Page 43 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)

“ F inn, might I have a word?”

Diana’s voice carried across the study’s silence as she stood in the doorway with a leather-bound package clutched against her chest like armor.

Two days had passed since the storm, since their kiss in the rain that had changed everything and nothing all at once.

Two days of Finn retreating behind walls higher than any she’d yet encountered.

“I’m rather occupied at the moment.” Finn didn’t look up from his correspondence, his quill scratching against parchment with unnecessary force. “Perhaps later.”

“I think not.” Diana stepped into the room uninvited, closing the door behind her with quiet finality. “Later, you’ll find another excuse. Later, you’ll be even more determined to avoid any conversation that ventures beyond estate business and the weather.”

Finn’s hand stilled on the paper. “Diana–”

“Two days, Finn.” She moved closer to his desk, noting the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful way he avoided meeting her gaze. “Two days of treating me like a stranger again. Two days of pretending that what happened during the storm–”

“It didn’t mean anythin’.” The words emerged flat and unconvincing.

Diana placed the wrapped package on his desk with deliberate precision. “Then perhaps this will mean nothing as well.”

Finn’s eyes flicked to the bundle, then back to his papers. “What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

“I don’t have time for–”

“Make time.” Diana’s voice carried a note of steel that made him finally look up, meeting her determined gaze across the polished mahogany surface. “Please.”

The single word, spoken quietly but with unmistakable resolve, seemed to catch him off guard. Finn set down his quill and reached for the package with reluctant fingers.

“Diana, if this is some attempt to–”

“It’s a gift,” she interrupted simply. “Nothing more, nothing less. Though I suppose your reaction to it will tell me everything I need to know about where we truly stand.”

Finn’s hands hesitated on the leather binding. “Where we stand?”

“Whether you’re capable of accepting something offered freely, without conditions or expectations.” Diana settled into the chair across from his desk, her brown eyes steady on his face. “Whether you can allow someone to care about you without immediately building higher walls to keep them out.”

Finn’s jaw tightened, but he began unwrapping the package with careful, methodical movements. The leather fell away to reveal a beautifully bound book, its cover embossed with subtle gold lettering that simply read: “For Finn.”

“Diana, what–”

“Open it,” she said softly.

Finn lifted the cover, and his breath caught audibly.

The first page contained a carefully mounted sketch – one of his own childhood drawings but cleaned and preserved with obvious care.

It was a simple drawing of Storme Castle but rendered with the hopeful eyes of a boy who still believed home could be a place of safety and warmth.

“Where did ye get this?” His voice had gone rough.

“In the tower room.” Diana watched his face carefully, noting the way his fingers traced the edge of the drawing with unconscious reverence. “They were deteriorating, Finn. Some of the pages were already damaged by damp.”

He turned to the next page, then the next. Each one contained another rescued drawing – childhood sketches of Highland landscapes, portraits of servants who’d been kind to him, studies of birds and flowers that spoke of a boy who’d found beauty even in harsh circumstances.

“Ye had no right,” Finn said quietly, though he couldn’t seem to stop turning pages. “Ye had no right to take these.”

Diana leaned forward slightly. “I’m your wife, Finn. That makes me the keeper of your history as much as your future. And this history – these drawings – they’re proof of something your father tried very hard to destroy.”

“What’s that?”

“That you were born with the capacity for wonder. For finding beauty in difficult places. For hope.” Diana’s voice remained gentle but unwavering. “These sketches show a boy who believed the world could be beautiful, despite everything he’d already endured.”

Finn reached a page that made him go very still.

It was a drawing of his mother, or at least his attempt to capture her from the portrait he’d studies so often as a child – a woman with kind eyes and gentle hands, drawn with the yearning of someone trying to imagine what her love might have felt like.

The words sent warmth spiraling through Diana’s chest, but she forced herself to remain focused on what came next. “Turn the page.”

Finn complied, revealing a section of the book that was clearly Diana’s own work.

Here, she’d carefully mounted some of his more recent sketches – drawings she’d seen him working on when he thought no one was watching.

