The Willful Widow (32 page)

great-aunt had gone to spend the day with friends in Richmond.

Gradually, as she forced herself to make sense of the morning's news and a number of bills and receipts from Buckland, Diana grew calmer and rational enough to wonder at Lady Blanche's part in the entire affair. Certainly, if the one time she had observed that lady and Justin together were any indication, Justin had no particular interest in the beauty. Come to think of it, of late he had been so much in Diana's company, he had had very little time for anyone else's. And Diana could not think when she had enjoyed life more than when she was sharing it with Justin—catching his eyes, watching them crinkle with amusement as some absurdity of the
ton
struck him, or laughing with him at the follies and pretensions of those bent on leading a fashionable existence. So often she had found him looking at her in precisely the same way, smiling in wordless agreement over something or other, and had been flooded with the happiness of a companionship that she had never thought to find. Had it all been done to win a paltry bet, this sharing, this closeness?

Diana flung out of the chair and began to pace again. So wrapped up in her thoughts was she that she did not even hear Finchley enter the room or call her name until he was forced practically to shout in her ear, "Lord Justin St. Clair to see you, madam."

"Oh no!" Diana came to an abrupt halt. "I can't, I mean ... oh do pray, tell him that I am not at home," she pleaded frantically.

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"Too late," a cheerful voice observed as Justin, too eager to wait, strode into the room on the butler's heels.

"Oh." It took all of Diana's strength of character not to rush headlong from the room. "That will be all. Thank you. Finchley," she dismissed (Re loyal retainer who, struck by his mistress's uncharacteristic indecision, was hovering near the door.

The butler left them to face one another, neither one precisely certain as to how to begin. After years of dalliance with willing females, Justin was entirely at a loss as to how to proceed with one he wanted so desperately but of whom he was so unsure.

For her part, Diana had never been in such an equivocal situation. She did not know whether to launch into a furious and injured tirade at his perfidy, retire in dignified disgust, or to ignore the entire thing as though whatever Justin St. Clair chose to do was of not the slightest interest to her. Unable to make herself do any of these things, she stood there dumbly while Boney, now perched on the mantel, and Wellington, on the floor in front of the hearth, waited expectantly. Finally Justin, trying desperately to interpret the lady's unreadable expression, began tentatively, "I came to thank you for allowing me to escort you last evening. I can't think when I have enjoyed myself more." Lord, he sounded like a schoolboy—even worse than his nephew. Taking a step toward Diana he tried again. "Diana, I..." There was a crash as Diana, backing up hurriedly, banged into the brass fender.

"It was most kind of you to take us, sir, but I must excuse myself as I have a most pressing engagement that I..." 298

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"Diana," Justin possessed himself of her hands, "that is utter nonsense and you know it. You are no more dressed to go out than I am to attend a ball, and all this," he pointed to the mass of papers surrounding her chair, "does not look like the room of someone on her way to an appointment. Now what's amiss?"

She stared helplessly at the floor for a minute. "Why nothing is amiss. Why should you think anything is?" He recollected her hands in his, but she snatched them away.

"Diana, I thought we were friends, you and I." Justin moved closer, repossessing her hands as he did so. Without thinking, she looked up to find him regarding her steadily, his gray eyes full of tender concern. It was a terrible mistake. All of the hurt over his betrayal and her fury at herself over her weakness for him came flooding back.

"Friends?" Her voice rose shrilly. "I wouldn't be your friend if you were the last man on earth—if my life depended on it. Your friend, your bargaining counter more like! Why should I be your friend? I would have more respect for myself now if I were your trollop instead of your dupe!" Justin dropped her hands to grab her shoulders. "Whatever are you talking about? My trollop? My dupe? I came here to tell you I love you, and all you can do is shout at me and insult me."

"Well, if that isn't outside of enough!" she gasped. "
I
insult
you?
What did you win, sirrah, for making a fool out me? I hope it was a king's ransom. Was it not enough that you could take your winnings and go without having to come here and gloat over me?" She struggled fiercely to get away, but 299

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he only pulled her more closely to him. A tall woman, Diana had always considered herself to be strong as well, but she was completely immobilized by the powerful arms encircling her.

