The Spinster and the Duke (9 page)

Abby’s voice was small, her hazel eyes luminous. “I wore it once, and I took it off.” She extended her left hand. “I will not take it off again.”

Reginald’s heart pounded as he solemnly slipped the ring onto her finger, but it did not beat with anxiety or regret or wayward second thoughts. It sang with joy. Pure, unadulterated joy and a happiness so pure it felt as though a light were bursting inside of him. He gathered Abby close to his chest and kissed her temple before he whispered the words he had been waiting thirty years to speak aloud. “I love you, Abigail Mannish.”

With a contended sigh Abigail rested her head over his heart. “I love you as well, Reginald Browning.” She left her left hand, twisting her wrist until the ring caught the light. “I cannot believe it still fits.”

He captured her hand and brought it to his lips. His gaze steady on hers, he said, “We always fit, Abby. Ring or no ring, we were always meant to be.”

And so they were.

EPILOGUE

One month later to the day, Reginald and Abigail were married in a small village church with all of their loved ones in attendance. Abigail wore a gown of pale blue – it was, after all, her new husband’s favorite color – and Reginald was properly dashing in formal gray.

The reception was held at Ashburn, where Abigail had already been warmly received. The staff took to her instantly and within a matter of days she had transformed the dark, gloomy estate into a warm, sunny home.

The curtains were the first things to go.

“I cannot believe we are truly married.” Glancing sideways at Reginald, Abigail reached under the table and grasped his hand. After dancing for nigh on two hours straight they had retired to a secluded table at the back of the ballroom where they could watch the festivities while indulging in a few moments of privacy.

Threading his fingers through hers, Reginald squeezed tight. “How does it feel to be a duchess?”

“Wonderful. After all,” she said impishly, “that
is
why I married you.”

“Is that the only reason?” Reginald asked, his eyes bright with amusement. 

Abigail feigned a shrug and swallowed back a bubble of laughter. “There are a few more, I suppose, but they are hardly worth mentioning. I –
Rocky
!” she hissed, tugging up the sleeve he had just pulled down to expose the top of one breast. “People are watching.”

With a lazy grin Reginald folded his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “They have already forgotten all about us. No doubt they think we retired early. We are old, you know.”

“Speak for yourself,” Abigail snipped. “I have never felt younger.”

“Or looked more beautiful.”

She sighed, then sighed again when his fingers closed around the nape of her neck and began to rub in small, soothing circles. When his thumb worked into a particularly tight muscle she could barely contain a moan. “Do not stop.”

But Reginald did, and quite abruptly at that.

“What is it?” she asked when he shoved his chair back and stood up.

“I need you. Now.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” she scoffed as she twisted in her seat to face him. “The reception will not be over for at least another three hours.”

“Now,” he repeated.

To be wanted so fiercely… It sent a thrill of delight shooting through her and she allowed Reginald to pull her up out of her chair without another word. Arm in arm the newlyweds swept through the ballroom, intent on reaching their bedroom as quickly as possible.

At the entrance to the main foyer, however, Abigail suddenly paused, a line of worry appearing between her brows. “Have you seen Dianna?” she asked, belatedly realizing she had not laid eyes on her niece for quite some time. Turning, she did a quick survey of the guests in attendance, but did not see a petite blonde among them.

“Perhaps she went out for a breath of fresh air,” Reginald suggested, his mind clearly on other things as he caressed the small of his wife’s back. When his hand slipped lower and playfully pinched Abigail squealed, all thoughts of Dianna’s whereabouts vanishing as she hurried out of the ballroom and up the stairs with her husband right behind.

Reginald was right – Dianna
had
stepped outside, although it was not for a breath of fresh air. Escaping out a side door, she sprinted across the grass towards the stables, soaking her dancing slippers and hem of her ball gown with evening dew.

Her heart pounding, her breath coming in fits and starts, she collapsed against the far wall of the barn and drew in a ragged breath. Her chest felt unbearably tight and she clawed at the bodice of her gown to loosen it, but the heavy ache that had descended upon her with all the weight of an anchor had nothing to do with the fit of her clothes.

