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“So you truly do not care?”

“No, not at all. Why should I care? If they are not willing to say it to my face, then that is simply because they are too cowardly to say it to me themselves, and never is that more prevalent than it is for anonymous scribblers whose income is exclusively tied to creating rumors.”

Had he said it in that way the first time, she was more likely to have listened to him.

“Surely it gets to you though, after a while.”

“If I do not read it, then it cannot get to me. I have all the power this way, you see?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“Lady Diana, if you do not wish to act in a manner that allows you to hide from such things, then you cannot be surprised when you are an outcast for it. It is not a bad thing to have this happen to you, but you must accept that it will happen so long as you give them something to say.”

“I have always tried to act in a becoming manner,” she argued. “I had to, otherwise it put Samantha’s standing in jeopardy, and I could not risk that. I never could.”

“And that is why you took her place, is that it?”

“It wasn’t just that. I want her to be happy, and marrying you would not have done that, and it would have broken my heart if?—”

“If all of your work had been for nothing.”

“If all of her work had been for nothing. Had she wanted to marry you, I would have stepped aside and wished her every happiness.”

“But she does not wish to marry at all, she told me herself.”

“And she has told me. It is quite a shame, because she would be a wonderful wife.”

“In which case, worrying for her standing is quite?—”

“Illogical, yes,” she replied with a laugh. “I am quite aware.”

“It is alright. She is fortunate to have you there for her.”

“Do you have anyone to do that for you, Your Grace?”

His face fell, and he faltered.

“No,” he replied. “Not since my mother passed.”

“I apologize, Your Grace. I did not mean to pry.”

“It is quite alright. I am aware that our situations are quite similar, you know.”

“Yes, I suppose they are.”

“Now, I do not mean to pry myself, but if you do not mind telling me, what happened?”

Diana bristled. She had not talked about what happened to her mother all that time ago, never out loud, even to her own sister. Samantha had never outright asked, and Diana had never made a point to inform her. It was almost an unspoken rule between the two of them that one would not ask and the other would not tell, and nobody else had ever cared enough to try.

“There was a fire.”

She said it before she had decided whether or not she was going to.

“My sincerest apologies,” he said gently. “If it is too recent?—”

“It was a long time ago. Samantha was a baby, and I was six years old. To this day, we do not know how it started, but it ended with a beam falling. It landed on my mother as she was trying to escape, and she could not move. She handed Samantha to me and told me to go, and I did.”

“You did the right thing, in case you ever question that.”