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“Ask away,” he sighed.

“Do you love your wife?” She looked at him simply.

Magnus leaned back. “I... I mean... she is very pretty and --”

“Do you love your wife?” she repeated.

Magnus wasn’t sure why he hesitated, for he knew the answer the second she asked the question. It had been hovering in his subconscious for days, fighting to get out, right there and ready for the taking, all he needed was the courage to snatch it and say it true.

He ran last night, not because he did not love Diana, but because he did. And he was here right now for the same reason.

“I do,” he said, feeling the words swell inside of him as if they had lit a fire. “I do love her.”

“And does she love you?”

He laughed bitterly. “Until last night, I think she just might have.”

“Then she still does,” his grandmother says. “Love does not leave us so quickly, and if she loves you as you love her, then I dare say, all this panic you are feeling is for nought.”

“But what if I cannot protect her? What if I fail? What if... what if I have been right about myself all along?” He felt the words crush him...

His grandmother continued to smile. “Then you are not the Duke of Albury who I have known for some thirty-three years. You are certainly not the Magnus whom I love. And you are not the man your brother admired from the first time he opened his eyes to the last time he closed them. And if that is the case...” She pulled her hand back. “You best leave, because I do not drink tea with strangers.”

Magnus laughed at that, unable to help himself. Her words buoyed him, revealing a truth he always knew but needed to hear spoken.

He felt like a fool. An idiot. A true dolt, for the way he had acted. A fear that was unnecessary. Panic, brought on by a lie. He loved Diana and that was all which mattered and now it was time to prove it.

“I need to go,” he said, standing up.

“I suspected as much.”

“Grandmother...” He shook his head and smiled. “Thank you for the tea.”

“I told you that tea solves everything. Now...” She waved her hand. “Go. And do not come back.”

And that was exactly what Magnus did. He fled his grandmother’s manor, jumped atop his horse, and rode at pace back toward his own home. All the while, his mind was fixed firmly on Diana and what he would say when he saw her. And all the while, his mind was fixed on what she would say when she heard his words.

The only fear he held now was that he might be too late. But no, surely not. This was love, and love did not die so easily.

ChapterTwenty-Three

It was almost as soon as Magnus left her that a courier arrived at the estate with an urgent message for Diana. She was still playing outside with the girls when, so she was not aware of its arrival until one of the household staff hurried through the back garden to find her. By that point the courier was gone, leaving behind a single letter.

“Did he say who it was from?” Diana asked, taking the letter from the member of staff. She did not know his name, but he was young and out of breath from having rushed to find her.

“No, Your Grace. In fact, when I asked who had sent him, he outright refused to tell me.”

Diana frowned as she eyed the letter in her hand. “How strange.”

Chalk it up to yet another oddity occurring in Diana’s life across the last twenty-four hours. She was still reeling from what had transpired the previous evening, still suffering from what she could only assume to be a broken heart – she had never had one before, so she wasn’t aware of the effects or how it should feel.

Painful, that is how. Like my chest has been hacked apart, my ribs torn asunder, and my heart snatched free and then stepped on and left in the dirt. A broken heart? More like a destroyed one.

She still could not believe what had happened. Further to that point, she still could not believe how the duke had behaved since. Last night, she had done her best to convince herself that come this morning, Magnus would arrive at his senses and apologize for having left her alone after bedding her -- treating her like a common whore was how it felt.

Sadly, perhaps most predictably, he chose to pretend that nothing was the matter! As if the two would carry on and Diana might forget how he had left her. As if all was normal and she was the fool for expecting anything close to an apology or explanation.

It was not normal. It was a travesty the likes of which Diana could not have imagined because it was just so strange. She knew that Magnus was closed off emotionally, but they had come so far, and finally he was starting to see her in ways he never had before. Love... she had felt it blossoming between them.