Cold air crashed into the carriage, and with it came Alexander.
He did not look like any version of Alexander she had ever seen before. Not the cold duke of her wedding day, not the darkly amused man who had courted her with unsettling persistence, not even the wounded husband who had stood in his study and torn them both apart with pride.
This Alexander was all force. All focus. The breadth of him seemed to fill the opening entirely, shoulders squared beneath his dark riding coat, sandy blond hair wind-tossed, green eyes lit with something so savage it stole the breath from her lungs. He looked dangerous enough to terrify any reasonable person.
Diana had never seen anyone so beautiful in her life.
“Step away from her,” he said, his voice low, but it hit the cramped carriage like a whip crack.
Martin recovered first. “You have no right?—”
Alexander did not even look at him as he leaned in, one gloved hand reaching for Diana. “Come here.”
She moved without thinking.
The instant his hand closed around hers, warm and hard and devastatingly sure, something inside her that had been clenched in dread gave way all at once. Relief hit so violently it was almost painful.
His fingers tightened around hers as though testing that she was truly there, within reach, and then he was lifting her down from the carriage with a care that did not match the murderous look in his face.
The ground shifted beneath her the moment her feet touched it. Her knees nearly gave, the air hitting her too fast, too sharp. Alexander’s hand was already at her waist, pulling her back against him before she could falter. She could feel his heat, his breath against her temple.
For one raw, unguarded moment, she wanted nothing more than to turn into him, to press closer, to let herself be held and forget everything else.
Martin jumped down from the carriage a second later, his face flushed dark with fury.
“You self-righteous bastard,” he spat. “Have you come to play the rescuer now? After ruining her life? Diana, come with me.”
Alexander shifted, placing himself between Diana and Martin with an instinctive possessiveness so immediate it made her heart stutter. She could still see Martin’s face, the distortion of it, the ugliness newly unleashed.
“You will speak to me,” Alexander said, each word cut from ice, “and not to her.”
Martin laughed harshly. “To her? She ought to hear this more than anyone. He was the disaster, Diana. He was the one who poisoned everything. He married you for convenience, cast you aside, came back only to cloud your judgment again. I tried to rid you of him, and the devil would not die. He survived like a cockroach.”
Diana stared.
For one horrifying second, the words had no shape. Then slowly, their meaning became clear.
Her gaze flew to Alexander. He met it, and the savage brightness in his eyes did not lessen, but he gave one tight, unmistakable nod.
“I remembered his voice,” he said. “From that night.”
The world tilted. Martin did that.
Martin had struck Alexander down and left him for dead, and all the while had gone on smiling in drawing rooms, bringing drinks to her hand, offering sympathy, standing near enough to hear her speak of her marriage, all while carryingthatinside him.
Diana’s stomach turned so hard she nearly swayed.
Alexander felt it. His hand at her waist tightened, just enough to steady.
“Stand back,” he murmured, the words for her alone, though his gaze never left Martin.
But Martin was no longer looking at Alexander. He was looking at her with naked desperation now, as though everything depended on his ability to wrench her back into the dream he had made of her.
“Diana,” he said, taking one step forward, “come with me now. Leave this. Leave him. He will destroy you again. You know he will. He already has.”
Her whole body was trembling with the sick, splitting pain of seeing an old affection rot in front of her until nothing recognizable remained.
“You speak,” she said, and had to swallow before she could continue, “as though I do not know my own mind. As though I belong wherever you decide I should.”
