Her eyes focused on the stairs ahead. She couldn’t face Ashcroft. If he looked into her eyes, he’d know how she’d betrayed him.
And she’d know he knew, which was worse.
“Please let me go,” she said tonelessly.
“Diana, what’s all this about?” He sounded kind, concerned…loving.
Although obviously that last was a product of her overactive, tortured imagination.
“Please let me go,” she said again, tugging at her hand. He held her against the smooth wood.
“Not until you talk to me.”
She wished he didn’t sound so calm. She wished he didn’t sound like the lover she’d cherished. Why didn’t he rage? Why didn’t he curse her to Hades as a faithless, lying slut?
Couldn’t he see it was over? Couldn’t he see they had nowhere to go? Not together. Not with the wonderful open sensuality that was the most precious gift they’d shared.
With a pang, she remembered the joy of laughter and intense conversations in the dark of night and, most of all, knowledge she was no longer alone.
Perhaps the sensuality wasn’t the only gift.
Her body would ache for his for a long time. The crevasse in her heart would never knit. She knew that already.
“There’s nothing to say,” she mumbled.
“Look at me, Diana.”
Fear held her still. “I have to go. My father is taking me back to…”
“Diana.”
Reluctantly, she met his eyes. The green was flat, like malachite. He was pale, and a muscle flickered in his cheek.
Guilt clenched her stomach so tight, it hurt. She knew she injured him. Only the knowledge that staying would injure him further kept her resolute.
“I told you I was leaving,” she said, feeling like she scraped her skin away with a razor.
His lips lengthened in displeasure. “You didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, I did.” She cast a nervous glance at the library door, but her father didn’t appear. Perhaps Laura kept him back to give Diana a last private moment with her lover. “I came to you for worldly experience. You’ve given that to me. Good-bye, Ashcroft.”
He jerked back as if she’d struck him, although he didn’t release her. “That’s all the explanation you offer?”
For the first time, she heard a trace of anger.
That’s right. Shout at me. Insult me. It’s what I deserve. If you do, perhaps I’ll stop feeling like vermin. Perhaps I’ll stop wanting to beg you to keep me, love me, forgive me.
His voice hardened. “What’s going on, Diana? What’s Lord Burnley to you and your father?”
That was easy to answer, at least in part. “My father is his bailiff.”
Ashcroft frowned. “Your father is…”
“Blind, yes. I help him. That’s partly why he wants me to return. He needs me on the estate.”
Ashcroft’s eyes were assessing in a way she hadn’t seen since the earliest days. “There’s so much you’re not telling me. Who sponsored your visit to London? Why did you come to me in the first place? What is Burnley’s part in all this?”
Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she fought the urge to confess. At least then there would be honesty, even if honesty left him abhorring the very sound of her name.