Stealing the Bride (12 page)

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

She plucked it back from the candle even as the corner started to pucker and darken.

She had to believe that the man she’d known all those years ago, the man she’d loved since she was barely out of the schoolroom, would never let her marry another man.

But he had before.
He would have let you marry Lord Danvers. He would have let you marry a hundred others
.

No. There was a reason for Temple’s indifference. An explanation for why he’d changed so utterly and completely, beyond the ones that she already knew.

As she began to pull her hand out of the bag, her fingers brushed against something else. Another book.

The careworn edges and soft leather spoke of a possession most beloved.

She caught hold of it and pulled it out.

The plain, thin volume was not unlike what many people used as a journal or record book.

A journal?
At this Diana grinned. Temple’s diary. Now that should prove interesting.

She pushed aside his valise and scrambled over to the fireplace, settling on the rug before the hearth.

She looked down at the volume in her hands and wondered what clues it might hold.

An account of his mistresses? Hardly, Elton said he didn’t have the time or the money.

A record of expenses? She shook her head. She had a feeling Temple didn’t keep track of his debts, leaving that vexing job to his grandfather’s beleaguered secretary.

She closed her eyes and said a small prayer that this book would help her discover the truth in Temple’s heart. With that said, she opened to a random page.

When she peeked down at the secrets it held, she was stunned at what she read.

Poetry?

She leafed through the yellow, well-thumbed pages. Lyrical words, words of longing, lines that brought a tear to her eye with their simple, touching beauty. That he loved someone, with such deeply held passion, didn’t surprise her. But now she was left with only one question.

Is it me?

It was well past midnight when Temple found himself standing before Diana’s door, wondering at his own sanity.

Desperate to find a peaceful and comfortable place to sleep, he’d come to this. With this being the only room available for him in the entire inn.

Since she’d informed everyone that they were husband and wife on a much belated wedding trip, he could hardly insist on separate chambers. It would appear odd. Put a chink in their already tenuous story. Not that there were any rooms as it was.

So he’d intended to sleep in the carriage, slipping outside when no one was looking. Not a comfortable solution, but the most available.

Only by the time he’d gotten to the carriage, he discovered that his ever-resourceful Elton had already nabbed the space. And was snoring happily away inside the comforts of the Setchfield berline.

Now, Elton didn’t just snore, he created an unearthly din. Temple often wondered if that had been the man’s Achilles heel, the deafening peal having delivered the once crafty gentleman into the hands of the law. Not that it mattered now. There wouldn’t be any possibility of finding sleep within fifty yards of the carriage.

Even the stable boys were fleeing, carrying their blankets and shooting sleepy darts at the dreadful racket coming from the carriage. Yet before he thought to ask where they were going, the boys were gone, sliding into the night like a pack of displaced alley cats, leaving Temple no choice but to return to the inn.

Besides, despite the calendar’s assurance that it was June, the night was cold. Not really a night to decide if he had a gypsy’s fortitude.

Certainly he could manage a few hours in the same room as Diana without being driven to some rash mistake? He was a sensible man, used to deception and subterfuge.

Diana was just another adversary to outwit.

Staring at the oaken panel that separated him from his enemy, he decided that his foray last winter into Napoleon’s court had been about as dangerous as one of his aunt’s card parties compared to the hazards Diana posed to his traitorous heart.

Taking a deep breath, he slid the key into the lock and opened the door, pausing a few breathless seconds to listen. Inside the chamber there wasn’t a sound.

Satisfied that she was well and good in the land of Queen Mab, he took the direct route across the room, making for the fireplace, where a thick, cozy rug lay. As he went, he shrugged his coat onto a chair and settled his boots, which he’d taken the precaution of removing out in the hall, down beside it. His cravat and waistcoat followed.

Then, ignoring the soft, rounded shape curled up in the middle of the enormous bed, he made his way as silently as a housebreaker to the rug before the hearth.

It wasn’t his feather bed in his London town house, it wasn’t even the leather-covered, well-sprung seat of the berline, but it was better than the common room, where he would be putting himself on display for all types of gossipy speculation.

Settling down on the rug, he breathed a sigh of relief, then closed his eyes and awaited blessed sleep.

