Page 6 of Five Nights to Claim His Duchess

She followed his glance. Across the churchyard her father stood with Octavia on his arm, the pair of them making their leisurely way toward the carriages, toward her, to play out the tender farewell before the last of the departing guests.

“I have no family here, Your Grace,” she stated quite calmly. “I am your wife now. Am I not? Then I have no further need of them.”

She had made to step toward the carriage when a small cry stopped her where she stood.

“Diana—!”

Betsy was hastening across the grass with Arabella in her arms. Arabella, who was never to have come at all, who had somehow slipped her hold and now twisted free and ran. Diana was on her knees in the churchyard dirt in an instant, her ruined ivory silk forgotten, gathering the sobbing child hard against her.

“Bella, hush now, my darling, I have you.” She pressed her lips to the small hot brow.

“But will I—” Arabella’s whole small body shuddered with it. “Will I ever see you again?”

She took her sister’s wet face in both hands, and wiped the tears away with her thumbs, and smiled at her as though her own heart was not breaking in two.

“Of course you will. Of course, of course you will, dearest; how should I ever do without you? Before the leaves are down. I promise it.”

Over the child’s head she saw Octavia drawing nearer, that soft false concern already arranging itself upon her lovely features. Diana’s arms tightened once, and let go.

“Betsy—” She rose, and set the child back into the maid’s keeping. “Take her inside. And do not bring her out again, whatever you are bid.”

“Yes, Miss—Your Grace.” And Betsy bore the weeping child away.

“I’ll go with them.” Henrietta was already moving, catching up her skirts, casting one last look over her shoulder. “I’ll not leave her side. Be brave, cousin.” She raised a hand, and was gone after them across the green.

Then there was only the carriage, and the Duke, and her father and Octavia bearing down upon her with their farewell all made ready on their lips.

Her father cleared his throat. “Diana. My dear child⁠—”

She did not wait to hear the rest. She caught up her skirts in both hands and climbed up into the carriage herself, without the smallest regard for grace or for the footman’s astonished, outstretched hand, and settled upon the seat with her chin held high.

Behind her, she heard the Duke make a surprised breath of amusement.

He swung up after her and took the place at her side, and his gaze came to rest upon her with an interest she had not marked in it before. “Do you wish to speak with them?” He tipped his head toward the pair frozen upon the church steps.

“They are strangers to me, Your Grace.”

For a moment he only looked at her. Then he rapped once upon the roof. “Drive on.”

The carriage lurched forward. Through the window, Diana caught one last glimpse of Octavia’s lovely face, falling open, and heard the woman’s affronted little yelp as the wheels almost ran over her foot. The whole of her old life swung out of sight behind them.

CHAPTER THREE

“Most brides weep, I am told, when they leave their families.”

Diana’s eyes came up from the middle button of his waistcoat, where they had fixed themselves through the whole of the drive.

He was watching her, not urgently; nothing about the man was urgent. It was unhurried attention she had felt upon her from the head of the aisle onward. “You have not shed a single tear. I should have thought there was cause enough for it, watching your sister carried off in tears.” He paused. “I find myself curious as to why.”

“I do not weep where it can be prevented, Your Grace. I have found it serves very little purpose.”

Diana folded her trembling hands in her lap and made herself breathe. She had lain awake nights rehearsing it, and she would not lose her nerve now, not when it mattered more than anything ever had.

“You saw the scene at the church, Your Grace.” She kept her eyes ahead, upon the empty seat across from them; it was easier so. “With the child. I owe you the truth of it, since you are bound to it now as I am.” She drew a breath.

“She is my sister. She is eight years old. Our mother died bringing her into the world, and our father—” the word snagged, and she pressed on past it “—our father is a lovesick fool who has given himself over entirely to a woman who cares nothing for either of us, and rather less than nothing for that little girl.”

He said nothing. He only waited as though silence cost him nothing and he had a great deal of it to spend.