Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) (7 page)

Hermione blinked once. Twice. And then in rapid succession. “Will he call?” Certainly not. The Duke of Mallen would have little reason to call on her.
No
reason, if she wanted to be truly precise.

“Precisely,” her sister went on, voicing the thought and somehow making it even more real. “He won’t. And we can’t simply rely on your meeting him at various social functions. Every other lady present will be clamoring for the gentleman’s notice for no other reason than because of his title.”

Oh, how very wrong her sister was. The duke could have his title stripped and his lands removed and he’d inspire fluttering hearts and shivers of awareness in dowagers and debutantes alike.

Addie elbowed her in the side. “Hermie.”

She grunted. “What was that for?”

“You’ve gone all moon-eyed,
Hermie
.”

“Don’t call me…” A mischievous sparkle glimmered in her sister’s eyes. These were sad days indeed if she’d allow an eleven-year-old girl’s teasing to rankle. “I have not gone all moon-eyed.” She was far too practical and logical to ever do anything as foolish as go
moon-eyed
, as her sister had suggested.

“Yes, you have,” she spoke as fact. “Your eyes get silly.” Addie directed her eyes to the heavens. “And your mouth goes all funny.” She went slack-jaw, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

“I certainly do not look like that.” She bristled with indignation.

“Humph,” her sister mumbled, her tone threaded with skepticism. “Either way, you need to meet him.” She hopped off the bed. “I suggest a discreet inquiry from our servants to his.” She raced over to the door.

Where had her sister learned such tactics? “I’ll not do something as indelicate as spy on His Grace, Addie,” she called after her.

Addie pulled the door open. “You will if you want to tell the affable duke’s story,” she said, without even glancing back. She slammed the wood paneled door in her wake.

Hermione drew her knees close to her chest and stared at the closed door. It either spoke volumes of her sister’s wisdom or Hermione’s desperation, but once again Addie’s idea was not an altogether ill-thought-out one. She rubbed her chin across the fabric of her modest brown skirts. She really didn’t want to spy on the duke. There was something quite underhanded and devious in such actions. However, it would all be in the name of research…and by the disrepair of her father’s office, it was much needed research.

Hermione collapsed backward once again. She tossed her arm wide, gaze fixed on that same watermark. Putting inquiries to the duke’s servants it would have to be.

C
hapter 8

T
he following afternoon Sebastian drummed the tip of his pen along the opened ledger atop his desk. He considered the marble hearth at the opposite end of the room, remembering a different office, a different hearth…and a certain young lady.

Hermione, to be exact.

Close up, even in the dimly lit quarters of Denley’s room, he’d not found her any type of grand beauty like the ladies who drove men to dash sonnets, not that he’d ever be one of those silly dandies who favored poetry.

However, after their chance meeting in the London streets, he’d been unable to rid himself of the breathless quality of her laugh or the silver flecks that dotted her eyes or…He groaned. It would seem he was one of those sonnet-sprouting fellows, after all.

But blast and hell, there was something very intriguing about a woman who’d uttered, “You’re a duke,” in that deflated way. The same way she might have responded if he’d announced his intentions to remove her pencil and bar her from penning any more sentences.

He threw his pen down, abandoning hope of work as an all too familiar restiveness thrummed through him. There had been a time, when he was a younger man and merely the
heir
to a dukedom, when the title of duke hadn’t paved his way or garnered favors. In the six years since his father’s passing, however, he’d ceased to exist as anything beyond that very revered title.

Until Hermione. The mysterious stranger, by Waxham’s admission, no one knew anything of.

And God help him, he wanted to know—

A knock sounded at the door. He looked up, grateful for the interruption, and then tamped down a groan.

His sister, Emmaline, stood framed in the doorway, a smile on her lips. “Sebastian.” A smile he’d learned long, long ago to be very leery of.

For one horrified moment it was as though she’d read the dangerous thoughts churning through his head. But then, he narrowed his eyes remembering Emmaline and the Countess of Waxham’s scheming from across Lady Denley’s ballroom floor. “Em.” Whatever would his sister say to his sudden preoccupation with a Miss Rogers?

And I suppose you should call me Hermione…

A wounded expression, patently insincere, lined Emmaline’s face. “Never tell me you aren’t elated to see me.” She wagged her brown eyebrows.

“Indeed,” he drawled, allowing her to make of that “indeed” what she would.

“Humph,” she mumbled at his noncommittal response, apparently taking exception. She tugged free her gloves and wandered over to his desk. “May I?” She’d already claimed the edge of the leather wing-back chair.

“Please do.” She either failed to note or care about the heavy sarcasm underlining those two words. He’d wager by the constant megrim she’d given him through the years with her antics that it was, in fact, the latter.

Emmaline beat her white gloves together, her amusement replaced with an uncharacteristic solemnity.

