“Love, Diana. That is what I profess for you. Pure and simple love.”
She shook her head, rejecting the notion. “You cannot mean that. We don’t even know each other!”
“But we do. I do. And I have thought of you every day since your wedding. Your image pulled courage from me when I was afraid. I recalled your laughter during battles and your smile in the endless times between. My fever dreams were of you. My waking dreams, as well. They were all of you.”
“They weredreams. And they are much too insubstantial to let them dictate your actions.”
“No,” he said. “No!” He gripped her hands and pulled them to his mouth. “Diana, dreams are the only things that should dictate our actions. And for the dream of your safety, I will end this problem for you.”
End her problem? “That’s a clever way of speaking of murder. You could be hanged!”
“Have more faith in me than that. With the places he frequents, a knife in the gut—”
“Stop!” She pushed him away as she jumped to her feet. “Just stop!” She paced to her bed and back. Not once but three times, and with every step, she grew more agitated. He was speaking nonsense, and yet the seductive power of it was clear. It was the height of romantic fantasy. He was her knight in shining armor, sweeping away her troubles with a flash of his bright sword. “You cannot rescue me, Lucas. Not that way.” Then she slowed, her steps faltering as her mind finally began to work logically. She looked at him. He had risen to his feet as well, and so now she had to tilt her head. His hard jaw seemed cut from stone as he looked down at her. He might as well be a Grecian statue of a warrior in his prime.
“Diana—”
“Why did you ask me?”
He blinked. “What?”
She swallowed. “A knife in the dark.” She shuddered. “You hardly needed my permission for that. Why did you come here and ask me such a thing?” It didn’t escape her that this was the exact place where he’d been holding her a few hours before. Here where she had broken down into emotion and need as she sought comfort in his arms. “You could have done it and told me after. Or not at all.”
“Is that what you want? The deed done, and you none the wiser?”
“No!” She was emphatic on that point. “Absolutely not!” If such a thing were to be done in her name, then by God, she would know it and not shirk from the fact.
“That is why,” he said. Then his shoulder lifted in a small shrug. “I did not know what you would want, and I feared…”
His voice trailed off, and she nearly stumbled as she tried to follow his thoughts. “The hangman’s noose?” she asked. “Perhaps missing the mark and getting a knife set in your ribs instead?” The very words tasted hideous in her mouth.
He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I feared losing your regard. You are a proper lady, Diana, and I mean that with all reverence. I would not have you despise me for this act.”
“Only for the offering of it?”
He flinched at that, and she regretted her words. She didn’t hate him for the offer. Merely that it seemed so very appealing to her when she should despise it from the very core of her being.
Lucas took a step forward, coming close enough to touch her but not actually reaching her. “I wanted you to know all your options. You have been making your way on your own for so long, Diana. I knew you would want control of the next steps.” Then he lifted his chin. “I can lift the burden from you if you want. I would shoulder this for you if I could.”
“It is my responsibility! My duty and my—”
“Promise to a husband you didn’t want, to his family who despises you, to generations that may not be. Damn it, Diana, when will you choose for you? What doyouwant?”
She stared at him, fury building up inside her. Anger, hatred, and all those black emotions that she so carefully locked away. They burst from her in a scream that tore through her throat. It was loud and raw and didn’t make a dent in the emotions tearing through her. Without even planning it, she started raining blows down on him. It was how he made her question things she believed were absolute. And how he made her feel everything. Pain, fear, desire—all of these emotions had been locked away for so long. Why did he insist on making her feel?
He took her blows without flinching. He let her beat at him again and again until he was cradling her in his arms as she sobbed against his chest. She gasped and cried and wanted to rip out her own heart for the display, but she could not stop.
“Shh,” he said. “It’s all right. It will be all right.”
Nothing would be all right ever again. “I hate you,” she rasped, though she didn’t mean it.
“You have that right. I should have married you twelve years ago and damn the consequences.”
She snorted. “Starving would have been better for us? Neither of us had any way to survive.”
“Maybe. Who is to tell?”
She said nothing. He held her with his lips pressed to her forehead. And he whispered such things as only lovers would say. That he would take care of every detail. That it would be just as she wanted when nothing was at all what she wanted.
