“Have to catch them first,” came his sister’s laughing voice, already almost too faint to hear. She’d be harder to catch than the damn kittens.
The basket was large enough to hold all six of them, but lacked a lid to keep them safely contained.
Whenever Cole did manage to scoop a tiny ball of fur from a priceless painting or a one-of-a-kind globe, the kittens immediately managed to scamper out of the basket and up his cravat, or drag their tiny claws down the sides of his breeches.
When at last he gave up and threw himself upon his settee in exhausted defeat, the kittens joyfully pounced upon his chest and made themselves at home, as if no corner of the ducal residence was quite as comfortable as the lapels of the duke himself.
He ran his fingers over their soft little spines. They purred their approval.
Cole supposed nothing in life was ever completely predictable. Expecting it to be—or trying to force a pattern that didn’t exist—was impossible. Even when life didn’t go to plan, the detour wasn’t necessarily for the worst.
Like the kittens snuggling against the dented folds of his cravat, Diana was lively and unpredictable. Unlike the kittens, he could not keep her caged for her own safety, or his peace of mind.
A wife was not a pet. Regardless of the letter of the law, he had no wish to control her. He wanted their bond to be genuine. He wanted her towantto be his duchess. But what exactly was he offering in return?
A cage. A leash. A declawing. Suppression of all the wild, beautiful things that had attracted him to her in the first place.
He’d thought she’d come around to his perspective. They had so much in common. They both knew what it was like to lose everything. To be orphaned, to start anew, to be scared, to triumph anyway. They both wanted to do everything in their power to make their world a better place.
But even if they came from similar backgrounds, even if their hopes for the future were the same, the paths they took to get there needn’t be perfect copies of each other.
After tragedy struck, he’d gained a title, a fortune, a voice in Parliament. When Diana was orphaned, she’d lost her home, had her life uprooted, her existence wholly defined by how good a wife she could be for a total stranger.
One of the kittens climbed up the side of Cole’s face and settled against the crevice between his forehead and the settee.
He didn’t dislodge her. His mind was not on kittens, but on Diana.
With discomfort, he began to realize that expecting her to drop everything she cared about, to change her very personality in order to play proper duchess for him was, at best, myopic and vain.
Made worse because his motives centered about making life easier for him, when his life wasalreadyeasier.
The entire reason she’d resorted to duplicitous playacting was because openly pursuing her passions wasn’t an option.
He bolted upright, to the surprise of several kittens.
Duplicitous was the wrong word. So was “playacting.” For Diana,barrister’s secretaryandmeasures inspectressweren’t roles to be acted. They were positions she might have filled in another life. Careers she might have enjoyed.
Her covert research-gathering wasn’t a disguise. It was the real Diana, doing what she loved, being herself. Courageous enough not to let anything get in her way. Not the world, not her true identity, not even the Duke of Colehaven.
Diana was Diana, and would always be Diana. Chess games and research journals, crusades against injustice and unbridled passion, always on the precipice between impending scandal and political breakthroughs. Breathtakingly beautiful inside and out, and completely impossible.
Either Cole accepted that, accepted her, or he had to set her free. She deserved nothing less.
The question was whether he deservedher.
Chapter 18
“Do you want to go to a dinner party with me tonight?”
Diana glanced across the tea table at her cousin. “Do I have to?”
He shook his head. “No.”
No.
Diana lowered her teacup and gazed back at her cousin.
His face held a hint of sadness, but his eyes were sincere. He wished she would go. Not to get rid of her, but because he enjoyed her company. He liked going to events together. But it was up to her.
