Diana Sensational Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 24

  “Yes!” She kissed him back, and it was the most amazing experience of her life.

  He believed her! He truly believed. She could feel it in his kiss. Less desperate. More… content, as though they had forever engaged their mouths with one another. She was happy.

  Immediately, heat pulled within her and she wondered if Frank was up to…

  He growled.

  Oh, yes, he was up for it.

  They jumped apart at the sound of hooves beating against the ground. It was one of the footmen. “Come to the house quickly! Your other guest was attacked.”

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  EPILOGUE

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  Frank arrived at the front of the mansion and was stunned when he saw Bancroft on the stairs, pacing. Three men stood around him. He recognized them all as Miff, Mr. Harris, and Hit. Hit was talking to him. Patiently.

  Frank stepped out and helped Diana down, before starting up the stairs.

  “Gryff?” Diana called.

  Gryff turned and glared at Frank. “You!” He ran head first toward him and Frank only dodged a blow by an inch. The fist went into the curricle, hitting metal and denting it, but that didn’t slow the beast down. “I trusted you!”

  Frank backed away slowly and spoke to Hit. “Get Diana away.” The moment he saw Bancroft, he’d known the reasons the man had come, and knew he deserved the fight that was coming. Frank continued to treat Diana as though he were a woman who could make her own choices, and though she was, when one considered she lived on her own and couldn’t actually claim publicly his relationship to Diana, she had a guardian who acted like an ogre.

  Frank would be the same if he had a sister.

  “Gryff!” Diana shouted. “Stop this! You cannot kill Frank.”

  Frank wondered if there would ever come a day when Bancroft didn’t greet him with a fist. “I suppose I could use my last golden coin to save my life?”

  Bancroft growled, turning red, either by the direct sunlight upon his pale skin, or by anger. Or both. “Nothing is worth the beating I will inflict on you.”

  “Why must you be this way?” Diana asked.

  Bancroft's eyes widened, utter blackness trained on Frank. “He knew someone else had hurt you and didn’t tell me. That’s why he asked me for all the information I’d gathered on Lord Charles. Then he catches the man, but doesn’t even face me, himself. Instead, he takes you away to the country, I’m told. He takes you away from me.” He beat his chest savagely. “My sister! I thought you went to my country estate at first. I looked for you there. Then I found out you came here. No one informed me! I had to look for you. My own sister!” Bancroft glared at her. Hit had held her on the first step. “Why wouldn’t I kill him?”

  “Because I love him.” Diana crossed her arms and looked frightful. “So, if you kill him, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Bancroft paused. But only briefly. “You’ll love again.” He started toward Frank again.

  Frank kept his distance, his knees bent, as they circled each other, his hands up to defend, not fight.

  “We’ve the whole countryside to dance around,” he said. “Why don’t we go inside and speak of this with some civility?”

  “Civility existed in London,” Bancroft told him.

  Frank wasn’t sure that was true when he recalled the way Bancroft had thrown him on the table. The old pain came back.

  Frank jerked from Bancroft’s hand again.

  “Fight me!” the man said.

  “No, I won’t, because you actually have a right to be upset. I’ll not hit you.”

  “Damn you!” Bancroft ran at him, but then stopped. “I’ll kill you even if it take me all night.”

  “Sounds fair, though I’ve a question.”

  “What?” Bancroft roared.

  “Why did you attack Lulu Lévêque?” That was the reason they’d been called back to the house.

  Bancroft stopped. “Who? I didn’t attack anyone. I’d just arrived when your carriage came into view.”

  Sickness hit Frank and he sprinted back to the house. Lulu was in danger.

  He saw that Diana and the others had all gone inside and came to a stop when he found the group in the foyer… along with his father, Lulu, Alice, and Calvin.

  Calvin and Simeon held a man between him. He was on his knees and looked to have suffered from a fight. A look at his father and brother told him just who’d been fighting him.

  Then the man lifted his head and he saw it was Mr. Joel Ash. Blood was coming from his lip.

  Everything Frank needed to know hit him, the moment he met Mr. Ash’s eyes.

  “I found him outside Lévêque’s door,” his father said. “With this.” In his other hand was a knife, much like the one Frank had found in Mr. Stewart’s drawer.

  “Mr. Stewart was innocent,” Frank said. “You planted the evidence.” Diana had said the man had felt of average height. She’d been right.

  Ash swallowed, though it seemed to pain him to do so. “No man is innocent. Stewart knew what his brother was up to. He simply turned his back on it, but he didn’t discover my involvement until they cleaned Lord Charles’ house out. The desk that held my notes and poems to Charles said everything.”

