Chapter Fifteen #2
“What the hell is wrong with me?” Nathaniel demanded with an expression reminiscent of a summer thunderstorm.
“If you don’t know, you’re a bigger nodcock than I assumed.
” William poked him in the chest with a forefinger.
“Firstly, you’re younger than her. Second, you’re a damned rake who I rather doubt could remain loyal to one woman for more than an hour.
And third, don’t you think I know more about who the better man for her is than you since I’ve known her my whole life, whereas you have a twenty-two-year gap in your history? ”
“Pardon my language, ladies, but fuck off, William.” He shoved against her brother’s chest, and William stumbled backward. “You know nothing about what is happening here.”
Percy, God bless him, shot to his feet. “Uh, Uncle William, perhaps you should hear him out before you do something…”
With a growl, William drew back a fist and landed a punch that caught Nathaniel in the chin, sending him crashing to the floor, narrowly missing the edge of the table with his head.
“…rash,” Percy finished in an ironic voice.
“Enough of this.” The viscount picked himself off the floor and ignored her brother in order to concentrate on Diana, who’d jumped to her feet the moment he’d fallen.
“Please listen.” He dropped to one knee and took her hand.
The red mark on his left cheek where William had punched him looked rather angry.
“I don’t think—”
“Please.” He implored her with his gaze, and she was powerless against the pleading in those mossy depths.
“Despite your brother’s objection, I wish to persist because…
because I love you, Diana. Marry me. Spend the remainder of your life with me and let me spend the rest of mine showing you how you should have been treated all along; You deserve every good thing, and frankly, you are simply wonderful. ”
Heavy silence reigned in the room as everyone stared at them. Eliza had a hand to her mouth, and her eyes were round and wide with excitement, while Percy looked on with mixed feelings on his face.
How embarrassing and somewhat overwhelming.
“Oh, Nathaniel.” Heat seeped into Diana’s cheeks as she clutched at his hand. “These past weeks with you have been lovely, beyond my wildest dreams, really.”
“Weeks?” William interrupted yet again with another glare at her. “You’ve been seeing him for weeks?”
They both ignored him.
Diana pressed her lips together as the urge to cast up her accounts grew strong in her chest, for she knew what her next words would do to him in light of his previous bad luck in love and romance.
“Truly, you are an amazing man, a good man, and seeing a change in you makes my heart soar, but I am sorry. I really am.” Her chin trembled and tears welled in her eyes.
“However, I cannot, in good conscience, marry you. It wouldn’t be right. ”
Gasps punctuated the silence, coming from the dowager and Eliza. Even her son looked shocked and perplexed.
“What?” The whispered inquiry from him sounded overly loud in the space. The crestfallen expression on Nathaniel’s face felt like a dagger to her heart. “Why? I thought we might have had a connection, the same hope…”
Quickly, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, but my answer is no, and it’s quite final.” Then because she couldn’t bear to be the center of attention or to see the various expressions of confusion and disappointment on the faces around her, Diana ran from the room.
Oh, why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? Why couldn’t they both have been content with a mere affair?
*
Atterbury House
Grosvenor Square
Mayfair, London
It had been an hour since she’d run from the drawing room at her brother’s home.
An hour since she’d rejected Nathaniel’s proposal.
An hour since her heart had broken into a million pieces because she’d shattered his.
It mattered not what she wanted for herself or for her future, because she was doing him a favor even if he couldn’t see that yet.
At some point, he would thank her, if only as a memory.
The only thing to do now was hide in her suite and let regret have at her.
Would she even have the wherewithal to concentrate on reading a book?
She didn’t know, but she made her way to her sitting room, where she promptly threw herself down onto a low sofa upholstered in crushed velvet and let herself cry out her feelings.
When her maid came in, concerned, she dismissed her, saying firmly that she wouldn’t require assistance until the morning.
Barely an hour after that, the sound of angry footsteps moving swiftly along the corridor reached her ears.
By the time Diana had struggled into a sitting position, the door flew open and Nathaniel stood in the frame.
He’d tracked her down, for of course he had, and as much as she didn’t want to have this conversation, it couldn’t be postponed.
