Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Adrenaline carried Mark through the gardens and over the plant pots. The viscount's hand was holding Diana in place as he told her to keep her mouth shut. It was as if the entire world had fallen away then and there, with only them in his field of view.
"Colin!" Mark shouted as he approached.
The viscount dropped his hands and turned to look in his direction. He took a step away, fixing his hair, but it was too late to fix things. Mark knew what he had seen, and he was hot with anger.
When he made it to them mere seconds later, Mark reached out and shoved the Viscount Starling as hard as he could. The Viscount stumbled backwards into the wall and let out a pained yelp.
It seemed as if the viscount wanted to make a run for it, but Mark reached out and grabbed him by the shirt, pinning him in place. The fear in the viscount's eyes made Mark feel happy.
Something else had taken over him then. He could still hear the way Diana had shrieked when the viscount had put his hands on her. Just mere seconds before, she'd been pressed up against that same wall and in fear.
Mark was so angry that he forgot the world around him existed for a moment. He wanted the viscount to squirm. He wanted to hurt him, to make him pay for what he did with pain and blood. But first, the viscount needed to answer some questions.
"What is the meaning of this?" Mark demanded, putting himself in position so that the viscount could not move.
Diana ran from them and towards Anna, who met her with a warm embrace. Mark wanted desperately to go to her side and make sure that she was alright, but he didn't. He had to deal with her attacker first.
"Explain yourself," Mark demanded again. "I will not be patient with you."
He was shaking with anger and knew that if it had not been for the fact that two women were behind him, watching it all unfold, the viscount would have left there bloodied.
"There's nothing to explain," the viscount said in his usual cheeky manner. "Miss Fairchild here asked me to meet her in the garden. You can only imagine my surprise when her intentions were made clear. I'm as surprised by this as you are."
The viscount's eyes shifted a moment, a sign to Mark that even he was having a hard time making that story believable.
"That's a lie," Mark accused him. "I saw what happened. The two of you were not as alone as you thought. You will not talk your way out of this one."
Mark heard a sniff from behind him and knew that Diana was likely in tears. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that she had nothing to fear as long as he was there with her.
Rather than doing that, though, he decided to prove it to her. He decided to show her just how safe she was with him around. He would never let anything hurt her.
"You saw her here alone and decided to use that to your advantage," Mark said. His voice trembled with anger. "You've never played by the rules, but this time, you've gone too far."
"I don't know what you think you saw," the viscount protested, stumbling over his words. "I assure you it is not what you think. Everyone knows that Diana has shown interest in me lately. I suppose she was eager to show it."
Mark took a step closer to the viscount as thoughts of slamming his head into the stone wall filled his mind. It would be satisfying, but he was not that kind of man. Instead, he stared the viscount down.
"Again. Lies," Mark accused him. "That is all you have. Lies. That makes you a worthless man."
"Do you really think I would take such risks?" the viscount asked. "I am an honourable man, just as my father is."
"Honourable?" Mark asked. "Miss Fairchild is afraid. She is crying. I can hear her. You did that to her. You made her afraid. Your intentions were far from honourable."
The viscount swallowed as he glanced in Diana's direction.
"Don't you dare look at her," Mark warned him. "You don't deserve to."
"You're making yourself look like a fool," the viscount said. "I suggest you let this go before things get worse."
"I'm the fool?" Mark asked. "There are two witnesses who saw what you did here tonight. It doesn't matter what story you come up with. The truth will be revealed, and you will come tumbling down."
The viscount swallowed hard.
Mark had known the viscount was a dangerous character, but he could never have guessed that he would be quite that dangerous. It seemed even too extreme for him. And it was clear in the look in the man's eyes that he felt foolish for it.
But he would not back down. Not until he knew exactly what was going on. Not until he found the clarity he needed.
He thought of everything Lady Elizabeth had said to him earlier that night. Had the viscount lied to her about his courtship with Diana? Initially, Mark had thought that perhaps Lady Elizabeth had merely made it all up.
Now, he wondered if it wasn't the viscount that had been lying to Lady Elizabeth all along. Either way, something was wrong here. Lady Elizabeth was, after all, the one to bring Diana out into the gardens.
They were in it together somehow. They were both the kinds of people to do something like that. But there was just one part of it that Mark didn't understand.
"You lured her here," Mark accused. "She was alone and an easy target. You wanted to get her into a compromising position. Tell me why."