  “Lord Lawton said you never leave Stewart’s side.” Frank shook his head. “I should have known something was amiss when you were not at the house when we’d arrived to arrest your employer. But, I don’t understand. Why would he not relieve you if he knew what you were up to?” Frank recalled the fight he’d heard at Lord Lawton’s party.

  Ash spat on the ground. “I’m don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Simeon struck him across the face hard enough to draw blood.

  Ash struggled and then fought to gather his breath before saying, “I... threatened to tell the ton about what his brother had been up to. St-Stewart didn’t wish his brother to be remembered as a murderer. Charles was easy to manipulate.” He grinned. “Weak. All I had to do was threaten that dog of his. Killed him myself in the end… the dog, not the man. Charles killed himself in Italy. He jumped from a building, I was told, though the story is he accidently fell.”

  “And why did you remain with Mr. Stewart?” Frank asked. “If you had the evidence to connect Lord Charles to the crimes, why not take Stewart’s money and go?”

  Ash’s smile was more sickening than any expression Lord Charles had made. “I wouldn’t leave Stewart’s services on my own, because the position allowed me to hunt better. I could go to all the parties and meet… lightskirts.” He glared at Diana. “Whore. You should feel ashamed by that filth you call dancing—”

  Frank’s foot met Ash’s chin before he realized what he was doing, and Ash went limp in his brother and father’s hold.

  Calvin reached down and felt the man’s throat. “He’s still alive.”

  “Excellent,” Bancroft said. “Something I can kill.” Then he turned to Miff. “Grab him.”

  Miff did as he was told. Then he, Bancroft, and an expressionless Mr. Harris left.

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  Besides Mr. Lockwood asking if Diana’s brother would actually kill Mr. Ash, no one spoke of him again in public for the remainder of the trip.

  And no one answered Simeon Lockwood’s question either.

  Diana filled her days with walking the country with Frank, exploring the ruins with Lulu, and even playing with Hannah, when Lulu was speaking privately with Frank. Lulu eventually confessed everything that had taken place. Her story had been much shorter than Diana’s. There’d been no kidnapping, really. Ash had found her, taken her body, and then tried to kill her, but she’d been able to fight and get away. Frank believed Ash drugged Diana and the other women, and even Mr. Stewart. That was the reason they’d been unable to remember anything. And Lulu, who didn’t even drink wine, never succumbed to Ash’s poison.

&nbs
p; When it was time to go, no one wished to leave, but Diana and Lulu had a performance to make. A new production started this week and they would both take centerstage. Diana had shared with Lulu her plans to leave the stage on the way back to London, and Lulu had surprised her by not breaking out into a grin and dance.

  “The world will miss you,” was all she said. She’d changed, and Diana hoped that change remained once they made it to London.

  London felt different without danger lurking around every corner and though Frank no longer needed to be with her, he still came to her rehearsals every once in awhile and never missed a performance.

  They were laying in Frank’s bed at his London flat a week later. They’d just finished making love and had started to discuss their wedding. “Do you think Bancroft will come?” Frank asked.

  Diana grew saddened by the thought of her brother not being there. It was, to her memory, the very first time the distance between her and her brother had ever hurt. “I hope he does. I want him to walk with me during the ceremony.”

  Frank was propped up on his elbow, his other arm thrown over her. He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. His hair seemed dark in the shadows of the dim light. “Maybe we could simply have a small ceremony, only invite those close to us.”

  “The people close to you are many,” Diana frowned. “I don’t know if Bancroft could stand even that many people knowing.”

  “We’ll see.” He kissed her. “Tell me you love me.”

  She smiled. “Why do you wish to hear it so much?”

  His greenish-gold eyes glittered. “Because, my heart expands every time you say it.”

  Could she love a man any more than she already did? “I love you.”

  He closed his eyes and kissed her again.

  And it was nothing short of sensational.

  * * *

  While you are waiting for the next book …

  Flip this page to read another one of my books. Included here is a novella special which is not available elsewhere.

  It is serve as a special treat just for you …

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  ONE

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  Yorkshire,

  1809

  Marilee had been on the Royal Mail coach for four days; it would be another day or so to Hull, the ship, and freedom. She reminded herself of that fact over and over again, because sometimes, that was the only thing that kept her in her seat. Otherwise, she grimly feared she would throw herself out of the coach and let fate take her whichever way it wished to do so.

  Or I will simply find a rock at the next stop and bash in the head of this leering curate. That is also a possibility.

  The curate in question was an older man dressed in the drab colors of the north country, and he had boarded the coach a day out of London.

