Yet the prospect of remaining here, in Rosewood House, with every room carrying some memory of Alexander and every silence asking her to endure one more evening of absence, was suddenly unbearable.
Still, hesitation caught at her. “I should not.”
“Why?”
Because I am weak today. Because if I leave this house at all, some disloyal part of me will still wonder whether Alexander notices my absence.The thought sickened her.
Martin saw her hesitation and softened further.
“Diana,” he said quietly, “I am not asking for anything difficult. Only an hour. Fresh air. No questions, if you prefer. You need not even speak if you do not wish to. But do not punish yourself by staying here and drowning in your own thoughts when you need not do it alone.”
That word touched the deepest ache in her.
She had been alone on her wedding day and the long months that followed. And now here was Martin, kind Martin, patient Martin, offering nothing more scandalous than escape from her own misery for a little while.
She looked at him then and saw only concern, only warmth, only a friend who did not know what else to do with her pain except try to carry some part of it.
Diana exhaled slowly.
“All right,” she said at last, and the word came weak but honest. “Only for a little while.”
Relief moved visibly through him. “Good.”
He rose at once, then bent to offer her his hand. She stared at it for one moment longer than necessary, aware of how strange it felt to accept support from one man while Alexander still haunted her skin and blood like a fever she could not break. But the room was pressing in again, and she could not bear one more minute within it.
So, she placed her hand in Martin’s and let him draw her to her feet.
CHAPTER 26
“Martin, this is quite unnecessary,” Diana said, though her voice lacked its usual firmness, softened by the exhaustion still clinging to her bones as she sat opposite him in the enclosed intimacy of the carriage. “I agreed to air, not to be fussed over as though I were made of glass.”
“You are not made of glass,” he replied at once, his tone warm, coaxing, as he shifted closer along the seat, closing the small distance between them. “But you are unwell, whether you choose to admit it or not, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.”
The carriage swayed gently, the world outside reduced to blurred movement through the small window, and Diana became too aware of how close he now sat. His knee brushed the edge of her skirts. His shoulder nearly touched hers. It should not have felt so enclosing, and yet it did.
“I am not accustomed to being managed,” she said, attempting lightness, though something uneasy had begun to stir beneath it, a quiet thread of discomfort she could not yet fully name.
Martin’s gaze softened further, though there was something in it now that lingered too long, something more intent than she had ever noticed before.
“No,” he murmured, “you are accustomed to enduring.”
The words slipped into her with dangerous ease.
Before she could respond, before she could decide whether she resented or welcomed that understanding, his hand reached for hers.
It was a familiar gesture.
His fingers closed around her hand, his thumb brushing over it in slow, absent circles as though soothing her. But something felt different.
Diana stilled.
The carriage seemed to tilt again, though the motion had not changed.
“Martin,” she said quietly, her gaze dropping to where his hand held hers, “that is quite enough.”
He did not release her at once. Instead, his fingers tightened slightly, as though testing whether she would pull away.
“You are trembling,” he said, his voice lower now, stripped of its easy brightness. “You should not be alone in that house, not when he has treated you so?—”
