Page 41 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)

“Aye. Every word, every movement, every breath seemed to beg for permission.” Finn found himself stepping closer, drawn by something he couldn’t name. “But not anymore.”

“No,” Diana said softly. “Not anymore.”

Thunder crashed overhead, so loud it rattled the windows in their frames. Neither of them moved, caught in a moment that felt balanced on the edge of something irrevocable.

“I used to pray for a quiet life,” Diana said suddenly, her gaze fixed on the dancing flames. “A husband who would be kind, children someday, a household to manage. Nothing complicated or challenging or... dangerous.”

“And now?” The question emerged before Finn could stop it.

“Now I think...” She hesitated, then met his gaze directly. “Maybe I want more.”

“What kind of more?” Finn asked, his voice rough.

“Connection. Understanding. A marriage that’s about more than just mutual convenience.” Diana turned from the fire to face him fully. “I want to know the man I married, not just the duke I’m required to obey.”

“More is difficult,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” Diana agreed. “But it’s real.”

They stood in silence while the storm raged outside. Finn found himself studying her face in the firelight – she was nothing like the woman he’d thought he was marrying.

“And if the man ye married isn’t worth knowing?” he asked, the words emerging like a confession torn from his very soul. “My father used to beat me when I flinched,”

Diana went very still, but she didn’t gasp or offer empty sympathies. She simply listened.

“When I cried, he called it weakness,” Finn continued, his voice flat. “When I bled, he told me to bleed quieter.”

Finn stared into the flames, seeing not the drawing room but a darker place where a boy had learned that showing pain only invited more of it.

“So, I stopped cryin’. And I stopped bleedin’. At least where anyone could see.”

Diana said nothing. Waiting. Listening.

“When I joined the Navy, I thought I’d finally escaped him,” Finn said, his voice roughening with memory. “But war has its own punishments. Men die under yer command. Some young. Some screamin’. And ye go on, because that’s what’s expected.”

He finally looked at her across the space between them, and what he saw nearly undid him. Not pity – he couldn’t have borne pity. But understanding. As though she saw straight through to the wounded boy he’d tried so hard to bury.

“So when ye ask me for more,” he said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. “I don’t know how to give it. I don’t believe in openin’ yerself to that kind of pain. I believe in survivin’. And keepin’ the ones ye care about at a safe distance, where they can’t be hurt by yer failures.”

Very slowly, Diana reached across the space between them. Her fingers, warm and gentle, covered his hand where it rested against the mantelpiece.

He tensed at the contact, but her touch was so careful that he found himself frozen in place.

“You’re not that man anymore,” she whispered. “You don’t have to be.”

Finn stared down at their joined hands, at the stark contrast between his scarred knuckles and her smooth skin. When last had anyone touched him with such gentleness?

“Don’t,” he said, though he made no move to pull away. “Don’t try to save me, Diana. I’m not worth the effort.”

“You’re making assumptions about what I want from you,” she replied, her voice stronger now. “Assumptions you have no right to make.”

“I’m the one who knows what I am.”

“Are you?” Diana’s thumb traced across his knuckles with butterfly softness.

The simple words hit him like lightning, illuminating truths he’d been desperate to keep hidden even from himself. “Diana...”

“You were terrified,” she continued, her voice gentle but implacable. “Not angry that I’d disobeyed you, not concerned about propriety. Terrified. Because somewhere along the way, this stopped being about duty for you too.”

Lightning flashed outside, throwing the room into stark relief before plunging them back into firelight.

In that moment of brilliant clarity, Finn saw himself as Diana must see him – not the inadequate pretender he’d always believed himself to be, but a man capable of love despite everything that had tried to beat it out of him.

“Aye,” he said finally, his voice barely audible above the storm. “It did.”

Diana’s breath caught, her fingers tightening around his. “Oh...”

“But that doesn’t change anythin’,” he said quickly, stepping back despite the loss of her warmth. “It doesn’t make this safe, Diana. It doesn’t make me worthy of what ye’re offerin’.”

“What am I offering?”

Finn met her gaze and saw hope there, fragile and fierce in equal measure. Hope that he could be the man she deserved. Hope that love might be possible even for someone like him.

Hope that terrified him more than any storm ever could.

“Everythin’,” he said simply. “And I don’t know how to accept it without destroyin’ it.”

Diana moved closer, close enough that he could smell the rain in her hair, could see the pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat. “Then perhaps,” she said softly, “it’s time you learned.”

Thunder crashed overhead, shaking the very foundations of Storme Castle. But neither of them moved. They were caught in a moment that felt balanced on the edge of a precipice.

“The fire’s dying,” Diana observed softly, though neither of them looked away from each other.

“Aye,” Finn agreed. His hand came up to cover hers where it rested against his cheek. “We should both retire.”

“Should we?” Diana’s voice carried a note of challenge that made his chest tighten.

“Ye should,” he said, though his thumb traced across her knuckles in a caress that contradicted his words entirely. “Before I forget why keepin’ ye at a distance was ever a good idea.”

Diana’s lips curved in a smile that was equal parts innocent and knowing. “What if I don’t want to be kept at a distance anymore?”

Finn felt his carefully maintained control beginning to fray, felt the walls around his heart cracking under the pressure of everything he’d tried so hard to deny.

Diana rose on her toes. Her intentions were clear as her eyes fluttered closed and her face tilted toward his. For a heartbeat, Finn wavered on the edge of surrender.

Then he stepped back.

“Goodnight, Diana,” he said, his voice rough.

Her eyes flew open and disappointment flickering across her features. “Of course. Goodnight, Finn.”

Then she was gone, leaving Finn alone in the dying firelight with the echo of her words and the devastating realization that safe distances were becoming impossible to maintain.

Diana was no longer content to be kept at arm’s length, and he was no longer certain he wanted her there.

Outside, the Highland storm raged with unrelenting fury, but inside Storme Castle, something far more transformative was brewing. Something that threatened every wall he’d ever built, every defense he’d ever relied upon.

Something that felt remarkably like hope.

When the castle clock chimed two in the morning, Finn finally climbed the stairs toward his chambers. But as he passed Diana’s door, he caught sight of lamplight flickering beneath the gap.

She was still awake.

And suddenly, with a clarity that cut through him like Highland steel, Finn realized that tomorrow, he would have to decide what he was willing to risk to keep her.

Tonight, he stood outside her door like a man at a crossroads, knowing that the only way forward was to choose a path he’d never dared walk before.