And for a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then, before the moment could stretch too far into something neither of them would be able to disguise, another familiar voice cut across the crush of arrivals.
“Well, if it is not the Duke and Duchess of Rosewood.”
Alexander turned.
Benjamin Kinsley approached, all easy warmth and unfeigned good humor. Emma was at his side, and Georgina and Martin Hyatt, only a step behind them. The four of them had clearly arrived together.
The sight would have been entirely pleasant if not for the immediate tightening that worked through Alexander’s body the moment his gaze settled upon Martin.
It happens every time.
There was no reason for it. No memory. No specific offense he could point to. Martin Hyatt had done nothing openly discourteous, and yet from the beginning, something in Alexander recoiled from him on instinct alone. The man’s manner was polished, his smile unforced, his attentions to Diana always framed in the language of old friendship and concern, but Alexander disliked him with a force that felt like a warning.
It irritated him because he could not explain it.
“Pentbury,” Alexander said, inclining his head toward Benjamin.
Benjamin grinned and clasped his forearm with easy familiarity. “You look as though London has not managed to bore you to death yet, Your Grace. A promising sign.”
“It has tried,” Alexander replied. “I remain unconvinced of its charm.”
“That is because you attend the wrong events.”
Emma dipped into a graceful curtsey for Diana and then looked up at her with that bright, knowing warmth that never failed to suggest she saw more than she let on. “You look beautiful.”
Diana smiled. “You are kind.”
Georgina echoed Emma’s greeting more softly, her sweetness unfeigned, and then Martin stepped forward at last. He bowed first to Diana, then to Alexander, his manner wholly correct.
“Your Grace.”
The title was spoken pleasantly enough. Alexander returned the expected inclination of the head and nothing more. “Tilbridge.”
The single word came out cooler than he intended, but perhaps not cooler than he felt. Martin noticed. Alexander saw it in the brief flicker behind the other man’s eyes before the polished ease settled back into place.
Strange that a face he could not place should provoke such immediate resistance in him. Stranger still that he trusted the feeling.
The women exchanged the first courtesies while Benjamin, as usual, began speaking three thoughts at once about the crowd, the traffic, and how London would one day collapse under the sheer weight of its own self-importance.
Alexander answered where appropriate, but his attention had already shifted. Martin stood a little too near Diana.
Diana did not appear aware of it. Or if she was, she did not seem troubled. She laughed at something Emma said, the sound low and musical, and then turned to include Georgina with the instinctive kindness that always undid him a little. She was so easy in her goodness. She made room for people. Drew them in. It was no wonder others looked toward her and stayed there.
Martin certainly did.
Alexander felt the now-familiar tightening return beneath his ribs.
Jealousy was an ugly emotion, and one he did not care to examine too closely. It made a man ridiculous if indulged and brutish if left unchecked. Yet he could not deny its shape when it appeared in him, nor the fact that it attached itself to Martin Hyatt with alarming speed.
He wanted, absurdly, to place himself more firmly at Diana’s side and keep him there.
Instead, he said, in a tone calm enough to pass for casual, “We are blocking the entrance.”
Benjamin laughed. “Rosewood speaks. We had better obey before he orders us all indoors by force.”
They began to move with the crowd toward the theatre doors. Diana fell into step beside Alexander. Without thinking, he let his hand settle briefly at the small of her back to guide her through the press of bodies and up the stone steps.
