as well he’d missed her. Anything he said or did with her on a public street would set tongues wagging. Though he didn’t think he was known to any of the pedestrians now passing by him, he’d not noticed any acquaintances in the park the first day he met Diana, either, and word of that encounter had begun circulating immediately.
Besides, he’d rather savour seeing her tonight, when he could undress her, caress by caress. Warmed by that thought, he entered the jeweller’s establishment.
Taking one look at him, the junior clerk who greeted him sent at once for the owner. Though he tried to extinguish his curiosity, after that gentleman had shown him several fine silver pieces, one of which he selected for his sister, he couldn’t help asking casually whether the lady who’d just left the shop had purchased something similar, so beautifully wrought were the vases.
‘I’m afraid she was selling, rather than buying,’ the owner replied with a sigh—before his eyes lit. ‘I bought from her a particularly nice pearl necklace. Truly, the piece is so fine, I don’t think I’ll have it for long. A vase is a charming gift, but ladies often prefer a more...personal item. Might your sister be interested in such a necklace?’
Jane might not, but Alastair certainly was. ‘Please, do show it to me,’ he replied, his curiosity tweaked even further.
Why would Diana be selling jewellery? Whatever the reason, he knew at once he would buy the necklace back.
Beaming, the jeweller disappeared, returning a moment later with a long double-twisted strand of perfectly matched pearls.
For a moment, shock displaced curiosity, as Alastair recognised the necklace. One of the few mementos Diana had of her mother, who’d died giving her birth, the pearls had been a gift to her from her father on her sixteenth birthday. She’d mentioned several times how special it was to her. He couldn’t imagine why she would part with it.
Glad he’d encountered the jeweller before the piece had been shown to some other customer, he said, ‘You are right. It’s exquisite. I shall take that, too.’
Purchases completed, he picked up the wrapped parcel containing the vase and tucked the velvet case with the pearls in his pocket. He’d give Jane the vase just before guests arrived for dinner, leaving them only a short time for conversation, then slip away when her party left for the theatre.
Already impatient to see Diana again, he was now even more eager for the day to fade into evening. He’d present her with the pearls immediately—and try to discover what circumstance could possibly have induced her to part with something that held such dear memories of her long-dead mother.
* * *
Alastair arrived at the rendezvous even earlier than the previous nights, then paced the parlour until Diana arrived. Though he’d intended to return the pearls to her immediately, the intensity of the kiss she gave him in greeting fired his simmering desire at once to irresistible need. Almost ravenous enough to take her right then and there, he restrained himself, barely, hurrying her to the bedchamber moments after she stepped in the door.
She seemed as ravenous as he was, kissing him urgently while she tugged at his neckcloth and made short work of the buttons of his trouser flap. Pushing him back to sit on the bed, she lifted her skirts and straddled him, guided him deep and rocked against him, driving them both to their peak within moments.
The next loving was nearly as swift, clothing scattered as it was removed in haste. Then after another, languid cherishing they both drifted into the sleep of the satiated.
* * *
Awaking sometime later with Diana tucked in his arms, Alastair smiled as he surveyed the chamber: candles burned low in their sconces, her gown tossed on the back of a chair, her stockings on the bedside table, his neckcloth flung into a corner. Sated for now, he knew that after they consumed the cold collation he’d had set out for them, he’d want her again.
He couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Underlying desire, this odd sense of impending loss throbbed in his head like a ticking clock, as if the hours they had together would be limited this time, as they had been before, by some malevolent fate.
Nonsense, he told himself, shaking off the feeling. Eight years ago, they had both been young, still susceptible to the demands of Society and dependent upon others for their support. With him the master of his own estate, she a widow, they now controlled their own destinies, alone and together.
At that encouraging thought, Diana stirred in his arms. Waking, she opened sleepy blue eyes—those beautiful, mesmerising, intense blue eyes—and smiled at him.
Ignoring the wise intention to proceed with caution, his heart leapt with gladness.
Placing a kiss on her forehead, he eased her up against the pillows. ‘I’m famished. There’s refreshment in the next room.’
He wrapped her in his banyan, donned another, and escorted her to the sitting room, where a fire glowed on the hearth and a simple meal awaited. Though she sipped her wine and accepted bread and cheese, something in the set of her body and the guarded expression of her face suggested an underlying tension.
In a rush, he remembered the necklace. She might well be troubled by whatever had made her part with that once-cherished memento.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, hopping up to find his breeches and extract the velvet pouch from the pocket.
‘What, more gifts? You really don’t have to get me things.’
‘I like to get you things—especially when you have such delightful ways of appreciating them.’
‘Ever calculating,’ she said with a smile. ‘Ingenious Alastair.’
His mouth dried and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. Ingenious Alastair... Diana had coined the nickname, and taken up by his cousins, it had stuck.
It was only one of those she’d devised, her favourite in the game they played, he praising her in verse, she describing him in different moods and circumstances: Adulating Alastair, Adamant Alastair, Eccentric Alastair. He’d joked that she would run out of adjectives, and she’d assured him she had an endless trove of them, enough to last all the years they’d spend together.
He refocused his gaze on Diana. From the stark expression on her face, he knew she was remembering, too—the lost years, the unrealised promise.
‘I’ve brought you something,’ he repeated, breaking the mood. He held out the pouch.
Uncertain—the wounded look still in her eyes—she took it from him and extracted the pearls. Colour came and went in her cheeks before she looked back up at him. ‘How did you get these?’
‘I happened to stop by the jeweller right after he purchased them. Thinking me a likely customer, he showed them to me. I knew at once they must be yours, and bought them back. Why on earth would you sell your mother’s pearls?’
The subtle agitation he’d noticed in her earlier intensified. At first he thought she’d simply refuse to answer, but after obvious struggle, she said, ‘I was short of funds. I must consult a solicitor about a matter I’d hoped to delay until...until later, but changing circumstances make the need to settle it urgent.’
‘Short of funds?’ he tossed
