Free Diana the Huntress by MC Beaton Page B

against him so tightly she could feel the beating of his heart.
    He moved his face down towards her own.
    ‘No!’ said Diana, twisting this way and that. She was a powerful girl and it was terrifying to find herself so helpless, to find how easily he could pin her against him with one hand. His mouth came down on hers. Her whole body shook and trembled with outrage. Then she decided the best thing to do was to stay still. But her trembling increased and he raised his mouth and looked down at her with a teasing smile. ‘Oh, Diana,’ he said huskily, and bent his head to hers again.
    Diana marshalled all her strength and brought one foot shod in a clumsy, heavy boot with full force down on his toes. He released her with a yelp of agony.
    ‘Go, sir!’ said Diana, white with rage. ‘Don’t ever look at me or speak to me again.’
    He took a step towards her and she grabbed the remains of the washing water and threw the contents full in his face. Then she nipped past him and hurtled down the stairs, careering off the banister in her headlong flight. The clerk stared amazed as she shot past him and out into the street. She ran blindly, desperately, until she was sure he was not in pursuit. It was then that she found herself in Hanover Square. She looked down at her masculine clothes and shuddered. Never again would she wear them.
    She must throw herself on Lady Godolphin’s mercy.
    Diana marched up to the door of Lady Godolphin’s imposing mansion and rang the bell. She announced herself, hopefully for the very last time, as David Armitage. Mice, the butler, cast a cold eye over her oiled and rumpled clothes, but said he would see if my lady was awake.
    Heart beating hard, Diana sat in a hard chair in the hall. Over and over again she rehearsed her speech, and her lips were moving soundlessly when Mice at last returned to lead her upstairs to my lady’s bedchamber.
    ‘Who are you?’ demanded Lady Godolphin crossly, struggling up against the pillows. ‘Don’t know any David Armitage.’
    Diana did not reply. She turned and looked at Mice, patently waiting for the butler to leave.
    ‘Oh, go on,’ said Lady Godolphin to her butler. ‘He obviously ain’t going to state his business with you in the room.’ Mice cast one suspicious look at Diana and went out and closed the door.
    ‘Now, young man,’ said Lady Godolphin.
    Diana began to cry. Great tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I’m Diana Armitage,’ she wailed. ‘Oh, Lady Godolphin, what am I to do ?’
    ‘Gad’s Hounds!’ said Lady Godolphin, getting out of bed. ‘Sit down and calm yourself. What a way for a miss to go on.’
    Diana gulped and sobbed but managed to choke out the whole story. Lady Godolphin sat down by the fire and rested her heavy chin in her hand. She had not removed her paint the night before and her bulldog face peered out from under a thick thatch of a red wig. Pulling on what she described as a peeingnoir, Lady Godolphin rang for her maid.
    ‘I will read you a sermon later, Diana,’ she said. ‘At this moment, the best thing I can do is to try and salvage your reputation. I shall call on this Dantrey at Limmer’s and make sure he’s going to keep his mouth closed. How on earth your father did not guess what you were about is beyond me. You will go to bed and sleep and we shall decide what’s to be done after that. I have a new maid, good at her job, but stupid. Nothing ever seems to surprise her. She won’t make comment.’
    The maid, Sally, was a thin, wiry, middle-aged woman whose nut-cracker face was screwed up into permanent lines of simpering gentility. She was told to put Miss Diana to bed and to return to prepare her mistress for the street.
    All this the maid did with many arch winks and grimaces. Diana, despite her misery, wondered if Sally were quite sane. But it was wonderful to sink into a soft feather bed, the scallop-shaped bed which had soshocked Minerva on her first visit to London, and snuggle down into sheets