Page 38 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord
He might’ve told her that she wouldn’t seduce him—but he suspected she was going to give a good effort to it anyway.
Chapter Fourteen
Papa,” Hannah murmured, tucking her head against his shoulder, stifling a yawn with the tips of her fingers. “What’s that noise?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Ben said, carefully turning the page of the aged book of nursery rhymes. It was an old volume; so old that the pages had yellowed, and the corners were softened from overuse. “Ignore it,” he instructed. “It’s past bedtime.”
The scraping sound came again; metal against wood, shearing through the otherwise peaceful silence of the night. Hannah crinkled her nose and pulled her quilt up to her chin. “What if it’s a monster?”
It was a monster, all right, but a monster of his own making. Or, rather, one ofherown making—Diana had driven him straight to the pond for a cold dip every night for a solid week, but the frigid waters had served their purpose poorly. Either she was more determined than he had anticipated, or his will was weaker than he’d thought. Perhaps a little of both.
“I’m sure it’s only Diana,” he said, striving to inject some measure of reassuring joviality to the tone of his voice. “Whatever she’s about, I’m certain she’ll be finished soon.”
Scrrrrrape.Scrrrrape.
The sound set his teeth on edge. Hannah heaved a gusty sigh, grasping the ragged corner of the book in her fingers to close the cover. There was no point in reading any further with such a racket taking place below, he supposed. He could hardly hear himself think.
“We’ll read more tomorrow night,” he said apologetically. She’d been flagging already, though the ominous sounds from downstairs had jarred her into unwilling alertness. “And I’ll make certain that Diana doesn’t make so much noise that it disturbs your sleep.”
A harsh, resonant clatter shattered that promise immediately. Hannah gave a huff and flopped backwards upon the thin mattress in an overly-dramatic fashion. Ben bent to kiss her forehead and snuffedout the candle that rested upon the rickety nightstand.
Hannah’s voice cut through the darkness before he could absent himself from the room. “Are we going to leave soon?” she asked.
“Very soon,” he said, and hoped it was true.
“Where will we go?” In the shadows, Hannah turned toward him, her small hand curling beneath her pillow.
“We’ll figure that out together,” he said, and braced his palm upon the frame of the open door. “Perhaps we’ll travel a bit first. Look for a town we’d like to live in.”
“And you’ll stay with me?” she asked. “All of the time?”
Ben rubbed at the ache in his chest. “Of course, poppet,” he said. “Soon, I promise you.” He would fulfill that promise if it killed him. She was growing by leaps and bounds every day. How many more years did he have left before she wouldn’t need him any longer?
Hannah sucked in a breath and ventured tentatively, “Could Diana come, too?”
Christ. And here he had clung to the—now futile—hope that they might all escape this misadventure unscathed. “Hannah—”
“She’s my friend,” Hannah said. “She likes me. Maybe she’d come if we asked her really nicely.”
But they couldn’t ask. And he hadn’t the words to explain to her why it couldn’t be so. Not in any way a child could reasonably be expected to understand. “I’m certain she does like you very much, sweetheart,” he said. “But Diana has got a life waiting for her back in London. A family. It has been very kind of her to stay with us and to watch over you, but she’s accustomed to a great deal better than our present circumstances can afford.”
Hannah made a disconsolate sound beneath her breath. “Then I want to go to London,” she said. “Couldn’t we be with her there?”
No, and for a host of other reasons too complicated to explain to a child of her tender years. “I’m afraid not, darling. London will most certainly be beyond what we can afford.”
With a hopeless little sigh, Hannah turned her back on him once more, curling up into the pose she most often assumed while sleeping. “It’s not fair,” she grumbled to herself.
It wasn’t, of course. Not to any of them. “She’ll write to you,” he said, but he knew it was little enough comfort to a girl who had grown accustomed to Diana’s presence. Who had grown, in her own way, to love her. A letter couldn’t offer the security of a hand holding her own, or a gentle voice guidingher through her lessons. A letter couldn’t dry tears or hold her on its lap.
A letter couldn’t be a motherly figure to a little girl badly in need of one. He couldn’t even promise Hannah that they would visit, or that Diana would visit them. Taking Hannah to London would be a risk in itself, and he couldn’t trust that gossip would not follow them back home, wherever home turned out to be. Diana would most certainly find a husband in London her very next Season—and he doubted very much that the husband she chose would approve of her haring off to wherever they happened to be to visit the man who had once been her betrothed.
“She’ll write to you,” he repeated, because it was the only bit of comfort he had to offer. But it was such a paltry thing, and he knew as he closed the door behind him that neither of them had been satisfied with it.
∞∞∞
“What in God’s name have you been doing down here?”
At the sudden advent of Ben’s voice, Diana very nearly dropped the bucket of water she’d been carrying from the stove to the washing tub she had set upon the floor. Slanting a glare at him as she lugged it the last few feet, she overturned the bucket into the tub. “Well, really. What does it look like?” she asked as she set the bucket aside. It had taken four buckets in total to fill the bath, and they had been much heavier and more difficult to manage than she had expected. But shehaddone it—without aid.
