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Had she not left him at the altar?
Diane blinked several times, as if he were only a spot in her vision that she could make go away.
She dropped the toast and started to hurry out of the dining room, half a thought to hide upstairs, possibly to climb out a window if she needed to, when Martin stepped inside the inn’s front entrance.
Diane stopped in her tracks.
“Good morning, Miss Carter,” he nodded, though the sentiment of the words did not meet his eyes.
Diane nodded.
“Don’t let me interrupt your breakfast,” Martin said.
“Indeed,” she nodded again, chewing on her tongue. She drifted back to the dining room with him following closely behind. As she sat down, her mind still spun. Martin, here, how? How could he have found her so quickly?
She sat very still, nearly unblinking as Martin brought her tea and toast to the table, sitting down across from her.
Her little escape from her quiet life had ended much sooner than she had thought. Diane stared down at the toast on her plate. She wished she had spent longer upstairs, lingering in the memory of last night, breathing in and basking in the scent of Liam that lingered on the sheets.
The pair of them remained in silence as the other patrons at the inn had their breakfast, read their newspapers and one by one, left the dining room, until it was only Martin and Diane sitting across from each other.
Every time Diane thought she should say something, she put a bite of toast or tea in her mouth instead. Saying anything was dangerous.
It might have been too much to hope for, that Liam would return so soon after he had left for the church, and rescue her from the dining room.
“I suppose I owe you an apology—” Diane started after a long while.
Martin looked up so sharply she stopped. He held her in his stare, and she felt nearly certain she needed to retract what she hadn’t yet said.
“It was wrong of me to leave like that, without saying anything,” she offered listlessly after a few moments, before chewing the inside of her cheek again to keep herself from bursting out that she didn’t know how to end things. How from their courtship to the morning of their wedding, she had just been hoping it would suddenly feel like a blessing rather than a curse, until it was far too late.
“Yes. You should have said something to me,” Martin nodded.
“I should have said something the first time we met and... didn’t dance at the assembly ball,” Diane nodded as well, relieved he seemed to be on the same page as her. “I have valued our families’ friendship, Martin, but it is an awkward thing to say perhaps I do not want as much of it as—”
“So he is here,” Martin interrupted, his eyes falling on the page tucked just beside her teacup.
He grabbed the paper before Diane could so much as reach for it, his eyes running over the drawing, the note. Diane watched the red creep up in Martin’s cheeks as his expression soured.
“He... yes. Liam came here with me,” she admitted quietly.
Martin turned away from her, his gaze out in the street, searching.
“I thought,” he started to say, then stopped himself, mustering more severity. “I thought at first, he might have realized your absence, and gone looking for you. But now I see you left together.”
“No,” Diane said quickly, “You must credit him at least with trying to stop me from running off on my own.”
“Running away together did neither of you any better.”
Heat and shame crept up into Diane’s face, her heart pounding as she sat as still as she could. He was right. Perhaps it would have been less damaging to both their families if she had left alone, until she had gotten lost and run out of breath.
“I’ve been thinking—” Martin said nearly the same moment she had decided to speak. He paused, looking at her to continue.
Diane stopped immediately, watching him carefully for what he was to say. Thinking? About what? How ill-suited they were for one another, how this was a terrible way to start a lifelong union?
Martin glanced at her, then to his own cup of tea. “...Thinking about what to say when we return.”
Diane held her breath.
