Page 47 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)
But in transforming her, he’d somehow lost sight of himself. The man who’d once prided himself on honesty and directness had become a coward, too afraid of his own feelings to recognize the woman falling in love with him.
Too late now, he told himself as he turned onto yet another street. She’s here somewhere, probably plannin’ how to return to her family. To forget the Highland brute who couldn’t appreciate what he had.
The thought sent fresh pain lancing through his chest. Diana, back at Drownshire Manor, returning to the life she’d known before he’d claimed her hand after a single dance. She’d find someone else eventually – someone who could give her the affection she deserved without all his baggage and fears.
Someone better.
The lamplit streets of Mayfair stretched endlessly before him, each elegant facade a testament to the ordered world he’d once thought he wanted.
But order without warmth was merely emptiness dressed in fine clothes.
He found himself pausing outside a milliner’s shop, staring at the delicate bonnets displayed in the window, and wondering if Diana had stopped here during her London visit.
Had she looked at these same ribbons and lace, thinking of the husband who’d driven her away?
A church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, marking another hour lost to his stubborn pride.
Another hour Diana spent believing herself unwanted, unloved.
The weight of that knowledge sat heavy in his chest like a stone, growing heavier with each step he took through the city that suddenly felt more foreign than any Highland moor.
The next morning brought gray skies and a knock at his door that shattered what little peace he’d managed to find. Finn’s London butler entered his study with the carefully neutral expression that usually preceded bad news.
“Your Grace, there’s a gentleman here to see you. Says it’s urgent.”
“I’m not receivin’ visitors–”
“It concerns Her Grace, Your Grace. The Duchess.”
Ice flooded Finn’s veins. “Send him in.”
The man who entered was clearly a tradesman. His clothes were neat but worn. He clutched his cap nervously in work-roughened hands. But his eyes held the kind of sharp intelligence that Finn recognized from his naval days – someone accustomed to observing details others might miss.
“Your Grace,” the man began, “I’m Thomas Fletcher. I drive hired carriages in the city.”
“What does that have to do with my wife?” Finn’s voice cut through the pleasantries like a sword.
Fletcher’s composure faltered slightly. “Yesterday afternoon, Her Grace hired my carriage to visit a sick child in Whitechapel. Little Mary Thompson, daughter of one of your tenants who came to London seekin’ work.”
Of course she had. Even here, even after everything he’d put her through, Diana was still thinking of others, still trying to help where she could. The thought of her alone in one of London’s roughest districts made his blood run cold.
Finn’s blood began to pound in his ears. Diana, traveling alone to one of London’s most unsafe districts. “Where is she now?”
“That’s just it, Your Grace. We never made it to the Thompson lodgings. Street was blocked by construction, so I took an alternate route. That’s when the carriage’s wheel caught a loose stone and we went over.”
The world seemed to tilt sideways. “What happened to my wife?”
“She was thrown clear when the carriage overturned, but she hit her head and arm somethin’ fierce.”
Finn was moving before the man finished speaking, grabbing his coat from the chair and shouting for his horse to be saddled. Fletcher hurried to keep pace as they headed for the door.
“She was taken to an inn—one that’s in a rough area, Your Grace. Might be better to take a carriage–”
“How long ago?” Finn’s voice was deadly quiet.
“Six minutes, maybe seven. She was conscious when I left to find you, but–”
Finn didn’t wait to hear the rest. He burst through the front door just as his groom appeared with Tempest. His black stallion danced impatiently at the reins. Without bothering with pleasantries or proper mounting procedures, Finn swung into the saddle and kicked the horse into motion.
London blurred past in a haze of terror and desperate urgency. He navigated the crowded streets with the single-minded focus of a man whose world had just collapsed. Every second seemed endless, every obstacle in his path a personal affront to his desperate need to reach Diana.
The morning traffic parted before him like water before a ship’s prow, vendors and pedestrians scattering as the wild-eyed Duke thundered through their midst. His heart hammered a rhythm against his ribs that matched Tempest’s hoofbeats – Diana, Diana, Diana – a prayer and a curse all at once.
Let her be alive, he prayed to whatever gods might be listening. Let her be alive, and I’ll spend the rest of my life makin’ up for every cruel word, every cold gesture, every moment I made her feel unwanted.
The Red Lion Inn squatted like a diseased toad between a blacksmith’s shop and a gin house.
Its grimy windows and sagging timbers spoke of decades of neglect.
But Finn barely registered his surroundings as he thundered past, following Fletcher’s shouted directions toward the alley where the accident had occurred.
“There!” Fletcher called out, pointing toward a narrow side street. “Just round that corner, Your Grace!”
Finn hauled on the reins, bringing Tempest to a sliding halt on the slick cobblestones.
The overturned carriage sat at an odd angle against the alley wall, one wheel completely shattered, the other spinning slowly in the morning breeze.
Debris was scattered across the narrow street – pieces of wood, torn fabric, a single leather glove that made his heart clench with recognition.
And there, sitting on the filthy steps of a ramshackle boarding house, was Diana.
She was alive. Conscious. But even from this distance, Finn could see the dark stain spreading across the sleeve of her green pelisse, could see the way she held her left arm protectively against her body.
Her bonnet was gone, her chestnut hair falling loose around her shoulders, and there was a purpling bruise along her cheek that made something murderous rise in his chest.
“Diana!” Her name tore from his throat as he vaulted from the saddle, not bothering to secure Tempest as he ran toward her.
She looked up at the sound of his voice. Her dark eyes widened with what might have been surprise or relief or something else entirely. For a moment, they simply stared at each other across the debris-strewn alley, two people who had said too much and not nearly enough.
“Finn?” Her voice was barely a whisper, hoarse with pain and something that might have been hope. “You came.”
“Of course I came,” he said roughly, dropping to his knees beside her on the filthy steps without regard for his fine clothes.
His hands hovered over her injuries, desperate to touch, to reassure himself she was real, but afraid of causing more damage.
“Christ, Diana, what were ye thinkin’, comin’ to this part of the city alone? ”
“Mary Thompson,” she said simply, as though that explained everything. And perhaps it did – Diana had been caring for others even when her own world was falling apart. “She’s been so ill, and her mother had no money for a proper physician. I thought... I thought I could help.”
Her composure was devastating, the way she spoke of her charitable mission as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Even now, injured and shaken, she was thinking of others. It was so perfectly, heartbreakingly Diana that Finn felt something crack open in his chest.
“The carriage driver said ye were askin’ for me,” he said, his voice barely steady.
Diana’s eyes dropped to her hands, folded carefully in her lap despite her obvious pain. “I... yes. I suppose I was.” She looked back up at him. Her gaze searched his face. “Though I cannot imagine why. You made your feelings quite clear before you left for London.”
The quiet dignity in her voice, the way she held herself despite everything, made him want to howl with rage – not at her, but at himself, at the cruel twist of fate that had brought them to this moment in a London alley surrounded by the wreckage of more than just a carriage.
“Diana,” he started, but she was already shaking her head.
“Please,” she said softly. “I know this changes nothing between us. You needn’t pretend otherwise out of some misplaced sense of obligation.”
Before he could respond, before he could find the words to tell her how wrong she was, how much everything had changed the moment he’d learned she was hurt, Diana’s eyes fluttered closed, and she swayed precariously on the step.
Without hesitation, Finn caught her against his chest. Her felt the fragile weight of her in his arms and he breathed in the familiar scent of her hair beneath the smell of dust and blood.
She was hurt. She was in his arms. And he finally understood with devastating clarity that he couldn’t breathe without her.