Studies of the castle staff, Highland landscapes captured during his morning rides, and there, near the end, several sketches of herself.

“When did ye...” Finn’s voice trailed off as he stared at a drawing he’d made of Diana in the garden. Her face was turned toward the sun with an expression of quiet contentment.

“I found them in your desk drawer when I was looking for sealing wax,” Diana admitted, a slight flush coloring her cheeks. “I hope you don’t mind that I included them. They’re beautiful, Finn. All of them.”

“They’re private.”

“Were private,” Diana corrected gently. “Now they’re part of a story that shows how your gift has grown and changed but never disappeared.”

Finn turned to the final section of the book, where Diana had written in her careful copperplate hand:

For my husband, who sees beauty in harsh places and captures wonder with charcoal and dream.

These drawings span years and pain and healing, but they all share one truth – you have always been an artist, no matter how hard the world tried to convince you otherwise.

Your mother’s dreams for you live on in every line you draw, every moment of beauty you choose to preserve instead of destroy.

You are worthy of wonder, Finn Hurriton. You always have been.

All my love, Diana.

The words blurred before his eyes. Finn closed the book carefully.

“Diana,” he said, his voice thick with emotion he couldn’t quite control. “This is... I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t say anything.” Diana rose from her chair and moved around the desk, close enough to see the way his breathing had changed and the careful control he was fighting to maintain.

“Just accept it. Accept that someone sees the value in preserving the parts of yourself you’ve tried so hard to bury. ”

Finn looked up at her, and Diana saw something crack in his expression – some wall finally beginning to crumble under the weight of her patient persistence.

“Why?” he asked simply. “Why would ye do this?”

“Because you matter to me,” Diana said quietly. The admission emerged more easily than she’d expected. “Because your art matters. Because the boy who drew these pictures deserved to have someone protect his dreams, even if no one was there to do it at the time.”

For a moment, Finn seemed poised on the edge of something – surrender, perhaps, or the kind of emotional honesty that had terrified him into retreat just two days ago. Diana held her breath, waiting, hoping.

Then his expression shuttered and the walls slammed back into place with almost audible force.

“‘Tis very thoughtful,” he said, his voice returning to that careful neutrality she’d come to dread. “Thank ye.”

The formal distance in his tone hit her like cold water. “That’s all?”

“What more would ye have me say?”

“I would have you say something real,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “Something that acknowledges what just happened here. Something that admits it affected you.”

“‘Tis a lovely gesture–”

“It’s not a gesture, Finn. It’s a declaration.

” Diana leaned forward and placed her hands flat on his desk.

“It’s me telling you that I see who you really are, that I value the parts of yourself you’ve convinced yourself are worthless.

It’s me fighting for us when you’re too frightened to fight for yourself. ”

Finn stood abruptly, moving away from the desk and toward the window where Highland mist obscured the landscape beyond. “Ye don’t understand–”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t.” His voice was rough with suppressed emotion. “I can’t give ye what ye want, Diana. I can’t be the man ye see in those damned drawings.”

“Why not?”

“Because that man doesn’t exist anymore!” The words erupted from him with startling violence. “He died years ago, along with every other soft thing in me. What ye’re seein’, what ye think ye’re preservin’ – ‘tis just shadows. Ghosts of somethin’ that was never meant to survive.”

Diana rose from her chair, moving toward him with the same careful approach she might use with a wounded animal. “What if he’s simply been waiting for someone to believe in him again?”

Finn’s voice carried a warning that made her pause. “Don’t try to resurrect somethin’ that’s better left buried.”

“Better for who? For you? Or for the scared boy who learned that caring about anything was dangerous?”

Finn’s shoulders were rigid with tension; every line of his body radiated the effort it took to maintain distance.

“The boy who made those drawings,” Diana continued softly, “he deserved better than what he got. And the man standing in front of me right now? He deserves better than what he’s giving himself.”

“Ye don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about.”

