dragged him, still shouting, out of the ballroom...
Hurt pierced him, nearly as sharp as on that night he remembered with such grisly clarity. An instant later, revitalising anger finally scoured away the pain.
Ridiculous to expend so much thought or emotion on the woman, he told himself, sucking in a deep, calming breath. She’d certainly proved herself unworthy of it. He’d got over her years ago.
Though, he thought sardonically, this unexpected explosion of emotion suggested he hadn’t banished the incident quite as effectively as he’d thought. He had, however, mastered a salutary lesson on the perfidy of females. They could be lovely, sometimes entertaining, and quite useful for the purpose for which their luscious bodies had been designed, but they were cold-hearted, devious, and focused on their own self-interest.
So, after that night, he had treated them as temporary companions to be enjoyed, but never trusted. And never again allowed close enough to touch his heart.
So he would treat Diana now, with cordial detachment.
His equilibrium restored, he allowed himself to glance across the park. Yes, she was still approaching. Any moment now, she would notice him, draw close enough to recognise him.
Would a blush of shame or embarrassment tint those cheeks, as well it should? Or would she brazen it out, cool and calm as if she hadn’t deceived, betrayed and humiliated him before half of London’s most elite Society?
Despite himself, Alastair tensed as she halted on the far side of the pathway, holding his breath as he awaited her reaction.
When at last she turned her eyes towards them, her gaze focused only on the boy. ‘Mannington,’ she called in a soft, lilting voice.
The familiar tones sent shivers over his skin before penetrating to the marrow, where they resonated in a hundred stabbing echoes of memory.
‘Please, Mama, may I go for cakes?’ the boy asked her as Alastair battled the effect. ‘My new friend, Robbie, invited me.’
‘Another time, perhaps. Come along, now.’ She crooked a finger, beckoning to the lad, her glance passing from the boy to Robbie to Alastair. After meeting his eyes for an instant, without a flicker of recognition, she gave him a slight nod, then turned away and began walking off.
Sighing, the boy looked back at Robbie. ‘Will you come again tomorrow? Maybe I can go then.’
‘Yes, I’ll come,’ Robbie replied as the child trotted after his mother. Grabbing the arm of the boy’s maid, who was tucking a ball away in her apron, his nephew asked, ‘You’ll bring him, won’t you?’
The girl smiled at Robbie. ‘If I can, young master. Though little notice as Her Grace takes of the poor boy, don’t see that it would make a ha’penny’s difference to her whether he was in the house or not. I’d better get on.’ Gently extricating her hand from Robbie’s grip, she hurried off after her charge.
Alastair checked the immediate impulse to follow her, announce himself to Diana, and force a reaction. Surely he hadn’t changed that much from the eager young dreamer who’d thrown heart and soul at her feet, vowing to love her for ever! As she had vowed back to him, barely a week before she gave her hand to an older, wealthier man of high rank.
Had he been merely a convenient dupe, his open devotion a goad to prod a more prestigious suitor into coming up to snuff? He’d never known.
Sudden fury coursed through him again that the sight of her, the mere sound of her voice, could churn up an anguish he’d thought finally buried. Ah, how he hated her! Or more precisely, hated what she could still do to him.
Since the night she’d betrayed him, he’d had scores of women and years of soldiering. He’d thrown himself into the most desperate part of the battle, determined to burn the memory of loving her out of his brain.
While she seemed, now as then, entirely indifferent.
Mechanically he gave his nephew a hand, walking beside him while the lad chattered on about his friend and his pony and the fine set of lead soldiers waiting for them in the nursery, where they could replay all the battles in which Uncle Alastair had fought. It required nearly the whole of the steep uphill walk from Sidney Gardens across the river back to his sister’s townhouse in the Royal Crescent for him to finally banish Diana’s image.
Damn, but she’d been even lovelier than he remembered.
* * *
Sending Robbie up to the nursery with a promise to join him later for an engagement with lead soldiers, Alastair turned over his hat and cane to his sister’s butler. He’d placed boot on step to follow his nephew up the stairs when Simms halted him.
‘Lady Guildford requested that you join her in the morning room immediately upon your return, Mr Ransleigh, if that is possible.’
Alastair paused, debating. He’d hoped, before meeting his all-too-perceptive sister, to return to the solitude of the pretty guest chamber to which he’d been shown upon his arrival early this morning, where he might finish piecing back together the shards of composure shattered by his unexpected encounter with Diana. But failing to respond to Jane’s summons might elicit just the sort of heightened interest that he wished to avoid.
With a sigh, he nodded. ‘Very well. You needn’t announce me; I’ll find my way in.’
Moments later he stepped into a back parlour flooded with mid-morning sunlight. ‘Alastair!’ his sister exclaimed with delight, jumping up from the sofa to meet him for a hug. ‘I’m sorry I was so occupied when you arrived this morning! Though if I’d had any inkling you were coming, I would have had all in readiness,’ she added, a tinge of reproof in her tone.
‘Do you mean to scold me for showing up unannounced, as Mama always does?’ he teased.
‘Of course not! I assume you’re not here for some assignation, else you’d not come to stay with me.’
‘Assignation?’ he said with a laugh. ‘You’ll make me blush, sister mine! And what would a proper matron like you know about assignations?’
‘Nothing whatever, of course, other that you’re rumoured to have many of them,’ Jane retorted, her face flushing.
‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip,’ Alastair said loftily. ‘But let me assure you, if I did have an “‘assignation” in mind, I’d choose a more convenient and discreet location than Bath to set up a mistress.’
‘It pains me that you’ve become so cynical. If only you’d become acquainted with any of the lovely, accomplished and well-bred girls I’ve suggested, you’d find that not all women are interested only in title and position.’
‘Of course not. You married Viscount Guildford out of overwhelming passion, the kind you’d have me write about,’ he said sardonically.
Her flush deepened. ‘Just because a match is suitable, doesn’t mean there can’t be love involved.’
‘Oh, I’m a great believer in love! Indulge in it as often as I can. But I could hardly make one of your exemplary virgins my mistress,’ he said, then held up a hand as Jane’s eyes widened and she began to sputter a reply. ‘Pax, Jane! Let’s not brangle. I came to
