Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) (25 page)

She held her father’s hands in her own, the two of them whispering. Occasionally, the baronet would nod. She kissed him on the cheek and Sebastian looked away from the unwanted reminder that she was a woman with a past and not merely a schemer who’d trapped him.

Someone touched his arm and he started. Emmaline leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “I like her, Sebastian.”

Well, that was something.

His sister swatted his arm as if reading his mocking thoughts. “I do. And I suspect you two will be happy…if you allow it.”

He gave a curt nod. He’d not debate the merit of his sister’s words before the servants rushing about preparing their mother for her travels. Nor did he care to discuss as much in front of Hermione.

His brother-in-law stuck out a hand. “Mallen.”

He eyed it a moment and then accepted the gracious offering.

Then another flurry of good-byes, well wishes, and hurried servants and everyone was gone—but for Sebastian…and his wife.

Silence echoed off the marble floor. Wordlessly, he turned and started for his office. Awareness of his wife’s stare boring into his back increased with each step. He resisted the urge to look back and gauge whether there was the hint of any emotion from his new bride. Then again, when one was capable of the lies Hermione was, a feigned expression could be adopted as easily as a Covent Garden actress. With deliberate steps, he climbed the stairs, damning the promise he’d made to not visit her bed.

C
hapter 23

H
ermione was not the wagering type. She rather considered it a frivolous waste of funds. But in that moment staring around the empty foyer, she’d wager every shilling she’d made as Mr. Michael Michaelmas that the last thing her husband desired was her presence. The burning fury in his impenetrable stare had indicated he’d likely see her in hell than in his home.

Rooted to the white marble floor, Hermione toyed with the staircase bannister. She suspected this unsettled moment between she and her husband represented a kind of crossroads. If she allowed him to seethe in his fury, it would destroy him, and ultimately any possibility of a happy
them
. She’d been accused of being many things—bluestocking, inevitable spinster, too-practical, now fortune-hunter. Shame turned in her belly at that. Never had she been considered a coward.

So, squaring her shoulders, she lifted her yellow skirts and ascended the long, never-ending staircase. Whyever did any home need so many stairs? She reached the top and strode down a long corridor, trailing her fingertips over the satin wallpaper. Gold sconces lined the walls. All her life, material comforts; her attire, furnishings, food, had all been a matter of necessity. There was none of the frivolous extravagance of the upper nobility.

“Can I help you, Your Grace?”

Hermione shrieked and spun around so quickly she lost her balance. She flung her arms wide to keep from toppling over.

The young maid slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear!” Tears filled her wide, brown eyes. “I nearly killed the new duchess.”

Hermione glanced around in search of this new duchess, belatedly realizing
she
was said person. At which point she also realized that the young woman had mistaken her momentary silence as a condemnation. “I assure you, it will take more than an awkward tumble to kill me,” she said in a weak attempt at humor.

The servant continued to sob into her hands.

She sighed, her husband’s flight momentarily forgotten as she patted the girl upon the shoulder. “I assure you….?”

“M-moira,” she said between noisy tears. “M-moira.”

“Well, then, I assure you, Moira,” she said in the same soothing tone she’d adopted with Elizabeth when she fell into one of her displays of temper since girlhood. “I’m quite well.”

“Y-you’re c-certain?” The girl asked, this time her tone far more steady.

Hermione smiled. “I’m very certain.”

“I’m your maid,” the girl blurted. She swiped at her cheeks. “Your lady’s maid,” she corrected. She squared her shoulders, a proud light reflected in her eyes. “I’ve just been appointed.” She paused. “If you don’t sack me for nearly killing you,” she mumbled.

“I’ve no intention of sacking you.” Hermione smiled again. She shared a kindred connection to this woman who felt so out of place in this great home. “Would you be able to guide me to…”
My husband.
“His Grace?” Which should suffice. After all, she couldn’t very well go saying to the servants, ‘oh, my husband is still displeased I trapped him into marriage and stormed off on our wedding day…do you happen to know where he is?’ “I find myself lost in this grand home.”

