Chapter Eighteen
Diana’s thoughts fogged in. The only thing that kept her grounded to consciousness was Ian’s warmth, and the weight of his arms around her.
She blinked to clear her vision and her mind.
After a hazy moment, she realized Ian was carrying her up the staircase of the hotel next to the casino.
Their progress was smooth; the transition from one place to the next was almost dreamlike as he walked through a hallway and into a small suite of rooms.
A sudden hush descended. In the stillness, a dam burst within her chest, and she lost the battle to restrain her sobs.
It only took a few fraught minutes with her mother to shatter her into pieces.
Widow had denied none of Diana’s accusations about betraying their mission. She had no remorse about betraying her own daughter.
A spike of rage cleared away some of her bewilderment. She batted her eyes and blinked as she examined the smart furnishings of the luxurious hotel suite.
Ian stood a foot away from her perch at the edge of the bed. He watched her carefully; his posture was strung tight as a bow.
Everything felt fragile: the air between them, the closeness they’d built together over these few weeks…even her raw emotions.
She assessed the way his strong shoulders filled out the fine wool of his black jacket before she met his eyes.
“We’re safe here,” he assured her. “I arranged for the room.”
“Arranged or swindled?”
“Does it matter?”
“No.” It wouldn’t make telling him any easier. She buried her face in her hands.
He pried one away and cradled it between his. “Do you want to rest?”
She shook her head. He was behaving so patiently, which was a balm of sorts. Though if he’d been agitating her, she could have blurted it all out. Then it would be over. Done.
With her hand in his, he said, “I thought Beatrix was the only walking ghost I’d ever meet.”
“I told you I knew what it was like.”
“You did,” he agreed. “I can only imagine how difficult it was. If my mother returned to my life, I’d do anything she asked of me.”
For so many years, Diana had schemed and manipulated and lied, exactly as Widow had directed.
She never allowed herself to consider the repercussions, or question if the outcome justified the means to achieve it.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. And I’m sorry for everything I did, trying to fulfill her wishes. None of it warranted my lies.”
She swallowed. “I understand why you’d never trust me again.”
“I’m not giving her the power to drive another wedge between us,” he argued, a threatening edge to his voice. “And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you. Now it’s time for you to trust me.”
When shame choked her throat, he sank down next to her on the bed and stroked her hand encouragingly. “Tell me all of it. Starting with when she resurfaced in your life.”
“She was never bedridden,” Diana whispered.
“One day, she simply disappeared. Without a trace. My father spared no expense searching for her in secret, while maintaining the charade that she was ill to stave off scandal. He was so ashamed. And when he accepted she’d abandoned us, her desertion became our shameful secret. ”
“He should never have asked that of you.”
“For all we knew, she was dead somewhere. I’d thought of her that way.
” It had been an easier way to accept her loss.
“Eight years ago, around the time you stopped writing to me, the Stags began recruiting me. They communicated by clandestine notes from someone who called herself Widow. A year later, when we were in Switzerland, searching for another treatment for Papa’s illness, Widow finally wrote for me to meet her face-to-face.
I followed the address to an old convent. ”
“Where your mother was waiting.” He sounded disgusted by the ploy.
“When I saw her in that wretched basement, I thought I was going mad. And then I was so furious, thoughts of violence flitted through my brain.”
“I can’t imagine that,” he said dryly.
“Before I could find the words to ask why she’d abandoned us, my mother revealed that she’d sacrificed her old life to serve a higher calling.
She told me about the women she was helping.
The stories of the horrors they escaped still haunt my nightmares.
” Her voice cut out as she fought off a shudder.
“When the police wouldn’t help them, my mother and her allies founded the White Stags. ”
“And to keep you quiet, she told you that a network that relied on secrecy and worked outside the law would have put you, your father, and Rives Shipping in danger.”
That threat kept Diana from breathing a word of it to anyone for years. “When my mother said the success of their mission hinged on me joining them, and that my destiny in life was to be more than an heiress and a society wife, I’d never been happier. I instantly forgave her abandonment.”
“Because she wanted you.”
“And because she needed me.”
Ian nodded empathetically. His family had conscripted him to defend their business. He must have borne a similar sense of obligation.
