Page 23 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)
“ I could hardly believe my ears when I heard ye’ve gone and gotten married to a sassenach for a Duchess.”
Finn looked up from the estate reports scattered about his desk to find a familiar figure filling his study doorway – Laird Lachlan MacRae, tracking mud across the Persian carpet with the same casual disregard for propriety he’d shown since their midshipman days.
The sight of his old friend brought an unexpected warmth to Finn’s chest. Locke had always possessed the rare ability to appear precisely when needed, whether during naval crisis, or, apparently, a domestic one.
“Locke.” Finn rose, unable to suppress the ghost of a smile. “What brings ye north? Run out of whisky?”
“I had to come see the miracle for myself,” Locke replied, crossing the room with that easy stride that had carried him through countless tavern brawls and naval battles.
His bone-crushing handshake felt like coming home.
“A Scottish Duke tamin’ himself for marriage?
The Highland gossips are beside themselves with the novelty of it all! ”
Finn gestured toward the chair across from his desk, noting how Locke’s presence immediately filled the room with an energy that he himself had been lacking for weeks. “Ye’ve ridden hard to get here. How long since ye left Edinburgh?”
“Two days of hard ridin’ through weather that would make even the toughest warrior weep,” Locke replied. “But I had to see this transformation with my own two eyes. The Terror of the Atlantic, domesticated at last.”
“Ye’re late. The miracle’s already worn off.”
“Has it now?” Locke’s dark eyes glittered with mischief as he studied Finn’s face with the practiced assessment of someone who’d served as his first officer for seven years. “Then why do ye have the look of a man who’s been wrestlin’ with demons?”
“Marriage has been… an adjustment,” Finn said instead, moving to the sideboard. The decanter felt heavier than usual in his hands, and he wondered when pouring whisky had become his solution to uncomfortable conversations.
“Dram?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?” Locke accepted the glass with a grin. “Now then, tell me about this mysterious English rose who’s supposedly captured the cold heart of Finn Hurriton?”
“No one’s captured anythin’,” Finn replied sharply. “It’s a practical arrangement. Nothin’ more.”
Locke’s eyebrows rose at the vehement denial. “Aye. Practical. That’s why ye’re pourin’ whisky at ten in the mornin’, lookin’ like ye haven’t slept properly in weeks?”
“I’ve had estate matters–”
“Finn.” Locke’s voice carried the authority of someone who’d stood beside him on burning decks and watched him command men through Hell itself.
“‘Tis me yer talkin’ to. The man who watched ye take apart a French frigate with nothin’ but cannon smoke and sheer bloody-minded determination. What’s really goin’ on?”
Finn stared into his glass, watching the amber liquid catch the firelight.
What was going on with him? Two days ago, he thought he understood his marriage, his life, his carefully ordered existence…
and then Diana had walked into that ballroom wearing his family colors like she belonged there, belonged to him, and everything had shifted beneath his feet like a deck in a storm.
“She’s… different than I expected.”
“Different how?”
“More…” He struggled for the word while running a hand through his hair. “…present.”
“Present?”
“She doesn’t fade into the background the way I thought she would.
” Finn moved to the window, needing distance from Locke’s penetrating stare.
“At Inverthistle Hall, she commanded that room like she was born to do it. You won’t believe this, but Margaret MacTavish actually smiled at her – genuinely smiled, not that sharp-edged thing she usually wears. ”
Locke whistled low. “That’s impressive. Maggie MacTavish hasn’t genuinely smiled at anyone since the Battle of Trafalgar. So, what’s the problem?”
The problem was that he couldn’t stop thinkin’ about her. The problem was that when she looked at him, he forgot why he built these walls around his heart in the first place. The problem was that he’s starting to want things he swore he’d never want again.
“There’s no problem,” Finn said instead. “We have an understanding. She plays the Duchess; I play the devoted husband. Everyone’s sufficiently satisfied.”
“Are they now?” Locke leaned back in his chair, studying Finn with the intensity that had made him a formidable intelligence officer. “And how did this… performance go over at the ball?”
Finn’s jaw tightened. “Well enough.”
“Well enough?” Locke echoed, his smile deepening. “Because from what I heard, ye danced with yer wife like a man enchanted. Word is ye couldn’t take yer eyes off her.”
