Chapter 11
“Where is my wife?” Alexander did not raise his voice when he asked the question, yet he still couldn’t hide his impatience behind his words.
He had not meant to sound quite so sharp, yet the moment the sentence left his mouth, he realized that the question had not been born from idle curiosity.
He had been waiting longer than he cared to admit.
The footman standing near the door straightened immediately. “Her Grace has not yet returned, Your Grace.”
Alexander leaned back slowly in his chair, his fingers resting loosely around the stem of his wineglass while his gaze drifted toward the untouched place setting across the table.
He had been sitting there for nearly twenty minutes.
The long dining table at Rosewood House had been arranged with the usual quiet precision that characterized every corner of the household. The silver gleamed beneath the warm glow of candlelight, each piece reflecting the flickering flames in soft, distorted shapes.
Plates had been laid out in careful symmetry, the evening meal prepared and waiting in the kitchen while servants stood at their posts with patient composure, but Alexander had not touched the food placed before him.
At first, he had told himself it was simply a matter of courtesy. It would hardly do for a man in his position to begin dinner before his wife arrived. Such things mattered in houses like this, where every action seemed to carry quiet significance.
But as the minutes continued to pass, the explanation felt less convincing. Perhaps she had no intention of joining him. The thought settled into his mind with unpleasant persistence.
His fingers tapped lightly against the side of the wineglass before he realized he was doing it. The faint sound of glass against polished wood echoed softly in the quiet room until he forced himself to still the movement.
The events of the previous night returned to him with unwelcome clarity. For one brief moment, the careful distance that had existed between them had vanished entirely. The fragile balance between them had shifted into something far more dangerous.
And then he had ruined it by doubting her.
At the time, he had believed the question necessary.
Rational. A man in his position could not afford to ignore the possibility that someone close to him might have wished him harm.
His memory was fractured, the circumstances surrounding his injury uncertain, and caution had seemed the only sensible course.
But the look in Diana’s eyes when he had spoken the words had remained with him long after she left the room.
Shock. Anger. And something deeper that he had not yet learned how to name.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, the breath leaving him in a controlled rhythm that did little to quiet the irritation building inside his chest.
If she had chosen to avoid him this evening, he could hardly blame her.
The thought was reasonable, and yet, it irritated him more than it should have.
Avoiding him would solve nothing. It would only create more distance between them, more unanswered questions in a situation already filled with too many unknowns.
Diana had already become far more important to him than he cared to admit.
He shifted slightly in his chair, his gaze drifting once more toward the empty seat beside him, when the sound of footsteps echoed faintly in the corridor beyond the dining room.
Alexander’s head lifted. The footsteps grew closer.
A moment later, the tall doors at the far end of the room opened.
Diana stepped inside, and the effect was immediate.
Alexander straightened almost imperceptibly in his chair, his attention fixing upon her. For a moment, he said nothing at all, simply watching as she crossed the threshold.
Lady Salford entered just behind her.
Both women were laughing from genuine amusement. Lady Salford looked thoroughly pleased with herself, while Diana’s cheeks were flushed with a brightness that made her appear younger than he had ever seen her before.
Something warm stirred unexpectedly in Alexander’s chest.
Happiness suited her far more than the guarded reserve she usually wore around him.
“Well,” Lady Salford announced cheerfully as she crossed the room, “I see we have not been abandoned entirely.”
Alexander allowed the faintest hint of a smile to touch his mouth. “I was beginning to wonder if I had been forgotten.”
Diana glanced toward him quickly, the movement brief but unmistakably aware. “No one could forget you, Your Grace.”
The words were polite but the faint color rising in her cheeks suggested something less composed beneath them.
Alexander gestured toward the table. “Please. Sit.”
Lady Salford settled easily into her chair, while Diana took the seat beside Alexander with careful grace.
He felt her presence immediately. It was a strange phenomenon. She had barely sat down, yet his attention drifted briefly to the curve of her neck where a loose strand of hair had slipped free from its arrangement.
He forced himself to look away.