The girl nodded eagerly, clearly excited about having a charge she could help her new mistress with. Though, in secret, Hermione would be a good deal more pleased if young Moira could manage to drum up the duke, instead. “It is a splendid home,” the girl was saying, the words eerily echoing Papa’s from the morning breakfast. “Sweeping ceilings, beautiful carpets…” She continued to prattle on, peppering her description of Sebastian’s townhouse with the word ‘splendid.’

Neither Sebastian’s townhouse or her family’s cottage had thus far proven truly splendid. To Hermione, a splendid home was one in which a family was happy. A home where parents were strong, capable figures who didn’t break and shatter with great tragedy and instead knew love and laughter despite all life’s unfair challenges.

“I’ve never been there, of course, but I have…” The girl was saying as she paused outside an open door.

Hermione stepped into an indeed splendid bedchamber—and promptly collided with her husband.

A husband who was clearly taking great pains to avoid her. She searched for a hint of the charming, affable gentleman who’d kissed her until her toes curled—in a very good way. Looked for some sign of the man who’d inspired her story about a duke who was not at all nefarious. “Er, hullo, Sebastian.”

Cold, stony silence met her greeting.

Regret sat like a stone in her belly. This gentleman bore traces of the brooding, dark fellow readers supposedly clamored for. Mr. Werksman and all his silly readers had been very, very wrong. There was nothing preferable in these dark dukes. She missed her smiling, teasing duke.

He made to step around her.

And she registered the maids darting about her room, carrying items from her armoire to her trunk. Her lone, tattered trunk. She wrinkled her brow. “Are we going somewhere?” He’d not said anything of the like. Nor had she imagined he’d be eager to go on honeymoon with the woman who’d forced him into marriage.

“Leave.” For a moment she thought he spoke to her. But the harsh, guttural command sent the three young maids scurrying toward the door. They slipped around Sebastian and Hermione stepped out of the way, permitting them their well-deserved exit. They closed the door behind them, filing past her with a pitying look. She detested the pitying looks.

Hermione frowned. “That really wasn’t well done of you. Scaring the maids.” She gave a toss of her nonexistent curls. “And I asked where we were going, Sebastian.” She really wished there was at least a hint interesting with her dull, dark locks.

He stepped around her. “
We
are not going anywhere, madam.”

She placed herself between him and the door handle. She would have to be deafer than the village vicar’s eighty-something-year-old wife to not hear the slight emphasis on that particular word.

“Very well, are
you
going somewhere, Your Grace?”

“You are, madam.”

She tipped her head. “I am what?”

“Leaving.” His tone crisp, terse, and all so very ducal. “You are leaving,” he bit out.

She pursed her lips feeding the indignation at his packing her up and sending her off like some wayward child; sentiments that protected her from the pain of his coldness. Hermione shook her head, slowly. The faint movement rattled the door at her back. “No.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “You are.”

“No.” She shook her head again. “I am not.” With determined steps she marched over to the opened trunk at the foot of her bed and proceeded to pull out the items already packed. She expected him to leave.

Instead, he folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned against the closed door, studying her with that aloof, distant expression in his green eyes.

Hermione hated the dreadful ache in her heart at how very desperate he was to be free of her. She carried another blasted yellow dress over to the armoire and stuffed it inside. The cheery fabric was a mockery of this hell of her own making. All the while, Sebastian’s gaze threatened to burn a hole into her back. She returned for another gown. She could not really blame him for his anger, considering she’d gone and trapped him, but surely something,
anything
to come before that shameful moment in her life had meant something to him.

Yet, her feelings for him aside, she could not allow him to pack her off, forcing her to leave behind her siblings for…for… Well, wherever it was one sent an unwanted wife.

“Hermione,” he said, his tone harsh. “You are going to Leeds.”