“The gentry saw what they were meant to see. That’s all.”
“Is it?” Locke set down his glass and leaned forward.
“Because for as long as I’ve known ye, Finn Hurriton – what’s it been, fifteen years now?
– I’ve seen ye charm admirals’ daughters when it served yer purposes, and I’ve watched ye cut seasoned officers to ribbons with no more than a look…
but I’ve never seen ye lose control of a situation. ”
“I didn’t lose–”
“Then why do ye look like a man whose been caught in a riptide?”
Finn found himself thinking of Diana and the way she’d felt in his arms during their dance – warm and real in ways he couldn’t quantify.
“It was just a performance,” he said again. “Nothing more.”
Locke’s laugh was deceptively casual, but his eyes remained sharp and assessing. “The Finn I know wouldn’t need to convince himself of that quite so hard.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means ye’re lyin’ to yerself, and we both know it.” Locke picked up his glass again, swirling the whisky thoughtfully. “What I want to know is, why?”
Finn stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with more force than necessary. He moved to the window that overlooked the castle grounds. He stood there with his hands clasped behind his back in the rigid posture that hand once commanded respect from hardened sailors.
In the distance, he could see Diana walking through the garden. Her dark cloak created a stark contrast against the winter landscape. Even from here, there was something about the way she moved – purposeful, graceful, and entirely herself.
“She’s my responsibility,” he said without turning around.
“Responsibility.” Locke’s tone was carefully neutral, but Finn could hear the skepticism beneath it. “Is that what we’re callin’ it?”
“It is what it is.”
“They why do ye watch her like ye want to memorize every step she takes?”
Finn spun around, his temper finally fraying. “What do ye want me to say, Locke?”
“I want ye to tell me the truth.” Locke’s voice was gentler now, without its usual mocking edge. “Because ye’re my oldest friend, and I’ve never seen ye this twisted up over anythin’. Not even when we lost the Intrepid .”
The mention of his former ship hit him like an axe to the torso. Finn had commanded the Intrepid for three years before losing her in a battle off the coast of Spain along with twenty-three good men. The guilt of that loss still woke him up in the dark hours before dawn with disturbing regularity.
“This is different,” Finn said quietly.
“Aye, it is. Because this time, if ye’re smart about it, ye might actually get to keep what matters to ye.”
“Nothin’–”
“Bull.” Locke stood, crossing to stand beside his friend at the window. “Look at her, Finn. Really look at her.”
Finn followed his gaze to where Diana had stopped beside the old oak tree.
She tilted her head back as though she were studying the bare branches against the gray sky.
Her sketchbook was open in her hands, and even from this distance, he could see the careful attention she paid to capturing some detail that had caught her artist’s eye.
“She’s sketchin’,” Locke observed. “Even in this bitin’ cold, she’s out there drawin’ yer castle like it matters to her.”
It shouldn’t matter to him what she thought of his ancestral home .
But watching Diana capture some detail that had enticed her artistic sensibilities, Finn felt something shift in his chest – like a key turning in a long-locked door.
She wasn’t just performing the role of Duchess – she was trying to understand this place, to find beauty in its harsh lines and cold stones.
“She’s been doin’ that since she arrived,” Finn found himself saying. “Drawin’ everythin’ – the castle, the grounds, even the servants goin’ about their work. Mrs. Glenwright told me she even found her in the kitchens yesterday, sketchin’ Cook while she kneaded bread.”
“And how does that make ye feel?” Locke asked with the careful tone of someone navigating treacherous waters.
“It makes me feel like she sees somethin’ here worth preserving,” Finn admitted before he could stop himself. “Or worth rememberin’.”
“The ball really rattled ye, didn’t it?” Locke said quietly.
“No.”
“Then explain to me why yer hands are shakin’.”
Finn looked down and was horrified to discover that Locke was right. His hands – normally steady enough to thread a needle in a storm or fire a pistol with deadly accuracy – were trembling like those of a green midshipman facing his first battle.
“Christ,” he muttered, curling his fingers into fists and pressing them against the window frame.
“It’s not weakness, ye know,” Locke said softly. “Carin’ about someone.”
“It is for me. Every time I’ve cared about anyone, I’ve lost them. My ship. My men. My mother… Caring is a luxury I can’t afford, Locke.”
“And if ye don’t have a choice?”