“If I do not,” she replied evenly, snapping another stem with more force than necessary, “I may be tempted to do something far more destructive.”
Lydia, her maid, stood a cautious distance away, hands folded primly over her apron. She had served Diana long enough to recognize the particular stillness that meant her mistress was anything but calm.
“It has been only twelve hours,” Lydia ventured carefully.
Diana’s shears paused mid-air. “I am aware of the passage of time.”
“You have not once set foot in the east wing,” Lydia continued. “Nor have you rung for His Grace.”
Diana resumed trimming the hedge with precise, punishing cuts. “His Grace appears to possess two functioning legs. I assume he is capable of movement, if he wishes to see me.”
Lydia cleared her throat delicately. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again, her warm eyes fixed on Diana’s face.
Diana straightened slowly, brushing a stray curl from her temple. The morning air was crisp and fragrant with damp soil. The garden had always been her refuge, with its orderly beds, its predictable growth. Those were things that responded to attention.
Unlike husbands.
“I have resented him for a year,” she said at last, her voice low but steady. “Resented his arrogance. His indifference.”
Lydia’s expression softened. “Have your feelings changed now?”
Diana’s fingers tightened around the shears. Now… Well, only some hours ago, he kissed her as though he had been starved. Now, he looked at her as though he had just discovered her. Now he had forgottenleaving.
“I do not know what I feel,” she admitted.
“He is not the same man,” Lydia said gently.
“No,” Diana replied. “He is worse.”
“Worse, Your Grace?”
“He looks at me,” Diana said, her voice dropping almost unconsciously. “As though he intends to truly be my husband.”
Lydia blinked.
Diana turned back toward the roses before her maid could see the flush rising along her neck. She had spent a year convincing herself she was unwanted, and now her body felt hunted. It was frustrating. Exciting. Intolerable.
“I will not be toyed with,” she muttered, more to herself than to Lydia.
“So, you are avoiding him,” Lydia said softly.
Diana stiffened. “I am not.”
“You breakfasted at dawn instead of your usual time. Tea in the orangery. You retired early last night.”
Diana lifted her chin. “I have duties. Of course, I am not hiding from my own husband.”
From his mouth. From his hands. From the way her pulse reacted when she heard his voice.
Before Lydia could reply, another maid came hurrying across the gravel path, skirts gathered in both hands.
“Your Grace!” she gasped. “We cannot locate His Grace.”
Diana froze. “What do you mean you cannot locate him?”
“He was in the library earlier, Your Grace. Then the dining room. And now… no one has seen him.”
Her stomach dropped unpleasantly. He had memory loss. If he wandered beyond the house, he would not know the streets. He would not recognize the people who approached him, nor the places he might turn to for help. He might not even remember their names, which would pose endless complications. The Duke of Rosewood could step into London like a stranger and have no idea how to find his way back. Worse still, if anyone realized something was amiss…
