“Your Grace,” he said warmly. “Back from the dead at last.”
Alexander blinked, startled. His mind moved quickly, but there was nothing. He needed a name. Then, he felt the faintest brush at his sleeve. Diana’s fingers did not linger, yet the gesture landed like a precise instruction.
“Lord Hawthorne,” she murmured.
Alexander extended his hand at once. “Hawthorne. I see London has survived without me.”
Hawthorne barked a laugh. “Barely. You have been missed, whether you believe it or not.”
He looked to Diana then, clearly pleased to find her at Alexander’s side rather than drifting alone as gossip had claimed. “Your Grace, you look radiant. The Season has been starved of you.”
Diana inclined her head, a faint, polite smile touching her lips. “You are kind, my lord.”
Hawthorne’s grin widened. “And you, Your Grace, look positively attentive.”
Alexander tightened his hand slightly at Diana’s waist, enough to make his point. “I have been corrected,” he said calmly.
Diana’s fingers dug into her fan. It was a subtle reaction, but he felt it.
Hawthorne leaned closer, lowering his voice with the conspiratorial delight of a man discussing scandal in the safety of male friendship. “There were rumors.”
“I do not concern myself with rumors,” Alexander replied. His voice was cool, level, and held the absolute finality of a closing tomb. “I find they are usually the product of people with too much time and too little imagination.”
“No?” Hawthorne’s brows shot up, a glint of predatory interest in his eyes. “That is either admirable, Your Grace, or dangerously dishonest. In this room, rumors are the only currency that matters.”
Alexander let a faint, razor-thin smile touch his lips. “Then I am bankrupt. And I find it quite efficient. If I gave every stray word my attention, I should never have the focus required for more…substantial pursuits. I wouldn’t even last through the first course of supper.”
He let the words hang in the air, a silent reminder that a Duke’s time was far more valuable than the prattle of theton.
Hawthorne laughed, a bark of genuine surprise and satisfaction. He clapped a hand near Alexander’s shoulder, though he didn’t quite dare to touch him.
“Efficient! God, I’d forgotten how blunt you could be. Very well, keep your secrets.” With a final, lingering look at Diana—one that Alexander met with a steady, warning heat—Hawthorne drifted away, already pivoting toward another cluster of onlookers to trade his latest observation.
Diana exhaled, a sound so soft it was barely a ghost of breath, her shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch from their rigid, defensive line.
“You handled him well,” she said.
“I handled nothing,” Alexander replied. “You did. Both me and him.”
She angled her head slightly. “Do not make a habit of admitting it.”
“It would be foolish to pretend I do not need you.”
Her shoulders went rigid for a heartbeat, then smoothed again into composure. He found himself watching her throat as she swallowed, noticing the faint pulse there, the way it betrayed her even when her face did not.
They had not gone ten paces before Diana changed.
It was so subtle that no one else would have noticed, but Alexander felt it at once beneath his hand. Her spine straightened too rigidly. Her steps shortened. The warmth in her body cooled as if a draft had slipped between them. She did not falter, did not hesitate, yet something in her recoiled.
He followed her line of sight.
A middle-aged gentleman and an elaborately dressed woman were approaching, their smiles polished to a sheen that did not reach their eyes. Alexander searched his mind automatically for recognition and found nothing. No flicker. No recollection. They were strangers to him.
Yet Diana was not reacting as though they were strangers.
The gentleman bowed first, his posture just deferential enough to be correct. “Your Grace,” he said to Alexander, voice smooth with well-practiced respect. “What a relief it is to see you have returned. We have been most concerned.”
Alexander inclined his head with equal smoothness. “Your solicitude does you credit.”