"Will you listen to me," he shouted. "I
love
you!"

"What of it?" she spat back. "I
hate
you." Justin stepped back as if she had struck him, his eyes dark with anger, his face white and taut, but in her anger Diana barely noticed. "Oh yes, love is the merest game to you. A broken heart, a ruined life more or less is nothing to the great Justin St. Clair. And here I actually was foolish enough to think you liked me for who I was. I didn't even ask you to love me as so many silly women do. No wonder Lady Blanche warned me about you. Undoubtedly you did the same to her, too, only she, vain goose that she is, was merely annoyed at losing one of her vast number of admirers. I, on the other hand..." She paused at last to catch her breath.

"Blanche?" There was an arrested look on Justin's face.

"Lady Blanche Howard? What does she have to do with anything?"

"She," Diana took a deep breath to stop the shaking in her voice, "she told me about the wager."

"Wager? What wager? You are talking a farrago of nonsense."

Justin's bewilderment was so patent that Diana hesitated.

"You had a wager. She said that you did." Her voice faltered.

"Didn't you?"

"I had no wagers with anyone, my love." He pulled her toward him. "Mistakes, I have made, I freely concede, but 300

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wagers—never-I admit the error of my ways. I first called on you at Alfred's behest because I thought you were pursuing Reginald. But the minute I saw you, I knew your were not. You were too honest, too sincere. I looked into your eyes and knew you to be a person of integrity. Oh, I could not admit that to myself, could not admit that I the infallible Justin St. Clair was guilty of an error of judgment. I could not admit so quickly that I had misjudged you so badly—my lamentable pride. But I never deceived you. You knew what I had come for."

"Later, perhaps, I was deluding myself, telling myself that I was keeping an eye on Reginald when really I was keeping an eye on you." He saw the flash in her eyes. "Not keeping an eye on you
that
way. I mean that I was attracted to you, enchanted by you, more enchanted than I had ever been by anyone before, and certainly more than I wished to be enchanted by any woman no matter who she was. I think that I was actually jealous of Reginald. There he was escorting one of the most beautiful and intelligent women in London to concerts and exhibitions, sharing books and music with her in a way I'd never dared to dream of, and he had just stumbled on it, while I believe I have been searching for such a thing all my life. But you loathed me—and with good reason. I had insulted you. Furthermore, you considered me frivolous, a reprobate, a wastrel even, but I took comfort in the fact that you seemed to consider me an opponent worth fighting. At least I had that. At the time, I don't think I was quite aware of all those things. I only knew I couldn't keep away from you, and I hated myself for it. I tried to put you from my 301

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mind, to lose myself in work or Mademoiselle de Charenton, but it was no use. She recognized my obsession with you before I did." He looked down at Diana smiling ruefully.

"It wasn't until you left for Buckland that it dawned on me. I thought you'd eloped with Reginald, and I was beside myself. I told myself I was enraged because you had turned out to be as duplicitous as Alfred and I had at first thought, but that wasn't it. It was jealousy pure and simple. Then I arrived to find nothing of the sort. There you were, as lovely as I had ever seen you, carefree and happy in a way I had never imagined. It broke my heart to think of the years you had struggled by yourself, and I wanted to sweep you off your feet then and there and carry you away somewhere where I could lavish you with every possible comfort. But I couldn't do anything but give you the most meager advice." Justin looked down at her searchingly. "I am begging you now to let me do that, to take care of you, though I know you are entirely capable of looking after yourself, to love you, though you are so damnably self-sufficient that you don't need anyone, to be part of your life, though I know that every other man in your life has only proven to be an encumbrance." He sensed her hesitation and was unprepared for the cold wave of fear that washed over him and seemed to pool in the pit of his stomach. He had been so ecstatic at his discovery that he loved her, so happy that at last he had found someone to care about as truly and deeply as he had always longed to do, that he had not even allowed himself to consider the horrible possibility that she might not feel the 302

