The night air brushed the bare skin of her shoulders. She felt it distinctly, cool against flesh made sensitive by memory. The silk of her gown clung to her waist and hips, the neckline cut just daringly enough that she had felt almost wicked when she first saw herself in the mirror earlier that evening.
It had been a year. A year since she watched her husband walk out of the building as though marriage were no more than a signed contract. The ton had whispered, of course. They always did. They whispered at balls, behind fans, in drawing rooms thick with perfume and false pity.
The Duke travels frequently. The Duchess prefers her independence. How… unusual.
Diana had learned to carry the title with impeccable grace. She attended every function. Hosted dinners. Gave to charities. Her gowns were discussed. Her composure, admired. And yet, the absence lingered like a shadow that refused to fade.
“You have survived remarkably well,” Georgina observed now, swirling the dark red liquid in her glass. “If Martin had abandoned me on my wedding day, I should have fled to France in disgrace.”
“You would not,” Martin said mildly from across the table. “You would have written me a blistering letter and demanded an apology within the week.”
Georgina’s eyes sparkled. “Perhaps.”
Diana allowed herself a faint smile. It was easier among them, easier to breathe when no one studied her for cracks in her composure.
“Do not look at me in that manner,” she said lightly. “I have not perished of neglect.”
Benjamin’s brow lifted. “No, but you have endured it.”
“I have done more than endure,” she replied, lifting her chin, her voice steady. “I manage my household. I preside at dinners twice a week. I am received everywhere. There are few doors in London that do not open to me.”
“Do you know where he is?” Emma asked quietly.
There was no accusation in the question, only care.
Diana did not hesitate. “His Grace is precisely where he prefers to be.”
Benjamin’s gaze sharpened slightly. “And where is that?”
“Not here.” The admission was calm, but it felt nothing of the sort.
She lifted her glass and took a slow sip, though her throat had gone dry. The wine warmed her from within, but not enough to soften the ache that had begun to pulse low beneath her ribs.
“Diana.”
She realized Emma had said her name twice.
“Yes?”
Emma’s expression softened. In the glow of the lanterns, the fair strands of her hair caught the light like pale silk against the soft blue of her gown. “You are thinking again.”
“I am allowed to think,” she said dryly.
“Not in that way,” Emma replied.
Benjamin reached for his wife’s hand, his broad fingers closing easily around hers, his thumb tracing a slow, absent path over her knuckles. His dark hair fell slightly across his brow as heleaned closer to her, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Diana felt it like a physical blow to the chest. It was the quiet reality of a marriage. It wasn’t in the vows; it was in the unthinking, instinctive way they occupied the same air.
She watched Benjamin lean toward Emma as he spoke, his shoulder naturally finding hers. Emma bloomed beneath the attention, her delicate features brightening, her laughter softening as it turned toward him alone. They simply belonged together.
A sharp, hollow ache bloomed behind Diana’s ribs.
What would it be like,she wondered, to be reached for without hesitation?
To have a husband who didn’t view her touch as a threat. She looked at her own hand—the gold band mocking her in the moonlight—and realized that the Duke hadn’t just taken his presence from her. He had taken the possibility ofthis.
She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other, as though the movement might quiet the ache.
“You deserve better,” Emma said softly, squeezing Benjamin’s hand before releasing it. “Even if you pretend you do not require it.”
