Chapter Six
Diana didn’t get back in the carriage.
Instead, she told the driver to wait for Oliver and struck out down the narrow street, heading for the vista of ocean that she could see spread out across the horizon in front of her. She was angry and shaking and wished with all her heart that she was one of those supremely clever, cool women who could cut a man down to size with her wit. Yet everything she wished she had said usually came to her about two hours too late.
She despised the duke and all his spiteful conceit. She despised the vindictive gossip that she couldn’t get away from. And she despised that she didn’t really know what to do about any of it.
Those thoughts dashed around in her mind until she found herself past the last shops and inns and houses, and the beach opened up before her. She turned west, her feet sinking into the rough sand as she walked blindly into the setting sun. The blue in the sky above her had yielded to amber and rose, the wispy clouds gilded with streaks of orange. The surface of the sea glittered with gold, the surf leaving a coral sheen on the sand where it crashed and receded. Here, the salty tang of the sea was rich on the breeze, the cry of seabirds the only other sound that could be heard over the waves.
The fashionable set, out taking the air, had long ago left the shore, as had the seamen and fishermen, and Diana had the wide expanse nearly to herself. She walked until the buildings fell away and the beach narrowed to be hemmed in by the sea to her left and rolling, grassy dunes to her right. She changed direction, climbing up into the dunes, and lowered herself to the ground among the lengthening shadows. The sand was still warm from the day, and Diana lay back, closed her eyes, and let the cooling air wash over her. Perhaps she would stay here forever, she thought. Here, gossip couldn’t touch her. Here, she didn’t have to pretend to be a good person who wasn’t horribly jealous that the man she loved belonged to another.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the sky, the orange hues starting to surrender to the pale wash of twilight. With enough food and water, she could happily spend her days in this wild isolation—
The sound of feminine laughter nearby startled her. Not as isolated as she’d thought, Diana realized, pushing herself to her elbows. Just off to her right, slightly below where she was, a couple had emerged, the man’s arm around the woman’s shoulders. He spun her around, the woman’s cloak swirling around her yellow skirts, caught her face in his hands, and kissed her deeply. Diana could feel herself blushing. They wouldn’t be able to see her where she lay, and she felt like a voyeur. Perhaps she should slip away. Or make herself known. Or—
She froze. The last rays of the setting sun touched the woman’s hair, setting the red tresses on fire. The woman pulled away slightly, her hands slipping around her lover, her face buried in the crook of his neck. The blond man had his back to Diana, and she couldn’t hear what he said, but the woman nodded and lifted her head. With infinite care, she touched his face, and he caught her hand, holding it against his heart.
And then he let it go and disappeared back up into the dunes, leaving Hannah Burton gazing wistfully after him. After a moment, she pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and picked up her skirts before she too vanished into the dunes, taking a different direction.
Diana stared sightlessly at the spot from which Hannah had departed, unable to move. She dragged in a breath, trying to sort out the tumult of emotions crashing through her. After a few minutes, her mind started working again, and she wondered how she could have missed it. How, given everything that had happened in the last days, had it taken her this long to see it? See that Hannah was in love.
And not with Oliver.
She got to her feet, feeling strangely numb, not bothering to brush at the sand and bits of dried vegetation that clung to her skirts. She made her way to the very edge of the surf, the water nearly touching her feet.
It’s complicated, Hannah had said, and Diana should have guessed what complicated meant. In fairness, she hadn’t seen Hannah in the months leading up to their time in Brighton, and the distance her friend had put between them now made sense. It also explained Hannah’s decision to come here with her aunt instead of traveling to Bath with her family. And her reluctance to face Oliver. It explained everything.
And yet, in the end, it changed nothing. The engagement between Hannah Burton and Oliver Graham still existed. Oliver had too much honor to ever break such a contract. And if Hannah hadn’t already done so, or wasn’t going to do so—
“Who is the Double Duchess?”
Diana nearly jumped out of her skin. She put a hand on her chest, as if that would slow the pounding of her heart and turned.
Oliver stood before her, the last vestiges of light making the paleness of his shirt unnaturally bright in contrast to the shadows.
“Who is the Double Duchess?” he asked again. “And why are you a leading wager in the betting books in every gentlemen’s club in London?”
“Did you follow me?” she demanded. Of course he had followed her, but she was stalling, unsure how she felt about that. She didn’t yet have her thoughts in order. She didn’t have answers to anything in order.
“Yes, I followed you,” Oliver replied unapologetically. “The driver said you walked down to the beach. I was worried about you. I’m still worried about you.”
“I’m fine. If you had concerns about tomorrow, you could have left a message at Ainsworth House, like you said.” Her heart was still racing out of control beneath her palm.
“I’m tired of writing letters to you. Especially when I can see you whenever I want.”
Diana glanced down the empty beach beyond him and moved away, following the edge of the surf. She was afraid that if she continued to stand in the twilight, next to this man, she might do something stupid. Something more foolish than she already had.
“Tell me what’s going on, Dee. Please.”
The woman you’re supposed to marry is in love with another man. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. That was something that needed to come from Hannah. Not her. That was something that was between the two of them.
And I’m in love with you. She couldn’t bring herself to say that either, and she cursed herself for the coward she was.
“Belinda Collins, Duchess of Winchester, pursued by the Duke of Pomperly now that she’s a widow,” Diana replied instead, because bringing up Belinda made her incensed and indignant on her behalf all at once. Which were better things to feel on a deserted beach than reckless and overwhelmed. “Labeled in every damn gossip sheet in London as the Double Duchess. She thought she might escape the scandalmongers here in Brighton.” She continued down the beach.
Oliver fell in beside her. “But she hasn’t.”
“No.”
“And neither have you. Tell me about the wagers.”
