“Yes,” she said simply. “Though I suspect my letters will be far less scandalous than the events that preceded them.”
A faint ripple of restrained laughter passed around the table.
“America,” Emma said, leaning forward slightly. “It sounds terribly far.”
“It is,” Georgina replied. “Which is precisely the point.”
Diana understood that. Fresh starts were not born from ease. They required distance. They required the courage to step away from everything one had known and trust that something better might be found on the other side.
“I bear you no ill will,” Georgina said, her gaze returning to Diana, her voice softened now, intimate despite the company around them. “You must know that.”
Something in Diana’s chest shifted at once, tightening in a way that was full of everything that had passed between them, of what had been lost, and what had simply, unexpectedly settled in its place.
A quiet, hard-won understanding.
“And I bear you none,” she replied, her voice steady, though the weight of it lingered beneath the surface. “You deserved far more than what was given to you.”
Georgina’s smile was faint, but real. “As did you.”
The words settled between them, warm and solemn, carrying more than either of them chose to say aloud.
Diana felt, rather than saw, the subtle shift of Alexander’s hand along the back of her chair, the quiet presence of it grounding and steady, making her acutely aware of him without drawing attention.
Lady Salford, who had been watching the exchange with the keen satisfaction of one who appreciated both resolution and restraint, tapped her fork lightly against her plate.
“Well,” she said, her tone brisk, though her eyes gleamed with unmistakable approval, “now that the world appears to have righted itself in some respectable fashion, perhaps we may turn our attention to matters of greater importance.”
Diana stilled. She knew that tone far too well.
“Such as,” Lady Salford continued, with pointed clarity, “the continuation of the Rosewood line.”
“Grandmother—” Alexander began, though there was a faint warning in his voice.
“I am merely stating a fact,” she said. “A duke requires an heir. It is hardly revolutionary.”
Diana felt the heat rise to her cheeks at once.
“Surely there are more immediate topics of discussion,” she said quickly, reaching for her glass in a faint attempt at composure that fooled no one, least of all herself.
“There are,” Alexander replied.
Something in his voice made her look at him.
He was already watching her, with a steadiness that felt focused entirely on her, and the rest of the table fell away. There was warmth in his gaze now, but not softness alone. Something deeper and certain.
Her breath caught before she could stop it.
“I should like an heir,” he said.
The words struck her with a quiet force that stole her breath. There was no distance in it, no sense of duty or expectation placed between them, only something unmistakably personal, something that belonged to them alone.
Diana felt her pulse stumble and then quicken, a sudden warmth spreading through her chest. It was in the way he looked at her when he said it, in the certainty in his gaze, in the way it felt less like a declaration and more like a promise of something shared, something deeply wanted.
Her fingers tightened slightly around the stem of her glass as that feeling unfurled inside her, soft and bright and overwhelming in its quiet joy.
She held his gaze. And smiled.
The dinner concluded with the agonizing slowness of a ticking clock, the polite chatter finally fading into the quiet of the night until only the heavy, expectant silence of the dining room remained.
