Diana ought to have refused. A married woman did not step into another man’s comfort, however old the friendship, however private the misery. Yet the thought of refusal required more strength than she possessed.
He drew her gently toward the sofa and sat beside her, when his hand closed around hers with brotherly warmth, and his thumb brushed once over her glove.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, ashamed the moment the words left her mouth.
“For what?”
“For being such poor company. For…” Her breath caught. “For this.”
“There is nothing here to apologize for.” His answer came firm, almost offended.
Diana laughed faintly through the tears, the sound small and broken. “You say that now. Wait until I begin truly behaving like a tragic heroine.”
Martin’s hand tightened around hers. “Then I shall endure it bravely.”
She did laugh then, if only a little, and hated that the small sound came wrapped in tears.
She pressed a hand to her eyes, willing herself back toward restraint, but the pressure of the past week had lodged too deeply. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. Even her skin felt too tender, too aware, as though every memory of Alexander had become a bruise pressed just beneath it.
Martin sat beside her in patient silence for a few moments, waiting her out, and in that silence she became horribly conscious of how starved she had become for simple gentleness that did not come sharpened by conflict.
“I thought,” she said at last, not intending the words and yet unable to stop them once they began, “that I had grown rather accomplished at enduring disappointment.”
Martin turned slightly toward her. “Diana?—”
“No, let me say it. Please.” She swallowed hard. “I thought I knew exactly what sort of marriage I had. It was a poor one, a humiliating one, but at least it was clear. Then everything changed, and I…” Her voice trembled, and she hated it. “I allowed myself to be a fool.”
He was very still beside her. “You are not a fool.”
“I am. A spectacular one.” She stared down at her lap, at the uselessness of her own hands. “Do you know what is worse? That for a little while I believed…” She stopped, because she could not bear to say it plainly.
Martin’s voice dropped. “Believed what?”
That he wanted me. That he might choose me.That perhaps I am a little more than an asset after all.
Diana’s face burned. She could not say any of it aloud, not even to a friend.
She only shook her head, and another tear escaped despite her best efforts.
Martin cursed softly under his breath, not at her, but for her. “He has hurt you more deeply than I imagined.”
The tenderness in his tone made her chest crumple inward.
“Yes,” she whispered.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The room seemed hushed around their quiet misery, the late afternoon light softening at the windows. Martin’s hand remained around hers, steady and warm, and Diana became aware that she had not felt truly comforted in so long that the sensation itself seemed foreign.
“You cannot remain in this room and think until you make yourself ill,” he said at last.
She gave a watery little laugh. “I suspect I have already accomplished that.”
“I am serious.” He leaned back slightly, just enough to look at her properly, his expression now gentle but resolved. “Come with me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Out. For air.” His mouth softened at one corner in a poor imitation of lightness. “I promise not to abduct you. At least not before the third mile.”
Under any ordinary circumstance, she would have refused at once. A married duchess did not simply disappear into a friend’s carriage because she had been crying in her drawing room. Propriety did not bend merely because one’s heart had been trampled.
