Page 30 of Lady Diana's Lost Lord

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It was a mistake. He’d known it even in the moments before he’d posed the question. There were some things a gentleman did not do if he wished to safeguard the reputation of a lady. There were some suggestions that a gentleman did not make to a good, virtuous woman who was, even if temporarily, beneath his protection.

There were some things a man did not ask of a woman when they wereweighted beneath the yoke of an unwanted engagement. Particularly if that man and that woman wished to avoid a quick trip to the altar.

He’d asked anyway. Every one of the misgivings in his head had quietly shuffled straight toward the back of his mind and tucked themselves away, and there had been space for just that one thought that he had let trickle out of his mouth.

Kiss her. You know you want to. You want it more than you want your next breath.

It was a crime that no one had ever kissed her. Perhapshiscrime more so than anyone else’s. She was a lovely woman; she ought to have received the attention she had deserved during her Seasons. He could almost imagine her, ten years younger and brimming over with all the enthusiasm of a young girl newly out in society, those dark eyes sparkling with excitement.

Two Seasons, she’d said she’d enjoyed. She’d been out forten.

But for the claim that had been staked upon her in his name, she’d certainly have been the diamond of the Season. Some gentleman would have snapped up at once. He had no doubt on that score. How could anyonenotwant her? How couldhenot want her? Of course he bloody well wanted her.

He just couldn’t have her. A fact which stung a little more every damned day.

She blinked those wide, wide eyes at him from behind the lenses of her spectacles. Her mouth fell open, just briefly, but no sound emerged. A tiny frown etched itself straight into the smooth skin right between the fine, dark arches of her brows, a little wrinkle he was tempted to smooth away with the pad of his thumb.

“I beg your pardon,” she said at last, her voice saturated with confusion. “I must have misheard you.”

“I don’t believe you did.” She hadn’t, and she damn well knew it. She simply could not comprehend a happenstance in which someone—anyone—might want to kiss her. And that alone was a tragedy.

“Well—that is—I mean to say,you—” She gave a little flip of her wrist in his direction.

He nodded.

“AndI.” She pressed her hand to her chest.

Another nod.

That little divot between her brows grew only more pronounced. He could see it scrawled there upon her face: the indecision, the disbelief. It put him in mind of Hannah’s expression when she was working what she considered to be a wretchedly difficult sum. And the result, now, in Diana’s estimation,was quite beyond her comprehension.

She didn’t understand it, and that, perhaps, was a good thing. One of them needed to be sensible, to stay the correct course for the both of them. He could not take Diana from London, and he could not take HannahtoLondon. Any chance of a future for them had been shattered years and years ago.

But there wasnow. This moment. The only one they would ever have.

She said, “Yes. Yes, all right, then.”

Ben didn’t know why it had surprised him so much, her agreement—but then, she seemed almost to have surprised herself. Her cheeks warmed in a magnificent burst of color, vivid pink blooming across them like a rose.

“You’ll have to come here, then.” She didn’t, really. He could just as easily have gone to her, but more than he wanted that kiss, he wanted it given freely and without reservation. She would have to make that choice anew with each step she took toward him. Perhaps, by the time she had made it to his side, she might even have realized that it had been a sincere request.

Diana rose from her chair like the consummate lady that she was. Her steps appeared practiced; a perfect, flawless glide, the same one she was endeavoring to teach to Hannah. There wasn’t the least hesitation in them, not even the tiniest stutter-step as she rounded the corner of the table. The fingertips of her left hand grazed the scarred surface of the table as she wound her way toward him, a little grounding gesture, he thought.

No one had ever asked her for this, and she didn’t know how she was meant to behave. She knew how to serve tea, how to waltz, how to properly greet anyone from a mere mister to the king himself—but she was out of her element here.

Every bit as much as he was. There was something comforting about that. She would have no frame of reference for his clumsiness, no one with whom to compare him unfavorably.

She arrived at his side at last, and she drew in a small, quick breath, which she let out slowly. Both of them were pretending a confidence they did not feel, but he was more skilled than she at masking it. He hoped.

“I don’t—I don’t know how to do this,” she said, her hands curling at her sides. The tip of her tongue swept across her lower lip; a nervous motion. “You must do it. Between the two of us, you’ve got more experience.”

“Probably not nearly so much as you’re imagining,” he said dryly. “It’s…been quite a while since I’ve had the inclination or the opportunity for such things.”

The interest that settled over her features was better by far than the faint trepidation that it had erased. “How long isquite a while?” she asked.

“Since before Hannah was born,” he said. “Children are not particularly conducive to arranging trysts. When would I have had the time?” Every spare hour not spent with Hannah had seen him laboring to secure a better life for them.