“That was no common footpad, Diana,” he said as the reality of what had nearly happened sank like ice into his bones. “That was someone hired to murder you.”
Her head jerked up in shock. “Don’t be ridiculous. A common thief—”
“Would have cut your purse,” Nathan said, his voice grave. “But that knife…” He stopped speaking as his gaze cut to his brother’s. “I thought you were exaggerating. I thought…” His gaze hopped to Diana and back with a guilty shrug. “I am sorry I doubted your motives.”
His brother thought he’d created a danger so that he could seduce a beautiful woman. Well, obviously, his brother thought him a cad. “The danger is real,” he said grimly. And he damned himself for thinking her safe once Geoffrey had left the gardens. The man had obviously hired common thugs to kill her just as he’d threatened before he’d left. “Come quickly, Diana. We need to get you to someplace safe.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the shadows. “You think they will return?”
“Of course not,” Diana said, though her voice trembled.
“I don’t know,” Lucas said as he began walking Diana quickly back to the main path. His brother went to her other side, a large bulwark of defense.
“Lucas…” she began, but her voice trailed away as he pushed their speed. Then she caught her breath. “You don’t really think that, do you? That…” Apparently, she couldn’t even voice the possibility.
Lucas shot her a grim look. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.” Whatever she was thinking, whatever she meant, he considered it possible. And a real threat.
At that moment, he redoubled his focus, he tripled his determination, and he swore to all that he held holy that he would not fail to protect her. Even if it meant locking her away until he saw Geoffrey dead.
Chapter Ten
Diana wasn’t afool. She’d felt the man’s rough hands on her, smelled his rank sweat, and—worst of all—seen the blade as it skittered away thanks to Lucas’s fast fist. But, at the moment, she’d focused exclusively on getting away and then clobbering her attackers from a distance. She was a good throw, and those stones had distracted them a little, she thought. However, she knew that Lucas and his brother were the real heroes. She’d merely survived.
But as the immediacy of the fight wore off, as the two men braced her from either side and walked her quickly back to the well-lit center of Vauxhall, panic began to claw its way into her thoughts. Had she truly been attacked? Had she nearly died but for Lucas’s lightning-fast reflexes?
She brushed at her arm, where it throbbed. She could still feel the hard grip of the man as he’d jerked her toward him.
It wasn’t possible, and yet, it had happened. That was terrifying enough, but the idea that someone she knew wanted her murdered—even someone as difficult as Geoffrey—was too far for her to go. Geoffrey might threaten, but he’d never actually do it…right? The attackers had been simple footpads. Dangerous, naturally, but the danger was over. They’d been frightened away, and Diana was safe again.
Anything else was simply too terrifying to contemplate.
Then memory burst into her thoughts despite how desperately she tried to bury it. She saw the flash of the knife above her. It burst into her thoughts no matter how many times she repeated to herself that Geoffrey was a petulant child, not a murderer.
Meanwhile, Lucas whisked her through Vauxhall. She saw people point at him and belatedly realized he had not put his mask back on. More than one tried to stop them, but Lucas would have none of it, except when he stopped long enough to leave a message for her brother, Elliott.
While they paused, she failed to suppress a cough. It was a silly thing. Just a need to release the feeling of a hand over her mouth, but it was hard to catch her breath. She forced herself to slow down, to inhale with dignity, and exhale with poise. By the time Lucas was done with the servant, Diana had regained her breath.
“We can use my carriage,” Nathan said. “I told my man to wait close because I wouldn’t be long.”
Lucas responded with a clipped nod.
“Don’t be silly,” Diana said. Or at least she tried to. Her words came out as an unintelligible squeak. She had to clear her throat while Lucas’s gaze riveted on her. She smiled reassuringly at him, but she didn’t think it worked. His expression grew even grimmer as he shook his head.
“Don’t try to speak,” he told her. “Wait until we are in the carriage.”
That defeated the purpose, she thought, since she’d meant to tell him that there was no need to upset his brother’s plans. And then she felt an irrational giggle bubble up. She strangled it with an awkward kind of choke, and all she could think was that this was certainly humiliating. Having two men muscle her through a party and out the Vauxhall gates, as if she were threatened royalty. Her mother would say she was making too much of herself for all that she tried to slow them down.
She knew—in a distant kind of way—that her thoughts were circling. Every time she felt pressure on her mouth or saw a flash of light such as what had been reflected on the blade, her mind spun out in bizarre directions focusing on something—anything—that wasn’t attempted murder. Someone’s costume had gone awry. Someone had failed to drink their lemonade. Someone laughed, and another soul gasped. These things filtered through her splintered consciousness until the moment Lucas handed her into Nathan’s dark carriage.
She sat down quickly, Lucas at her side. Nathan had barely stepped into the interior before Lucas was pounding on the roof for them to leave. Nathan shut the door and dropped inelegantly in the seat across from them. Both men exhaled in relief as the steady clop of the horses’ hooves began. And though Diana desperately wanted to say something, all she seemed able to do was grab Lucas’s hand in a tight grip. He covered her hand with his other, but his gaze was on the window as he watched for she-didn’t-know-what out there.
“This is ridiculous,” she finally said. “Completely ridiculous.” She wasn’t exactly sure what she meant. The dramatic carriage ride through London? The way her mind kept spinning forward and back? She kept feeling that man’s hand on her mouth as she tried to scream. And she kept focusing on Lucas by her side, his brother across from her, as both men stared out the windows with deep frowns.
“Your safety is not ridiculous,” Lucas said.
“I’m in no danger,” she retorted, and she so desperately wanted to believe it.
He turned and looked at her, his expression grave. She wanted to flinch away. She didn’t want his steady regard forcing her to face something she didn’t want to believe. Not yet. Not until she could breathe without feeling that man’s hand on her face.
