Martin’s tone softened. “Diana.”
That did it.
He said her name like it came straight from him, unguarded, the sound of it rough with feeling. It held something real that made it clear he saw her as she was, not as a title or a role.
She clasped her hands more tightly before her, trying to still them. “I am perfectly well.”
“No, you are not.” The answer came so quickly, and with such unembarrassed certainty, that she looked up at him at once.
Martin’s expression had changed. The easy friendliness remained, but beneath it lay something steadier and far more serious.
“You can dismiss half of London with one cool glance when you choose,” he said quietly, his arms rising almost as if to embrace her, before falling back at his sides. “But you cannot look like this and expect me to believe you are well.”
Heat rose to Diana’s face at once, feeling too exposed, but still grateful for his attentiveness.
“And how,” she asked, trying to recover some portion of her dignity, “do I look?”
Martin’s eyes moved over her slowly, almost sad.
“You look,” he said at last, “like a woman who has been trying not to break and is beginning to lose the battle.”
The words entered her so cleanly that for a moment she could not breathe.
That was exactly it.
That was the hideous truth of it. She had been trying not to break. Over breakfast trays left untouched. Over corridors, carefully timed so as not to cross paths with her own husband.
Her throat tightened painfully.
Martin saw it at once. “Diana.”
She looked away from him again, and this time it was because she could no longer trust her face.
“Please do not,” she said, though even to her own ears the words sounded more like a plea than a command. “I have had enough of being looked at as though I am a creature to be pitied.”
“I am not pitying you.” His voice came gentler now, warmer.
She became aware of him standing only a short distance away, of the warmth of another human presence entering the cold, aching little world she had been inhabiting alone.
“What then?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“I am worried for you.”
That should not have hurt, but worry implied care, and care had become such a dangerous thing of late. Martin stood in her drawing room with honest concern in his voice, and all Diana could think was how terribly tired she was.
She let out a breath that shook at the edges. “You should not have come.”
“Perhaps not,” he said softly. “But I am very glad I did.”
That undid her more than any grand declaration might have done. The tears gathered fast, stinging, while she stood there with her pride screaming at her not to let him see her like this.
But Martin had known her too long. He had seen her through the cold politeness of her marriage, through the year of whispers, through evenings when she had smiled over wine while the ton speculated behind fans. He was not a stranger. He was one of the very few people before whom she had never felt required to perform cleverness or composure unless she chose to.
When the first tear slipped free, she shut her eyes at once, angry with herself for it.
Martin moved then.
“Come here,” he murmured.
