The sound of approaching riders broke through the moment.
Constables.
They arrived quickly, their presence sharp and authoritative, taking in the scene at a glance—the bound man, the abandoned carriage, the blood. They moved at once, securing Martin,hauling him upright despite his unconscious state, binding him further, speaking in clipped, efficient tones.
Diana barely registered any of it. Her entire focus remained on Alexander and the way his head had begun to tilt.
“We must go,” she said urgently. “He needs a physician at once.”
The constables nodded, already arranging transport, already moving with purpose.
And through it all, Diana remained at his side, holding him, steadying him, refusing to let him fall.
“Your Grace—” one of the footmen began, rushing forward.
“Help me get him to his chambers,” Diana snapped, because if she allowed her voice to soften, she feared it might break. “Carefully.”
Alexander made a sound then, low and strained, and the sound went straight through her. His head had bowed, his face gone paler beneath the harsh line of his beard, though he still tried to remain upright, as if dignity mattered now.
“I can walk,” he muttered.
Diana turned on him at once, fury flaring up through terror so quickly she hardly knew which was which. “You have been shot.”
His mouth moved, as though he meant to answer with something insufferably composed, but before the words could form, his knees gave.
Everything inside her went cold. “Alexander?—”
He dropped with such suddenness that even the footmen were not fast enough. One moment, he was upright beside her, broad and powerful and bleeding, and the next, his body had folded, dragging her down with him to the marble floor. She caught his shoulders as best she could, but the impact still jarred through her arms. The sharp crack of it echoed through the hall, followed by a collective gasp from somewhere behind her.
He stopped moving.
For one suspended, monstrous instant, Diana could not breathe.
The world narrowed to his face, to the terrible stillness of it, to the fact that his eyes were closed and his mouth, that beautiful, arrogant, infuriating mouth that had once smiled against her skin and spoken her name in the darkness, did not say anything at all.
“No,” she whispered, the word coming out raw and thin. “No. No, you will not do this to me.”
Her hands shook as she reached for him, one going instinctively to his face, the other still pressed uselessly against his shoulder where the blood kept coming, warm and slick beneath her palm. His skin was warm, thank God, but too slack, unresponsive.
“He is breathing, Your Grace,” someone said quickly, though the words sounded far away.
Diana bent over him, her own breath trembling. Yes. There. Faint, but there. A shallow pull of air. Enough to make relief and panic collide so violently inside her that her eyes stung at once.
“Bring blankets,” she said, lifting her head sharply toward the nearest servant, never removing her hands from Alexander. “Pillows. Anything. We are not dragging him up the stairs in this condition.”
The household scattered more quickly after that.
Within moments, the hall, which had seemed so enormous and ceremonial before, had become a place of emergency, muffled footsteps and low frightened voices. Someone placed cushions beneath Alexander’s head. Someone else brought a coverlet, which Diana snatched up and spread over him herself, though she could not stop looking at the blood blooming through his coat.
Her throat tightened so fiercely it hurt. He had seen death coming for her and chosen, instantly, to take it into himself.
Her fingers trembled as they brushed damp strands of sandy blond hair back from his forehead. He looked different, unconscious. Younger, almost, though no less powerfully made. The hard discipline had gone out of his face, leaving behind the stark, masculine beauty of him stripped of command.
She loved him.
The truth rose in her so suddenly that she nearly recoiled from it. But there it was, plain and irreversible, as undeniable as the blood beneath her hand.
A tear slipped free before she could stop it and fell onto the dark lapel of his coat.
