Page 22 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)
Diana lifted her chin, meeting his intense stare without flinching. “Then it’s fortunate that I never asked for kindness.”
Diana saw something flicker in his gray-blue eyes that made her stomach flutter with nervous excitement.
“What did ye ask for?” he demanded, and there was something hungry in his voice that made her breath catch.
Diana took a deep breath. The brutally honest answer was that she’d never asked for anything at all, not really.
She’d simply accepted what was offered, taken what was given, and hoped for scraps of affection.
But, standing here in his arms, wearing his colors and feeling like she finally found a place she could belong to, she realized that perhaps it was time to start asking for more.
“Everything,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Finn’s eyes darkened, and for a moment Diana thought he might forget where they were entirely. His hand flexed against her back as his grip on hers tightened until she could feel the heat of his skin through her gloves.
The music swelled around them, and they moved together perfectly, though Diana felt as if her heart was ready to burst out of her chest. Every brush of his fingers against her back, every shared breath, and every moment their eyes locked sent fresh waves of fire racing through her veins.
This was so far removed from the pretense they’d planned – and it should have shocked her. But instead, it filled her with a wild, reckless joy that made her want to throw caution to the wind.
Something was different, but Finn couldn’t quite figure it out as he guided Diana through the final turns of the dance.
She was supposed to be his anchor tonight, his proof that he could navigate Highland society with grace, and with a wife on his arm.
But instead, she was… distracting him in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
The way she’d handled Margaret MacTavish, the confidence in her voice, the way she wore that damned tartan sash like she truly belonged in this world – it was doing something to him that had absolutely nothing to do with social performance.
Bu more than that, it was the way she felt in his arms and the way she looked at him when she thought no one else was paying attention. His wife was slowly unravelling something inside him that he’d kept carefully controlled for years.
“They’re watching us,” Diana murmured, her eyes flickering toward the crowd.
“Aye,” Finn replied, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to care about their audience. Not anymore. Not when her hand in his felt like the most natural thing in the world. “Ye’re handlin’ it well.”
“Am I?” There was something different in her voice too – less uncertainty, more… presence.
“Better than well, actually.”
When the final notes began to fade, neither of them stepped apart immediately. They stood there for a heartbeat longer than propriety dictated, close enough for him to catch a faint scent of her rosewater perfume.
The dance was ending, but Finn found himself reluctant to release her. Around them, other couples were beginning to step apart, but his hand lingered at her waist just a moment longer than it should have.
“Your Grace?” Diana said quietly, and something in the way she said his name made his chest tighten.
“Aye?”
She looked up at him then, really looked at him, and Finn felt something shift between them – something he was not prepared to examine too closely.
“This was supposed to be simple, but…”
He stared down at her, not trusting himself to respond. Yes, it should have been a simple affair. A dance. A performance, nothing more. But the way she was looking at him now…
The final notes faded away, and reality crashed back over them. Finn forced himself to release her, to step back to proper distance and remember they had an audience.
“Well done, Duchess,” he said formally, offering her a bow.
Diana curtsied in return, but when she rose, her eyes held something new – a question he wasn’t ready to answer.
As they walked off the dance floor in careful silence, Finn couldn’t shake the feeling that something fundamental had just changed between them.
He just wasn’t sure he was ready to find out what.
Diana sat at her dressing table an hour later, her silver-blue gown carefully tucked away, her hair loose around her shoulders. But her hands trembled slightly as she reached for her sketchbook. Her mind still turned over the evening’s events.
The ball had been an unqualified success. They’d convinced Highland society that they were a devoted couple, and Diana had passed every test with flying colors.
Margaret MacTavish had personally introduced her to three different ladies. Old MacTavish had insisted on showing her his collection of Highland artifacts, and even the formidable Lady MacPherson had pronounced her ‘a credit to the Storme name’.
But none of that mattered as much as those precious moments on the dance floor when Finn had looked at her like she was something precious and worth admiring.
This was supposed to be simple.
Her own words echoed in her mind as she opened to a blank page.
She picked up her charcoal and began to sketch, her hands moving without conscious thought.
She drew their dance, the way he’d held her, the careful distance that had somehow felt less careful as the music played.
But as the image took shape on the page, she found herself capturing something she couldn’t quite name, the moment when the performance had felt… different.
What was that look in his eyes? What had he meant when he said she disarmed him? And why did her own bold declaration – that she wanted it all from him – still send that strange heat twirling through her chest?
The question echoed in her mind and unsettled her more than she cared to admit. For the last week, she’d been learning how to be his Duchess, his anchor, his proof that he belonged in Highland society. Tonight, she’d succeeded beyond her own expectations. So why did she feel so… unmoored?
It was the way he’d looked at her, she realized. Not like a Duke assessing his Duchess’s performance, but like… something else entirely. Something that made her pulse quicken and her breath catch.
Diana pressed her fingertips to her lips, remembering the intensity blazing in his gray-blue eyes during those final moments of the dance. There had been something there she’d never seen before – something that made her stomach flutter in ways that had absolutely nothing to do with nervousness.
Don’t read more into it , she told herself firmly. It was just the music and the candlelight and the success of the evening. Nothing more.
But even as she tried to dismiss her own thoughts, Diana couldn’t shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed between them.
She closed the sketchbook and pressed it against her chest, feeling the rapid beat of her heart under the leather binding.
Tomorrow they would, no doubt, return to their careful politeness, their measured interactions, and their marriage of mutual benefit. But would either of them be able to forget the moment when it had felt like something more?
As if summoned by her thoughts, a soft knock came at her chamber door. Diana’s heart leapt into her throat and her pulse fluttered with sudden hope.
“Come in,” she called softly.
But when the door was opened, it wasn’t Finn standing in the doorway. It was a servant carrying a small silver tray.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Your Grace, but His Grace asked me to bring ye this.”
Diana’s hands trembled slightly as she took the tray. On it, lay a single sprig of Highland heather, still fresh with evening dew, and a folded piece of parchment bearing her name in Finn’s bold handwriting.
Her breath hitched as she unfolded the note. Inside, in his precise script, there were only four words:
You were magnificent tonight. – F.
Diana sank onto the edge of her bed with the note clutched in her trembling fingers. Short, simple words they might be, but they carried more weight than any elaborate declaration. He’d seen her tonight – really seen her – and found her worthy of acknowledgement.
She brought the heather to her nose, breathing in its wild, Highland scent. Tomorrow, perhaps, they would return to their careful distance.
But tonight, she had this – irrefutable proof that whatever had passed between them on the dance floor at Inverthistle Hall, had been real.