Diana flinched. “How do you know about them?”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
He was walking close enough to touch her. Close enough that if she chose, she could slip her hand in his. She curled her fingers around her skirts.
“I’ve been a widow for eight years,” she said. “Too long, according to popular opinion, to be without a new husband. Or, at the very least, a lover.”
Beside her, Oliver was silent.
“When Laurence died, his estate went to a cousin, but he left me more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime. There has been no shortage of men who believe that they are best suited to control it. Who tell me that I am helpless on my own without a man to guide me.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Oliver growled. “And you are far from helpless.”
“I know that. But in their eyes, I am but a prize to be won. By marriage or other means.” Anger simmered. And she embraced it because it was safe and real. “The fact that I have refused them all has generated the expected speculation and rumor. The idea that I simply want to be left alone is insupportable.”
“Dee—”
“Did you know that the victor of the wager at Boodle’s and White’s is only required to bed me, not marry me? And that he is entitled to twenty-five percent of the purse if he can prove he did so?”
From somewhere beyond the dunes, an owl hooted, its call eerie.
“I’m sorry,” Oliver said.
“For what?”
“For… everything.” He sounded unhappy.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Would you ever,” Oliver asked, his voice rough, “get married again?”
Diana was silent, her eyes on the horizon, where the last vestiges of twilight were finally and inevitably succumbing to darkness.
“Yes,” she finally whispered. “But only to a man I am in love with.” That was the truth. A horrible, unavoidable truth.
That man was walking next to her. Close enough to touch. Hers to want but not hers to have. While the woman to whom he supposedly belonged was somewhere else in these dunes. Avoiding Oliver so that she might be with her own love. Because she didn’t want him.
This entire situation was unfair. And absurd. And it sent a furious frustration punching through her.
“Were you in love with Laurence when you married him?” Oliver asked.
Diana stopped and whirled. “What difference does that make?”
Oliver took a step back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Are you in love with the woman you’re going to marry?” It was harsh.
He gazed at her, his features hidden by shadow, his eyes glittering in the darkness. “No. I’m not.”
Her anger and frustration suddenly drained, leaving her hollow and wobbly.
“Perhaps I could come to love her,” he said, and his words were bleak. “With enough time, perhaps—”
“All the time in the world cannot make you fall in love with someone when your heart already belongs to another,” Diana said. “No matter how much you wish it otherwise.” She couldn’t bring herself to be gracious anymore. Her heart was aching, and a gaping, empty hole was opening up within her. “I can’t be with another man who I don’t love. I just can’t.”
“Dee.” Oliver stepped toward her.
Diana shook her head, afraid that if she looked at him, she would burst into tears. And tears fixed nothing. So she stared up at the rising moon in the darkening sky instead.
She felt his warmth before she realized that his fingers were on her cheek and that, despite her best intentions, a tear had escaped. Oliver brushed the drop of moisture away, but then his hand slipped down to cup her cheek, and God help her, she couldn’t step away. Her eyes closed, and she pressed the side of her face into his palm, allowing the heat of his skin to seep into hers against the cool air of the night.
Nor did she step away when his other hand came up, slipping over her shoulder and caressing the back of her neck. Instead, her fingers curled into the lapels of his coat, as if she were afraid that she might be lost if she let go. Very gently, he tipped her head back, and she could feel his breath against her skin as his lips grazed her forehead.
And then his lips found hers, and she was utterly lost.
He kissed her in a way she had never been kissed, in a way that set her entire being aflame. He held nothing back. This kiss wasn’t soft, and it wasn’t gentle. It was hard and a little desperate, and Diana felt the power of it, the power of him, flood through as the world dropped away. Distantly, she understood that this wasn’t a kiss at all. It was a claim.
But then, she had always belonged to him.
His hands moved over her back, pulling her to him, crushing her against the hard planes of his body. Which was good, because Diana was no longer sure her legs would hold her up. He deepened the kiss with a tortured groan, a sound that did dangerous things to her insides and made dampness gather at the juncture of her legs. She whimpered and kissed him back, her hands sliding up the front of his coat and around the nape of his neck, her fingers tangling in the inky thickness of his hair in the way she had dreamed of doing.
His tongue teased hers, clever and hot, and his hands fell to the curve of her buttocks. Held against him, she could feel his arousal, which sent sparks showering through her belly. She wondered if, when he took her, it would be like this too. No tentative fumbling, no uncertain touches, only the raw surety of a desire suppressed for too long.
His lips slid from hers and caught her earlobe before dropping to scorch a trail of flames down the side of her neck. Her head tipped back, sensation sizzling through her, making her feel drunk.
His mouth was at the hollow of her throat, chasing fire over the skin beneath her collarbone and then down the slope of her breast. His hands moved up over her hips, exploring the curve of her waist and her ribs, to cup the weight of her breasts. His thumbs played over the sides, brushing her nipples through the confining fabric, and Diana gasped in pleasure, arching farther into his touch.
He was everywhere, touching, tasting, filling her senses, and she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. He was everything that she had ever wanted. Everything that was perfect and complete and right.
And still wrong.
She felt the moment he came back to himself. The moment when he surfaced from the vortex of impulse and need. He rested his forehead on hers, his breath coming in harsh gasps, his hands shaking where they caged her ribs.
“What are we doing?” His voice was rough.
She couldn’t answer.
His hands dropped, and he stepped away from her. His heat was replaced by the cool night air, leaving her chilled. “I’m sorry.”
Diana started walking back toward the lights of the town that had appeared in windows and on streets. Walking away from him so that he couldn’t see her face and the grief that she knew was carved upon it.
“Dee?” he called, but she kept walking.
She too was sorry. Sorry that he could never be hers. Sorry that there would be no happy ending to what had started on this beach.
But she couldn’t bring herself to be sorry that he had kissed her.