Chapter 2
ONE YEAR LATER
“Do stop staring at the gate, Diana, or I shall begin to think you expect the duke to materialize in a cloud of tragic devotion.” Emma’s voice was light, teasing, and entirely too perceptive.
Diana lifted her gaze at once and forced a smile, though her fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. Gathering her oldest friends—and their husbands—had been an easy way to spend her allowance, and an even easier way to make the house feel less empty.
“If I were expecting tragic devotion, I should have chosen a different husband, my friend.”
Benjamin laughed softly at that, the sound low and warm in the cool, evening air. “Careful,” he said, leaning back in his chair beneath the lantern-lit trellis. “You are a Duchess. Cynicism does not become such an elevated rank.”
“On the contrary,” Diana replied, lifting her chin slightly, “it may be the only thing that does.”
The gardens of Rosewood House glowed beneath the late summer sky.
Lanterns hung from wrought-iron hooks along the gravel path, their light pooling golden against blooming white roses.
A long table had been arranged on the lawn after dinner, silver trays abandoned in favor of crystal glasses and half-finished decanters.
The night air brushed the bare skin of her shoulders.
She felt it distinctly, cool against flesh made sensitive by memory.
The silk of her gown clung to her waist and hips, the neckline cut just daringly enough that she had felt almost wicked when she first saw herself in the mirror earlier that evening.
It had been a year. A year since she watched her husband walk out of the building as though marriage were no more than a signed contract. The ton had whispered, of course. They always did. They whispered at balls, behind fans, in drawing rooms thick with perfume and false pity.
The Duke travels frequently. The Duchess prefers her independence. How… unusual.
Diana had learned to carry the title with impeccable grace. She attended every function. Hosted dinners. Gave to charities. Her gowns were discussed. Her composure, admired. And yet, the absence lingered like a shadow that refused to fade.
“You have survived remarkably well,” Georgina observed now, swirling the dark red liquid in her glass. “If Martin had abandoned me on my wedding day, I should have fled to France in disgrace.”
“You would not,” Martin said mildly from across the table. “You would have written me a blistering letter and demanded an apology within the week.”
Georgina’s eyes sparkled. “Perhaps.”
Diana allowed herself a faint smile. It was easier among them, easier to breathe when no one studied her for cracks in her composure.
“Do not look at me in that manner,” she said lightly. “I have not perished of neglect.”
Benjamin’s brow lifted. “No, but you have endured it.”
“I have done more than endure,” she replied, lifting her chin, her voice steady. “I manage my household. I preside at dinners twice a week. I am received everywhere. There are few doors in London that do not open to me.”
“Do you know where he is?” Emma asked quietly.
There was no accusation in the question, only care.
Diana did not hesitate. “His Grace is precisely where he prefers to be.”
Benjamin’s gaze sharpened slightly. “And where is that?”
“Not here.” The admission was calm, but it felt nothing of the sort.
She lifted her glass and took a slow sip, though her throat had gone dry. The wine warmed her from within, but not enough to soften the ache that had begun to pulse low beneath her ribs.
“Diana.”
She realized Emma had said her name twice.
“Yes?”
Emma’s expression softened. In the glow of the lanterns, the fair strands of her hair caught the light like pale silk against the soft blue of her gown. “You are thinking again.”
“I am allowed to think,” she said dryly.
“Not in that way,” Emma replied.
Benjamin reached for his wife’s hand, his broad fingers closing easily around hers, his thumb tracing a slow, absent path over her knuckles.
His dark hair fell slightly across his brow as he leaned closer to her, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Diana felt it like a physical blow to the chest. It was the quiet reality of a marriage.
It wasn’t in the vows; it was in the unthinking, instinctive way they occupied the same air.
She watched Benjamin lean toward Emma as he spoke, his shoulder naturally finding hers. Emma bloomed beneath the attention, her delicate features brightening, her laughter softening as it turned toward him alone. They simply belonged together.
A sharp, hollow ache bloomed behind Diana’s ribs.
What would it be like, she wondered, to be reached for without hesitation?
To have a husband who didn’t view her touch as a threat. She looked at her own hand—the gold band mocking her in the moonlight—and realized that the Duke hadn’t just taken his presence from her. He had taken the possibility of this.
She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other, as though the movement might quiet the ache.
