The moment their lips met, everything in him tightened and gave way at once. There was only the immediate, overwhelming need to feel her, to make sure she had not been taken from him.
His hand came up to her smooth jaw, keeping her close as his mouth moved against hers with a depth of feeling that stole the air from his lungs, each breath uneven, each touch charged with something raw and urgent.
She responded with the same force, her hand rising before faltering at his shoulder, mindful of the wound, and shifting instead to the side of his neck, her fingers pressing there, holding him to her. The warmth of her spread through him at once, the softness of her mouth, the way she leaned into him despite everything, sent a sharp, almost painful awareness through his body that drowned out the ache in his shoulder completely.
He felt her breath against his lips, quick and unsteady, felt the slight tremor in her fingers where they held him, and it only pulled him deeper, his grip tightening just enough to keep her there. There was no thought left in him, only the undeniable pull of her, the way she fit against him, the way she answered him without holding back.
For a few suspended breaths, nothing else reached him. Only her. Only the heat of her mouth, the steady, grounding presence of her hands.
The kiss deepened, slowed, changed, no longer desperate, but just as intense, settling into something that felt dangerously likebelonging, like inevitability, like something that could not be undone even if they tried.
A sharp knock at the door shattered it. They parted, breathless.
“Your Grace,” came the physician’s voice.
Alexander exhaled slowly, resting his forehead briefly against hers.
“I suppose,” he murmured, “that I shall have to recover properly after all.”
Diana smiled faintly, her eyes still soft, still bright.
“Yes,” she said. “You shall.”
EPILOGUE
ONE MONTH LATER
“Ishould like to know,” Georgina said lightly, though there was a softness beneath it that had not always been there, “whether His Grace intends to remain so agreeable for the entirety of the evening, or if we are merely witnessing a rare and fleeting miracle.”
Alexander glanced toward her across the table, one brow lifting in a manner that would once have been cold, dismissive, even cutting, and yet now held a trace of something warmer, almost amused.
“I assure you, Lady Tilbridge—though perhaps not for much longer, I understand—that I am capable of sustained civility when properly motivated.”
Diana’s lips curved despite herself.
The room was warm with candlelight, the long table laid with quiet elegance, the soft murmur of voices settling into somethingcomfortable and intimate. It had been her intention, when she arranged this dinner, to create something similar to the gatherings with friends that had once given her strength, despite everything that had happened.
The steady presence of Alexander, the warmth of his body through the layers between them, the subtle awareness that had not left her since the moment he woke and spoke her name. It lingered now, quiet but constant, threading through every word, every glance, every breath she took.
He had changed.
No—perhaps not changed.Returned, and yet… remained.
That was what unsettled her still, what filled her chest with something dangerously close to wonder. The man who had once stood in the grand hall, distant and untouchable, now leaned slightly toward her as Emma spoke, his hand resting casually along the back of her chair. Proximity to her was not something he wished to hide.
Georgina’s gaze moved between them, perceptive as ever.
“I confess,” she said, her tone gentler now, stripped of the light sharpness she had once carried, “that I shall miss this. All of it. Even you, Your Grace.”
Alexander inclined his head. “I am honored.”
“And surprised,” she added dryly.
Diana reached for her glass, though her attention remained fixed on Georgina. There was no bitterness in her. No resentment. Only a quiet, resolute calm that had come in the wake of everything that had passed.
“You will write to us,” Diana said, her voice soft but steady.
Georgina met her gaze.
