Diantha’s knees felt weak and she was obliged to grip the back of a chair. “Wyn, what is going on?”
His attention slewed back to her, abruptly focused and—like in Knighton—predatory. He stood up and, with a slight sway, bowed.
“You required my attendance this morning, Miss Lucas. I am here.” A wolfish grin crooked his mouth. “I’ll admit that after your eagerness last night I was supposing you would make it worth my while.”
She backed away, stomach tight, imagining perhaps that she dreamed and would at any moment waken. But her dreams last night had been gorgeous, and this was ugly. In the corner the maid, fully awake now, stared with saucer eyes.
“Did—” Diantha pressed words past the knot in her throat. “Did you come here this morning to offer for me?”
He laughed. “I said I would. And why not?” Now his eyes did not seem to focus, dipping again to her breasts. “You’re a remarkably pretty girl, Diantha Lucas. A man would be fortunate to have you in his bed every night.”
She pressed her hands to her belly, her face flaming hot. “You are drunk.”
“I may be.” He lifted his brows and nodded. “Probably am, in fact.”
“I—I thought you meant to . . .” It hurt, in the pit of her stomach, but so much greater even than the hurt of his lies before. She tried to press it in, to be the lady she knew she must. She should ask him to leave and to return when he was sober. She should ask him to leave and never return. But she could not. She loved him. Oh, God, she loved him. “It—It isn’t even noon yet,” she uttered.
“Just saying to the fellows at the club last night that you’re a clever girl. A lady who can tell time is to be admired.” He nodded in mock admiration.
“You were speaking about me? At your club? When you had been drinking, after—” A sob clogged her throat. But she could not cry. Would not.
“Not precisely my club, if you’ll have the truth of it,” he mumbled. Another grin ticked up his lips. “More of a French convent. As it were.” He winked.
A choke of misery escaped her.
“There now, my girl. Can’t get a man all worked up then expect him to whistle his way to sleep without satisfaction, can you?” He shrugged.
She pressed her fingertips to her eyes and found that, despite her resolve, tears had already come. “This cannot be happening.” She had berated herself for her infatuation. She had worried she was not enough of an elegant lady to hold his interest. She had suffered over his lies, and hers. But she’d spent her days wondering and anguishing over all the wrong things. She saw this now. Too late.
“Now, don’t cry, minx,” she heard him say from across the room. “A man’s bound to drink a bit too much when he’s with his friends. If you like, I won’t once the vows are said. Only on Sundays, that is. Now there, how’s that for a promise?” His voice seemed oddly hoarse but her tears were coming too heavily for her to see him clearly.
“I will cry if I must.” She searched for her handkerchief. “And you will stand there and watch me cry, Mr. Wyn Yale. You owe that much to me.”
“Don’t owe you anything but a ring, really.”
Her head shot up and she dashed away the cold wetness upon her cheeks. “You owed me your promise that you will fulfill the honor that is in you. But clearly you have failed in that.”
He stood without expression now, watching her. “Easy for a girl to speak of honor.”
“It is not. Do you know what I thought of you once? I thought that there could be no other man as gallant and honorable. But I was wrong.” Valiantly she swallowed back a sob, and it was like torture to Wyn. “You owe me yourself, but that is not what you are offering me now. I don’t wish to marry you. Not now. Not any longer.”
He had succeeded. With the clarity born of a sleepless night spent convincing himself that this must be done, Wyn watched her fight to contain her tears and ached to tell her the truth. But that was not what he had come here to do. He had come to sever the ties that had so swiftly and unwisely been made between them upon the road, to convince the duke’s man that there was nothing between them, nothing that would encourage Yarmouth to use her in order to hurt him. He could not allow another girl to be harmed because of him—especially not this precious girl.
But he must be certain of one matter before he carried this charade to its end.
“Come now, minx. Don’t make a fuss over it.” He pressed the words through his lips, allowing a slight slur, each syllable an effort. “It’s not as though you’re in the family way, after all.” He gestured flippantly to her waist, then blinked hard and peered more closely. “Are you?”
“No.” She crushed her fist to her breast and her beautiful eyes flared. “You know, I don’t believe in love—at least not the kind between a man and a woman. So you haven’t broken my heart. But if I did believe in it, I think you would have been the man I fell in love with. But I can see I am justified in my skepticism, because instead all you are is—is u-unworthy. Of both of us.”
She was wrong. If he knew nothing else at this moment, he knew this, because his need to wrest the unhappiness from her eyes could not be more violent. He believed in the sort of love she now decried because he was, quite simply, hers.
He nearly spoke, the words upon his tongue desperately seeking escape, aching to take it all back and tell her the truth. But he clamped his jaw shut and watched her, with her hand over her mouth, swiftly move to the door.
Sir Tracy stood in the aperture. Behind him hovered three servants not bothering to hide their interest. Wyn would have applauded his own wildly successful plan if he had the spirit to do so. Within minutes of his departure the entire household would know of this scene. Within hours the duke in Yarmouth would have word of it. And she would be safe.
“Yale,” Lucas growled, his face blotched with red. “You’ve done it again.”
“Tracy!” Diantha’s lashes fanned wide. “What did you hear?”
“I don’t need to have heard anything.” He scowled. “Your tears speak for themselves. Can you see now why I didn’t want this for you? This fine gentleman? Go upstairs. I will speak with you after I have escorted him from the house.”
“No need to banish her to the belfry, old chap.” Wyn retrieved his hat and crop and sauntered toward the doorway. “On my way out anyway.”
“You won’t be welcome here again,” Lucas snarled. “I’ll thank you to remember that.”
“Your servant, sir. Ma’am.” He executed a sloppy bow, donned his hat at a foppish angle, and went onto the street to claim his horse, and after that, his future without her. A future he began to hope would be brief after all.
Diantha wrapped her arms around her waist, numb everywhere. She was vaguely aware of Tracy dismissing the servants and shutting the parlor door.
“Sis, don’t let that blackguard—”
“The things he said . . .” Hurtful things. If he were any other person, she might imagine he had intended to hurt her.
“Here. Sit down.” Tracy guided her to the sofa. “Have a cuppa.”
She gripped his wrist, sloshing tea across her skirt. “Tracy, how do men usually behave when they are badly foxed?”
“Like cads. Beasts, some of them. Fools, at the very least. Then there are the quiet ones like our father.”
“Like our father.” Like with her father, the lure of the bottle had proven too much for Wyn. Because of her? Because she had driven him to it by touching him in the garden, like that night at the inn, begging him for touches when he was trying to be a gentleman?
No. It couldn’t be. He had left behind the bottle in Knighton because of her. For her. He had given it up to ensure her safety. Her father had been a loving man but weak, dispirited by his wife’s criticism and disapproval. But Wyn was strong.