“You deserve better,” Emma said softly, squeezing Benjamin’s hand before releasing it. “Even if you pretend you do not require it.”
Diana lifted her chin. “I require nothing.”
“Liar,” Georgina said with fond bluntness.
The young baroness sat opposite her, her dark hair gathered neatly at the nape of her neck, her pale eyes warm despite the teasing in her voice.
Martin rose from his seat then. He was taller than the others, his auburn hair catching the lanternlight as he straightened, the color almost copper against the night air.
“At least permit me to fetch you another drink before you continue denying all human needs.”
Diana exhaled a faint laugh. “You are too observant.”
“I am merely attentive,” he shrugged, crossing toward the small side table where fresh glasses had been set
He returned moments later, offering her a fresh glass. His fingers brushed hers briefly as she accepted it—warm, steady, entirely respectful.
“You have been admirable this year,” Martin said quietly, so that only she heard. “Do not allow the whispers to convince you otherwise.”
Her throat tightened unexpectedly. “Thank you.”
He held her gaze a moment longer, his expression kind, concerned, not pitying.
“You have never lacked strength,” he added. “But strength need not mean solitude.”
It did not. But she didn’t have the option of companionship.
She smiled faintly. “It is a comfortable companion.”
“Is it?”
Before she could answer, the gravel at the edge of the lawn crunched beneath approaching footsteps.
Alfred, the butler of Rosewood House, paused just beyond the circle of lantern light and bowed.
“Your Grace.”
Diana turned her head lazily at first, expecting some minor inquiry. “Yes?”
The butler hesitated. The pause stretched thin. Then—
“His Grace, the Duke, is at the door. He requests an audience with you, Your Grace.”
Silence fell over the table.
Diana felt it before she truly understood it—a violent, unmistakable jolt that shot from her chest to her fingertips. The glass in her hand trembled, the dark liquid inside rippling dangerously close to the rim.
For a moment, she thought she had misheard.
“The Duke?” Georgina repeated faintly.
Martin straightened at once. Benjamin’s expression hardened with immediate protectiveness as Emma’s hand found Diana’s wrist.
“Does he mean—” Emma began.
But he did.
Diana’s breath shortened abruptly, shallow and sharp. Her heart began to pound with such force she felt it in her throat. The garden air pressed too tightly against her skin.
He was here after a year. Without warning. Her heart reacted before pride could intervene.
“What precisely did he say?” she asked, though her voice sounded distant to her own ears.
“That he has returned,” the butler replied evenly. “And that he expects to see his wife.”
The words sent a tremor through her spine.
Why now?
Martin stepped closer at once. “You need not see him if you do not wish to.”
Emma squeezed her wrist. “We can remain.”
Benjamin’s jaw tightened. “Or you can claim that you’re indisposed.”
Diana rose slowly from her chair. Her legs felt unsteady for the briefest moment, then steadied through sheer force of will.
“No,” she said quietly.
She smoothed her hands down the front of her gown, suddenly acutely aware of the cut of it, of the exposed skin at her throat, of the way the silk clung to her hips.
He would see her after a year. And she would greet him as a duchess.
“I shall receive His Grace,” she said, lifting her chin.
Her heart hammered with a heavy, rhythmic thrumming that vibrated through her very bones. The storm was at the door, and for the first time in a year, Diana felt truly alive.
“Where is he?” she asked, turning to the butler with composure she did not feel.
“In His Grace’s studio, madam,” the man replied, his professional mask perfect. Yet Diana could feel the tremor of scandal vibrating through the walls of the house. “He went there directly upon arrival.”
The studio. It was the one place in the sprawling mansion she had never entered.
“I shall see him alone,” she commanded, her voice gaining a resonance that surprised even her.
As she walked, each step felt like a march toward a cliff’s edge. Her skin felt electric, every fine hair on her arms standing at attention.
She reached the heavy oak doors of the studio. For a heartbeat, she closed her eyes, fighting the sudden, dizzying sense that the floor was tilting.
Then, she adjusted the fall of the diamonds at her throat and pushed the door open.
The air in the room was thick with the scent of old leather, linseed oil, and something else… Something warm, masculine, and dangerously familiar.
The Duke of Rosewood stood by the wide mahogany desk. His waistcoat was fitted with agonizing precision across the broad expanse of his shoulders. The candlelight caught the gold in his hair and traced the hard line of a jaw that seemed carved from granite.