His reprieve didn’t last very long.

There was a rustle of sheets, and then the swoosh of the bed’s silken counterpane being turned back.

“Temple,” Diana said in a whisper-quiet voice full of invitation and mischief. “Don’t you think you’d be more comfortable up here?”

“E
xcuse me?” Temple sputtered.

“You heard what I said,” Diana whispered in that silken, enticing voice of hers. “It would be far more comfortable to sleep in this bed than on that floor.” The sheets rustled once again, and he could see the flash of white muslin as she turned the coverings further back in invitation.

“I beg to differ,” he said, recalling how much her kiss had put him into knots. The idea of sharing a bed with her…now, that was enough to put him into an early grave. “Besides, it would be completely beyond the pale for me to take your bed and ask you to sleep on the floor. I’ll be fine right here.”

He made a great show of stretching and settling onto his makeshift bed.

“Oh, you misunderstood me. I’ve no intention of sleeping on the floor.”

Temple hadn’t misunderstood her. He was merely doing his best to ignore the alluring notes in her voice, the soft swish of sheets. Even now her rose-scented perfume, which he hadn’t noticed when he entered the room, started to ensnare his senses. “Diana, go to sleep. I’ve slept in far worse places than this.”

He rolled over on the narrow rug, his feet clanging into the fire tongs, sending them tumbling atop him. Temple cursed and kicked the clattering piece aside.

Ignoring the muffled giggles rising from the bed, he stretched again and tried to find some measure of comfort.

His silence only seemed to spur her efforts. “Oh, don’t be so foolish,” she said. “It’s a cold night.” She paused for a second and then sweetened her offer. “I can’t believe you prefer an oak floor over a feather mattress and a thick, warm coverlet.”

He didn’t. But the floor didn’t conjure all kinds of notions that would end up having him facing the parson.

Notions that had nothing to do with feather mattresses and coverlets, but rather the passionate vixen they held between them.

“Diana, you know as well as I that sharing a bed is the worst sort of idea. It’s just not done. Why, you’d be ruined.”

A rather unladylike snort came from the bed. “Any worse than I am now? I hardly think so. Now stop being such a ninny and get in.”

“No.”

“Oh Temple, you can be so ridiculous. You made your intentions, or rather lack of intentions, quite clear last night. I’m not inviting you into this bed with some grand plan of seducing you. You don’t find me to your liking, and I’ve accepted that. Now just get in. It’s not like I haven’t been in a bed with you before, and I survived that experience unscathed.”

She had to bring that up
, he thought. “I was hardly in any condition to seduce you then.”

The sheets rustled anew as she rolled over. “Oh, you were capable.”

Temple didn’t need the candle lit to know the minx was grinning. “Diana! What the devil do you know about a man’s capability?”

“Only what you taught me,” she said. “I suppose I should thank you. Miss Emery never included anything of that nature in her class on marriage and wifely obligations. But then again perhaps it is all different when a man and woman are married. But I don’t think I’d prefer it differently, I rather liked the idea of a man being—”

“Enough!” Temple sat bolt upright. If he’d had the coverlet she was so generously offering to share, he’d have stuffed both ends into his ears. “Diana, this conversation has gone too far. Can we just get some sleep?”

“If we must.” She rolled again, the whisper of the sheets as inviting as her soft sighs as she tossed this way, then that. “This is such a large bed. I hardly think there is any impropriety in sharing it. Why, if you stay on your side, and I stay on mine, you’ll never know I’m here.”

Oh, he’d know. Only too well.

And that was the problem.

“Diana, if you haven’t a care for your own reputation, what about mine? I don’t think your fiancés would be overjoyed to discover their future bride sleeping alongside another man.” Temple rolled over so he faced the bed.

One enormous, comfortable, made-for-hours-of-lovemaking bed.

He shook his head and continued, reminding himself and her of the consequences of what she sought. “Would you really want me to face Penham over pistols?”

“No. Nor Nettlesome,” she said.

“Nettlestone,” he corrected.

“Yes, right.” She paused. “I imagine the baron
would
kill you.”

Temple sat up despite his better judgment. “I think not—” Even as he began his defense, he realized the trap he was falling into. One of her devising. “That’s not the point,” he told her instead.

