Page 48 of Duke of Storme (Braving the Elements #4)
“ T he physician has just left,” she said quietly. “Mrs. Hartwell assures me the injuries are not serious. A slight concussion, a sprained wrist, some bruising. Nothing that won’t heal in time.”
The clinical way she spoke of her injuries, as though discussing someone else’s condition, made something cold settle in Finn’s stomach.
This wasn’t the Diana who’d challenged him in her parents’ drawing room, nor the woman who’d stood her ground with Highland society.
This was someone who’d retreated so far behind her walls that she could speak of her own pain like a detached observer.
“You didn’t need to come,” she continued, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond his shoulder. “This doesn’t change anything.”
Even now, injured and vulnerable, she was trying to protect herself from him. From the man who’d hurt her so badly she’d rather face London’s streets alone than remain under his roof.
“Diana, I–”
“Please,” she interrupted, her voice taking on the same careful modulation he’d heard her use with difficult dinner guests. “Let me finish what I need to say before I lose my courage.”
Something in her tone made him freeze. He did not hear the quiet dignity he was used to, but something final. Decisive. As though she’d spent the hours since the accident making a decision she’d been avoiding for weeks.
“If it is truly what you want, I am willing to end this marriage, Finn.” Her voice remained calm, matter-of-fact, as though she were discussing the weather. “I’ll return to Drownshire. You can go back to whatever this was before.”
Her composure devastated him more than any tears or accusations could have. This was what he’d taught her – to hide her pain behind a Duchess’s mask, to speak of heartbreak as though it were a business arrangement.
“I’ve been thinking,” Diana continued, her eyes still focused on some distant point beyond him, “about what you said before you left for London. About keeping things... proper between us. About not mistaking proximity for something more meaningful.”
Each word was like a knife twisting in his chest. He winced as his own cruel phrases thrown back at him with devastating precision.
“I understand now that I allowed myself to misread the situation,” she said with that same terrible calm. “To imagine warmth where there was only duty. Affection where there was merely... convenience.”
“Diana, stop–”
“No, please. This is important to me.” She finally looked at him, and the careful blankness in her dark eyes made him feel sick.
“I don’t blame you for any of it. You were clear about your expectations from the beginning.
A marriage of mutual benefit. A partnership of convenience.
I was the one who... who forgot the boundaries. ”
Without conscious thought, Finn dropped to his knees beside the bed, his carefully maintained control finally shattering completely.
“Ye’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said, his voice rough with emotions he could no longer contain.
Diana’s eyes widened slightly at his position, at the raw desperation in his tone. “Finn, you don’t understand–”
“No, ye don’t understand.” The words poured out of him like water through a broken dam. “I came because I couldn’t breathe knowin’ ye were hurt. Because I’ve spent every moment since I left ye realizin’ I left the only person I’ve ever wanted to come home to.”
Diana’s careful composure flickered for just a moment, something vulnerable flashing across her features before she schooled her expression back to neutral. “You don’t need to say these things out of guilt or obligation. The accident wasn’t your fault–”
“Wasn’t it?” Finn’s voice cracked with the weight of his self-recrimination. “If I hadn’t been such a coward, if I hadn’t pushed ye away, ye never would have been alone in that carriage. Ye never would have been hurt.”
“I made the choice to come to London,” Diana said quietly. “I made the choice to visit the Thompson family. Those were my decisions, not yours.”
“But ye made them because I made ye feel unwanted in yer own home!” The words exploded out of him with such force that Diana flinched. “Because I was too much of a fool to see what was right in front of me.”
Diana’s lips parted in shock, but he pressed on, needing to say everything before his courage failed.
“I was a coward,” he continued, his hands gripping the edge of the mattress as though it were the only thing keeping him anchored.
“I was terrified of lovin’ ye because everyone I’ve ever loved has been taken from me.
My mother, my men, everyone who mattered.
I thought if I kept ye at a distance, if I never let myself need ye, it wouldn’t hurt when ye finally left. ”
“But I wasn’t planning to leave,” Diana whispered, her voice barely audible. “I was trying to be the wife you needed. The Duchess you wanted.”
“The Duchess I wanted?” Finn’s laugh was bitter, self-mocking. “Diana, ye became so much more than I ever dared to want. Ye became... everythin’.”
