Chapter 23
“Where is His Grace?”
The question left Diana’s lips before she had properly taken her seat, her tone composed, almost idle, and yet carrying a sharpness she did not trouble herself to soften as she stood at the threshold of the breakfast room.
The footman nearest the sideboard straightened at once. “His Grace has already retreated to his study, Your Grace.”
That is unusual. Diana’s fingers tightened faintly around the back of the chair before her, though her expression did not alter in the slightest, her features settling into that practiced calm she had perfected over the past year.
“Indeed?” she returned, allowing a faint note of polite interest to color the word to make it seem as if she had asked out of nothing more than habit, as though the absence of her husband at breakfast were a matter of no consequence at all, and not something that struck her.
The man inclined his head. “He had business to attend to early this morning, Your Grace. He left instructions that he was not to be disturbed.”
The words settled into her chest with a quiet, unwelcome weight, spreading slowly, like ink through water, staining thoughts she had not intended to entertain.
Had he felt disturbed by her?
There was nothing inherently wrong in such a request, nothing that ought to have stirred even the faintest reaction within her, and yet Diana could not shake the subtle, persistent feeling that something had shifted.
“I see,” Diana said smoothly, lowering herself into her seat with unhurried grace, every movement deliberate, controlled. “Then pray do not trouble him on my account. I was merely… curious.”
The lie was delicate, perfectly shaped, and it slipped from her tongue with an ease born of long practice, though something in her chest tightened faintly at the sound of it. She herself did not believe it entirely.
The servant bowed and withdrew, leaving her alone with the soft clink of porcelain and the far too noticeable absence at the head of the table.
Diana reached for her teacup, her fingers steady, though she could feel the faint, traitorous tremor in her pulse as it beat at the inside of her wrist. The porcelain was warm against her skin, the scent of the tea rising softly, but she found she had no appetite for it.
Nor for the neatly arranged plate before her, nor for anything at all.
Her gaze drifted, almost against her will, to the empty seat at the head of the table.
It should not have mattered. There had been an entire year in which his absence had been the rule rather than the exception.
A year in which she had learned to sit at this very table alone, to conduct her mornings without expectation, without anticipation, without the slightest inclination to wonder whether he would appear. And yet—
It is different now. Her stomach tightened.
She lifted the teacup to her lips and took a measured sip, forcing herself to focus on the simple act, on the warmth sliding down her throat, on the discipline of maintaining composure when something beneath it threatened to shift.
He had been here. He had returned. He had stood in her rooms, in her presence, had looked at her as though she were something to be devoured, had touched her as though restraint were an inconvenience rather than a necessity.
And now he was gone again. Not gone. Working. Diana set the cup down quietly. Of course, he has obligations. He is a duke.
She drew in a slow breath, steadying herself, aligning her thoughts into something more orderly that resembled reason.
Her spine straightened.
“Remove this,” she said lightly, gesturing toward the untouched plate.
“At once, Your Grace.”
She rose before the servants could complete the task, her movements fluid, every inch the duchess she had become in his absence. There was no hesitation in her step as she left the breakfast room, no outward sign that anything had shifted within her at all.
And yet, as she moved through the corridors of Rosewood House, she felt restless. A subtle, persistent awareness that seemed to follow her from room to room, like the faint echo of a presence she could not quite ignore.
The morning passed as it always did.
There were letters to be reviewed, invitations to be answered, and accounts to be inspected with the steward in the small sitting room that overlooked the gardens. Diana conducted each task with her usual precision.
No one would have suspected that anything occupied her thoughts beyond the matters at hand.
“Your Grace?”
She blinked.
The steward had paused mid-sentence, his brows drawn together in polite uncertainty.
“I beg your pardon,” she said at once, her voice smooth, though she could feel the faint heat rising along her neck at the lapse. “You were saying?”
He resumed, though more cautiously now, and Diana forced herself to listen, to focus, to pull her attention back into the present where it belonged.
But it slipped. Again and again.
