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, be
gging 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.