Wiping at the moisture on her cheeks, she shook her head, wishing she felt dead inside instead of this jumble of emotions. “Go away, Nathaniel.” She sniffled into a handkerchief as she stood. “I don’t want to talk.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain to me why you rejected my suit.
” Anger shadowed his eyes. “You left me in that drawing room confused and embarrassed. Then I was forced to have yet another shouting match with your damned brother. I’d rather not spend another hour trying to explain myself to him. ”
Despite herself, she was curious. “What happened?”
He shrugged. There was no trace of humor or charm left on his face.
“I finally landed him a facer merely to shut him up, told him that both you and I were capable of guiding our own futures, and then I left. For a long time I sat in my carriage wondering what to do, but damn it, I’m not giving up on us. ”
“Oh.” Drat it all. Why did her heart have to skip like that? “I said what I did for you.”
A huff escaped him. “You’ll have to try again because that makes no sense.”
She nodded. “I’m older than you, and I didn’t realize it until too late that I probably am past the age where I can bear children. Since you need an heir, I decided to cut you loose before too much damage had been done.” It sounded cold to her ears, but there was nothing for it.
“Such gammon, Diana, and you know it.” Annoyance rumbled in his voice. “Did it ever occur to you that I might not care about any of that? That I might just want you?”
“That’s careless. You have responsibilities to your title.” She tried moving into the adjoining bedroom to get away from him, but he was having none of it.
He made a crude gesture that both shocked and intrigued her. “The title can go fallow for all I care. Let parliament unknot the tangles.” Without another word, he followed her into the bed chamber, then slammed the door to the dressing room, and threw the locking mechanism.
Awareness of him prickled along her skin. “What are you doing?”
“Making a more convincing argument. If you don’t believe my words, perhaps you’ll believe what my body tells you, what yours says when it responds.
” He pounced, and during a series of searing kisses no doubt designed to punish for or object to what she’d said earlier, clothes were angrily removed until they were once more naked together in her bedroom.
Clearly, he was a man bent on seduction.
Or retribution.
“Nathaniel, I don’t think…”
“Too much thinking is often the problem. It certainly has been just now.” He plundered her mouth with a string of deep, drugging kisses while the other hand went to her breast and quickly brought the nipple erect.
Then he rolled that tip until she was gasping for breath, drowning in a myriad of sensations she couldn’t quite keep ahead of.
When he wrenched away, he said, “Afterward, we’ll puzzle out how to go forward, but for now, this is what we’ll say to each other. ”
Desire clouded her mind; pain shrouded her heart. The only reason she allowed the intrusion was because this would be her last time carnally with him. Such a thought brought tears to her eyes. Even the affair couldn’t withstand the rejection she’d just handed him.
Nothing could, but his hands at her breasts and his lips at the side of her neck were quite distracting… from everything.
“Dear lord, you must leave off,” she gasped out, for if he didn’t, she would surely dissolve into a melted puddle on the floor.
“You were the one who declined my suit, who tore my world apart, so because I can’t find the words to convince you, I’ll send you flying instead,” he said as he dropped to his knees and seconds later, he encouraged her legs apart.
“I will say that you broke my heart, Diana, after everything.” When his voice wavered, pain squeezed around her heart once more.
“I’m sorry, but you must know, when you’re thinking clearly, that a future between us is ill-advised.”
“Don’t try to downplay or forget what we are to each other.” The dratted man glided his fingers along her flesh made slick from his teasing of her breasts, back and forth in a mesmerizing rhythm. Before she could utter a response, he’d coaxed her swelling nubbin out of hiding, and rubbed it.
“Oh, heavens.” Why was she so weak around him? With each pass of those talented fingers, shivers of need danced over her skin, fracturing throughout her body into every nerve ending, reminding her of how he’d so easily learned how to command her body.
“You think to toss this away?” Over and over, he worked that tiny bundle of nerves, and when she couldn’t hold back a moan, he grinned.
“For the good of your future,” she managed to gasp out and curled the fingers of one hand into his thick, red hair. How was it that he had nearly sent her over that edge into bliss with hardly a touch?
His bark of laugh held an edge of bitterness she’d not heard from him before. “Haven’t you guessed by now that I have no future without you?”