Chapter Twenty
Lucas shifted and glanced at his pocket watch for what must have been the tenth time in as many minutes. The Abernathe ball was in full swing, but Diana had yet to arrive with Simon and Meg. He jolted when Graham Everly, Duke of Northfield, slung an arm around him and laughed.
“You’re a bit obvious, mate, checking the door every thirty seconds. She’ll get here when she gets here. And I hear she’ll be worth the wait. When she arrived home, Adelaide could not stop waxing poetic about how lovely the mysterious Miss Oakford was in the dress the three of them picked out for her.”
Lucas pursed his lips and refocused on the small group of his friends. He’d come early to James’s house for the reunion and now was surrounded by Graham, Ewan, Baldwin, Matthew and Robert. Simon had not yet arrived, of course, and James was busy with Emma, welcoming their guests as each was announced. Only two of them were missing. Kit was in the countryside with his ailing father and young sister. Hugh had been invited, but then it had been determined that he was not in London, a fact that disturbed his friends, though they hadn’t gotten into the specifics. They’d been too busy shaking hands, swapping stories and asking him questions about his life as a spy.
A grand homecoming, indeed, and one that had warmed his heart.
Now Lucas stood with the men, with them acting as if he’d never been gone from their circle. In a way, it felt like he hadn’t. Like he’d come home after a long time away, but found his chair and his bed and his life just as comfortable as it had ever been.
“You’re being preposterous,” he said, forcing a benign look on his face. “You know my…situation…and why Diana is part of it. To pretend otherwise is…”
He trailed off in the sentence, because at that moment Simon and Meg were announced. They stepped into the room together, and behind them was Diana. She was wearing a beautiful green gown, one that matched her eyes to perfection. It was cut just a fraction too tight in the bosom, as it had not been made for Diana, but the smaller Meg. That only served to accentuate those beautiful curves of hers.
Her hair had been done by Meg’s maid, it seemed, and the woman had done magic, winding and twisting and curling until all those luscious locks were like a crown fit for the most beautiful queen in all the country. All the world.
“You were about to tell us how you are unmoved by the entirely fetching Miss Oakford,” Robert, Duke of Roseford, drawled with half a grin for him. “If that is true, perhaps I’ll ask her to dance. She is stunning.”
Lucas shot his friend—who also happened to be the most wild and inappropriate of the group—a glare. The very idea of the handsome, smirking, seductive duke putting his hands on Diana, even for just a dance, made Lucas’s blood boil.
“I think he might have an apoplexy if you keep teasing him, Roseford,” Matthew said with a laugh. “You are too cruel.”
“Shut up,” Lucas managed to mutter. “Diana is…well, she deserves better than any of us. Excuse me.”
He felt his friends’ eyes on his back as he departed their company and began what felt like an eternity of walking across the room toward her. She was talking to Meg and Emma now. Emma was clearly cooing over the gown that suited her so well. But Diana kept watching him from the corner of her eye, and when he reached them, she let out a breath like she’d been holding it.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, and reached for Diana’s hand. It was shaking when she offered it, and he lifted it to his lips. “You look wonderful,” he said quietly.
“I-it is all Meg’s exquisite gown, I assure you,” she said.
Emma snorted out a laugh. “It is not.”
“Never deflect a compliment, my dear,” Meg said, and her gaze held firm on Lucas. “Especially one that is so sincerely meant.”
Simon and James stepped up then, taking their wives’ arms. James grinned. “The arrivals have slowed now, so I think we can call this ball official.”
“A great thanks to you, Your Grace, for making the arrangements so swiftly,” Lucas said, forcing himself to look at Emma and away from Diana. She was a lovely woman, with kindness aplenty. It was obvious that James was devoted to her and their young daughter, heart and body and soul. Something he’d never imagined was possible for his friend when they were younger. To see James so at ease gave him nothing but pleasure.
“I’m happy to be of assistance,” Emma said, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “Especially if it brings one of my husband’s oldest and dearest friends back to our circle.”
“They are beginning a waltz,” James said, drawing Emma a bit closer. “We always dance the opening waltz, my dear. Do not deny me now.”