As horrible as it was, Diana liked that they shared something of such magnitude.
“I haven’t been in the same room with her since she found me in Switzerland,” she admitted.
“Widow usually communicates through notes or other agents.” Allegedly, for their safety and protection.
Now Diana knew it was nothing but a cover for her mother’s deception and cowardice.
“Clearly, she came to Monte Carlo for the necklace.” Ian paused. “And yet she didn’t take it from you tonight.”
“I don’t know why.”
“She’s controlled you your entire life,” he murmured. “Perhaps she can’t fathom that you wouldn’t do what she commanded.”
The indignity of it made Diana cast her eyes to the elaborate carpet.
The room must have cost a fortune. She wanted to figure out how Ian had swindled it, rather than deal with the mess of the evening.
“After tonight, I know my mother betrayed me, and everyone who’s worked for our cause.
I intend to take the Stags apart, brick by brick if I have to.
Our work is too important to serve some vigilante agenda. ”
For her entire adult life, the work of the White Stags had consumed her.
It was an escape from the pretensions of the beau monde and her responsibilities as heir to a shipping empire.
At her mother’s direction, she’d taken her wealth and her privilege and forged them into a weapon that she no longer knew how to wield.
And now, she felt catastrophically lonely in her mission.
Diana longed to confess this to Ian, but it sounded so absurd in her head, she couldn’t imagine giving voice to the words.
In her struggle, she sought comfort in the way the firelight danced over his fine cheekbones and cast gold streaks in his dark hair.
She’d watched him closely for so long, she couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t fascinated her.
“I heard what you said to your mother. When she told you to cut me loose.” He cupped her face before she could turn away. “You defended me. Hell.” His voice grew hoarse. “You subverted her orders to protect me.”
Slowly, he lifted his hand and stroked the necklace with his thumb. “Why did you refuse to give her the emeralds?”
He was daring her to reveal her true feelings. Diana resented the way he’d asked her with such calm.
But when he drew a breath, his chest shook. The hand that rested on her neck trembled.
The same way her hands quaked with the longing to touch him.
She covered his hand with hers. “I thought by now you would have figured out that I wanted…I want—”
When the words stuck in her throat, she laughed at the absurdity of her fear.
She was not a cowardly woman. Neither in her actions nor her feelings.
“You want?” Ian echoed.
“You, Ian. I want you.”
He uttered a low groan as his fingers laced through her hair to draw her closer. Against her ear, he whispered, “You want more of what happened between us in San Sebastian?”
“Yes.” Heat flooded her, from his proximity and from the memory. “And this time I want to reciprocate.”
His mouth skated across her throat. “Are you sure?”
“It doesn’t—” Her voice cut out as his hands stroked the sensitive skin at the back of her neck. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
The warmth of his fingers brushed down her shoulders as he deftly unfastened the back of her dress. “Do you think what happened at the brothel meant nothing?”
“No,” she admitted softly.
“No,” he agreed.
The contrast of his hand moving across her skin and the friction of the fabric set fire to her blood. Perspiration broke out on her forehead.
“I wanted it to only be physical,” she whispered.
His lips met the exposed skin of her shoulder as he murmured, “It isn’t purely physical.”
It won’t ever be, she conceded silently.
She opened the buttons on his waistcoat with the same slow precision he was relieving her of the rest of her clothes.
His muscles tightened beneath her hands, and she was breathless at the prospect of tracing every inch of his well-formed torso without the barrier of clothing.
“The thing is, I enjoy adventuring with you.”
He laughed roughly, but his expression turned more serious as his hands traced her throat. “I like the way your mind works around a problem. How fiercely you attack it.”
“You’re fierce too. Though you fight so hard to contain it. You don’t have to with me.”
Ian’s mouth finally descended on hers. She wanted to drown in his taste and became giddy with the way he nipped at her lips and tangled his tongue with hers. She continued to play along with his slow seduction by lazily unwinding his necktie.
In between long kisses, his fingers explored her hair. Gently, he removed her hairpins so her thick locks wouldn’t tangle. When her hair cascaded over her shoulders, he leaned back.