A glance toward the door at the faintest sound of footsteps in the corridor. A moment’s pause at the window, her gaze drifting toward the drive as though she might somehow catch sight of him crossing it.
It is ridiculous. She pressed her lips together faintly.
By the time the steward took his leave, Diana felt a quiet tension coiled beneath her ribs, something that had not been there the previous day.
The gardens stretched before her in orderly perfection, the late morning sun warming the gravel paths, the scent of early blossoms drifting lightly on the breeze. It was a place of control and predictability.
She walked without direction at first, her hands loosely clasped before her, her gaze fixed ahead as though the simple act of movement might settle whatever had taken root within her.
It did not.
He should have told me. The thought came suddenly, sharp enough to halt her steps. Her jaw tightened at once. She had been accustomed to this arrangement, but that had been before. Before the studio. Before the way his mouth had claimed hers without hesitation.
Her breath caught slightly, the unwelcome but persistent memory sliding through her, stirring something low and dangerous in her chest. Then where is he?
Diana exhaled slowly, forcing the thought away, forcing the question back into silence where it belonged.
She moved deeper into the garden, pausing now and then to inspect a flowerbed, to adjust a detail the gardeners had missed, to give the appearance of purpose where her thoughts refused to remain still.
The hours passed slowly. By the time she returned to the house, the sun had begun its descent, the light shifting, softening, and still there had been no sign of him.
Dinner was announced at the usual hour, as though nothing within the house had shifted.
Diana entered the dining room alone, her posture composed. Yet the moment her gaze fell upon the table—laid meticulously for two—something within her faltered with a force she had not anticipated.
Candles burned steadily along their length, their golden light catching on polished silver and crystal. The emptiness of it was mocking her, as though the room itself bore witness to his absence. Her throat tightened before she could stop it.
“He has not finished?” she asked, the question escaping her before she could temper it, before she could reshape it into something less revealing.
The butler inclined his head with practiced neutrality. “No, Your Grace.”
Diana nodded once, dismissing him with the smallest motion of her hand, as though the answer carried no weight at all. “Very well.”
She took her seat, smoothing her skirts with steady fingers, though she could feel the faint tension gathering beneath her ribs. The first course was placed before her, the soft clink of porcelain the only sound that dared disturb the stillness.
She lifted her fork, paused, then set it down again.
The room felt too large, the high ceilings stretching upward into a hollow silence that pressed faintly against her ears.
Every sound seemed sharpened, magnified—the faint crackle of candlelight, the whisper of fabric as the servants moved along the walls, the distant echo of footsteps somewhere deep within the house, too far to belong to him, and yet enough to make her pulse stutter with foolish, fleeting hope.
She lifted the fork again and forced herself to take a bite, to chew, to swallow. It tasted like nothing. Her appetite vanished entirely.
She set the utensil down with finality and rose.
“That will be all,” she said quietly.
“Your Grace—”
“I have no further need of dinner.” Her tone did not rise, and yet it allowed no argument.
She did not wait for a response.
She was already moving, her skirts whispering against the floor as she left the dining room, the sound trailing behind her like the echo of something restrained too long.
Her steps quickened despite herself, the careful composure she had maintained throughout the day beginning to fracture at the edges, each breath coming a little too fast, a little too shallow.
This is absurd. I am behaving like—
She cut herself off as her jaw tightened. She was behaving like a wife who expected her husband to appear. That was all.
She turned sharply down the corridor that led toward his study, the decision forming even as her pulse began to pound with a force that felt entirely disproportionate to the situation, and yet utterly impossible to ignore.
She reached the door. Paused only for the briefest fraction of a second, her hand hovering above the handle as her pulse thundered in her ears, loud enough to drown out reason, loud enough to demand action. Then—
She pushed it open.
Alexander looked up from where he stood beside the decanter, one hand braced against the edge of the desk, the other curved around a glass of whiskey. He looked like a man interrupted in the middle of an argument with himself.
“Is this what you do now?” Diana said, the words cutting into the room before the door had even finished swinging shut behind her. “Hide from me in your study?”