Stealing the Bride (24 page)

“That boring?” he tried teasing.

She ignored him. “Colin would never have forsaken me. Not for any reason.”

Temple flinched but couldn’t help adding, “No, my cousin wouldn’t have. You could say Colin’s steadfast nature is rather like Tully.”

“Oh bah!” she sputtered, crossing her arms over her chest. “I should have known you would make a joke of this. And imagine, fool that I was, I held out a ridiculous belief that you would never let me marry him.” She paused for a second. “Or any other man, for that matter.”

Temple glanced away, shame filling his gut in a cold coil. He should have been honest with her. Told her the truth. But coward that he was, he feared that if he’d gone to her, he would have fallen prey once again to her soft, stealing glances and her unflagging belief that together they had a chance at happiness.

“I suppose Colin did you a favor then, turning treasonous and giving you an excuse to toss him over,” Temple said.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t Colin’s court-martial that made me change my mind.” She paused for a second. “It was you.”

“
Me
?” Now it was Temple’s turn to shake his head. “I never gave you any indication that I was willing to marry you.”

But the look on Diana’s face suggested otherwise. “I know who you are. I know what you’ve been hiding all these years. I know everything.” She leaned forward. “Temple, you are no more a fool than I.”

“Eloping with Cordell belies that statement, madame,” he said in his best Corinthian manner.

“Oh, just stop,” she told him, rising to her feet. “Stop that wretched act. I hate you when you wear that idiot’s mask.”

He’d like to tell her that his “idiot’s mask,” as she called it, had saved his life more times than he could recall and given him access to conversations that the holders thought far above his witless abilities.

Now he clung to it because it was safe, a wall to hide behind in the face of her outrage. It was far safer than letting her discover the truth.

That he was a coward.

“Oh, botheration. I had no intention of marrying Cordell, anymore than I would the likes of Penham or Nettlesome.”

“Nettlestone,” Temple corrected, still grasping the comfortable vestiges of his masquerade. But suddenly he felt it slipping away, and for the first time in years, he couldn’t find a way to tighten his grip and wrestle it back into place.

Because for some reason, one he was sure he didn’t want to know, he didn’t want to be that Temple any longer. Nor did he want to be cut from the same cloth as his grandfather.

“The baron matters not,” she told him, chipping away at his perfectly constructed role. “I spent three years of my life trying to determine why you turned from me, what had possessed you to change in only a few short months from the brave and heroic man who professed to love me to the vapid fool I found in town.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?” Knowing Diana’s forthright manner, it was rather unbelievable that she hadn’t.

“Would you have told me the truth?” she asked. Her voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Would you have changed your mind?”

His silence was her answer.

“I thought not.” Her bitter words cut him to the quick.

“You shouldn’t have waited for me,” he said, as if he didn’t really want to say the words.

She stared him straight in the eye. “I’m not. Not anymore. You made your desires quite clear yesterday.”

Temple flinched.

“Yes,” she said. “I was eavesdropping on you and Colin.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Whyever not?” She sighed. “Of all the people you should be saying that to, don’t you think I deserve to be the first to hear it? I’ve waited for years, Temple, for you to set me free.”

“You should never have waited. You should have married someone else.”

Please
, he pleaded silently as he had for so many years,
find someone who can give you the happiness you so deserve
. And even as he said the words, he cursed the lucky bastard who caught her heart and stole it away from him.

And at the same time, his original prayer always broke in.

Wait for me, goddess
.

She reached for another slice of bread, holding it in her hand, as if toying with eating it or giving it to Tully. After a pause, she tossed it to the dog, just as she had tossed away so many years waiting for him. “I had my reasons.”

“I can hardly see that I gave you any indication that I would ever marry you.”

“No, you made your feelings quite clear at the Fosters’ ball. And I was heartbroken. Heartbroken enough to stop believing in the magic we shared that fortnight in Sussex. Then I discovered the truth of the matter, at least what I once believed was the real reason for your reluctance.”

“And what would that be?”

“Your work for the Foreign Office.”

He had been staring at the flames, unwilling to face her, but her quiet statement brought his gaze rocketing up to meet hers.

“
My what?
” he sputtered.

“The Foreign Office,” she replied as calmly and as matter-of-factly as if she were referring to some country gentleman’s hobby, like growing roses or breeding prize hounds. “You know exactly what I mean. The work you do for that awful Mr. Pymm.”

