Page 50 of Duke of Storme
Finn’s reflection in the window glass showed her the way his jaw clenched and how the muscles jumped violently beneath the skin of his cheek.
“Ye think ye know so much…” he said quietly. “Standin’ here with yer gentle questions and yer patient tone, like ye’re dealin’ with a fractious child.”
“On the contrary, Your Grace. I am fully aware that I know very little,” Diana replied honestly. “That is why I’m asking.”
For a long moment, the only sound in the study was the distant tick of the mantle clock and the soft whisper of Highland wind against the windows. Diana waited, sensing that pushing further would only cause him to retreat again behind those carefully constructed walls of his.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Finn turned to face her, and what she witnessed in his expression stole the breath from her lungs entirely. Gone was the controlled mask he usually wore. In its place now sat something raw and vulnerable, like a festering wound that only ever partly healed.
“Because I was never meant to be a damned Duke,” he said, the words emerging from him uneven and rough. “When the title passed to me, I wasn’t welcomed. I wasn’t groomed or prepared for any of this, Diana. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t … wanted.”
Diana’s heart clenched at the raw heartache she heard beneath his measured tone. “Oh…”
“I was tolerated,” he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, or he hadn’t heard her. Finn was clearly constrained by the weight of what he was sharing. “The Highland relatives who took me in after my father… they did their duty, nothin’ more. Fed me.Housed me. Taught me the bare minimum needed to survive in their world. But I was always the outcast, always the one who didn’t quite belong anywhere.”
He moved away from the window, closer to where she sat, and Diana could see the tension radiating from every line of his body.
“When I inherited, they all expected me to fail. The other lairds, the nobility, even some of the older servants – they were all just waitin’ for me to prove that I was exactly what they’d always believed me to be – a pretender, someone who’d stolen a title he had no right to claim whatsoever.”
“But you didn’t fail,” Diana said softly, and found that she meant it. “You’ve taken responsibility for everything left in disrepair, and your people truly respect you for it. The gardens show such promise, and the way Mrs. Glenwright speaks of your improvements to the tenant cottages… you’ve made a difference.”
Finn’s laugh was bitter and cold. “Have I? or have I simply managed to convince people that I’m adequately completing the tasks at hand? There’s a vast difference between success and acceptance, Diana. Between respect and belongin’.”
Though he had done it before, in this particular instance there was something different about his voice when he spoke her Christian name, and it sent warmth spiraling though her chest, but she kept her expression carefully neutral.
“Every blunder I’ve made,” Finn continued, “every misstep, every moment when my manners weren’t quite polished enough or my accent was too thick for London, or too mild for the Highlands – they used it as proof that I didn’t belong. That I was exactly what they’d always said I was: nothin’ more than another Highland cur playin’ at bein’ a Duke.”
Diana felt something fierce and protective rear its head from some deep corner in her chest. “And you think bringing me to London will somehow change their minds?”
“I think bringin’ a Duchess who stumbles, who can’t navigate their games, who reminds them that I’m no’ one of them…” He met her eyes directly for the first time since beginning his confession, “will cost me more than mere pride. I will lose what little ground I’ve managed to claim.”
The vulnerability in his voice, the raw honesty of the admission made Diana want to reach out to him. But she sensed that any gesture of comfort would cause him to flee and retreat, to re-erect those walls even higher than before.
“So… I am to be your proof,” she said quietly, understanding finally dawning upon her. “I am to be your evidence that you’ve truly become what they always said you couldn’t be.”
Finn went absolutely still. His face looked pale in the morning light. For a heartbeat, Diana expected him to deny it, thinking he might withdraw again and slip behind his usual mask of careful control.
Instead, he crossed the floor to her in three swift strides. His composure cracked like ice in spring. When he reached her chair, he dropped to one knee beside it. His hands came up to frame her face with a desperation that made her breath catch.
“No,” he said, his voice rough and raw with emotion. “Not my proof. Never my proof.” His thumbs traced the curve of her cheekbones, his gray-blue eyes blazing with an intensity that seemed to burn right through her. “Ye’re my anchor, Diana. My salvation. The only thing in this wretched, godforsaken world that makes me believe I might actually deserve to draw breath.”
The confession tore from him like something physical, tender, raw, and bleeding and utterly without artifice. Diana felt tears spring into her eyes at the naked vulnerability in his voice, at the way his hands trembled against her skin.
“When I watch ye struggle with the same doubts that have plagued me… when I see ye lift yer chin and try again despite yer fear… it reminds me that I’m not the only one who feels like an impostor in this world.” His forehead came to rest against hers. “Every lesson I’ve tired to teach ye, I was really tryin’ to give ye the guidance I wish someone had given me. And every time ye find yer strength, every time ye refuse to let them diminish ye… it gives me hope that maybe we’re both stronger than we think. Maybe we can learn to belong here together.”
His words stole the breath from her lungs entirely. Not because they were harsh, but because of the desperate honesty behind them. This was certainly not the cold, controlled Duke of Storme speaking. This was simply Finn – a man who’d spent his entirelife, from the moment he drew his first breath, fighting to prove he deserved the place he occupied in the world.
“Your hope,” Diana repeated, testing the words. “Not your proof. Not your evidence… your anchor.”
“Aye.” He confirmed, and she saw something in his expression that made her chest tighten even more. “When I see ye findin’ yer courage despite all the voices tellin’ ye ye’re not good enough… it reminds me that maybe I can find mine too. Maybe we both deserve to be here, even if we arrived by different paths.”
Diana stood slowly, her legs suddenly unsteady. “Your Grace… I… you can’t… that’s not fair to either of us. As much as I understand, as much as I appreciate what you’re saying… you cannot make me responsible for your hope. What happens when I falter? When I’m not strong enough to inspire you?”
“Ye think I don’t know that?” His voice now carried an edge of sharp desperation. “Ye think I wanted to need ye? To see my own struggles reflected in yers? To find strength in watchin’ ye overcome what I’m still fightin’?”
“Then why do you?”
“Because I don’t know how else to survive it,” he said simply. “Because every time I walk into a damned London drawing room, I feel just like that unwanted wee lad again, bein’ shipped off to the Highlands because his own father couldn’t bear the sight of him. But when I see ye refuse to the them diminish ye,when ye find yer voice despite yer fear… for a moment, I can almost believe I can do the same.”
