Still trapped in silent stasis, he observed the expressions flash through her gray eyes. He read a radiant happiness that made his blood sing. Then dismay, then fear and unmistakable guilt. Finally, some complex, dark emotion he didn’t understand.
“Ashcroft,” she whispered, as if the word were a curse.
Diana was trapped in a nightmare. Identical to the cruel dreams where Ashcroft appeared in Marsham and accused her of betrayal. Although the nightmares weren’t as painful as her other dreams. Where she shuddered awake trembling, sweating, verging on climax, wondering why the phantom arms holding her didn’t hold her in reality.
She’d missed Ashcroft so much. He’d latched such hooks into her heart, she’d never shake him free. Since returning home, she felt like she’d had a limb amputated.
She hadn’t expected him to accept dismissal without a fight. It wasn’t in his nature to give up on something he wanted. And she’d deceived him into wanting her, heaven forgive her.
A neighbor had mentioned a stranger asked after her the first Sunday morning she was back. She’d known immediately it was Ashcroft. What surprised her was that her father had managed to turn him away. Her father, who had barely spoken to her since her return, never alluded to the encounter.
The letters that arrived in handfuls last week hadn’t surprised her either. She’d insisted she wouldn’t read them. Of course she had. Over and over.
She’d insisted she wouldn’t keep them. They currently resided under her pillow, creased and stained with tears she shed in the privacy of her chamber.
How stupid. How pointless. How adolescent.
Every night she pored over his increasingly agitated requests for her to come back. She knew the words by heart. No wonder Ashcroft haunted her. She was like a dedicated drunkard. Knowing liquor gave her a headache but unable to stop reaching for the sherry bottle.
Even so, she knew better than to answer his letters. When the correspondence ceased, she told herself it was inevitable. He’d found another woman to share his breathtaking passion. Diana was safe. He’d never trouble her again. In a few months, he probably wouldn’t remember her name.
How she wished the idea made her a scrap happier.
Dreams still came at night to shatter her rest. She felt as if something essential to her existence was missing, and she must find it quickly before she stopped functioning altogether.
Which didn’t prevent sick terror coiling in her belly when she caught him so close to Marsham, so close to Cranston Abbey, so close to Lord Burnley.
Curse him. She’d left him. Why couldn’t he stay left?
“What are you doing here?” The question vibrated with anger. Anger and distress, although she hoped he didn’t guess how upset she was to see him. Rex whined.
Ashcroft’s eyebrows arched in the familiar expression. “Surely that’s obvious. You need to answer some questions. Let’s start with what you were doing in London. Who paid for your house and clothes? Why did you seduce me?”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she continued in that same quaking voice. “I don’t want to see you.”
Even as her eyes devoured him as though he offered the only light in a long, dark winter.
Since they’d parted, she’d relived every hour they spent together. Yet now he was here, details pierced her like jagged shards of glass. The precise angle of his jaw. The lazy glint in his green eyes. His height. He was still the only man who made her feel delicate and feminine. That alluring curl of his lip when he smiled, as if they shared a joke the rest of the world never quite got.
“That’s unfortunate.” In contrast to hers, his voice was firm and decisive. “Because I want to see you.”
His stare reminded her of his focused attention when he wanted sex. She licked dry lips at the idea of his touching her. She wanted it so much, yet only disaster loomed. She must stay strong. And she had to get rid of him before he was discovered.
“Come on, Rex,” she said flatly. She turned on her heel and stalked away, the dog shuffling behind her.
“No, you don’t,” Ashcroft said softly, lunging forward and hooking his hand around her upper arm. The contact stopped her in her tracks.
Rex growled. “Quiet, Rex,” she said. Then to Ashcroft, “Let me go.”
He ignored her. “Did you get my letters?”
She faced him down with stubborn defiance, even as her blood rushed with excitement at his nearness. “Yes.”
His hand tightened. “And?”
She tried to sound implacable. Instead, her response just emerged as sulky childishness. “And nothing. I tore them up and threw them in the fire.”
His beautifully shaped mouth quirked in wry amusement. “Harsh fate. Didn’t you want to see what I said?”