Temple felt as if he’d been stripped bare. There were only a few people who knew about his work. Colin, their grandfather, Elton, and of course Pymm. But he’d never thought, never suspected that anyone else had discovered his secret life.

“Who have you told of this? Who else knows?” he demanded, suddenly seeing his charade coming to a stunningly inglorious end. He caught hold of her wrist. “Tell me.”

Tully growled, but Temple shot a hot glare at the beast and snarled back, “Be still” with such ferocity that the dog turned tail and hid his head behind Diana.

She tried to pull her hand free, but he held on tight, as if he held on to his very career. Finally she gave up her struggles. “No one else. I have told no one.” Then she paused. “Except Lady Danvers. But she already knew.” She tugged at her hand again, and this time he released it.

Temple frowned and kicked at a loose stone on the dirt floor. “Georgie would know,” he muttered. “That woman can unearth state secrets as easily as buy a new hat.”

The same could be said, he thought, of Diana, but he wasn’t going to give her the credit. It would only give credence to that smug look on her face.

“How?” he asked. “How did you find out?”

She bit her lip, staring into the flames. He thought for a time she wasn’t going to tell him. Then she glanced up and met his gaze.

And answered his question by telling him about a certain day on Bond Street when she’d gone to buy a hat, and in less time than it took Mrs. Foston to purchase three yards of green cording, Diana’s life changed utterly and completely.

T
hey sat in silence long after Diana finished her story.

Sliding her slipper across the dirt floor, she nudged his boot. “Did you love her?”

The question caught Temple unaware. “Love who?”

“Mademoiselle de Vessay?” Diana plucked at her skirt, her gaze focused on her lap, as if she didn’t dare look at him for fear of the answer. “You risked much to save her. Twice.”

Aha, so that was what was bothering her.

Temple suspected the frown creasing Diana’s brow had more to do with Lucette’s effusive French manners and less with the fact that he’d almost lost his life dispatching two French agents.

Up until a few minutes ago, he hadn’t thought of the encounter in ages. It had only been another day in his work for Pymm. He’d been assigned to collect information from the socially prominent young lady. Welcomed everywhere—amongst the
ton
and the close-knit
émigré
society—Mademoiselle de Vessay had been recruited by Pymm to collect information on French activities in England, Royalist and otherwise. It had only been a matter of dancing with the popular chit once a week or so, or offering to escort her to dinner at a supper ball, during which she’d fill his ear with the bits of news she’d gathered. It wasn’t Pymm’s policy to hire ladies, for he was of the opinion they weren’t reliable, but Lucette proved her worth time and time again.

Temple knew why the girl worked so hard. The money Pymm provided kept her and her mother out of the utter poverty that swallowed up so many of their homeless compatriots. The money wasn’t much, for Pymm was as parsimonious as he was distrustful, but the modest income allowed the comtesse and her daughter to move freely amongst the
ton
.

“Did you?” Diana asked again. “Did you love her?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“You could have died in that alley.”

At this he grinned. So she did care about his life. Not that she should, he tried telling himself, but that she was worried thrilled him. “Lucette was an excellent informant who found herself in trouble. I did nothing more than repay the service she’d given so unselfishly to England.”

“I don’t think she felt that way,” Diana muttered. “Besides, you were the one who saved her and her mother in Paris. Their mysterious benefactor who plucked them from the tumbrel at the very foot of the guillotine.”

Her words came out more of an accusation—evidence presented that he’d held an affection for Lucette that went beyond their dangerous profession.

Yet what could he tell her? The truth?

That there had only ever been one woman to hold his heart.

“It was hardly as dramatic as all that.” Temple attempted to brush off the grandiose images of a mythic hero that the de Vessays had allowed to grow in the wake of their arrival in London. “The comtesse and her daughter are French. They tend to add a liberal measure of drama and fabrication to their tales. I simply helped them escape their prison and brought them here after the comte was murdered.”

“You make it sound as if you merely escorted them to a house party.”

Temple ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t a modest man by nature, but he hardly deserved any sort of admiration for his feats. He’d done what was necessary. What any man would do. “Diana, there were many more people who died during the Terror than were saved. In that respect, I hardly consider my work worthy of such regard or adulation.”

“You’ve done far more than anyone else would have considered,” she said with quiet resolution. “Risked far more than you should.”

