Lucas straightened up to his full height and held out his hand. “If you should like a stroll, then I would be honored to accompany you.”
Elliott shifted uncomfortably. “Of course, we will all take a stroll.”
Thankfully, his wife tapped him on the arm. “She is perfectly safe with Lord Lucifer. If we walk, my husband, let us walk to the refreshment table to help your other sisters. They cannot carry all that themselves. Leave Diana and Lord Lucifer to their own amusements.”
Diana could feel Elliott stiffen. He did not like abandoning her even in so little a thing as a stroll about Vauxhall. Ever since Elliott had grown to manhood, he lived with the guilt that her marriage had allowed for his freedom. And that guilt—well-intentioned though it might be—tended to stifle her at the worst possible moments.
“You hired Mr. Lucifer to protect me,” Diana said. “Do you say now that I am not safe in his care?”
Elliott blew out a breath. “No, of course not.”
“Then it’s settled,” Amber cut in. “We shall help Gwen and Lilah, and you shall go where you wish. Though—Lord Lucifer—it would ease my husband’s mind if you would remain on the more popular paths? One where—”
“He can keep an eye on me,” Diana interrupted as she pushed to her feet. It galled her that she was the shortest one here and had to look up at the men, and perhaps that gave extra stridency to her tone. “I am a grown woman, Elliott. And Lucas will see that I am safe.”
She was so focused on facing down her brother’s overprotection that it took her a moment to realize what she’d just said. Lucas would keep her safe? She had only once put her faith in Lucas, and he had failed her. In her mind, she knew that she’d set him an impossible task. She was always going to marry Oscar, and two naïve teenagers could not have stopped it.
And yet, until this moment, she hadn’t acknowledged the anger she still harbored against him for failing her. It was irrational, but it was there. And yet, she felt safe with him. The warmth of that thought burrowed into her bones. He would do everything in his power to keep her safe.
She looked up at Lucas. “Geoffrey is gone,” she said firmly, “and I would like to take a stroll with you.” What she really wanted was to take this time to acquaint herself with the man Lucas had become, not the teenager who had failed to save her years before. And she counted an evening stroll in Vauxhall an excellent way to begin.
“As you wish,” Lucas said with a bow. Then he extended his arm to her, and she took it. What would come now was up to the two of them, and only them.
Chapter Eight
“Would you please take off that silly mask?”
Lucas sighed as he escorted Diana down the main Vauxhall walk. The musicians were behind them, the lanterns illuminated them, and everywhere people speculated on his identity. “I cannot let people know who I am.”
“Why not? Lucas, you cannot wish to be hidden from your family. They think you’re dead.”
“I absolutely can,” he said softly. “You know my mother. How can you think—”
“No,” she interrupted him. “Your mother is a lovely woman. A bit high in the instep, I suppose. I hear that if you cross her, she does not forgive. But you are her son—”
“She once directed the gardener to drop me in a well and not retrieve me until morning. All because I had appeared before her in dirty clothes. I was seven and had escaped my nanny.”
Diana blew out a breath. “Parents often get exasperated with their children. I cannot think she was serious.”
Lucas didn’t answer. That was always the explanation that people gave, especially his nanny. But to him, his mother’s pronouncements had always held a degree of truth. She would probably never truly drop him in a well, but part of her wanted to. She would never do any of the thousands of threats she used, but on some unspoken level, his mother hated him. He felt it, he knew it, and perhaps right now, he didn’t want to see the disappointment on her face when she realized he was alive.
“Oh dear,” Diana said as she squeezed his arm where her fingers rested. “She did mean it, didn’t she?”
Lucas jolted. How quickly she guessed the truth when no one else had wanted to even acknowledge the possibility. And then she guessed even more.
“Was it just you or your brother as well?”
He looked away, feeling too raw to see the pity in her expression. “Just me. I don’t know why.”
Diana released a mew of sympathy. “I don’t suppose it matters. Such a thing from one’s mother…” She shook her head. “That’s the very definition of irrational. To try and look for a reason is just a waste of time. What you felt was real. It is real, and I’m sorry if I ever suggested otherwise.”
He stared at her a moment, shock riveting his feet to the ground, and his breath held tight in his chest. She hadn’t said anything beyond what he’d said a million times to himself. He wasn’t crazy. His mother did hate him, and the reasons why didn’t matter. The truth was that it hurt, and no amount of denial changed that. He knew because he’d tried.
But no one else had ever said such a thing. Never. And her words spoken so simply unraveled his control. His defenses crumbled, and pain spilled out. Not in sound or action, but it poured out of him, nonetheless. He felt crippled by it, and yet he couldn’t let it show. He was supposed to be protecting her.
“Diana,” he rasped.
She turned to him and stifled a curse. Without warning, she pulled off his mask. He flinched and tried to stop her, but she insisted, and he would not tussle with her now.
“We are in shadow. No one will see,” she said. “No one but me, and I already know who you are.”
She did. And to a depth he thought no one could possibly reach.
“I want to see your face,” she said softly.
“And now that you do,” he said, the words forced out through a throat tight with emotion. “What do you gain?”
She smiled, though the expression was wistful. “What I’ve always seen.” She touched his cheek. “Such passion. Such a pure force of feeling.”
The heat of her palm seared him. The sight of her gaze on his face cut him to the quick. She knew him too well, and he felt too vulnerable this way. And yet, he couldn’t force himself to move away. The feel of her hand was like a brand, and he leaned into it rather than away. He wanted her carved into his very bones, and yet the pain of it weakened him. He had no idea how he managed to stand strong against her caress when every part of him crumbled.
“There it is,” she murmured. “That burn in your eyes. When everyone else seems to be looking for themselves even as they glance at me, you always saw me.”
“You speak in poetry,” he said. “I am a simple soldier now, and a damaged one at that.” He held up his crippled hand, less deformed in appearance now because he wore stiff leather gloves.
She grabbed his hand, enfolding it with both of hers. That meant her touch left his face, and he was bereft by the loss. Then she turned, still holding his hand, as they resumed their stroll.
“Your hand does not seem to limit you. Have you found it a problem?”