“I was falling in love with you,” Diana whispered as her composure finally cracked.
The past tense of her words cut through him like a blade. “Was?”
“You made it very clear that what I felt was unwelcome. One-sided. A mistake to be forgotten.”
The pain in her voice nearly broke him. How many times had she replayed his cruel words? How many sleepless nights had she spent convincing herself that her feelings were nothing more than foolish fancy?
“That night in the library,” Diana continued, her voice growing stronger, “when you drew me... I thought... I let myself believe that perhaps there was something real between us. Something worth fighting for.”
“There was,” Finn said desperately. “There is.”
“No.” Diana shook her head, and the movement seemed to cause her physical pain. “The next morning, you made it clear that it was nothing. A moment of weakness brought on by brandy and proximity. Nothing more.”
“I lied.” The confession came out broken and desperate. “I thought I had to because… because I was scared. Because ye were gettin’ too close, makin’ me want things I’d sworn never to want again. A real marriage. A partner. Someone to share the weight of everythin’ with.”
“A real marriage,” Diana repeated softly, as though testing the words. “Is that truly what you want, Finn? Or are these just pretty words spoken in a moment of crisis?”
How could she doubt him when his heart was bleeding out right there on the inn room floor? But then he realized – she had every right to doubt him. After the way he’d treated her, after the walls he’d built and the cruel dismissals he’d delivered, why should she believe anything he said?
Diana stared at him, her dark eyes searching his face as though looking for some sign of deception.
“I need to know,” she said quietly, “because I can’t do this anymore, Finn. I can’t pretend to be satisfied with scraps of affection when my heart wants... everything. I won’t live as your convenient Duchess, smiling and nodding while my heart breaks a little more each day.”
Her honesty was like a sword through his chest. This was what his fear had done – turned a woman who’d been willing to love him completely into someone who had to steel herself just to ask for basic affection.
“Ye want to leave?” Finn’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Fine. If that’s truly what yer heart desires, I’ll make my peace with it, but ye should know somethin’ before ye make up yer mind.”
Diana simply nodded for him to continue. The silence that followed felt eternal. Diana’s chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, her uninjured hand trembling slightly where it rested on the coverlet.
Finn reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulledout a small object that he’d carried with him every day since he’d found it. Diana’s eyes widened as she recognized her own small pencil – the one that had fallen from her sketchbook that night in the library.
“I kept this,” he said quietly, holding it out so she could see. “Carried it with me like some lovesick fool. Every time I touched it, I thought of ye. Of the way ye looked when ye were drawin’, so focused and peaceful. Of the way ye captured beauty in everythin’ ye saw.”
“Finn...” Diana’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I memorized yer sketch of us dancin’,” he continued, his voice thick with emotion. “Every line, every shadow. The way ye drew my face... ye saw somethin’ in me I didn’t even know was there. Somethin’ worth lovin’.”
Then, Finn surprised her, uttering a phrase in Scots Gaelic that made her heart clench despite not knowing its meaning, “ Tha gaol agam ort , Diana.”
Diana blinked at him. “What does that mean?”
“Och, ‘tis Gaelic for… I love ye.”
When Diana spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“You truly love me?”
“With everythin’ I have,” Finn said without hesitation.
“With everythin’ I am. I love yer strength, yer kindness, the way ye see beauty in things others overlook.
I love how ye’ve made my cold castle feel like home, how ye stand up to me when I’m bein’ an ass, how ye’ve never once asked me to be anything other than what I am.
And if ye’ll allow me, I’ll spend every minute of my life from here on out provin’ it to ye. ”
“But how do I know you won’t change your mind again?” Diana asked, her voice breaking slightly. “How do I know that tomorrow, or next week, or next month, you won’t decide that loving me is too hard and retreat behind your walls again?”
The question was like a knife to his heart, because it was so perfectly reasonable. He had given her every reason to doubt his constancy, every reason to protect herself from further hurt.
Tears began to slide down Diana’s cheeks, and Finn reached up instinctively to brush them away with his thumb.
“I love the way ye sketch everythin’ ye find beautiful,” he continued, his own voice thick with emotion. “The way ye’ve won over every person in the Highlands without even tryin’. The way ye look at me like I’m worth somethin’ more than duty and obligation.”