“No,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “No, no, no.”

The pounding of footsteps had her muscles tensing and she fought against the frantic urge to flee. She would have run to the ends of the earth if she thought doing so would save her. But you could not outrun your past, no matter how fast and how far you went. It was a lesson Dianna knew better than anyone. After all, she’d been trying to escape her past all of her life and now, at long last, it had finally caught up with her.

Steeling herself against the inevitable, she opened her eyes to stare at the last man on earth she ever wanted to see.

“Hello Dianna,” he said quietly.

“Hello… Miles.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jillian Eaton grew up in Maine and now resides in Pennsylvania. When she isn’t writing, Jillian is doing her best to keep up with her three very mischievous dogs. She loves horses, coffee, getting email from readers, ducks, and staying up late finishing a good book. 

She isn’t very fond of doing laundry.

Jillian can be contacted via e-mail

(
[email protected]
) or
Facebook
.  

LONDON LADIES

I sincerely hope you enjoyed
The Spinster and the Duke
. Read on for a first chapter excerpt from
The Forgotten Fiancee
, the next entry in the London Ladies saga featuring Dianna and Miles!

Now available on
Amazon
and
Barnes & Noble
.

CHAPTER ONE

October 1815

Wedding Reception of the

Duke & Duchess of Ashburn

“Miles… What are you d-doing here?” The moment the words were out of her mouth Dianna regretted them. After all, she’d spent the past four years practicing precisely what she would say if she ever saw Miles Radnor again, and ‘
what are you doing here?
’ had not made the list. It hadn’t even been close.

‘
Where have you been, you bloody bastard!
’ was her top pick, followed closely by ‘
I have absolutely nothing to say to you’
. If all else failed she’d planned on simply turning on her heel, tipping her nose in the air, and walking away… except now she’d ruined it. Four years of preparation wasted. If she’d still be capable of tears she would have cried, but they’d all been wasted long ago on the man standing before her.

The man who she had planned to marry. The man who she had loved. The man who had broken her heart. The man who she had once prayed every night would return to her… and the one man she’d hoped never to see again.

“You cut your hair.” His voice was deeper than she remembered. Rougher. Huskier. It was the voice of a man who’d seen world. The good, the bad, and everything inbetween.  A man who had truly experienced life. One who had known both hardship and reward. Yet for all the differences between this
voice and the one she remembered, the sound of it still caused her knees to tremble and her heart to pound.

Knock it off
, she told herself crossly even as her fingers crept self-consciously to the pale blonde curls at the nape of her neck.
You do not love him any more, remember? He means nothing to you.
“It has been this length for over a year,” she said briskly.
Which you would know if you’d been here like you promised.

“I like it,” Miles said, surprising her for the second time in less than a minute.

He’d always loved her long hair. He used to run his fingers through the silky curls whenever no one was watching, whispering a string of endless compliments in her ear.
Which was why, on what would have been their third wedding anniversary, Dianna had hacked it all off with a pair of blunt shears and worn it short ever since.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated, this time managing to eliminate the stutter. In the distance she heard laughter and the happy chatter of friends and family, a reminder that even though it felt as though time had stopped the very second she saw Miles’ hauntingly familiar face across the crowded ballroom, her Aunt Abigail’s wedding reception was still very much ongoing.

The sounds of celebration and revelry filled the warm autumn night, carrying all the way down to the stable courtyard where Dianna and Miles stood squared off like boxers preparing to go a round; their bodies stiff, their eyes locked.

Had she known he would follow her after their eyes met across the brightly colored sea of swirling couples Dianna never would have fled the safe confines of Ashburn Manor.

Most definitely not.

Well…
probably
not.

Behind her in neatly tended stalls filled with sweet smelling straw horses either dozed or contentedly chewed their hay. Dianna had never much liked horses – they always seemed to know she was afraid of them and took full advantage – but she drew on their sleepy calmness now, using it to slow the rapid beating of her heart and the quick flutter of her pulse.

