Her stomach turned. “I don’t know.”
He jolted, like he was realizing, once again, how horrible this was for her. “Oh, Diana. I’m so sorry. You’ve had so much taken from you already and now this.”
She shivered. Sometimes it was hard not to have that same reaction. Not to count the cost of the life her father had lived, in all the ways it had destroyed or altered her own. But today she felt none of those things. Today she just looked at the man beside her and wanted to ease some of his guilt.
“Thereisa small memorial at our home here in London,” she said. “In the very back of the garden. And of course his body is back home. I try not to think about what was done to him. Instead, I focus on where his spirit is. His soul. Free and, I hope, with my mother.”
“That is a good way to think of it and if it gives you peace then I urge you to hang on to that notion,” Lucas said. “But it takes away none of my guilt or my pain. Nor should it.”
“Lucas,” she began.
He pushed to his feet and paced away. When he ran a hand through his hair, it ruffled the long locks, giving him that rakish, pirate air.
“I’m sorry,” he interrupted. “I’m so sorry, Diana. And if you hate me, then I deserve no less. I certainly do not deserve and have not deserved the care you have shown me.”
She gasped and moved to him in three long steps. “You stop that! You stop that right now.”
“I—”
She lifted her hand to cover his lips, smoothing her thumb over his mouth gently. “I have listened to you talk about your responsibility in this matter over and over during the two weeks we’ve been together, Lucas. And I’ve said it to you before, but I want you to truly hear it now: my father made his own choices.”
“And if I—”
“Stop!” she insisted. “Please. If you hadn’t, if he hadn’t, if I hadn’t…there are a thousand other things that might have happened to us if we’d turned left instead of right or gone somewhere a moment later or sooner. You’ll drive yourself mad if you live in a world of possibility instead of facing what actually happened. He chose to help you. He died. And I hate that. I hate it.” She realized tears were beginning to collect in her eyes and she blinked fiercely to clear them away. “I hate that he is gone. But I’m coming to terms with it. So should you.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Long enough that she shifted with discomfort at his focus, especially when she had no idea what the thoughts in his head were. She had been harsh with him, pointed. He might turn her away now that he was settling back into the role of duke who did not have to take that from anyone below him.
But at last he reached out and touched her face. “You are a far better person than I could ever be, Diana Oakford. I am lucky to know you.”
She drew in a breath at that unexpected compliment and the warmth that rushed through her. He could set her aflutter with just a few words, a look, a touch. He could make her feel like she belonged even though she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t ever belong in his world.Anyworld that he inhabited, duke or spy or both.
“Come inside with me,” he whispered.
The roughness in his voice was undeniable. The way he looked at her was even more so. The emotions of the day began to slide away, replaced by something warm and dark and wicked and passionate. Something she wanted to ease her pain and to ease his.
“Come inside,” he repeated. “But only if you wish.”
“Are you going to touch me if I do?” she asked, feeling her cheeks darken with color as she did so.
He nodded slowly. “Oh yes, I’m going to touch you, Diana. Because I need you. And I want you. And I think what we both need right now is to forget. Will you help me forget?”
He held out his hand and she took it without hesitation. “Yes,” she whispered.
Chapter Fourteen
Diana looked down at Lucas’s hand, his fingers threaded through hers, and shivered as he opened the door to his chamber. He led her inside and watched as she pulled away from him.
“When I came in earlier, I was so embarrassed by the knowing expressions of the servants that I didn’t look around,” she said as she did just that.
Lucas shut the door behind himself and leaned against it. “You came in earlier?” he asked.
She nodded as she glanced at him. “Yes. I-I didn’t realize our rooms were connected.”
He arched a brow. “That is one of the finest benefits of your pretending to be my mistress. I asked for us to be put in adjoining rooms. So what do you think of the chamber?”
She shrugged. “It is fine, of course. But it isn’t really…you, is it? It’s so stuffy and formal and…and…”
“Blue,” he said, looking around and the cornflower explosion that surrounded them. “It’s very blue. And no, it is not me. But none of this house truly is. My mother decorated it after her marriage to my father. She likes frippery.”
