He turned his face slightly. Here she was focusing on a subject that she surely thought would be easier on him than discussing the terrible relationship he shared with his mother. But in some ways, this one was just as hard.
And yet he found his lips moving regardless of his long desire to keep his secrets locked away. Diana just inspired honesty. “Almost all of us had…bad fathers,” he said softly. “And so we vowed to help each other navigate the waters of our future duties. We became fast friends, and I know I could depend on any one of them for anything I asked.”
When he was silent too long she said, “But?”
He stopped in the path and faced her. “You assume there is a but?”
“I can tell there is.”
His shoulders rolled forward in the defeat and shame he felt in his heart. “They could not say the same about me. I am not a…good friend. I cut myself away from them. I could hardly be called one of their number anymore. In truth, I have no idea if Simon or any of the rest will even want to see me.”
“You were friends since you were children,” she said. “I’m certain this man will be thrilled to hear from you, especially if it has been a long absence. And you can always turn back to them, Lucas.”
“I don’t know,” he said, and stared off away from her across the garden. “It is complicated.”
“I’m certain it is.Youare, I’ve learned that in the short time we’ve shared.” She smiled gently. “But nothing is permanent, until it is. And regrets are hard to bear when there are no amends to be made anymore.”
The pain was obvious on her face and in the shaking of her voice. He took her hand and smoothed his thumb over the soft flesh there. “You are thinking of your father.”
She nodded. “Yes. There were things we should have said, I think. Now I never will.”
Lucas took a deep breath. Yes, he had things he wished he’d said to Oakford himself. “I would like to visit him. Was he buried here in London?”
She caught her breath, and he saw how difficult this was. How much it cut, burned, destroyed her from the inside out. Once again, his guilt rose, more painful than any injury he’d endured.
“No,” she breathed out painfully. “There was a service here, for those in the department, private and small. But his body was taken back to our country home. I wanted to…see him.” She turned her face. “But Stalwood wouldn’t let me.”
He drew back. “Why?” he asked, and already could see how terrible the answer was.
She swallowed. “Stalwood didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head slowly and could barely draw enough air to whisper, “No.”
“His body was…mutilated, Lucas.”
Diana watched as Lucas recoiled, staggering back with a look of pain on his face that cut her to her core. It made her relive her own horror and pain when she’d been told that she couldn’t see her father’s face one final time.
“No!” he cried out. “No!”
She caught his arm and guided him to a bench, where he sat down hard and put his head in his hands. For a long time he was silent. So silent that she sank down beside him and placed her hand on his back to slowly smooth circles across the muscled plane.
“When?” he choked out.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Stalwood wouldn’t tell me much about it. I assumed he had been struck in the…in the head.”
He pursed his lips. “No. No, he wasn’t. That bastard did this to him, damaged his body. But why? Why would he do such a thing? And only to Oakford when there were so many others who he could have destroyed.”
He seemed to be talking to himself now, and she shook her head. “What do you mean, others?”
Lucas jerked beneath her hand and looked up, his face blank. “I shouldn’t tell you,” he whispered. “If you didn’t see it on my account you found at your home, I shouldn’t leave you with that image.”
“I want to know,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Our traitor shot all the servants, anyone who could identify him.”
She flinched at that brutal news. “I-I didn’t know that.”
“I was told afterward.” Lucas shook his head. “I was lying there, dying next to your father. There were a hundred other things that man had to do before he fled the scene. Why would he stop to mutilate Oakford?”