“How would you know?” he asked.

She just looked at him, with one brow cocked.

From her smug expression, he had the feeling she could recount the exploits of his career better than he could. He didn’t know how she knew, but whatever she thought of his deeds, or misdeeds as Pymm might say, he didn’t want this misplaced praise.

“I do what is necessary,” he said, using the same words he’d thrown at his grandfather countless times when the old duke railed against his reckless disregard for familial obligations.

Family first, boy
, his grandfather always replied.
Family first
.

Temple continued, lest she heap any more tributes on his less than worthy shoulders, “Before you start giving me credit for being a hero, might I remind you that Pymm pays me for my services. I just like to keep my landlady from locking me out and to see to it that Elton is well fed.”

“Bah,” she said with a wave of her hand, sounding more like his grandfather than he cared to consider. “You do it because you couldn’t live your life any other way. And it’s the only reason I don’t hate you. I can understand that you do what needs to be done, but Temple, can’t you see that we could do it together?”

“
Together?
” he managed to sputter forth. “Are you dicked in nob? ’Tis a dangerous world out there and certainly no place for a lady.”

She should never have to see the sights he’d witnessed. No lady should. That she’d watched two men die at his hand was bad enough, but what if she were to have seen thousands die, as he had in Paris, one after another until he thought he would never erase the blood from his memories?

“Diana, this mad chase to the border of yours is nothing compared to the chaos of a continent at war.”

She sat on the edge of her seat. “Yes, yes. I don’t relish the idea of men dying or observing such horrors, but there are other things I can do—such as uncover secrets.” She paused for a second, then jumped up and opened his valise. Before he protested, her hand plunged inside and moments later plucked out a piece of paper. “Like this special license you left in Colin’s care. I thought you might have more need for it than Lord Danvers so I returned it to that secret flap in the bottom of your bag.”

She held up the paper as if it were undeniable evidence of her worth.

He wondered if there was anything left in his life that she didn’t already know.

Incorrigible, wretched little minx.

“I think we are well matched, you and I. Think of what we could accomplish together.”

Despite himself, he saw what she suggested. A life with Diana at his side. It was a tempting fantasy. One that enticed him with visions of daring deeds and even more rewarding nights.

No matter how sincere she might be, he knew the right of this, and so he said again, “No, Diana. I won’t take you with me.”

“Colin takes Georgie,” she pointed out.

“My cousin takes his wife because she has the uncanny ability to stow away on his ship. She hardly travels with him invited, because Colin knows as well as I that war is no place for a woman.”

“And why not? Do you think I stay behind blithely ignorant of what is happening? I follow all the accounts in my father’s newspapers. I’ve cheered victories, cried over defeats and mourned for men whose names I never knew until I saw them listed among the dead. For I know that until this war is won, you won’t come back to me. I go to bed every night cursing that wretched little man in France and in the same breath praying fervently for your safety. There isn’t a woman in England, who loves a man determined to do his part, who doesn’t do the same, every day and night.”

She rose and walked over to the fire, tending it with a quiet fortitude, much as generations of women had tended hearths while waiting endlessly for a loved one to come home.

After prodding the coals into a fine bed, she added another piece of wood. She waited for a moment until it caught, and then, satisfied with her task, swept her hands over her skirt.

Finally, she turned to him. “How would you like to attend ridiculous balls and endless parties pretending to be happy and secure while you knew your beloved was in danger from a threat that you could not protect him from? Not knowing if you will ever see him again? Ever feel his lips press against yours?”

Temple was taken aback in the face of her vehemence, her determination, her passion. She was right. The sitting and waiting and inability to help—why, it would drive him crazy.

But protecting her from the war had hardly been his true reason for disavowing her. He had sought to protect her from a far worse fate than the French.

No, he shielded Diana from the menace of his grandfather’s machinations. For in truth, they had killed Temple’s gentle mother, then broken his father’s heart.

No, the foe he sought to keep Diana safe from could not be vanquished any more easily than Napoleon, and that meant he only had to strive harder to see that she never suffered his mother’s lot.

Lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t realize she’d come to kneel before him until she took his face in her hands. The warm, steady fingers cradling him soothed his fears.

“Temple, I won’t let you decide my fate,” she said in a whisper of a voice. “I cast my lot with you a lifetime ago. And I won’t live apart from you any longer.”