If she could survive the public humiliation of being left at the altar, then surely she could get through
this
. After all, she was no longer the weak, simpering girl who’d cried buckets of tears into her pillow every night. She was a strong woman who, while not wholly independent, knew what she wanted and what she didn’t.

And right now she wanted Miles to leave. She wanted him to leave and never come back.

Unfortunately, it did not seem as though he was receiving her silent message. Or, knowing him - or at least knowing the boy he’d been - he was simply ignoring it.

“You look well,” he said. “You have not changed at all.”

But you have
, she thought silently as she attempted to study his countenance without making it
appear
as though she were studying his countenance. When her hands began to fidget, an old habit she thought she’d gotten rid of years ago, she tucked her arms behind her back and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as her feet, dressed in thin dancing slippers, threatened to follow suit.

A young lady does not fidget
, she reminded herself sternly.
A young lady is always calm and collected.

Dianna had begun giving herself tiny boosts of whispered confidence soon after Miles left. The silent mantras had helped her when faced with a drawing room filled with pitying stares and whispered condolences, both of which she would have never been forced to endure if not for the man standing before her now. The man so very different from the boy she’d loved… and yet so heartbreakingly the same, at least in appearance if not manner.

If Miles had been handsome before, he was devastatingly so now. In the four years since she had seen him last his long, lanky body had finally filled out. He’d grown taller. Broader. His eyes were the same piercing green she remembered, but his hair was darker and several inches longer. Unkempt, it touched the collar of his white linen shirt over which he wore only a waistcoat without a customary cravat, leaving his neck and a scandalous amount of tanned chest exposed. A pair of snugly fitting breeches, the color undeterminable in the moonlight, and knee high leather riding boots polished to a dull sheen, completed his casual attire.

Hating that he made
her
feel overdressed when it was clear he should have worn something far more formal to befit the occasion, Dianna fought the urge to smooth an invisible wrinkle from the skirt of her pale blue gown. Catching herself just in time, she tucked her hands behind her back where they wouldn’t betray her growing anxiety.

A young lady does not touch her own clothing.

She was falling to pieces. Again. The familiar fluttering sensation of panic began to unfurl in her chest, like a thousand butterflies frantically flapping their wings, looking for an escape that did not exist. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, and in an instant was plunged back into the memory of
that day
, the one she’d vowed to forget.

The day Miles had left her bewildered and broken-hearted.

The day she’d learned happily-ever-afters did not exist.

The day her life as she knew it had changed forever.  

Now the man who’d done the changing was standing a mere two steps away, and it was more than she could possibly bare. More than she should
have
to bare, she told herself bitterly. For what right did Miles have to come to her now? What right did he have to speak to her after all this time? What right did he have to even look at her?

None
, she decided.
None at all
. 

“You need to leave.” She spoke quietly, but the underlying command was unmistakable. It was a command she never would have dreamed of making as a young girl with her eyes full of stars and her heart full of love. But she was a woman now. A woman scorned. A woman left. A woman forgotten.

A horse struck out at its stall, the sound of hoof hitting wood echoing in the sudden silence. Startled by the loud noise, Dianna could not help but flinch. In one powerful stride Miles was beside her and had his hand clasped over her shoulder, the warm weight of it pressing down reassuringly.

“It is only one of the horses moving about.”

“Do not touch me!” She stumbled clumsily out of his grasp and rubbed the spot where his hand had been, as though by doing so she could erase the sudden flood of memories his touch had invoked.

Once she would have relished the gentle caress of his fingertips sliding across her flesh. Once she would have returned the gesture in kind without thinking. But that was then, and this was now. Things were different.
She
was different. And he had no right to touch her as he once had.

