Chapter 29
“Diana.”
The name left Alexander’s throat as little more than a rasp, dry and unsteady, as though it had dragged itself through darkness to reach her.
For a moment, he was not certain where he was.
There was only a heavy, suffocating stillness broken by the dull ache spreading through his shoulder, dragging him slowly into awareness.
Then he saw her.
She was there, folded into the chair beside his bed, her head tilted slightly to one side, her hand still resting on the coverlet near his arm as though she had meant to keep watch and exhaustion had claimed her in the act.
The lamplight softened her features, casting warm shadows along the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the dark fall of her hair that had slipped loose from its careful arrangement. She looked pale. Tired. Beautiful in a way that struck him far deeper than any composed elegance ever had.
Something inside his chest tightened painfully.
“Diana,” he said again, a fraction stronger this time.
She woke at once.
Her eyes opened immediately, sharp and searching, and the instant they found him, something in her face broke open with such naked relief that it struck him harder than the pain in his body.
“Alexander—”
She was on her feet before he could even gather himself, already leaning over him, her hand reaching for his, her fingers warm and sure despite the faint tremor running through them.
“You are awake,” she said, her voice catching despite her effort to steady it.
He tried to push himself up.
Pain shot through his shoulder, sharp and unforgiving, and he hissed through his teeth, the movement collapsing almost immediately under the weight of it.
Diana’s hand pressed against his chest at once.
“Do not,” she said, her tone gentle but firm, leaving no room for argument. “You are not to move yet.”
He let out a breath that might have been a reluctant laugh, though it came strained. “You give orders very well, Duchess.”
“You have given me sufficient reason to do so,” she returned, though the faint edge in her voice softened almost at once as her gaze moved over his face, searching, checking, reassuring herself that he was truly there.
She turned sharply toward the door.
“Harris,” she called.
The valet appeared almost instantly, as though he had been waiting just beyond the threshold for precisely this moment. His eyes flicked to Alexander, relief breaking briefly through his otherwise composed expression.
“Your Grace.”
“Fetch the physician,” Diana said at once. “His Grace is awake.”
Harris inclined his head and disappeared without another word.
Alexander watched her—he could not seem to do anything else.
Even now, weak, half-drugged from whatever the physician had given him, his body aching and heavy, all his awareness narrowed to her.
To the way she stood beside his bed, one hand still resting lightly against him as though she needed the contact.
To the way her composure, always so carefully held, seemed thinner now, worn through by worry and exhaustion.
To the unmistakable signs that she had not left his side.
“You have not slept,” he said quietly.
She glanced at him, and for a moment something like irritation flickered in her expression, though it was quickly overtaken by something softer.
“I have slept,” she said.
He did not believe her.
Before he could answer, the door opened again.
“Alexander!”
Lady Salford swept into the room with a force of presence that seemed entirely at odds with her age, her cane striking lightly against the floor as she crossed the space with surprising speed.
Her sharp eyes took in everything at once—his position in the bed, Diana standing beside him, the signs of recent tending—and then settled on his face.
“Well,” she said, her voice thick with emotion despite the firmness she tried to maintain, “you have chosen quite a dramatic manner of returning to us.”
Alexander’s mouth curved faintly. “I feared a quieter entrance might not be sufficiently memorable.”
“You foolish boy,” she snapped, though her hand came to rest briefly against his arm, her touch lingering just long enough to betray her relief. “Do you have any notion what you have done? To her?” She nodded toward Diana without looking. “To me?”
Diana shifted slightly, as though uncomfortable with the attention.
“I am sorry,” Alexander said, and for once the words were not shaped by politeness or habit. They came plainly. “It was not my intention to cause distress.”
“No,” Lady Salford returned dryly, “your intention was merely to be reckless.”
Diana let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh, though it carried no true amusement.
“It was not precisely his plan,” she said.
Lady Salford’s gaze sharpened. “So I am told. The entire city appears to be discussing it already. Lord Tilbridge was taken into custody. A most scandalous affair.” Her eyes flicked back to Alexander.