Her earnest gaze locked with his. He felt himself lost in those marvelous eyes of hers, in the cream of her cheeks, the soft pink of her lips. Her every nuance reminded him of a gentle English rose, to be protected and cherished. Except of course her heart. There Diana reminded him of the true miracle of a rose…its unflagging renewal year after year, despite summer’s drought or winter’s icy hand.

She refused to stop blooming and growing, no matter the adversity.

“Kiss me, Temple.” It was no cloying request, no flirtish tease, but an order from a woman determined to change the course of his heart.

What she didn’t realize was that his heart didn’t need changing.

“Kiss me,” she repeated, this time her breath, sweet and tempting, drifted and mingled with his own. She tipped her head and parted her lips, moving ever closer to his. “Kiss me and tell me you don’t love me.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t kiss her and deny his love. He’d be betrayed by his own desire for her.

And yet while he knew he should set her aside, set her straight, he couldn’t. Not when those eyes held him in her thrall.

Tired of waiting, tired of being second, Diana threw what was left of her tattered reputation to the stormy winds outside and pressed her lips to those of the man she loved.

Yes, they’d kissed several times over the last few days, searching, questioning explorations, passionate moments that had only teased their memories of the past.

Lawd sakes, she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her years wishing she’d known the love of a man. For when she’d tossed aside her betrothal to Lord Danvers, she’d sworn right there and then, she wouldn’t marry unless it was to Temple.

If he wanted to cling to his feigned indifference, that was well and good, but right now she wasn’t going to be put off. And if all she could do was steal a small piece of Temple’s heart, then she was willing to live as a thief.

So she stole a kiss, a kiss meant to taste his soul, purloin some hint of the love she knew he held for her in some dark, unreachable place in his inexplicable heart of stone.

How she had hungered over the years for his kiss, for his embrace. More so than was probably proper.

But why shouldn’t a woman hunger as much as a man?

His lips were firm and unyielding at first. But that was Temple. The Jericho inspired walls he’d built around himself only needed the blare of trumpets to tear them down, and Diana believed with all her heart that she knew the notes to that trembling, triumphant song.

Bold and unrepentant, she defied his tightly reined indifference and teased his lips with her tongue.

“Open your heart for me,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his. “Let me in, Temple. Just this once.”

Just this once, let me in, my love
.

His lips opened to her assault; his tongue welcomed her caress.

Come with me. Come with me
, her thoughts sang, hoping in some way he would hear her siren call.

The passion she’d held for him, carried for oh so long, sparked once again, the coals never having had a chance to grow cold. Her fingers wound in his hair, curving around the back of his neck.

As they continued to kiss, an ache so keen and familiar unwound within her, leaving Diana’s knees weak. His lips, the taste of him, the way his tongue swept over hers, possessing her as if she belonged only to him, left her breathless, left her aching to do more than just this…this teasing, haunting dance.

Grow bold, my love, and deliver me from this need
…

The line from one of his poems echoed through her thoughts, urging her to take matters into her own hands.

Literally
.

Her fingers plied at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, plucking at his cravat until the usually elegantly tied cloth was in an ignoble pile on the floor. Under the wool, the lace, and the linen lay a wall of muscled strength.

And a heart.

It beat beneath her fingertips in a wild rhythm, as ragged as his breathing, as deep and true as the growl that rose up from his throat when her hands delved further down to wrestle with the buttons on his breeches.

She remembered only too well what he’d felt like that morning she’d awakened nestled in his arms. What she’d rediscovered in Nottingham. That what lay under all his layers was strong and hard.

No longer sixteen, she didn’t have any fears of what that hardness could do.

No, she welcomed it. She wanted it. To touch it, to feel it. For it to drive into that heated place between her thighs and take away the aching need he’d started so many years ago with just one kiss.

And when her hands found him, the length of him, hidden and trapped inside his breeches, she stroked him, teasing him, enticing his manhood, as she’d done when she’d begged him to kiss her.

Come to me, Temple. Take me.

“No!” he said in a ragged shudder, setting her aside so violently, she fell back on the floor, landing in a whoosh of tangled petticoats and muslin.

“Botheration!” she sputtered. “Have you gone mad?”

“I will if I continue this course,” he told her as he dodged out of his chair and shoved the ramshackle piece of furniture between them. “No, Diana, I cannot do this.”