“You wretched man,” she whispered, bending closer because she could not bear the distance even though there was none at all. “You impossible, reckless, beautiful man.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor. The physician at last.
Dr. Arbuthnot came in carrying his case with the quick, clipped stride of a man long accustomed to urgency, though even he slowed for half a beat when he saw the Duke of Rosewood on the floor with his duchess kneeling over him, blood soaking through her handkerchief and down over her gloves.
“How long ago?” he asked briskly, already setting down his case and shrugging out of his coat.
“I’m not sure,” Diana replied. “Too long.”
The physician knelt at once, opening his instruments. “Your Grace, I shall need room.”
For one wild second, she wanted to refuse him. Wanted to remain exactly where she was, hand on Alexander, body bent over his, as though proximity alone could keep him tethered. But sense forced itself through the panic at last.
She shifted back to allow the physician access, but remained beside Alexander’s head, one hand now resting lightly against the blanket over his chest as though she needed to feel every faint rise and fall.
Arbuthnot cut through the ruined coat and shirt with efficient hands, exposing the wound. Diana saw the blood, the torn flesh, the ugly violence of it, and had to fight the wave of dizziness that rose at once.
“It passed through cleanly,” the physician muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Painful, bloody, but not lodged. That is in our favor.”
Diana closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again at once because she could not bear not to watch him.
She stayed there while the physician worked—through the cleaning, the stitching, the bandaging, through every low instruction for more water, cleaner linen, stronger brandy. Shestayed as the daylight faded fully and lamps were brought nearer.
“He should wake,” Arbuthnot said, glancing toward her. “The worst of the bleeding is stopped.”
Diana did not answer at once. Her gaze remained fixed on Alexander’s face, on the faint color beginning, mercifully, to return there, on the stubborn strength of him still visible even in unconsciousness.
She only reached for his hand and held it. Because leaving him, even for a moment, felt impossible.
CHAPTER 29
“Diana.”
The name left Alexander’s throat as little more than a rasp, dry and unsteady, as though it had dragged itself through darkness to reach her.
For a moment, he was not certain where he was.
There was only a heavy, suffocating stillness broken by the dull ache spreading through his shoulder, dragging him slowly into awareness.
Then he saw her.
She was there, folded into the chair beside his bed, her head tilted slightly to one side, her hand still resting on the coverlet near his arm as though she had meant to keep watch and exhaustion had claimed her in the act.
The lamplight softened her features, casting warm shadows along the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the dark fall of her hair that had slipped loose from its careful arrangement. She looked pale. Tired. Beautiful in a way that struck him far deeper than any composed elegance ever had.
Something inside his chest tightened painfully.
“Diana,” he said again, a fraction stronger this time.
She woke at once.
Her eyes opened immediately, sharp and searching, and the instant they found him, something in her face broke open with such naked relief that it struck him harder than the pain in his body.
“Alexander—”
She was on her feet before he could even gather himself, already leaning over him, her hand reaching for his, her fingers warm and sure despite the faint tremor running through them.
“You are awake,” she said, her voice catching despite her effort to steady it.
