She shivered. The way he spoke her name was a revelation, low, vibrating, as though he were tasting the syllables for the first time. Which, it was, actually.
“Your Grace,” she began, her voice a whisper of defiance. “What are you?—”
The rest of her sentence was lost.
For his hand shot out, his fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck, his thumb tilting her chin upward with a firm, uncompromising pressure.
And his lips crashed against hers.
Diana froze, her mind shrieking a protest that her body refused to hear.
His mouth was hot, demanding, his lips moving against hers with unrestrained pressure. His other hand settled at the small of her back, his fingers splaying across the silk, crushing her against the hard planes of his chest until she could feel every thud of his heart…or was it hers?
A traitorous, white-hot fire coiled low in her abdomen. For one stunned, shameful second, she forgot the past year. Her fingers fisted into his waistcoat, pulling him closer as her own lips parted in a soft, broken sound of surrender.
Then, the cold reality of his betrayal crashed back in.
She shoved him away. It took every ounce of her strength, her hands trembling as they pushed against the solid wall of his chest.
The Duke released her immediately, though his hands lingered for a fraction of a second at her waist, a phantom, possessive weight that left her skin burning through the silver silk.
She raised a hand to her lips; they felt swollen, branded, still tingling with the impossible touch of him.
The Duke didn’t look sheepish or regretful. He stood his ground, his feet planted wide, his broad shoulders blocking out the light of the room. He looked at her with an expression of profound confusion.
“Have I made a mistake?” he asked, his voice a low, vibrating growl of certainty. His presence seemed to expand, filling the air she was trying so desperately to breathe. “Are you not my wife?”
“I am,” Diana snapped. She was as offended by his bluntness as she was bewildered by his poise.
“Then I fail to see the source of your outrage,” he interrupted, his brow creasing into a sharp line between his eyes. He smoothed the front of his waistcoat with a slow, methodical grace that drew her eyes back to the strength of his frame. “There is no reason for a woman to be scandalized by the touch of her own husband.”
He watched her with a greedy alertness, his emerald eyes tracking the frantic pulse in her throat as if he could feel her heart hammering from across the room. Even through her fury, she yearned to lean back into him, an instinct she couldn’t suppress.
He took a slow step toward her, his shadow stretching over the silver silk of her gown.
“You look at me as if I am a ghost, or a monster,” he said, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that seemed to settle deep in her bones. “When I fear that I am merely an invalid. I have been told of my departure, but the truth, Diana, is that I remember nothing. My mind is a blank slate, scrubbed clean by an accident.”
Diana’s stomach twisted into a hard, cold knot.
“An accident?” she asked.
Alexander gave a faint shake of his head, a shadow of frustration passing over his expression. “So I am told.”
“You do not know what happened?” Her voice trembled as she asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“No.” His jaw tightened slightly, the muscle there shifting beneath the shadow of his beard. “I regained consciousness in the street, here in London. A hackney recognized me and brought me here.”
Diana felt the air leave her lungs in a slow, shallow breath. “And you do not remember what you were doing? Before the accident?”
Alexander gave a faint shake of his head. The movement was controlled, but irritation flashed briefly across his face, as though the very question offended him.
“I remember nothing.”
Her stomach twisted painfully.
“‘Nothing’?” Diana asked, her voice quieter now, though she had not intended it to be.
For a moment, he did not answer. He simply watched her, and the weight of his gaze was unnerving. Those green eyes studied her with a strange mixture of intensity and confusion, as if he were searching for something familiar in a face that refused to yield its meaning.