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same way about him; and the thought of facing life without her, now that he had found her, was unbearable. Diana was silent, too bemused by the intensity and variety of emotions surging through her to respond. In the space of a few hours, she had been more exultant and more humiliated, more aroused and more despairing, more angry and more in love than she had ever thought possible, and she was not at all sure how she felt about it. Her life had been far less exciting but far more serene and predictable before Justin St. Clair had come into it. However, she had never felt so alive, so aware of all the possibilities around her, as she had in the past weeks. She had never looked forward so much to each day as she did now. In an agony of doubt, she stared at the floor.

"Diana?" Justin prompted softly.

"I don't know, I don't know," she whispered.

"It's all right, my beautiful love. Just tell me I have a chance. Just let me say I love you?" he begged. She nodded slowly.

"Good." He tilted her face up to his and kissed her gently on the forehead, on each cheek, and then, slowly, lingeringly on the lips until he felt some of the tension go out of her, and she leaned against him with a sigh. He caressed the glossy black hair as she laid her head on his shoulder and held her close for a long silent moment while she absorbed the astounding revelations, the thoughts and emotions of the morning.

As she stood there with her head on Justin's shoulder, Diana felt some of the uncontrollable trembling subside. It 303

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was so comfortable in his arms, so perfect—as if after a lifetime of searching for it, she had at last found a haven of safety and security, someone else to depend on when she was too upset or overwrought to think clearly. And there was no doubt she was overwrought now.

Diana couldn't remember a time when she had been so much at the mercy of her own emotions and passions—love, lust, jealousy, rage, despair—emotions she hadn't even known she possessed. For a moment she longed to return to the comfortable sameness of her life, boring as it had been, before she had met Justin, Did she wish to risk feeling this way for the rest of her life—to be so happy one moment and so desperate the next? Did she want to have so much of her happiness bound up in another person? She was not at all sure she did. The emotional turmoil of the past weeks had been exhausting beyond belief, frightening even, and she had so much left to do that required her thought and energies—

the repairs at Buckland, investment in the waterworks, a hundred little things. She could not afford to waste her time agonizing over her feelings.

Sensing some of the conflict that was tearing Diana apart, Justin deemed it prudent to intervene before she could retreat into the safety of her well-ordered but solitary existence. He looked deep into the worried blue eyes murmuring, "'Tis a fearful decision, is it not, my love, to give one's happiness into another's keeping? But I, for one, can think of no one I would trust more to keep mine safe from harm than you." As his words sank in, Diana realized with a start that, despite his vast knowledge of women, Justin was as 304

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inexperienced at this as she was. He was assuming just as big a risk—more, in fact, for he had never been married before, even to someone as inconsequential as Ferdie. "I ... I don't know what to say."

"Just say you'll marry me," he whispered against her mouth. "Diana, I know very little about true love, never having felt it until now, but I do know that all the deliberation in the world is pointless when I feel the way I do—complete and happy with you, and lost and lonely without you. And I know that I could examine it forever, but I will never be able to explain to my mind what my heart has known for so long. I love you." He cupped her face in his hands and kissed it gently—the eyelids, the nose, and the lips slowly until they responded to his, and her body began to melt against him. He slid his hands down to her shoulders, her waist, pulling her closer to him, his mouth more insistent now as her lips parted under his and her arms came up around his neck. The taste of her, the feel of her was magic. He could have held her thus forever and never tired of it. She
must
want him, she
must
care about him, please God. Panting slightly he lifted his head. "Diana, marry me?" There was no question about it, the gentleman was not one to give up. The cautious voice at the back of Diana's mind urged her to doubt, to question, but her heart and body had given their answer long ago. Long before Justin had even kissed her, she had known, though she refused to admit it. She had known it every time she entered a crowded room and looked for him, she had known it when, not seeing him there, her interest in the affair had suddenly died completely. 305