So, it would seem it was Leeds where those unwanted wives were sent off to. She jumped and turned to face him. His expression remained an inscrutable mask that bore no traces of the warmth she’d once known in him. She sucked in a steadying breath. “I understand you are displeased with me,” she began. But she’d not be packed away and scuttled off with no control, no say over her own fate.

He snorted. Which was a good deal more encouraging than the black glowers and scathing glances he’d shot her way since their very public discovery at Lady Brookfield’s ball.

“However, I’d rather not leave,” she finished. And more, she had no intention of leaving.

He shoved away from the door jamb and stalked toward her. She gulped. Now she knew how that poor mouse set free inside the lion’s cage had felt at the Bullock’s Museum menagerie. Hermione took a step backward. He continued advancing with a military-like precision to his steps. She retreated. The backs of her knees met the side of the bed and she stumbled into a sitting position.

He stopped and passed a look, teeming with loathing up and down her person. “You’ve what you desired all along, Hermione,” his words, his every action scraping along her heart. “You’ve your grand title of duchess.” Which she didn’t give a jot about. “And enough wealth to pay for whatever French fabrics your heart should desire.” Did he truly believe one dressed in yellow taffeta ruffles, with such an ill-begotten fashion sense would trap a duke for a love of fine fabrics? “The country estate in Leeds will be yours.”

Her heart cracked. She didn’t want his country estate in Leeds. Not unless he intended to share that home with her. She shook her head. “No.” She didn’t crave a single material possession from him. She wanted him. And in one moment of weakness, she’d selfishly tossed aside any hope of them, for the protection of his name. “What an utter waste,” she whispered to herself.

His eyebrows dipped. “What was that, madam?” A hard, silken edge lined his words.

“Er, that is, no
thank you
.” Though she was astute enough to know his displeasure had nothing to do with her apparent lack of gratefulness at his generous offer. “I’m very much content here.” She glanced around at the rumpled sheets of her coverlet and colored. “Er…well not here, precisely.”

A muscle ticked at the right corner of his lip. His stony silence more disconcerting than his icy words.

“But here,” she clarified, desperate to fill the quiet with even her empty words. “In your townhouse.”

He said nothing for so long she shifted on her feet, the pit in her stomach growing with each passing moment. Then, he closed the remaining distance between them. “The operative word, madam, being
my
.” A hard smile, devoid of all warmth turned his lips.

She’d wronged him and would forever regret robbing him of choice, but she would not be bullied by him. Hermione ticked her chin up a notch. “Your.”

He cocked his head, a question reflected in his eyes, replacing his earlier fury.

“You said the operative word being ‘my’, when, I’d actually said—”

He kissed her.

He’d kissed her with the sole intention of silencing her. Only now with her back arched at an impossible angle and her head tipped up to receive his kiss, he forgot the whole silencing business and remembered the feel of her. The taste of her. And, he who’d sworn to never give her anything after everything she’d taken and pledged to leave her as virginal as the day she’d come to him found the taunting convenience of the wide four-poster bed and her the greatest temptation of all others.

He gentled his kiss then slid his tongue inside, swallowing her moan. Sebastian scooped an arm about her waist and edged her deeper into the center of the bed, never breaking contact with her mouth. She fisted her hands in his hair, as if she wanted to hold him in place and never let go. And he was content to let her hold him there forever. He worked his hands down her body, cupping the gentle swell of her breasts and through the fabric of her hideous yellow gown, flicked a nipple to life.

A gasping cry escaped Hermione as her head fell back. His breathing came harsh and fast as he continued to explore her body as he’d longed to since Lord Denley’s office. She stiffened when he lifted her skirts, but the haze of desire in her eyes and the slightly panting breaths she emitted spoke of her willingness.

He leaned down and caressed her lean calves; legs made for riding. “What hold do you have on me?” he whispered, his tone harsh with fury, desire, pain.

She stroked his cheek. “Until this moment, I didn’t know I had any.” Regret tinged her words and with them, reality crept in; the moment of her deception that had led to this moment.