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Devons held his arm out to her. She laughed and took it. The wind battered them as they walked out to the lighthouse and Devons yelled, “Are you sure you don’t want to turn back?”

“Are you scared?”

He grinned at her. “Not at all.”

They continued, charging through the swirling air and across the bridge leading out to the lighthouse.

They stopped along the wall of the stone building, facing the fort.

Diana grabbed her hair. It had fallen out and now swirled around her shoulders.

Instinctively she reached to find pins to fix it.

Devons stopped her. “Leave it. It will only fall out again once we go around to the other side.”

They started to move to the side facing the ocean and the wind pounded against them, but Diana didn’t care. The sight of the waves crashing against the rocks just below the lighthouse was exhilarating. A waist-high wall prevented them from tumbling onto the jagged rocks.

Devons, Diana was discovering, was a cautious man.

He stood with his back flush to the lighthouse stone, motioning her to him.

She laughed as her hair swirled around her.

She threw her hands up and let the air batter them, as she stood looking at the ocean.

Then she turned, wanting to feel the cool mist of the ocean on her back.

Her travel companion, the notorious King of the Den, continued to lean against the lighthouse wall with his arms folded. He was missing all the fun.

She held her hand out to him and hollered, “Join me!”

Devons was being too serious.

She pretended to fall, and he charged forward grabbing her hand. She laughed.

He yelled, “Minx!”

She didn’t respond but held onto his hand and spun around.

She forced their clasped fingers up in the air before throwing her other arm up, hoping Devons would do the same.

He did. They stood like that at the farthest point on earth, letting nature batter them.

Devons smiled at her, and she grinned back at him. Diana hadn’t felt this alive in years.

*

The following day, Sebastian smiled as he observed Diana in front of him on the rowboat. Her hat fell back, and she closed her eyes, tilting her face to the sky. He needed to stop studying her so much, even if he enjoyed it.

At the lighthouse, he’d been unable to look away.

She’d teased him afterward about being scared, but the truth was he’d been transfixed by her and, for a moment, lost all awareness of anything but her delight in the wind and the crashing waves.

They were friends. He could enjoy her happiness, he assured himself.

This connection with Diana needn’t become an infatuation or more.

He turned away and perused the scenery. The weather was perfect to spend the day in the cove Monroe ordered his men to anchor offshore from. The boat stopped and one of the sailors jumped out. The sailor turned to Diana and Lady Clark. “My ladies, I will carry you the rest of the way.”

“How will we make it to shore?” Mr. Spoor asked, looking confused.

“One moment, sir. I will transport you as well,” the sailor explained.

Sebastian snorted and started taking off his boots. He looked at the sailor. “Do you really want to carry me?”

The sailor shrugged but Sebastian wasn’t doing it.

He was a large man. He couldn’t imagine how he would look being carried around by a boy half his size.

He removed his jacket and rolled his pants up past his knees.

Pulling his watch from a pocket, he turned to hand it to Diana who stared back at him wide-eyed.

Her cheeks were flushed and a flicker of something thrummed between them.

Interrupting the moment, Lady Clark said, “Goodness, Devons. Quite the show.”

He laughed, hoping to suppress whatever he’d just felt.

“Aunt!” Diana said.

Sebastian glanced at Diana. “It’s fine. Will you hold this for me?”

She nodded and he passed his most prized possession to her. Their fingers brushed as he did so, and just like that the flicker of something came back. He hopped out of the boat as if running from it.

He grimaced. The water was higher than he guessed, and his pants were wet up to almost his thighs. Still, he would be damned before he would allow himself to be carried about. The sailor asked Diana to scoot closer to the edge of the rowboat.

“I will assist her,” Sebastian said, wanting, he supposed, to torture himself more.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” Diana said, blushing.

He waded over to the side she was on and slid his arms under her legs. “Ready?”

“Yes, she is,” her aunt said.

Diana frowned at Lady Clark before turning back to Devons. “Are you sure?”

“Wrap one of your arms around my neck,” he said.

She leaned forward and did as he asked while her other hand held tightly to his watch. He should have left the damn thing on the ship but hadn’t considered it. The gift from his father was always with him. He lifted Diana, pulling her towards him. Her body pushed up against his chest and stomach.

The woman in his arms felt like a perfection he didn’t want or need.

He could deny it or continue to insist his previous actions with Diana were caused by his attempts to mend his broken heart, but he knew what attraction was and his desire for the lady was real.

The thought disconcerted him, and he clenched his jaw as he moved to the shore.

“Am I too heavy?” she asked before biting her lip.

He looked at her startled. “Of course not.”

“You appear to be struggling.”

He couldn’t very well tell her he enjoyed her in his arms a little too much and was envisioning her legs wrapped around his body. His shaft came to life at the thought. As if she intentionally meant to torture him, though he knew she didn’t, Diana wiggled up against him.

“I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth as they reached the shore.

They turned their heads at the same time and their lips were mere inches apart. A memory of their previous kiss flashed in his mind. He heard a hitch in her breath. He leaned forward but was brought back to the present when Lady Clark yelled, “I’m next Devons.”

Diana blinked, startled. He laughed, releasing her so she stood on the beach. They glanced back to see Mr. Spoor being carried on the sailor’s back. Laughter erupted from both of them.

