Chapter Eleven
Lucas winced as Diana stared at him, her green eyes dark with grief and pain. Her hands shook as she lowered them into her lap, and she let out a sigh that seemed to shake her all the way to her very core.
But when she stood up, the pain was gone and it was replaced by an anger he had not expected. “What am I doing? What are you doing?” she snapped.
He drew back, surprised by the power of her raw emotions and by the reaction they inspired in him. It was sudden and formidable, a combination of wanting to rail at her for interfering and also wanting to hold her and comfort her in her pain.
He shoved all of it away and struggled to be controlled and measured. “You are asking me when I walked in to find you going over my private papers? I did not think you’d take the time you had while I talked to Stalwood to rifle through my room.”
Her lips parted on an outraged, huffy sigh. “How dare you! That is not what I did. I was tidying up your chamber while you were busy, changing your sheets so the laundry could be sent out.”
She motioned to the bed and he noted that it was, indeed, half unmade and his room was less cluttered. Things he should have observed immediately upon entry to the room. Noticing details was engrained in him, the first thing he’d been trained to do as a spy. Yet he hadn’t because he’d been distracted by Diana.
“So when you found something hidden, you decided that gave you a right to look at it?” he asked.
She folded her arms. “No. The book fell and the pages folded inside scattered. I thought you were being ridiculous hiding so much, just a spy so obsessed with his secrets that he thought everyone else was, too. But when I was picking up the papers, I saw my name on them.”
She pointed to the one he held in his hand. He slowly turned it over and winced. Of all the things for her to find, this was one of the worst. It was an accounting of every detail he had gathered or gleaned from the case. Her name was in it because she was part of the case for him now, tied to it and to him in a way that would never be undone.
But he would never have had her read some of it. Like how her father had looked lying dead on the ground. Like the details of their last conversation or the sound of the shots when Oakford was gunned down.
From her face, she had read it all. And now it would never leave her mind, just as it would never leave his.
“You have been investigating this case all along,” she whispered. “And you hid it from me.”
“Since the last time Stalwood came here,” he admitted as he folded the paper and put it into his jacket pocket. “And I wasn’t hiding it. I didn’t tell you what I was doing because it has nothing to do with you, Diana.”
Her face crumpled at that statement and she backed away from him like he had struck her physically. “He may have loved you more, Your Grace,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “But he was my father.”
He recoiled at not just her words, but at the emotion laced in them. He moved to her in three long steps and caught her hands. She struggled against him, but he refused to release her. Indeed, he tugged her closer.
“He loved you, Diana, of that I have no doubt. And when I say that my investigation has nothing to do with you, I meant that you should not have to think of your father this way. That you should not think of his last moments, but of what you shared with him while he was alive.”
“You think I didn’t think of his last moments long before I read the details of them?” she gasped, yanking free at last. Tears had begun to stream down her face and her breath came in painful hiccups. “I wonder if he was afraid. I wonder if he was in pain. I wonder if he knew that these were his last moments and if there was any peace for him. I wonder if he…if he thought of me.”
Lucas stared at her, this woman made of intelligence and kindness and iron. This woman who was utterly alone in the world now that her father was gone. How well he knew that feeling.
He stepped forward and gathered her into his arms. This time she didn’t resist him. She let him pull her against his chest as he smoothed her hair gently. She shook as she wept, a pouring out of all the grief she had been holding back.
When her tears had slowed a little, he whispered, “Diana, yes, I am investigating his death. We all deserve justice. Him, me and you.”
She lifted her face toward his, and he was struck with the thought of that first night he’d been here, when he’d held her like this and comforted her in similar grief. Now he knew her better. Now he wanted even more to soothe the wounds she carried so quietly and bravely. The ones the world didn’t see.
He wanted to soothe the ones she hadn’t shared, too. The ones he sensed below the surface, where she so jealously protected them.
“If I deserve justice, then I also deserve the truth,” she whispered. “And I want it, Lucas.”
He hesitated. “You want to know about my case?”
“I don’t expect you would agree to that,” she said, pulling away from him. Leaving him cold. Bereft in ways he didn’t want to analyze. “But stop hiding it from me. This is too small a house for you to do so.”
He jolted. Here he’d come upstairs, ready to give her the news of their move and he’d forgotten it all when faced with her tears. Yet another example of how deeply she distracted him.
He bent his head. “I’m…sorry.”
She wrinkled her brow. “You’re actually apologizing to me?”
He nodded. “Yes. Not for investigating. That is my nature and my duty and I will not change for anyone. But perhaps I should not have been so secretive. You are right that Oakford was your father—no one has been more affected by his death. To investigate under your roof, behind your back, was wrong.”
“Thank you,” she said, though her tone was still stunned. He wondered if apologies were so rare to her that she hardly recognized one when she heard it.
“And that brings me to the subject I wanted to broach with you when I came upstairs,” he continued. “It has to do with the investigation.”
She tilted her head. “Very well. What is it?”
“Stalwood and I agree that I could do more on that count if I were to move to my own home here in London.”
Her lips parted. “What? Why?”
He hesitated. Here he had just promised not to keep her locked out of what he was doing. But he didn’t want to endanger her, either. At least no more than he knew he would just by being in her presence.
“Please, won’t you be honest with me?” she said, exhaustion lacing her tone. “I’m so very tired of all the lies.”
Yes, he could see that in her face, in her eyes, her posture. She was on the edge, ready to fall. He didn’t want to be the one who pushed her, even if he didn’t think he could be the one who caught her either.
“I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said. “With the understanding that it is not something you may repeat to anyone at any time.”
She nodded slowly. “Very well, though who you think I would tell, I don’t know.”