Emma blushed and glanced up at him. “As if I could ever deny you. Enjoy yourselves tonight, you four. I hope we’ll talk often later.”
The two swept off then, and Lucas watched as James spun his wife into the dance, his hand just a bit too low in the small of her back, their eyes locked.
“They look very happy,” Diana observed, her tone a bit far away as the foursome watched them dance. “And she is lovely.”
“She is,” Meg agreed. “I could not have picked a better bride for my brother. To see him so happy is…it’s…”
She caught her breath and reached up to wipe a sudden tear. Simon tugged her closer. “Oh dear, this baby turns my wife into a water pot on more days than not. Happy tears, sad tears, tears over a torn hem…”
Meg swatted him playfully and was now chuckling through those very tears. “You are a cad, sir.”
“And yet it is too late to escape me, for you are mine, or so the minister declared,” Simon said with a laugh. “Come, I will dance you around the floor, and all will be well before the last strains of the music.”
If Meg was going to argue, he did not allow it, but all but carried her off to the dancefloor, where they joined James, Emma and the rest of the revelers.
Lucas smiled at Diana. “You do look wonderful.”
She blushed, and the act put him to mind of all the times they had made love. That flush of pleasure was something he very much enjoyed putting on her face, no matter how he found a way to do it.
“And you are handsome, not that you do not know it,” she returned. He offered her an arm and she took it, allowing him to step her farther into the room. “How was your reunion?”
He glanced down at her, for he heard her concern in her voice. “Far better than I ever could have dreamed,” he said, choosing pure honesty with her. He knew he could trust her with it. “All my concerns, gone in an instant. Though they certainly have a romantic notion of what it is to be a spy.”
“Can one even be a spy if nine of his closest friends and all their wives know the truth?” she asked.
He smiled. “Well, my future with the department may yet be in question. I am better, yes, but my body is not the same. Perhaps it never will be. But if I were able to return to the work I love, I know for certain that I can trust those men and their wives with my life and the lives of those I work with. I believe that with all my heart.”
She turned toward him with a half-smile. “Yet you feared what they would think of your secret.”
He found his hand lifting, his body filled with a desire to touch her cheek. But he was well aware that the room was watching him, agog over the long-missing Duke of Willowby. To be too forward with Diana was not the best of ideas.
He clenched his fist at his side. “That’s different,” he said softly.
She nodded. “Of course it is.” She might have said more, but in that moment, her eyes went a little wide as she looked at a point over his shoulder. “Is that Stalwood?”
He glanced back at him. “Yes. He’s an earl, of course.”
“Yes,” she said with a shake of her head. “I know it, but sometimes I forget. To me, he’ll always just be an old friend of my father.”
Lucas winced at that reminder. He had some things to say to Stalwood tonight about the subject of Diana’s father. Things that would hurt the man, would devastate her if she realized he suspected them.
He forced a smile. “He thinks very highly of you.”
She blushed a little. “And will you discuss what we’ve gone over in your case? Would you like me to be a part of that?”
Before he could answer, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Robert said when Lucas turned to see who had interrupted their conversation and saved him, albeit without meaning to, from a very uncomfortable lie he was about to tell.
He felt Diana shift at his side, and gently touched her arm before he smiled at the others and then made the introductions to the dukes and duchesses she had not yet met. After a moment of their welcome and kindness, he felt her relax a fraction and watched as she fell into conversation with the others.
Seeing her so relaxed should have made him happy. He liked that his friends liked her. And that she seemed to fit in with their tightknit little group. And yet, all he could think about was the subject they had been discussing when they were interrupted.
His case. Her father. And the secret that he was keeping from her about both.
Diana stood along the back wall of the ballroom, watching. It was a rather interesting exercise, for the room was a cacophony of sound, color and movement. Couples swirled around her, both in the flirtatious dance of courtship and the more regulated one of the dancefloor. Then there were the servants, moving through the crowd in every effort not to exist, even though they saw all. The men found each other in groups to talk politics, sometimes too loudly. And the women did the same, though their voices were raised in a wider variety of topics. Often their eyes fell on her, and there was no mistaking their interest and judgment.
