Page 34 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
Every so often she peeked in on them together, a silent observer of their sweet little nightly ritual. There was something comforting in the low drone of Ben’s voice, or the lilting inflection of Hannah’s, as they turned the yellowed pages one by one, until at last Hannah struggled to keep her eyes open at all. There had been a time in her life, when she had been very young and largely confined to the nursery, that someone must have read to her. But she was certain that it had never been her father. Probably a time would come that Hannah would judge herself too old for such things, but she hoped it would not be for a long time yet. That Hannah would understand just how lucky she was to have these things now.
She sighed and turned a page, her eyes drifting across the lines printed there. The door opened behind her, the resulting air current toying with the flame of the candle.
“What are you doing out here?” Ben asked as he stepped onto the porch. “It’s quite late.”
Not so late, really. She had rarely retired before two in the morning in London. “Reading,” she said, and held aloft the small cloth-bound volume. “The first volume ofSense and Sensibility. I’ve read it a dozen times before, but I thought—” She hesitated, carefully closing the cover and laying the book in her lap. “I thought I would leave it,” she said. “For Hannah. One day, she’ll be old enough to enjoy it, and books are so very dear. I’ve got the other two volumes as well, upstairs in my trunk.”
“And probably a hundred others,” he said, as he dropped onto the porch beside her, careful of the candle resting nearby. “I well remember the weight of it.”
“Probably there’s a few others Hannah might like,” she said. “I’ll find some to leave behind as well.” She didn’t want to think of it, really. The time when she would leave. The time when she wouldhaveto leave. She could feel it drawing closer every day, the inexorable passage of time clawing precious hours away from her grasp.
“There’s no need for that,” he said. “I’m certain that wherever we end up, it’ll be in a town large enough for a circulating library.”
“It’s more than only that.” Diana brushed a loose lock of hair away from her face. “I want—I want her to have something to remember me by.” Becauseshewould not forget. Not any of it.
“She’ll remember you.”
But would she? “She’s so young,” she said in a rush. “And it’s been only a bit more than a month, now. Those memories will fade so swiftly—”
“Diana.” His voice sliced straight through her flustered little speech. “She’ll remember you.” He held out his hand to her. “Give me your hand. I have to change your bandage.”
“Oh. Thank you.” She extended her hand, her cool fingers warmed by the firm clasp of his as he pulled free the loose bit of bandage from where it had been tucked beneath the rest. The greasy ointment prevented it from sticking to her bloodied skin, and he gingerly rubbed free the last bits of dried blood from around the wound. She could hardly bring herself to look at the nasty cut.
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “Probably it won’t scar. You were lucky, there.” The gentle rub of his fingers across her palm as he smoothed on a fresh dollop of ointment soothed the sting of the cut.
“You’re very good at this.”
His lips quirked into a half-smile. “I’ve patched Hannah up more than a few times. She’s quite fond of climbing trees, but she does have the regrettable tendency to skin her knees in the doing of it.”
Somehow she knew that wherever it was they would end up when he had got what he needed out of his mine, it would be a lovely little cottage with trees perfect for climbing. “I will write to her,” she said. “If you give me your direction, once you are settled.” Her voice wobbled across the syllables, and it wasn’t the minor sting of a fresh bandage wound around her hand that had brought the unsteadiness to her voice.
“She would like that,” he said, and hesitated for a second. “Iwould like that.”
She caught his fingers in hers when he would have withdrawn her hand. “You have to kiss it,” she said. “So it will feel better. Hannah’s orders.”
The scent of the rain drifted up around them; rich, warm earth and sweet water. A light breeze riffled through the dewy grass. In the inky blackness of the sky hanging thick and dark overhead, a star flickered and soared; a wish flying through the vastness of space, there and gone in a moment.
Slowly—so very slowly—he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into the cup of her palm. She could almost feel its weight there, as if she might close her fingers around it and hold it in her hand. Perhaps she could tuck it into her pocket and keep it close; a precious memory she could pull out from time to time to admire.
“Better?” he asked, and there was just the tiniest hoarseness to his voice.
She said, “Better,” and it wasn’t a lie, exactly. It was just that a kiss pressed into her palm could not cure the ache in her heart. She chewed her lower lip. “About evening last—”
“You need not concern yourself. It will not happen again.” But he hadn’t released her hand. As if he could not quite help himself, his fingers held hers just a little tighter.
“I didn’t mean—that is—” Diana huffed out a sigh, turning her hot face to the cool breeze. “I’m not going to marry,” she said.
“Of course you will.” He sounded so certain, as if it were already a foregone conclusion. “You will return to London unencumbered. I have no doubt but that you’ll have your pick of suitors.”
“I didn’t mean that Icouldnot marry,” Diana said. “I meant that Iwillnot.” Probably shecouldsimply return and step straight back into the life she had left. Perhaps she would even find some pleasure in it. Even if she had little in the way of a dowry to recommend her, still she had been born the daughter of a marquess. There was still the value in her family name, the noble lineage bred into her bones. Perhaps she wouldn’t have herpick of gentlemen—but she could imagine her dance cards would be more full than empty. She might have gentlemen calling upon her, suitors to take her on drives on sunny days, or to the theatre in the evening.
But she did not want it any longer. There was nothing at all that she wanted of those nameless, faceless men who might one day see fit to offer for her.
“Diana, what are you saying?”
She swept away the folds of her skirt with her free hand and clambered to her knees, the book she had placed in her lap toppling to the wood planks of the porch. “I’m saying I don’t want to marry a man whose character Icould not possibly ascertain with a few dances at a ball, or whilst chaperoned in my brother’s drawing room. I don’t want to marry a man who could so easily turn out to be a scoundrel of a husband and father.”
“That won’t happen. Your brothers would never allow it.”
