her refusals, she knew with utmost certainty that if she sent such a message, Alastair would let her go.

But that would be taking the coward’s way out. All these years, she’d promised herself that if she ever had the chance, she would do what she could to make amends to him. Reneging on their agreement and bolting at the first sign of peril would snuff out what little honour she had left, like a downpour swamping a candle.

Deep within, beneath the roiling mix of shock, dismay, and frustrated desire, a small voice from the past she’d shut away whispered that she couldn’t let him go. Not yet.

She shut her ears to it. She’d made him a promise, that was all, and honour demanded she keep it. However difficult it proved, however long it took, she would endure, as she always had.

Decision made, she walked over to the dressing table, seated herself on the bench, and regarded her image in the mirror. The forehead was puckered with concern; with fingers she refused to let tremble, she gently smoothed the skin there, beside her eyes, around her mouth, until the woman in the glass looked once again calm and expressionless.

She took a deep breath and held it, held it, held it until she couldn’t any longer. Blowing it out, she took another lungful of air, wiping her mind free of anything but the passage of air in and out, the rhythmic ticking of the mantel clock throbbing in her ears.

Over and over she repeated the familiar ritual. Anxiety, foreboding, and worry gradually diminished until all emotion vanished into the nothingness of complete detachment.

She was the lady in the glass—a shadow of a real woman, a trick of light and mirrors, untouchable.

Only then did she rise and walk to her bed...squelching the tiny, stubborn bit of warmth that stirred within her at the thought that tomorrow, she would see Alastair again.

* * *

The following evening after dinner, Diana paced the parlour restlessly. Without the Duke’s overbearing presence to impose a structure on her days, she was finding herself at a loss for what to do.

Long ago, in another life, she’d enjoyed reading, but she’d had no books to bring with her. It might be...pleasant to resume that activity, or do some needlework.

She should visit the shops and look for a book or embroidery silks. Though she needed to carefully hoard her limited coin against her uncertain future, she could spare enough for a book, couldn’t she?

She had gone out today, visiting the park with Mannington—James. It was still a surprise, discovering how...liberating it was to leave the house and walk about freely, with no possibility of being recalled, lectured, or punished.

And she’d followed through on her resolution to try reaching out to her son. Haltingly, she’d talked to him, even thrown him his ball, to the astonishment of his nursemaid.

She should go up to the nursery and offer to read to him now.

Her cautious mind immediately retreated from the suggestion. Soon she must leave to meet Alastair, and she’d need all the mental and emotional defences she could summon. Having bottled up any tentative reactions after the walk to the park, she didn’t dare breach the calm she’d re-established by approaching her son again.

But putting her son’s needs on hold, now that it was no longer necessary to do so to protect him from his father, was just another form of the same cowardice that made her desperate to avoid Alastair Ransleigh, she admonished herself.

Mannington had suffered through six years without a mother worthy of the name. She wasn’t sure she could ever become one, but she should at least try.

To do so, she’d need to loosen the stranglehold she’d imposed over her emotions. She’d grown so adept at stifling any feelings, she wasn’t sure how to allow some to emerge, without the risk that all the rage, desolation and misery she’d bottled up for years might rush out in an ungovernable flood that could sweep her into madness.

Still, finding her way back to loving a boy whose face so forcefully reminded her of his father was likely to be a long process. He needed her to begin now.

Resolutely, she made her way to the nursery.

She opened the door to find her son in his nightgown, rearranging a few lead soldiers near the hearth. The nursemaid looked up, startled, from where she was turning down the boy’s bed.

‘Did you need something, my lady?’ Minnie asked.

‘I...I thought I would read Mannington a story.’

Something derisive flashed in the girl’s eyes. ‘I’m sure that’s not necessary, my lady. The lad’s nearly ready for bed, and I can tuck him—’

‘Would you really read me a story, Mama?’ James interrupted, hope in his tone and astonishment on his face, as if she’d just offered to reach out and capture the moon that hung in the sky outside his window.

‘If you’d like...James,’ she replied, his given name still coming awkwardly to her tongue.

His eyes brightening, he abandoned the soldiers and ran over to her. ‘Would you, please? I’d like it ever so much!’

‘Could you fetch me a book?’ she asked the maid, who was still regarding her with suspicion—as if she had evil designs on the boy, Diana thought with mild amusement.

She couldn’t blame the girl for her scepticism. Minnie had been James’s nurse for four years, and never before had his mother appeared at his nursery door with such a request.

How many stories had Papa read her by the time she’d reached the age of six? she wondered. Hundreds.

‘A book, my lady?’ Minnie said at last. ‘Don’t have any, your ladyship. I—I don’t know how to read.’

Diana had abandoned books years ago, and never thought to see that her son had access to them. ‘I see. Well, perhaps we can purchase one tomorrow. Shall we say tomorrow night, then, James?’

His face falling, he reached out as she turned to leave and clutched her hand. ‘Can’t you stay, Mama? You could pretend to read.’

A tiny flicker of humour bubbled up. ‘Very well, I’ll stay. But I can do better than pretend. I’ll tell you a story. That will be all, Minnie. I can tuck him in.’

Still looking dubious and more than a little alarmed, the maid sketched her a curtsy. ‘As you please, ma’am. But I’ll be right near, if he—if either of you need anything. Goodnight, young master.’