Diana moved closer, close enough to see the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I know you kissed me two nights ago like a man starving for connection. I know you confessed things in that drawing room that you’d never told another living soul.

I know you’re terrified of letting me matter to you. ”

“Diana–”

“And I know,” she continued, her voice dropping to something barely above a whisper, “that despite every wall you’ve built, despite every reason you give yourself to push me away, you’re falling in love with me just as hard as I’m falling in love with you.”

The confession blazed between them like a spark catching tinder, impossible to take back once spoken. Finn went very still, his breathing shallow as he stared at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

“Don’t say that,” he said finally.

“Why? Because it’s true? Because admitting it out loud makes it real?”

Finn turned away from her. His voice was thick with something that sounded close to despair. “Because I destroy everything I touch, Diana. And I won’t–”

Diana felt something fierce and protective rear up in her chest. “You’ve rebuilt an estate, earned the loyalty of people who had every reason to distrust you, created something beautiful from nothing. How is that destruction?”

“Because all of it is built on lies!” The words tore from him like a wound being reopened. “Every success, every moment of acceptance – ‘tis all dependent on me pretendin’ to be somethin’ I’m not. The moment anyone sees what I really am beneath all the careful polish...”

“What happens then?”

Finn’s laugh was bitter and cold. “Then they leave. They always leave.”

Diana moved until she was directly behind him, close enough to touch but careful not to cross that line without permission. “I’m still here.”

“‘Tis only a matter of time–”

“No.” The simple word carried absolute conviction. “I’m still here, and I’m not leaving. Not ever.”

Finn’s shoulders sagged slightly, as though the weight of her persistence was finally breaking through his defenses.

“Ye should take that book and everything it represents and accept that this marriage will never be what ye’re hopin’ for.

Ye shouldn’t waste yer heart on someone who can’t love ye properly. ”

“What if I don’t want anything, or anyone else? Diana asked quietly. “What if I want the one standing in front of me, exactly as he is – walls and wounds and stubborn determination to push away anything good?”

Diana watched the tension in his shoulders. She saw the way his hands gripped the window frame as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.

“The book,” she said finally, “does it mean anything to you?”

Finn was quiet for so long that Diana began to think he wouldn’t answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible above the Highland wind outside.

“It means everythin’,” he admitted. “And that’s why it’s so damned dangerous.”

Diana felt her heart skip at the admission, hope blooming in her chest like spring flowers after a harsh winter. “Finn–”

“No.” He turned back to face her, and what she saw in his expression made her breath catch. Not cold distance this time, but something raw and desperate and utterly vulnerable. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“What if I want to fight for this, for us, even when you won’t?”

“Then ye’re a fool,” he said quietly. “Because I’ll only hurt ye in the end.”

Diana studied his face, seeing past the words to the fear beneath them. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you’re already hurting me by pushing me away. I think your attempts to protect me are doing exactly what you’re afraid your love would do.” Diana moved closer, close enough to see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat. “So perhaps it’s time to stop being afraid of the wrong things.”

Finn stared at her, this woman who’d somehow seen straight through every defense he’d ever built, who refused to be deterred by his cruelty or his coldness or his desperate attempts to drive her away.

“Diana…” he said, her name emerging like a prayer and a curse combined.

“Stop telling me what I can’t handle and let me decide for myself.” She reached up to touch his face with fingertips that trembled with courage and desire.

For a heartbeat, they stood frozen in the study’s afternoon light, balanced on the edge of everything they’d both been too afraid to want.

Diana felt the weight of the moment pressing down on them both – the gift laying between them on the desk as proof that she had seen value in the parts of him he’d tried so hard to bury, that she was willing to fight for the dreams he’d given up on long ago.

It was beautiful and terrifying, and she could see it in his eyes that it was devastating to every wall he’d ever built around his heart.

Looking into Finn’s face, seeing the war between hope and fear playing out across his handsome features, Diana realized that all his careful distance had been crumbling steadily for weeks. He was no longer the cold, controlled duke who had married her out of necessity.

The only question now was whether her husband was brave nough to let himself be found.