He smiled wryly. “I’m a much bigger man than Mr. Spoor. Can you imagine that boy carrying me?”

She laughed more. “No.”

Another sailor tried to assist Lady Clark, and she motioned to Devons. The sailor attempted again, and she batted at his hands, causing the young man to turn bright red.

“I have her,” Sebastian said, wading back into the cold water. Assisting Lady Clark was what he needed right now. He needed space from Diana. He couldn’t keep fantasizing about her legs wrapped around him.

Later in the day, Devons sat with Diana on a blanket, watching the men swim in the turquoise ocean. They swam in their pants and shirts, foregoing formality for a moment. He glanced at Diana who wistfully watched others splash in the ocean.

“Would you like to go in?”

Her eyes flicked down to her dress and she laughed. “I will sink to the bottom. The water is so beautiful. I have never seen a blue like this before. I may be a smidge envious that men can frolic in it.”

He didn’t know how he would do it but at some point, he would find somewhere for Diana to swim. She sighed and the yearning on her face disappeared. Sebastian, out of habit, snapped his pocket watch open and closed. Diana said, “Your watch is lovely.”

He studied his timepiece with all of its ornate carvings, knowing none of that mattered to him. “It could be the ugliest of watches and it would still be special to me. My father gave it to me.”

“Were you close?”

Sebastian raised a brow at her personal question. She smiled at him. “Are we not friends?”

Not many people asked him about his family.

One didn’t broach such topics when they were born out of wedlock and their father was a well-known marquess.

Even more scandalous, Sebastian’s father and his marchioness, Malcolm’s mother, chose love over societal rules.

The marquess moved Sebastian and his mother into his country estate with him and Malcolm, while his wife lived abroad with her companion.

“We were. I grew up at Derry Hall with my father, mother, and half-brother for most of my life. Well besides when we were away at school.”

They were quiet for a moment, and he added, “The hall was like a sanctuary from the rest of society for my family. A place where my father openly loved my mother and where my brother and I were always treated as equals. It is still one of my favorite places to be.”

He flipped open the watch and showed her the engraved words he’d done his best to remember every day of his life. The measure of a man is defined by his actions.

“Loving words for a man to tell his son. Your upbringing seems unique but wonderful.”

Sebastian smirked. “That isn’t to say there weren’t dramatics and a price for living in scandal, but I’d like to believe my parents and Malcolm’s mother, along with her companion, made the right choice. They chose love.”

Diana smiled, amused. “You are such a romantic, Sebastian Devons.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “A practical romantic. I will only ever wed for love. I had a front-row seat of what can happen if you don’t.”

“You are lucky you are a man and can make that choice.”

Sebastian studied her. “You could marry for love again. You loved your husband.”

Sadness flickered across her face. “For ladies, especially the mother of a duke, marriage is more of a business arrangement.”

She deserved to be loved again, deeply. Sebastian didn’t say it, knowing that even though Diana was on this adventure she would go back to whom she had been before. They both would. Instead, he said, “I’m so sorry you lost him.”

She glanced down, playing with sand as if thinking through her thoughts.

Eventually, she looked at him. “Thank you. I’m happy I was able to experience love at least once, no matter how brief.

We were lucky. I didn’t choose him. My parents and his father made the match.

His, because he was afraid Stuart would never marry as he was so quiet.

Mine, because he would someday be a duke. Love grew for us.”

“Sometimes that is the best way.”

She flushed. “I had my own preconceived notions when I met him. He was not what I envisioned or whom I thought my parents would pick.”

“What changed?” Sebastian asked, curious.

Diana pursed her lips and thought about it.

“I had assumed he wouldn’t want anything to do with me because of how transactional our betrothal was and that I was merely a means to carrying on his family’s title.

I was distant from him at first. But he shocked me.

He insisted on speaking with me all the time.

He wanted to understand my thoughts, my desires, and what would bring me joy.

No one had ever asked me such questions.

I had been raised to be whatever my husband dictated. ”

Sebastian discreetly reached over and squeezed her hand. She smiled and glanced at him with watery eyes. “We laughed a lot. We learned about passion together. Not only was I naive about such things but Stuart, until marriage, hadn’t been terribly focused on it either.”

She blushed a fierce red and added, “The books he brought home for us shocked me at first. My husband was a thorough man when it came to research. It was beautiful to explore and learn such things together.”

“You make me wish my first experiences were more special.”

She pulled her hand away and wiped her watery eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I shared something so personal. Some days are harder than others.”

“I apologize for bringing it up.”

“It’s fine. I have had plenty of time to grieve. He would be so upset with me for being so sad. When we knew the end was near, he made me promise I would be happy.”

“I had heard he was sick for quite some time.”

Diana nodded. “He kept passing out. The doctors determined he had a heart condition, and he wouldn’t make it another year. He passed away six months later.”

She wiped her eyes again. “Ugh…No more of this talk.”

There was so much more he wanted to say, but Sebastian didn’t. He stood and held out his hand. He didn’t want her to end the day filled with such sadness. “You may be unable to swim in the ocean, but I think walking along the shore would be a wonderful reprieve.”

Diana took a deep breath and allowed him to pull her up. Once she was standing, Sebastian tucked her hand in his arm.