*
Diana felt weak with fear. Everything had happened so quickly. That day had been one of the worst days of her life. Diana had never felt so alone. Until Mark arrived.
"Are you alright?" Anna asked.
"No," she whispered as the first tears began to roll over her cheek.
Mark had the viscount pinned against the wall. Diana knew how harsh and cold that wall was because, just moments before, she had been the one pressed up against it. She could still feel where the viscount's hands had touched her. It burned.
"Are you hurt?" Anna asked quickly.
"No," Diana answered. "You got here just in time."
"What is going on?" Anna pressed.
It was the same line of questioning that Mark had for the viscount, but Anna was caring and trying to help.
Diana watched as the duke demanded answers from the viscount, and she listened to hear them. Only, he gave no truthful explanation.
When he suggested that it had been Diana's idea all along, she felt as if she would be sick. Her stomach turned, and her head pounded. She was already having a bad day, and it had only got worse.
"What happened?" Anna asked again.
Where would Diana begin? She had lost her family because they had tried to marry her off to a man she wasn't interested in. That was after they had twisted her arm into going to the ball in the first place. Diana hadn't wanted to be there.
She had gone because she wanted to see the duke. She wanted to spend time with him. She needed his comfort. After everything that had happened with her family, she had hoped that he would have a listening ear. That he might make her feel better about it all.
But before she had found him, the viscount had approached her. He asked her to dance, claiming that he had important information about The Duke of Blackwood. She didn't want to accept, but he had claimed it was the only way he would give her the information.
When she had accepted the dance, he had done nothing but feed her lies. He had told her how the duke and Lady Elizabeth had agreed to a courtship. It had been so pathetic that she'd almost ended the dance early.
But she didn't. Instead, she kept listening and allowed him to talk himself into a deeper hole. Her plan had been to call him out on it later.
"You're alright now," Anna said, wrapping an arm around her.
The cold air did a good job of sobering Diana up. Then the reality of how close she had come to something awful truly dawned on her. She cried more, her tears stinging her cheeks. If Mark hadn't been there, who knows what might have happened to her?
Mark was angry, angrier than she ever expected he could be. She noted the tremble in his voice and hands. He had a grip on the viscount's shirt so tight that his knuckles had whitened.
Diana had never needed rescuing before. While she was grateful for it, it felt nothing like it had been described in novels. There was no major wave of relief. Only a sigh, followed by lingering horror.
It did not suddenly take the danger away to be rescued, either. The viscount was still there, and Mark was so angry that at any point, it might have become a dangerous altercation between them. The danger was far from over.
Lady Elizabeth had asked to speak with her in the garden, and Diana had gladly accepted. She needed to know why the viscount was under the impression that she and the Duke of Blackwood were courting. She wanted to get to the bottom of it.
But as soon as they had made it to that part of the garden, Lady Elizabeth claimed that there was something important she needed to fetch. Something for Diana. She should have been smart enough to know that it likely wasn't true.
She and Lady Elizabeth had nothing in common. In fact, Diana didn't like Lady Elizabeth very much. Not after how poorly she had behaved at her cousin's birthday ball.
Diana had already been feeling poorly by the time she'd arrived at the ball, too. Her family had tried to trick her into marrying someone she had no interest in. All to get access to her money and status.
It had sickened Diana and kept her from sleep. She hadn't liked the way it felt when she'd kicked them out of her house. It had been a disastrous time, and Diana had already shed enough tears about it.
Not only that, but she had felt foolish and embarrassed. Her mother was no longer around, and she had no motherly guidance. It made her feel dim-witted when it came to the world of love and marriage, and up until Viscount Starling had laid his hands on her, she had never felt worse in her life.
"You're safe," Anna reminded her.
And she was right. Mark had been there when she'd needed him most. What he and Anna had been doing there, she didn't know, and she didn't care. He was the only person she wanted to see, and she felt safe for the first time in months.
He had protected her when she had not been able to protect herself. When protection should not have been needed. Diana had merely gone to speak with Lady Elizabeth in the gardens. There had been nothing to imply that she was unsafe. That she was defenceless.
And when she thought all hope was lost, Mark was there. She loved him for it. She loved him so deeply for it that she wanted to pull him away from the viscount and fall into his arms and demand that he never let her go again.
She wanted to feel the safety of his presence for the rest of her life, knowing that she would never be alone again.