Page 84 of Romancing the Rifleman
Instead, she rubbed her brow.“I’m sorry.Clearly, you regard this as a distressing revelation.But Harrington!”She made a frustrated gesture.“You tried to leave me!Multiple times!You intentionally tried to push me away.”She was shouting—shocking for the woman who never raised her voice because she could command a room with a raised eyebrow and an icy glare.
But now, she was raving.“What if I had taken you at your word?We could have very easily spent the rest of our lives without one another!Were I not the most stubborn woman in all of Christendom, we probably would have!”
He shook his head, hoping to clear it.The words she was saying made sense… and yet, they made no sense at all.“But… I knew you wouldn’t want me once you found out.Really, I was just doing the decent thing.Saving you the trouble of having to throw me over.”
Diana’s eyes blazed.She crossed to the sofa in three strides and placed one knee on the cushions, looming inches from his face.
“Well, Idowant you!I don’t give a fig if you like being spanked.”She jabbed him in the chest with a finger.“Don’t you dare try to push me away again!I will not tolerate it!”
He tried to answer her, but the only sound he seemed capable of forming was a sad sort of blubber.That was around the same time she, and the rest of the room, went blurry around the edges.
Wait.Were those… tears?Was hecrying?Surely not.He was a Rifleman.Soldiers didn’tcry!
“Harrington.”Her voice still held a note of frustration, but the fight had gone out of her.She climbed onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.He immediately hugged her to him and buried his face in her hair.
When he recovered the ability to speak, he murmured, “I can’t believe it.”
She sat back enough to look him in the eyes.“Perhaps you should.I was raised by Aunt Griselda, and…”
Harrington had no idea what this had to do with Aunt Griselda.Was it possible that she, too, liked being spanked?And Diana somehow knew about it?
He gave her a moment.When she did not elaborate, he gave her a gentle squeeze.“And?”
Her eyes were guarded.“I mentioned it once before.She had a friend.Miss Amelia Marsden.I never met her, as she died before I was born.But I can tell by the way Aunt Griselda speaks of her that they weren’t merelyfriends.She felt about Miss Marsden the same way I feel about you.But society would not permit them to be together in that way, openly, before the world.”
Harrington said nothing but rubbed her back.After a moment, Diana continued, “I know many people would say it was a sin.But I can’t see anything wrong with it.Who was hurt by their love?No one.”She straightened her spine, eyes blazing.“And no one is harmed by what you like, either.”
He couldn’t assail her logic.Yet… it didn’t feel right.Not the bit about Aunt Griselda.He didn’t give a damn what she had felt for, or what she had done with, this Miss Marsden.Aunt Griselda was one of the good ones, and he couldn’t imagine much that would convince him otherwise.
But him?He was a degenerate.A wretch!He wasn’t loveable.
Was he?
Diana was studying him with a sharp gaze.“What are you thinking?”
“N-nothing,” he sputtered.
She narrowed her eyes.“I’ll warrant I know exactly what you’re thinking.You’re thinking that it’s fine for Aunt Griselda to like what she likes.But it’s somehow different for you.”
He slumped against the couch cushions.“Sometimes I wish you were less astute.”
“Too bad.”She said it cheerfully, but then, her expression turned somber.“Although, you’re probably giving me more credit than I deserve.There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.A confession, of sorts.”
She looked guilty, and Harrington had to suppress a snort.Whatever she had to say, it couldn’t possibly hold a candle to his sins.“Oh?What’s that?”
Her cheeks had turned rosy.“When I first told you that I had perused a book of risqué prints, you assumed it was a book belonging to my brother.”She swallowed and closed her eyes.“It wasn’t my brother’s book.It was yours.Izzie found it hidden beneath your mattress, and she took it to show Lucy and me.”
It was a bit embarrassing, but Harrington couldn’t say he was surprised.That certainly sounded like something Izzie would do.“Oh?”
Diana opened her eyes a slit, cringing.“There was a certain page that you had… er, marked.By folding down the corner.”
His heart rate kicked up a beat because he knew exactly which page that would be—the one he had just described.Which meant that Diana knew.
Of course… he’d already known that she knew.They’d been discussing it for the last ten minutes.To be more precise, this meant that she’d always known.
There was a roaring in his ears.The room went blurry around the edges.
She’d… always known.