She sighed, as if mourning his lost life. “Well, if not Nettlestone, I fear Lord Harry would dispatch you quite easily.”

“Madame, I do have some prowess with a pistol.”

“How is that, Temple? When did you gain this reputation as a crack shot?”

He ground his teeth together. “Just suffice it to say that once I was done dispatching them—”

“That is, if you lived,” she interjected.

“Yes, if I lived,” he said, annoyed that she held even the slightest doubt he wouldn’t. “Then there would be your father. I’m sure he would demand satisfaction as well.”

She rose up in the bed, hugging her arms around her knees. “Oh, my father wouldn’t have any qualms about you sharing my bed. He thinks you are a complete imbecile, incapable of—”

“Demmit, that’s quite enough!” he said, scrambling up from the floor. “A man can only take so many slings against his honor before he…he…”

“Gives in?” she suggested. She threw back the sheets again and moved over, patting the space she’d just vacated. “There’s plenty of room, and it’s far more comfortable than that rug.”

If Temple had been a man of principle, he would have refused her right there and then. But he wasn’t. Principles left one stranded beside a snoring servant or attempting to sleep on a hard floor.

Besides, it was a glorious-looking bed.

He took a step closer and felt his resolve weakening. He’d come this far in life resisting the temptation of Lady Diana Fordham, he told himself, he could do so for one more night.

He paused before the bed. The crisp sheets smelled slightly of lavender and a good soap. “If I decide to take you up on your offer,” he said, “it is on the condition that you roll over and go to sleep.”

“Oh yes, certainly,” she said, opening her mouth in a wide yawn and patting her lips with the palm of her hand. “I fear all that fresh air today has made me terribly weary.”

She could feign sleepiness all she wanted, but Temple saw quite clearly the saucy glint in her eyes.

Go ahead and celebrate, you little minx, but I am not falling prey to your wiles. Not when the East beckons. Not when all I’ve worked for is so close at hand.

Freedom from his charade with the
ton
. Freedom from his grandfather’s machinations. A chance to be someone other than Setchfield’s wastrel heir.

A chance to escape that nagging feeling that dogged his lonely heart, taunting him that there was more to life than the daily challenge of living one tremendous lie, living a double life.

Just as the sparkle of her blue eyes teased him into believing that passion and love could conquer all his long-held misgivings and fears.

Diana was already well settled on her side. She glanced up at him. “Change of heart, or am I sleeping alone?”

“No,” he said, climbing into the bed. “But let me remind you, I’m only doing this so you will let me get some sleep. And nothing else.”

“Of course, Temple. As you wish.”

Wishes
, Temple wanted to tell her,
had nothing to do with it
.

Diana turned her head to hide the smile that was surely turning her lips.

Oh, Temple could be the most stubborn, exasperating man she’d ever met. Still, she was relieved he’d finally given in. She’d been starting to run out of arguments.

She snuggled into the bed and marveled at the strangeness of having another person beside her.

Oh yes, she had shared a bed with Temple once before, but that hardly counted. He was conscious and able-bodied this time.

“Quite nice, I say. Don’t you agree?” she asked, deliberately forgetting her promise to cease her chatter.

There was a long moment of silence from the other side of the bed. Then, “Do I dare ask, what is ‘quite nice’?”

She patted the space between them. “This. Sharing a bed. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sleep with someone. A man, I mean.” She snuggled closer to the middle. Closer to Temple.

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men.”

To her chagrin, he moved farther away. It was a huge bed, and at this rate, she could well find herself spending the entire night chasing him across the sheets.

“Oh, very funny. But you’ve had mistresses. I imagine you’ve spent the night with them, haven’t you?”

Temple sat upright. “Diana! How I spend my nights is hardly a fit subject to be discussing with a lady.”

Diana rolled over. “Well, I think it is patently unfair that a man can sleep with whom he pleases before he is wed, while we women are forced to sleep alone.”

“Perhaps men and woman don’t sleep together so men can get some sleep.” He flopped back down and turned away from her.

“I hardly think so. Men always seem to want to sleep with women.”
And women with men.