Regardless of the attention, though, Diana felt like she was looking in through glass. She was still very much on the outside of this world. Lucas’s world, for as she found him in the crowd, talking to James and Graham, it was clear he belonged. Whatever he felt about himself when it came to the truth about his parentage, he was a duke. And this was his universe.
“You’re frowning,” Helena said as she sidled up to Diana and slid a hand through her arm. “Are you well?”
Diana smiled at her friend. “Of course.” They stood together for a moment, and then she sighed. “It is a very different world, isn’t it?”
Helena laughed softly. “Oh, yes. Indeed it is. Are you feeling as if you don’t belong?”
Diana nodded while she continued to look at Lucas. “I don’t.”
“As you know, I’ve felt the same. But I promise you, all in our circle like you enormously. We were just having a duchess meeting on the subject. So if you…wanted to be part of this world you would have all of us on your side. A formidable group, I assure you.”
Diana faced her. “Of course Emma, Meg, Adelaide and Charlotte are wonderful. And it’s clear they all are darlings of Society. All the women watch them, and I heard three ladies discussing the cut of Charlotte’s gown a moment ago. She makes fashion. But…”
“But?” Helena encouraged her.
“Is it enough?”
“Why would it not be?” Helena asked, her tone very gentle.
Diana sighed. “Well, they’ve been watching me tonight, as well. Frowning. Talking behind their fans. Glaring at me. Would your circle be enough?”
Helena nodded slowly. “I understand those feelings. When Baldwin and I announced our engagement, there were women who gave me the cut direct. I won’t say it wasn’t hurtful or uncomfortable. But if you love him, I can also tell you that it is more than enough.”
Diana froze. There were those words again, but this time they were spoken from another person’s lips. They felt so much more alive. “I suppose the more important issue is if he loves…well, in theory it would be me.”
“In theory?” Helena tilted her head.
Diana couldn’t look at her. “We are speaking in hypotheticals, after all. We have to.”
“Very well. In hypotheticals, I see the way he looks at you. It isn’t just desire in his stare. It’s caring. Concern. His face lights up when you’re near. He’s…alive. From an outsider’s perspective, that is very much like love. But what about you?”
“If I were to feel such a thing for him,” she said slowly. “It would feel like being woken up after a very long sleep. Like finding a half that I hadn’t realized I was missing. But not a half that smothers or takes over the whole. Something that can allow itself to be separate, too.”
Helena swallowed hard, her eyes now sparkling with tears despite her smile. “That is a very apt description. One that I think fits all in our circle. To find someone who both completes you and can allow you to be free, that is a rare thing. One that you should, hypothetically, not throw away out of fears that you won’t fit into his world. If you fit into his life, that is all that matters. At least you should tell him your heart and give him a chance to refuse or accept it.”
Diana’s aforementioned heart leapt at that suggestion. To tell Lucas these feelings, that was courting disaster. And yet she knew Helena was correct. If she walked away without doing so, she feared she would live with that regret forever.
And she knew something hard and sharp and painful about living with regrets.
She looked across the room again. Lucas had left the side of his friends and now crossed the chamber to Stalwood. The two men shook hands and then talked with their heads close together for a moment. Lucas nodded, glanced over his shoulder, and then the two men exited the room together.
She refocused her attention on the case and smiled at Helena. “You’ve given me much food for thought. I think I’ll take a moment and ponder it.”
Helena leaned in and surprised Diana by pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. “In truth, I may be selfish. You and I could help each other, too, to find our way through this world. If I can do anything to help, please come to me.”
“I will,” Diana assured her before she slipped away to follow the men from the room.
She would have to face the truths that Helena had offered up to her. That was clear. But for now, she had to focus on the case that had brought Lucas to her. Perhaps once that was resolved, the future they could share…or not…would be clearer.
At least she hoped it would be. Because her heart was already deeply involved, and she didn’t look forward to losing it if Lucas chose to walk away.