“Now then,” Alexander said, reaching for his wineglass. “You appear to have had a far more entertaining day than I.”
Lady Salford brightened instantly. “Oh, we did.”
Diana let out a quiet laugh. “Grandmother—”
“Nonsense,” Lady Salford said firmly. “You chose the most exquisite things.”
Alexander’s gaze moved slowly toward Diana. “Did she?”
Diana lowered her eyes slightly, clearly trying not to smile. “We merely visited a few shops.”
“A few shops,” Lady Salford repeated, as though the phrase were wildly inadequate. She turned toward Alexander with obvious enthusiasm. “Your wife has excellent taste.”
Alexander leaned back slightly in his chair. “I am pleased to hear it.”
He noticed the faint pink color returning to Diana’s cheeks.
It was… fascinating. She was composed in most situations. But small moments of attention seemed to unsettle her far more easily than she wished.
“What did you find?” he asked at last, keeping his tone deliberately casual as though the question were nothing more than polite interest.
Lady Salford clasped her hands together immediately, the expression on her face brightening with unmistakable enthusiasm. “Oh, where to begin?”
Beside him, Diana groaned softly under her breath, a quiet sound of protest that carried enough amusement to make Alexander’s mouth twitch faintly.
He had the sudden impression that whatever had happened during their outing, Lady Salford intended to recount every detail of it.
“Well,” the older woman continued happily, settling more comfortably into her chair as though preparing for a proper story, “first there was the dress.”
Alexander felt his attention sharpen without quite meaning it to.
“A dress?” he repeated.
“Yes. Pale blue muslin.”
Alexander’s gaze shifted slowly toward Diana. She had lowered her eyes toward her plate with very deliberate focus, as though studying the arrangement of cutlery had suddenly become extremely important.
“It was nothing remarkable,” she murmured.
Lady Salford waved a dismissive hand at once. “It was stunning.”
Alexander leaned back slightly in his chair, considering that quiet statement while the color itself settled into his mind with surprising clarity.
Pale blue.
He found himself imagining it almost immediately. The soft fall of muslin against Diana’s figure, the lightness of the fabric catching the movement of her body when she walked, the color resting against her skin in a way that would only emphasize the warmth of it.
Alexander lifted his glass and took a slow sip of wine, using the motion as an excuse to compose himself before speaking again. “I look forward to seeing it.”
Diana glanced toward him quickly.
The movement was brief, but he caught the faint flicker of surprise in her expression before she looked away again, as though she had not expected him to say such a thing.
Lady Salford leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone that suggested she was enjoying this conversation far too much. “And ribbons.”
Alexander lifted one brow.
“Several.”
“Grandmother—” Diana began quietly.
“They were beautiful,” Lady Salford insisted with cheerful certainty.
Alexander turned his attention toward Diana once more.
She was clearly attempting to appear modest, her gaze lowered, her posture carefully composed as though trying to diminish the entire subject. But the effort was not entirely successful.
There was a softness in her expression that had not been there earlier. A quiet contentment that revealed itself whenever Lady Salford spoke about their outing, as though the day had given her a simple pleasure she had not expected.
Alexander did not interrupt while Lady Salford continued speaking, yet his attention had shifted inward in a way he did not entirely expect.
The details she offered—small, almost trivial things in the larger scale of a person’s life—settled into his mind with a strange clarity that he could not quite explain.
Pale blue muslin. Pastries. A ribbon. The information arranged itself quietly in his thoughts, each piece sliding into place with the same care he would apply to the terms of a contract or the conditions of an agreement.
It struck him, faintly, that he was listening with far more concentration than such simple matters deserved.
But then again, perhaps they did deserve it.
Because every detail Lady Salford mentioned felt less like gossip and more like a glimpse into a part of Diana’s life he did not know. He had the distinct impression there were more details yet to come.
“And flowers,” Lady Salford added suddenly, as though recalling something she had nearly forgotten.
Alexander’s gaze lifted. “Flowers?”
“Yes,” she said brightly, clearly pleased with herself. “Pink magnolias.”
Beside him, Diana let out a soft laugh. “They were simply too beautiful to leave behind.”
