“I told you why I’m in London.” Her voice shook, and she refused to meet his eyes, sure proof, did she but know it, she lied. “I told you the first day.”
He’d studied Diana Carrick with an attention he usually devoted to his latest antiquity, not to living, breathing women he lured to his bed.
And wasn’t that a bleak reflection on the depth and value of his relationships?
“I know what you told me,” he said steadily. He’d long ago reached the conclusion she had lied about why she became his lover.
She tried to pull free. “Well, then.”
He tightened his grip, insisting upon her attention. “Not good enough, Diana.”
Startled, she stopped struggling and regarded him directly for the first time since he’d asked his unwelcome question. Like sharks in a shallow ocean, familiar shadows swam in her eyes.
“I don’t understand.” She didn’t sound angry. She sounded frightened.
He ignored a kick from his conscience. “Of course you do.”
“You make too much of this, find mysteries where there are none.” She drew a shaky breath, and he noted to the second when she decided to elaborate on her unconvincing story.
He might believe it of a thousand other women, but this reckless pursuit of pleasure didn’t fit the Diana he knew. She was a vitally passionate woman, but she was also strong-willed and no slave to appetite.
At least she hadn’t told him he had no right to interrogate her. That in itself was an admission of the intimacy she resisted.
“At home, my behavior is scrutinized. If I want a man in my bed, the only way I’ll get him is with the Church’s blessing. I want…” She paused. For all his confidence in his ability to read her, he wasn’t sure whether she lied or told the truth. A tangled mixture of the two, he guessed.
She relaxed into his hold, indicating her willingness to answer to a point. Fatalistically he wondered when they’d reach that point. She sighed. “I’ve had eight years of chaste widowhood. I wanted an adventure. Something to remember in virtuous old age.”
He believed part of this. He didn’t believe all of it. “Why now? Why wait eight years? What prompted you to take this risky step?”
She looked at him in genuine shock. “Risky?”
He shot her an impatient glare. “Don’t be a damned fool, Diana. Of course it’s risky.”
His blood turned to ice when he thought of some of the men she could have selected for her fling. If all she wanted in a lover was a worldly reputation, the list included every rapscallion and whoremonger in London.
He studiously avoided admitting that both words described the Earl of Ashcroft.
The smile she sent him brimmed with unconditional trust. “As if you’d hurt me.”
He quashed the traitorous warmth her immediate faith evoked. “You know that now, not when you approached me. And there are other hurts, like an unwanted child or damage to your reputation.”
“You sound like you regret my choice.”
“Never.” Let her not discover how fervently he meant that denial. “But why come to London now? Something must have changed. You’re by nature a virtuous woman.”
She looked cross. “How can you say that after what we’ve done?”
He gave a surprised laugh. “That wasn’t a criticism, my love. You know I find you irresistible.” His tone deepened into seriousness. “Tell me, Diana.”
After a fraught pause, she began to speak in a low, intense voice. “A man at home wants to marry me.”
Ashcroft’s gut twisted. He couldn’t speak past the great lump of rage that lodged in his throat.
How could she mention another man? Didn’t she know she belonged to him? The crazy thought bobbed like flotsam on the surface of his mind, refused to sink into the mud where it belonged. He wasn’t a man who offered forever. He was the notorious, inconstant, capricious Earl of Ashcroft who promised a woman only untrammeled pleasure and a summary good-bye once his interest had run its course.
Which didn’t make the idea of another man sharing Diana’s bed any more palatable.
She seemed to take his silence as encouragement to continue. Or perhaps having launched her confession, she couldn’t stop. “He’s…he’s an older man, rich and well respected in the village.”