Page 89 of Duke of Storme
“Diana!” Her name tore from his throat as he vaulted from the saddle, not bothering to secure Tempest as he ran toward her.
She looked up at the sound of his voice. Her dark eyes widened with what might have been surprise or relief or something elseentirely. For a moment, they simply stared at each other across the debris-strewn alley, two people who had said too much and not nearly enough.
“Finn?” Her voice was barely a whisper, hoarse with pain and something that might have been hope. “You came.”
“Of course I came,” he said roughly, dropping to his knees beside her on the filthy steps without regard for his fine clothes. His hands hovered over her injuries, desperate to touch, to reassure himself she was real, but afraid of causing more damage. “Christ, Diana, what were ye thinkin’, comin’ to this part of the city alone?”
“Mary Thompson,” she said simply, as though that explained everything. And perhaps it did – Diana had been caring for others even when her own world was falling apart. “She’s been so ill, and her mother had no money for a proper physician. I thought... I thought I could help.”
Her composure was devastating, the way she spoke of her charitable mission as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Even now, injured and shaken, she was thinking of others. It was so perfectly, heartbreakingly Diana that Finn felt something crack open in his chest.
“The carriage driver said ye were askin’ for me,” he said, his voice barely steady.
Diana’s eyes dropped to her hands, folded carefully in her lap despite her obvious pain. “I... yes. I suppose I was.” She lookedback up at him. Her gaze searched his face. “Though I cannot imagine why. You made your feelings quite clear before you left for London.”
The quiet dignity in her voice, the way she held herself despite everything, made him want to howl with rage – not at her, but at himself, at the cruel twist of fate that had brought them to this moment in a London alley surrounded by the wreckage of more than just a carriage.
“Diana,” he started, but she was already shaking her head.
“Please,” she said softly. “I know this changes nothing between us. You needn’t pretend otherwise out of some misplaced sense of obligation.”
Before he could respond, before he could find the words to tell her how wrong she was, how much everything had changed the moment he’d learned she was hurt, Diana’s eyes fluttered closed, and she swayed precariously on the step.
Without hesitation, Finn caught her against his chest. Her felt the fragile weight of her in his arms and he breathed in the familiar scent of her hair beneath the smell of dust and blood.
She was hurt. She was in his arms. And he finally understood with devastating clarity that he couldn’t breathe without her.
CHAPTER 27
“The physician has just left,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Hartwell assures me the injuries are not serious. A slight concussion, a sprained wrist, some bruising. Nothing that won’t heal in time.”
The clinical way she spoke of her injuries, as though discussing someone else’s condition, made something cold settle in Finn’s stomach. This wasn’t the Diana who’d challenged him in her parents’ drawing room, nor the woman who’d stood her ground with Highland society. This was someone who’d retreated so far behind her walls that she could speak of her own pain like a detached observer.
“You didn’t need to come,” she continued, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond his shoulder. “This doesn’t change anything.”
Even now, injured and vulnerable, she was trying to protect herself from him. From the man who’d hurt her so badly she’d rather face London’s streets alone than remain under his roof.
“Diana, I–”
“Please,” she interrupted, her voice taking on the same careful modulation he’d heard her use with difficult dinner guests. “Let me finish what I need to say before I lose my courage.”
Something in her tone made him freeze. He did not hear the quiet dignity he was used to, but something final. Decisive. As though she’d spent the hours since the accident making a decision she’d been avoiding for weeks.
“If it is truly what you want, I am willing to end this marriage, Finn.” Her voice remained calm, matter-of-fact, as though she were discussing the weather. “I’ll return to Drownshire. You can go back to whatever this was before.”
Her composure devastated him more than any tears or accusations could have. This was what he’d taught her – to hide her pain behind a Duchess’s mask, to speak of heartbreak as though it were a business arrangement.
“I’ve been thinking,” Diana continued, her eyes still focused on some distant point beyond him, “about what you said before you left for London. About keeping things... proper between us. About not mistaking proximity for something more meaningful.”
Each word was like a knife twisting in his chest. He winced as his own cruel phrases thrown back at him with devastating precision.
“I understand now that I allowed myself to misread the situation,” she said with that same terrible calm. “To imagine warmth where there was only duty. Affection where there was merely... convenience.”
“Diana, stop–”
“No, please. This is important to me.” She finally looked at him, and the careful blankness in her dark eyes made him feel sick. “I don’t blame you for any of it. You were clear about your expectations from the beginning. A marriage of mutual benefit. A partnership of convenience. I was the one who... who forgot the boundaries.”
Without conscious thought, Finn dropped to his knees beside the bed, his carefully maintained control finally shattering completely.
