“Nonsense.” The older woman waved a dismissive hand. “It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining. The streets will be lively.” Her eyes sparkled. “We are going out.”
Diana blinked, certain she must have misheard.
“Out?” she repeated.
Lady Salford regarded her as though the answer was perfectly obvious. “Into London, of course.”
Diana hesitated, her fingers tightening slightly around the handle of her teacup as the suggestion settled in her mind.
Under normal circumstances, she would have welcomed such an outing without a moment’s hesitation. She had always enjoyed walking the lively streets of London, pausing before shop windows, listening to the hum of voices and carriage wheels.
And yet the thought of leaving the house today stirred an unexpected unease within her.
Alexander was somewhere in the house.
Diana lowered her gaze quickly to her plate, determined not to betray the sudden rush of heat rising along her neck.
She had spent the better part of the night reminding herself that the man who had looked at her that way was not truly the husband she had married. That once his memory returned, the cold and distant Duke who had abandoned her on their wedding day would return as well.
And yet the problem was not merely that Alexander had changed. The far more troubling truth was that she had changed as well.
She was no longer certain she trusted herself to stand in the same room with him without revealing something she had spent the past year carefully burying beneath stubborn pride and wounded dignity. The way her heart had responded to him in the library, the way her breath had faltered beneath his touch, had shaken the fragile control she had built around her feelings.
The thought of leaving while he remained in the house stirred a resistance she did not care to examine too closely. She did not know whether she dreaded seeing him again or dreaded the possibility of not seeing him at all.
“I fear I may have several duties here,” she said politely.
Lady Salford stared at her. “Duties?”
“Yes.”
“What duties?”
Diana opened her mouth, intending to offer some polite explanation that might allow her to decline without appearing rude, but she did not manage to speak a single word before Lady Salford leaned forward across the table.
“You are inventing excuses,” the older woman declared.
Heat rushed to Diana’s cheeks. “I am not?—”
The older woman clapped her hands suddenly. “Excellent. That means you truly need to go out.”
Diana stared at her. “Grandmother?—”
“No arguments. I have lived sixty-five years and survived three physicians telling me I ought to rest quietly at home. I refuse to begin obeying them now.”
She stood decisively. “Finish your tea. We leave in twenty minutes.”
Somehow, twenty minutes later, Diana found herself stepping into the bright London sunlight beside a very triumphant Lady Salford.
The street bustled with the pleasant chaos of a lively morning.
Carriages rolled past in steady rhythm, their wheels rattling against the stones while well-dressed ladies drifted between the shopfronts like bright flowers blowing in a garden. Gentlemen lingered outside cafés, merchants called out cheerful greetings, and somewhere nearby a violinist played a lively tune that floated through the warm air.
Diana inhaled slowly as they stepped out onto the street, the fresh air filling her lungs in a way that felt unexpectedly cleansing after the quiet tension of the morning. The sunlight rested warmly against her face, soft and golden, and for a moment she closed her eyes, allowing the simple sensation to anchor her in the present.
To her surprise, the tight knot that had lingered in her stomach since breakfast began to loosen little by little. The bright liveliness of the street, the murmur of passing conversations, the rhythmic clatter of carriage wheels against the paving stones all carried a familiar energy that felt oddly comforting. Diana found herself grateful for the distraction.
Lady Salford slipped her arm through Diana’s with casual familiarity.