The sound of it caught him off guard.
Her laughter was warm, lighter than the careful restraint she usually carried in his presence, and the quiet brightness of it stirred something unexpected inside his chest. It was a simple sound, and yet it seemed to alter the entire atmosphere of the room.
Alexander felt something warm shift beneath his ribs before he had quite realized it was happening.
Pink magnolias.
The words repeated themselves silently in his mind as he watched her, the image forming with surprising ease. It seemed so fitting somehow. Soft, elegant, quietly beautiful without demanding attention. Exactly the sort of thing he could imagine Diana choosing.
And yet what struck him far more than the flowers themselves was the simple realization that she enjoyed them at all. Until that moment, he had known almost nothing about the small things that brought her pleasure.
But here she was beside him, laughing softly over something as simple as flowers she had found in a shop window, and the sight of that quiet happiness stirred something deeply unexpected inside him.
He liked seeing her like this.
Watching her smile, hearing the lightness in her voice as she spoke with Lady Salford, he found himself thinking with sudden clarity that if pink magnolias were what pleased her, then he would gladly fill every room of Rosewood House with them, if it meant she would laugh like that again.
Dinner continued with easy conversation.
Lady Salford spoke far more than either of them for the remainder of the meal, recounting the events of their outing with cheerful enthusiasm and an occasional flourish of exaggeration that Diana attempted, with limited success, to interrupt.
Every few minutes, Diana would murmur a quiet protest or attempt to correct some embellished detail, only for Lady Salford to wave the objection away with breezy confidence and continue her story.
Alexander listened with the calm attentiveness expected of him, nodding occasionally when Lady Salford directed a particular detail toward him. Yet much of his focus drifted elsewhere without him quite realizing it.
The way Diana’s eyes brightened when she laughed. The subtle movements of her hands as she spoke, graceful and expressive even when she was merely insisting that Lady Salford was exaggerating the entire afternoon. The warmth in her voice that had not been there the night before.
For days, he had been trying to understand her through fragments and impressions, through cautious conversations and guarded silences.
Yet this version of Diana—relaxed, amused, faintly exasperated by his grandmother’s storytelling—felt like a glimpse into a part of her he had not yet been allowed to see.
And he found himself watching with quiet fascination.
At one point, Diana turned toward him unexpectedly, catching him in the act. “You are very quiet tonight.”
Alexander met her gaze without hesitation. “I am listening.”
Her eyes softened slightly with amusement. “To Grandmother’s embellishments?”
Across the table, Lady Salford scoffed loudly. “I do not embellish.”
Alexander’s mouth curved faintly. “Of course not.”
Diana laughed again, the sound bright and unrestrained. For a moment, he found himself wondering how often she had laughed like that while he had been gone.
Dinner continued at an easy pace after that.
Courses were brought and removed with quiet efficiency while the conversation flowed comfortably around the table. Wine was poured, small stories were exchanged, and the evening settled into a relaxed rhythm that felt unexpectedly pleasant.
For the first time since waking in this unfamiliar life, Alexander felt something close to ease settle over him.
When the meal finally came to an end, Lady Salford pushed back her chair with a satisfied sigh.
“Well,” she declared brightly, “that was delightful.”
Alexander rose automatically, the habit of courtesy ingrained deeply enough to function even when his thoughts were elsewhere.
Diana stood beside him at the same moment. For a brief second, their hands brushed. The contact was accidental, but Alexander felt the sensation travel slowly up his arm like a quiet spark of lightning, subtle but impossible to ignore.
Diana seemed to notice it as well. Her breath caught so softly that he might have missed it if he had not been standing so close.
Lady Salford, thankfully oblivious, had already begun making her way toward the door with cheerful determination.
Alexander allowed his gaze to linger on Diana for a second longer than was strictly necessary.
Then he said quietly, “You had a good day.”
She nodded once. “Yes.”
Something softer settled into her expression then, a gentle warmth that had not been there earlier.
“And you?”
Alexander considered the question for a moment.
Then he answered honestly. “It improved.”