“Do not,” Miles said roughly. Green eyes flooded with an emotion not easily deciphered, he held out one hand, long, tapered fingers lightly flexing. “Do not turn from me.” Silver moonlight kissed his muscular forearm, revealing thin blue veins pulsing on one side and a pelt of dark hair on the other.

Staring at his upturned palm as though it held a coiled snake, Dianna gave a jerky shake of her head. “Do not presume to tell me what to do. You have no right. No right,” she repeated. Anger burned like a ball of fire inside her chest, spurring her to say all of the words she’d been holding inside for four long years. Words that had played through her mind every night as she lay on her back staring up at the ceiling, silently praying for Miles’ safe return even as she cursed him for leaving her.

“I came here tonight so we can talk about what happened. So I can explain-”

“You are too late. I have nothing to say to you now,” she spat, her voice lashing the air like a whip. “Do you hear me?
Nothing
!”

Beneath his scruffy shadow of beard, Miles’ jaw clenched. “You must hear me out.”

“Must I?” she mocked, her slender body vibrating with suppressed rage and a hurt so deep it ran all the way down to her very core. Much like an apple infested with a worm, she was shiny on the outside… but empty where it counted. Empty where it mattered most.

Because of Miles.

He’d broken her when he left.
No, not broken,
Dianna thought bitterly. Things that were broken could be fixed. Things that were broken could be repaired. He’d shattered her. Mind, body, and soul. Through sheer will and determination she’d managed to put most of the pieces back together, but there were some that could never return to the way they’d been, no matter how hard she tried to make them fit.

“Dianna-” He reached for her again. She twisted away, deftly avoiding his grasp.

“I loved you!” she cried fiercely. To her horror, she felt tears burning in the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away. “It may have been young love, but it was pure and true.”

“You love me still,” Miles said.

“No.” She shook her head vehemently from side to side, sending blonde curls whipping across her flushed cheeks. “No, I do not love you. I
despise
you.”

“Liar.” Closing the distance between them in one long stride, he yanked her hard against him and claimed her mouth with his own.

For a moment, one blissful, reminiscent moment, Dianna allowed herself to be lost in the kiss. She even returned it, lips moving hesitantly beneath his. Her hands flattened against his chest in slight restraint, holding herself back as much as she held him. Passion flared, burning as brightly between them as it ever had.

Time had changed most things
, Dianna thought dazedly as Miles ran his fingers through her hair and tilted her head back, deepening the kiss as he skimmed his tongue along the seam of her lips,
but not this. Never this.

Then he groaned her name, and in one fell swoop she came back to herself. She remembered what he had done. All the pain he had caused. All the dreams he had broken. Shoving hard against his chest she stumbled back and swiped a trembling hand across her mouth. “Do not speak my name,” she said hoarsely. “In fact, do not speak to me at all.” Gaze darting, she looked over his shoulder at Ashburn Manor.
The grand estate stood out in sharp contrast against the night sky, all sloping angles and pitched dormers and stained glass windows glowing with the light of a hundred candles.

“I know you felt that as much as I did,” Miles said quietly. “Say you hate me all you, but don’t deny what is still between us.”

“I need to leave,” she murmured, refusing to look at him. “I should not be here.”
Alone with you
. The words flickered through her mind, but she held them at bay. She was done speaking to the likes of Miles Radnor. It was too dangerous to open herself up. Too dangerous to invite old emotions back in. What she still wanted to say would have to go unsaid, for  though her heart beat with anger, sorrow lurked just beneath the surface, ready to take over and dissolve her courageous facade into a puddle of worthless tears at a moment’s notice.

And she would not, she would
not,
cry in front of him.

Gloved hands clenching into fists, Dianna pinned them to the sides of her ballgown and started to walk past him but he stepped directly into her path, his tall, muscular frame blocking out the flickering lights from above.

She stared steadfastly at his broad chest, still refusing to look up at his eyes for fear they would be her undoing. In the past one glance into the warm green depths was all it had taken for her to forgive him any transgression, however grave. She would not allow herself to make the same mistake again. “Move,” she said through gritted teeth.