Diana stared at his broad shoulders, her fingers itching to reach out and run feverishly beneath his white linen shirt, to explore the muscled contours so close at hand.

Temple let out a loud sigh. “Well, you seem to be the expert on the subject. Is that your experience with Penham and Nettlesome, that they want only to share your bed?”

She laughed. “Heavens no. They just want my money.”

Temple rolled over. “Let me assure you, not every man who calls on you is merely interested in your money.”

There was a smoky tenor to his words that sent a shiver racing down her spine. It reminded her of the way he kissed, so passionately, so confidently, so full of promise. She looked up from his lips to his eyes, his so very dark eyes, the ones that held so many mysteries, and realized they were giving away one right now.

“You aren’t, are you?”

“Aren’t what?”

“Interested in my money.” No, when Temple looked at her like that, she knew her fortune wasn’t what he was contemplating.

“Diana, if I were interested in your money, you wouldn’t have any.”

She shook her head. “I hardly think that even you, spendthrift that you are, could squander
my
dowry.”

“If I were to marry you, there wouldn’t be any dowry. Your father would disinherit you.”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. He’d be rather vexed at the idea of having you for a son-in-law.”

“‘Vexed’ wouldn’t be the word I’d use.”

“Still, I doubt he’d cut me off without anything.”

“He would.” Temple sounded rather confident on the matter, as if he had considered the subject on more than one occasion.

“That would be rather inconvenient,” she said. “We wouldn’t have any money.”

Temple nodded. “Not a penny between us.”

Diana hardly liked the idea of that. She shared Temple’s love of fine things, and the idea of living in the streets or begging didn’t suit her at all. Then the obvious occurred to her. “We wouldn’t be without assistance. Your grandfather would be thrilled. He’s always wanted to see you wed, and I believe he has a certain fondness for me, even if I did refuse Colin twice.”

“His grace would be in alt over the notion. And that would be the problem.”

Diana sat up on one elbow. “Are you telling me, Temple, that the reason you won’t have me is because your grandfather would be well pleased?”

“His feelings have nothing to do with my decisions. Besides, I’ve gone this long without his money. I intend to continue doing so.”

Diana considered arguing the point, but his tight, cold tone suggested that further inquiry would only send him fleeing back to the sanctity of the rug.

Or worse, the stables, where she imagined he’d come from to begin with.

She rolled on her back, her arms crossed over her chest. “Then I suppose if we were to wed,” she said, “we wouldn’t be able to afford a room as fine as this.”

“That depends on how much gold you have stashed away in that valise of yours.”

Diana laughed. “Now you sound like Cordell.” Once she said the viscount’s name, her humor faded into an awkward silence.

“Temple,” she finally whispered. “How did he die?”

Though it wasn’t a subject fit for a lady’s ears, she knew Temple would tell her.

“He was shot.” Temple shifted and rolled toward her. “Straight through the heart. He barely had time to know what hit him, so I doubt he suffered overly much.”

To her shame, she hadn’t even considered such a sympathetic line of thought. She’d chosen Cordell because of his ruinous reputation. He was the worst sort of man, and his end, tragic though it might be, had been, in many ways, inevitable.

“Do you think he murdered that girl?” She turned her head and gazed in his direction. “The one from the stews?”

Temple’s brow arched. “What do you know about that?”

She shrugged. “That he beat a girl to death, then disavowed the entire tragedy.”

He shuddered, a rising tide of anger washing over his features.

“She was a young girl, wasn’t she?”

Temple glanced away at her question, his silence all the answer she needed.

Though she didn’t consider herself naïve, Diana still had a hard time believing that men could be so evil, or that they could intentionally harm one so young and unprotected.

“You shouldn’t have—” he started to say, his mouth closing in a firm, hard line, as if the words caught in his throat.

She knew exactly what he was thinking.

If she knew Cordell’s nature, whatever had possessed her to willingly put herself in his company?

Of course, he was right. And she deserved whatever fury he was about to unleash at her. Cringing, she waited for the explosion.

It didn’t come.

“Diana,” he said, reaching out to cup her face. “What would have become of you if I hadn’t found you?”

The warmth of his fingers curled from her cheek to her heart. “It matters not,” she told him. “Because you did.”