“Though I confess, I am less concerned with society’s reaction than with the fact that you appear to have regained your senses. ”
Alexander stilled. For a fraction of a second, the room seemed to shift.
“You remember me now,” she said, not as a question.
He glanced at Diana. She was watching him closely.
There was something in her expression he could not fully name—hope, perhaps, or uncertainty, or the quiet, aching tension of someone who had been hurt and did not yet know what to expect.
“Yes,” he said.
Lady Salford’s lips curved, not in surprise, but in something far more knowing. “I thought as much.”
Diana’s brows drew together slightly. “You… knew?”
Lady Salford gave a soft, dismissive sound. “My dear, I have lived long enough to recognize when a man is not entirely himself. He looked at me as though I were a pleasant stranger the first evening I arrived, and while I may be many things, I am not forgettable.”
Alexander huffed a quiet breath. “You did not say anything.”
“No,” she replied simply. “Because I saw how you looked at her.”
Silence fell, and Alexander heard Diana’s breath catch, just slightly.
“And I thought,” Lady Salford continued, her voice softer now, though no less perceptive, “that whatever had altered in him, it had brought him closer to what he ought to have been all along. I saw no reason to interfere with that.”
Alexander’s gaze remained on Diana.
He wondered if she understood what that meant. If she understood that even then, before he had remembered himself, something in him had already turned toward her in a way he had not been able to resist.
Lady Salford straightened.
“Well,” she said briskly, reclaiming her usual sharpness, “now that I have confirmed you are not dead, I shall leave you to more pressing matters.” Her eyes flicked between them, far too perceptive for comfort. “Do try not to do anything else reckless in the next hour.”
With that, she turned and left.
The door closed behind her.
Diana moved back to the chair slowly, though she did not sit at once. She hovered there, as though uncertain what to do with herself now that the urgency of the past days had been replaced by something quieter and far more dangerous.
Alexander reached for her hand. He could not seem to stop himself. His fingers closed around hers, rough, warm, grounding, and the contact sent a sharp, immediate awareness through him that had nothing to do with pain.
“I should not have allowed you to leave the house,” he said.
She stiffened slightly.
“You did not allow it,” she replied, though her voice was gentle. “I chose to go.”
“I should have been there.” The words came harder, more honestly.
“I should not have left you alone to be—” He stopped, his jaw tightening. “To be vulnerable to him.”
Diana’s fingers shifted in his grasp, her thumb brushing lightly against his hand in a motion so small and so instinctive that it nearly undid him.
“You could not have known,” she said.
“I should have known.”
He lifted his gaze to hers fully now, and for a moment, the strength that had carried him through everything seemed to falter, not in his body, but somewhere deeper. What he was about to say required more of him than the wound in his shoulder ever could.
“There is no version of this in which I am not at fault,” he said, his voice low, but unsteady in a way he had never allowed before, the words pulled from him rather than offered.
“I left you to face things you should never have faced alone. I let pride and fear dictate my actions, and in doing so…” His breath caught, his jaw tightening as though even now he could not quite bear the weight of it. “I put you in danger.”
She shook her head at once, her fingers tightening around his as though she might stop him from saying it, from claiming something she did not wish him to carry alone. “Alexander—”
“I need you to hear me,” he said, more urgently now, his voice roughening, the control he had always wielded so carefully beginning to fracture under the force of what he was trying to give her. “The truth. Because I will not hide behind anything, not with you.”
She fell silent, and he saw it then. Her hope. It struck him harder than any accusation could have.
“I have spent my entire life ensuring that I would not become my father,” he said, and now the words came slower, heavier, pulling them from a place he had kept locked for years, a place he had never intended to show anyone.
“Cold. Distant. Unyielding to the point of cruelty. I watched what he was, what he did, what it cost everyone around him, and I swore I would never be that man.”
His grip on her hand tightened, almost unconsciously, as though he needed the anchor of her to continue.
“So I learned control,” he continued, his voice lowering, the confession deepening, turning into something raw and unguarded.
“I learned how to keep everything contained, measured, untouchable. I told myself it was a strength. That if I never allowed anything to reach too deeply, I would never have the power to destroy it. And then I met you.”