When she finally stepped into the room that had become her refuge over the last two months, the flicker grew. This space had become her sanctuary, the one place where she could let her guard down.
A maid stood beside the bed, carefully turning down the covers, her presence a quiet comfort. Only a few lamps illuminated the room, casting long, soft shadows across the walls, wrapping the space in a cocoon of privacy. Here, at least, the weight of the world seemed to lessen, and Diana could breathe—if only for a little while.
“One moment, please.” Diana held up a hand as she hurried to the older woman. “Martha, this is not necessary. I shall leave tonight for an extended stay with my cousin.”
Martha Whitehead’s eyes widened. From outside, the wind picked up and howled through the closed window, rattling the pane. “Milady, it’s too late to travel… and a storm is brewing.”
Chuckling, Diana turned toward her dressing table. “I’m not a stranger to traveling in bad weather. I have lived in England all my life. I shall brave the elements and arrive safe at my cousin’s house. Besides, it’s only an hour’s drive. All will be well, I assure you.” She picked up her bonnet and placed it snugly over her ringlets. Hopefully the maid didn’t know how far her grandmother’s cottagereallywas. “I assume you have already packed my things?”
“But of course, milady. You instructed me to do it days ago. You just didn’t know when you’d be leaving.”
“Splendid. Please tell the footman to load the trunks onto the carriage. I shall leave as soon as he’s finished.”
Diana peered in the mirror and met Martha’s reflection. The maid shrugged and smirked. “As you wish, milady.”
As the thin, middle-aged woman rushed out of the room, Diana clutched her hands against a roiling stomach and silently prayed everything would go smoothly. She didn’t know why she feared the worst, unless it was because her life had always been a pattern of mishaps. She didn’t want anything to ruin this for her now.
Freedom was just hours away.
*
“Ever’one raise yerglass and toast ta Lord Tristan’s nup… nup… shuls.” Tristan Worthington slurred his words as he tried to ponder on what he wanted to say. Realizing his mind was too unclear, he laughed and stumbled against the man standing next to him, spilling his rum over the side of his tumbler.
The man rolled his eyes. “Worthington, will ye quit toastin’ to yer own weddin’? We all ’no ye aren’t gonna marry the lady.”
Tristan scowled at the fellow.What was his name…“Ah, but my good man, ye’re wrong. T’morrow afta-noon, I’ll be there in church standin’ next to my beautiful bride, Lady… er… Lady…” Tristan rubbed the throb growing in his forehead.
The other men who’d gathered in the tavern released a fit of laughs. One belched loudly and lifted his cup. “Worthington has fergotten her name already.”
Blast it all!Tristan thought. Whatwasher name? “Doesn’t matter. I’m marryin’ her t’morrow.”
His legs wobbled and he plopped his butt down on the chair before he ended up on the floor like he had last night. Inwardly, he groaned. How many nights had he been visiting the tavernstoastinghis nuptials, anyway? Too many to count. Tomorrow his life—his very freedom—would end, no matter how badly he wished for a different fate.
You’re making a colossal mistake, Worthington,came the warning from the back of his mind. Yet he figured by marrying the widow, Lady Jane, he would be able to put his past to rest once and for all, so it must be done.
“Ah-ha!” he called out loudly to his nameless associates. “I remember now. Her name is Lady Jane Fair… er… burn, or something like that.”
Once again, the men erupted in boisterous laughter, their voices so loud it seemed as though the very walls might shake from the sound. Tristan winced, the throbbing in his head growing unbearable. His skull felt as if it might split open from the pressure, each burst of laughter like a hammer against his temples. He couldn’t endure any more of this raucous celebration. His one thought now was to get home and sleep off his drunken stupor, especially with the weight of tomorrow looming over him.
He glanced down at his wrinkled, disheveled clothes, grimacing as he tried in vain to smooth out the creased fabric. It was a poor effort. He needed to change before morning; it wouldn’t do to walk into the church looking like a man who had just crawled out of a tavern. His mother, in particular, would be watching him closely, and there was no way she would tolerate her son acting—or appearing—like a fool in public. She had endured enough from him over the past few years. He had already caused her so much worry, and her health had suffered for it.
Tristan’s chest tightened with guilt. He owed it to her to look the part tomorrow, to be clean, sober, and properly dressed for his wedding. After all the disappointment he had brought her, the least he could do was stand at the altar as the man she’d hoped he would become—not the wreck he feared he still was.
Tristan’s mother had always held high hopes that he would marry into a respectable family, especially after the turmoil that had consumed his life for the past three years. He had nearly lost everything—his life, his memory, and his place in Society. For two long years, he had wandered through a haze of forgotten memories, unaware of who he truly was, until his brother, Trey, had finally found him and brought him home. It had been a miracle, but the cost was steep. The person he had been before had vanished, leaving behind fragments of a life he barely recognized.
And then there was Diana.
The woman he had once believed he loved—the woman he had thought held his heart—was no longer a part of his life. She was the last vestige of the man he had been before the accident, before the darkness of those lost years. Yet her absence still haunted him, a ghost of what might have been. Tristan knew he had to move on, to finally put her behind him. Marrying Lady Jane Fairbourne was the only way to close that chapter for good.
She represented everything his mother wanted for him: stability, respectability, and a chance to restore the family’s tarnished reputation. And perhaps, if he allowed himself to believe it, marrying her would be exactly what he needed to heal. He could start fresh and bury the memory of Diana once and for all, leaving the past where it belonged—in the shadows.
Chapter Two
“Milord?” The toothlessbugger next to him grinned. “Do ye need me to stand with ye for yer big day t’morrow?”
Tristan waved a hand through the air. “As much as the idea sounds appealin’, I must decline.” He lifted his drink to his mouth and finished every last drop before slamming it on the table. “My friends,” he called out, “I shall take my leave now. The next time I come ta this fine ’stablishment, I’ll be a happily married man.” Well, he wasn’t too sure about thehappilypart, but he most certainly would be married.
As Tristan stumbled out of the tavern, the men inside erupted into cheers, shouting his name and raising their cups in a drunken salute. He waved them off with a halfhearted grin, his steps unsteady as he made his way toward where his coach should have been waiting. The evening’s revelry still pulsed in his veins, but the weight of tomorrow lingered heavily on his shoulders.