  Marilee had made the mistake of saying a single hello to him, and of course, he had latched onto her like a limpet, ignoring her widow's black and her constant and repeated attempts to go back to reading her book of pious psalms.

  Even now, when the sun was down and the elderly Scottish couple in the coach with them were fast asleep, the curate couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut.

  "Of course, the condition of sin for women is, as some scholars would say, simply the natural order. After all, it was Eve who sinned first, Adam who was sinned against, and so that pattern has been inscribed on history like the word of God Himself on the tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain."

  He smiled as if she should be impressed by his pronouncements, but Marilee had been living with her uncle for almost a year now and was mostly immune to the pompous speech of men who thought they had something to teach her. This time, she didn't even bother giving him a polite smile. He didn't respond to her icy look, however, and kept going, speaking more and at greater length about the sin of Eve and how it was something to which all women were heir.

  I think she just wanted something different. That serpent may have proved false, but at least it was different than what she was getting otherwise.

  Her father had once told her that the only guarantee one received for doing nothing was that nothing would change. She knew what would happen if she stayed in London. The image of her stepfather and his loathsome brother hung in her mind like a ham hung from a rafter, and she shuddered a little bit.

  Marilee reminded herself that she was taking herself out of the situation. She would not let grass grow under her feet, and she would not see her doom approaching and do nothing to stop it.

  After all, I will soon be Marilee Hollis, the Countess of Carrington. Then nothing my stepfather and his brother can do will matter.

  The words sounded very bold in her head, but as she gazed out over the dim countryside of Yorkshire, she felt very small. The moon was full, and all the stars were out, but there was something desolate about the countryside. She had grown up in London, where there were always people within shouting distance. The enormity of the world itself had never struck her until she had mounted the Royal Mail coach to make her escape.

  To her dismay, sometime past midnight, the driver and his guard made a stop at a desolate way station to change out horses, and the Scottish couple, grave as ever and without a word, disembarked. That left her alone with the nameless curate, who looked far too pleased with the situation for her comfort.

  "Now there, dear, isn't that better?"

  "Sir, I am no dear of yours. I am Mrs. Crenshaw."

  She really wasn't, but he didn't need to know that.

  "Mrs. Crenshaw, we are all brothers and sisters alike under the eyes of God, are we not? It is best that you create a feeling in your mind and your heart of charity and love for your fellow man. Otherwise, God only knows what will become of you."

  "Thank you for the insight, Curate, but I do not believe that I need to hear more."

  For a moment, it looked as if the curate were going to take exception to her blunt speech. She almost welcomed it. At least then she would be able to confront him and protect herself. Ever since she was a little girl, she had hated having to be idle, waiting for a man's word to come down that she was allowed to move after all.

  Instead of being offended or deciding that she did not need his advice, after all, the curate only laughed in an avuncular fashion, as if she had said something funny and endearing and perhaps a little simple.

  "Very well, my dear. It is, after all, quite late, and you must be tired. We can sleep for a while, and perhaps things will be clearer and a little better natured in the morning."

  All that Marilee guessed was going to be different in the morning was that they would be a little closer to Hull and that her patience would be worn away just a little farther. However, to her relief, the curate retreated to the opposite bench and curled up with his coat over him like a blanket. It seemed sincere enough, and she watched him for a short while to make sure he was not shamming. He rested easily on the bench, the very picture of innocence, and Marilee finally gave up on trying to catch him out.

  I'm too tired to do anything but sleep right now. She leaned against the corner of the coach farthest away from the curate. She didn't quite dare to lie down for fear of being flung to the coach's floor if the horses stopped suddenly, but she was comfortable enough when she pressed herself to the corner, her arms wrapped around her small cloth bag, which was filled with everything she owned in all the world.

  It will be better when I get on board the Seal's Run. The captain promised large quarters and, more importantly, locks on the doors. That alone will be worth the money that I paid for a berth on that ship.

  Her dreams had been troubled for the past year. In all honesty, they had been troubled since her mother had died, leaving her alone with her stepfather. In those dreams, it always felt as if she were walking along the halls of some building she knew very well, distressed by the ruins and the degree of ill-repair. As she w
alked, however, Marilee would become aware of footsteps behind her, sometimes just one pair, sometimes two, sometimes far more. The footsteps were unhurried, but the moment she heard them, they grew louder and faster.

  In her dreams, she knew that if she ran, the menacing men those footsteps represented would chase her. She walked through the ruined halls, those footsteps stalking her, never daring to look back for fear that what she would see would send her into a blind run of terror.