Her words reminded him once more of how alone she was, and he winced before he said, “The man who was responsible for your father’s death, the traitor…he is back at his old ways. There’s been another death.”
Her knees buckled and she just caught herself on the back of the closest chair as she stared at him in horror. “No. No!”
“I’m so sorry, Diana, but yes. This man, he no doubt knows I’m still alive, but Stalwood has done a very good job hiding me these past six months. We think if I come back into the public eye, it might push this bastard to a breaking point. It might make him do or say something that would reveal him for the coward he truly is.”
“You want to use yourself as bait.”
He smiled. “That was what Stalwood said, as well. You really do have the mind of a spy in some ways.”
He expected her to smile back, but instead she stepped toward him with eyes flashing. “So you’re going to make it obvious where you are. You’re going to all but tempt him to you, open your doors to him, allow him into your home to threaten—”
“Diana,” he interrupted. “I would not let you be in danger.”
She cupped his cheeks. “I’m not talking about me, you fool! I’m talking about you. This man already nearly killed you! How can you consider putting yourself in his path? Teasing him with your presence? What if he comes after you again?”
He tilted his head. She was truly only concerned for his well-being. His heart throbbed at that fact. It was not one many people in his life had shared. No one on any deep level since he’d pushed his friends away after entering the service of the War Department.
And yet here she was, fearful not for herself, but for him.
He turned his face and kissed one of her palms. “Stalwood will arrange protection. For us both.”
“Both?” she repeated.
“Yes. I want you to come with me. To continue helping me there as you have here.”
She drew back, her hands dropping away. “You want me to come to your home in London. Your ducal home. As what? Your servant? Your physician? Your—your lover?”
He sighed. “That is part of what we must determine. If you came to my estate here in the city, it wouldn’t be like it is here on the edge of the city. People would see. They would know, Diana. I could protect you from many things, but not gossip. Stalwood could arrange for some kind of chaperone, of course. Someone to make it look less untoward, but—”
“I don’t want a governess,” she said. “That would make my work harder.” She got up, pushing past him to pace across the room. She paused at the window where she looked down at the garden.
“Then what do you suggest?” he asked.
“My being there would help you,” she whispered.
He pulled himself into the chair she had vacated and nodded. “Yes. I am much recovered in the time we’ve spent together. And to be honest, I would feel more comfortable having you close. I have no idea who this person is. I have no idea what he knows about your father. About you. But I don’t like the idea of your being alone until he’s in custody or dead.”
She flinched, as if she hadn’t thought through the possibilities of what would happen to the man responsible for all this pain that had come into their lives.
“Your mistress,” she said softly.
He jolted as he looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”
She faced him. “The way I will have most access to you, Lucas, is if we call me what I am. That is, your mistress.”
“You are not my mistress!” he burst out, moving toward her so quickly that he nearly fell over from the sudden movement and the pain that followed.
“You are bedding me,” she said, keeping her gaze even. “That is what a man of your stature does with a mistress.”
“That kind of suggestion would utterly ruin your future,” he snapped.
She tilted her head back and laughed, though there was no hint of pleasure in the sound. “Dear man, what future do you assume I have? I am the daughter of a man of no title, no fortune, hardly anything to recommend him. I am no virgin. I bring nothing to the table for marriage to a man of rank or privilege. Even if I did, I have no such desire for that kind of match. Or any type of match, really. I was spoiled to that sort of thing long ago.”
Lucas stared at her. She was talking about that man, that spy who had taken her innocence. He was the one who had spoiled her to the thought of love or family or a future that was more than a lonely existence where she helped everyone but herself. That the loss of that person had inspired such bitterness had to mean she had loved him.
And a spike of jealous pain and rage jolted through Lucas with that thought. He straightened and speared her with a glare that he hoped kept his true heart hidden.
“It’s unfair to you, Diana,” he insisted.
She shrugged. “Life is unfair, Lucas. I would think you know that better than most. It is decided. I will play the role of your mistress and I will go with you on this move so that I may continue to help you.”
He set his jaw. He did not like this, but she was not wrong. The easiest way to make this work was for her play that role. Play it? Hell, it wasn’t far off from how he treated her. The only difference between a lover and a mistress was the financial support a mistress got.
Perhaps he owed her that as much as he owed her anything. But now was not the time to think about those things. She would be safe in his house, she would no longer have to fuss over cooking or cleaning or anything but her work. And since he was getting better by the day, even that wouldn’t be as taxing for her as it had been upon his arrival nearly two weeks before.
This was for the best. Yes. The niggling feeling in his stomach that it wasn’t was only excitement over being allowed to continue his work.
“Well, I may not agree, but I suppose it is settled,” he said. “I’ll send word to my servants here in Town that we will be arriving in twenty-four hours. Does that give you enough time to prepare?”
She swallowed, and then her face transformed. No longer was she his lover—there was a sense of distance there. That wall she had tried to put up in the morning, but higher now. More formidable. “Certainly, Your Grace. Though it will likely mean that I will be quite busy until we depart tomorrow.”
She nodded in his direction and then turned to go. At the door, she turned. He held his breath as she struggled with whatever she was going to say.
“I want to help you, Lucas. I will in any way you see fit. But please, don’t lie to me again or hide what you’re doing. Please.”
The second please lilted out, shaky and more emotional than he thought she might have wanted. It spoke volumes about her. Revealed more than she had even when she made love to him.
He nodded. “I may not be able to tell you everything I’m doing. I won’t, in fact, but I won’t lie to you about that. I won’t hide it.”
That seemed to satisfy her, for she left the room. And left him feeling that nothing between them would ever be the same.