The only time he’d remembered her somber had been when she’d severed that blasted betrothal contract crafted by their austere father. He leaned back in his seat and rested his arms along the edge of his chair. Concern drove back his earlier annoyance. For as much as she’d driven him mad these years, he’d lob off someone’s arm before he saw his sister hurt. “What is it?”

“Sophie.”

He would
not
be lobbing off Sophie, Countess of Waxham’s arm.

The two women had been friends since they’d made their Come Out. Sebastian shifted in his seat. “Has something happened between you and the countess?” he managed to force the question out. He shot a desperate look over her shoulder. This really was a conversation best reserved for their mother. Or Em’s husband. Or her dog, Sir Faithful.
Not
her elder brother.

She stared down at her gloves a moment, fixed on the white kidskin fabric. “Sophie would have made you a splendid wife,” she said at last.

That snapped his attention forward. And as the young lady whom she believed would have made him a
splendid
wife was married to his best friend, he really thought no response was the safe response.

Emmaline lifted her gaze and spoke in gentle tones. “However, she’s married now.” An idea that had once grated. “And though I cannot think of a single young lady who’d interest you, I know there is some very special, very unique lady who will see
you
and not your title.” At one time, he would have agreed with Emmaline. Until Lord Denley’s ball. There was, however,
one
young lady…

“Sebastian? Are you paying attention?”

“Indeed,” he said, tugging at his suddenly too-tight cravat.

“As I was saying, it will take a bit of searching to find your wife but it is not an impossible task.”

Ah, yes, her scheming with Sophie. “And is that what you intend?” He eyed her warily. “To find me a wife?” Unbidden, Hermione crept in his thoughts once more. This time as she’d been at their first meeting, wielding that silly pencil like a dagger. He grinned.

She set her shoulders back. “This isn’t a matter of amusement, Sebastian,” she said, with a touch of impatience shattering the fleeting memory of the lively Hermione. “This is about your happiness.”

“I believe amusement and happiness are suitable partners, no?”

At his droll tone, Emmaline tossed her hands up. “Can you not be serious?”

He was serious. All the time. It was a product of his station, and those damned expectations. “I want you to be happy,” she said softly, all earlier annoyance gone. His sister set her gloves down and rested her palms upon his desk. “Your life has been filled with rigid responsibility, I know that. Father demanded much of you.”

He’d demanded much of the both of them.

She gave him a soft smile. “I love my husband. That childhood betrothal was one of the greatest legacies left by Father.”

Yes, it had been but not for the reasons dreamed out by their father. His sister knew love, and possessed a beautiful child. Again, a pang of envy struck. He shoved it aside not wanting or needing to expose these very humbling desires before anyone, and most certainly not his sister.

He looked around her. “Where is your husband? Don’t you have to do…whatever it is marchionesses do throughout the day? Regan—”

A smile wreathed her face. “I left her sleeping quite contentedly,” she assured him, speaking of her now two-year-old daughter.

“Splendid.” For how long did babes sleep?

“Oh, worry not.” Her eyes glittered with the same mischievousness she’d shown as a girl. “She’ll sleep for two hours. On most days.”

Splendid.

“Do not try and change the subject.” She sat back in her chair, indicating he’d have had an easier time taking on Wellington’s determined forces at Waterloo than displacing his sister from his office. “I’m here to speak to you about—your heart.”

“My heart,” he repeated dumbly. He prayed he’d heard her incorrectly.

Emmaline gave a perfunctory nod. “Your heart.” His prayers, of course, proving futile. She folded her hands primly on her lap which was all a ruse. There wasn’t a thing prim about his hoyden of a sister. “Now,” she began sounding like a governess about to set down an unwanted lesson. “I know with your commitment to the dukedom, you don’t believe it important.”

“Do not believe what is important?” he asked, struggling to follow this unwanted conversation. A gentleman didn’t care to discuss matters of the heart—with one’s sister. With anyone, really. But
especially
not his sister.

“Why, marrying for love,” Emmaline supplied. “You likely have already in all your stodgy dukedomness—”

“That is not a word.”

She carried on over his dry interruption. “Resolved yourself to wed some prim, proper, and not at all passionate young lady.”

His sister was wrong. Very wrong. Oh, he’d never admit as much. He was content to carry on with her and everyone else believing he didn’t believe or aspire to that dangerous sentiment. It was far safer that way; for his pride, and with his sister’s temerity, his sanity.

Sebastian spread his arms wide. “I appreciate your concern. I do,” he added at the pointed look she gave him. He may be uncomfortable with displays of emotion from her, but the fact that she was as concerned for him now as she’d been when he’d been a boy who’d gotten his nose broken at Eton meant a lot to him. “However…” Regardless, he didn’t intend to remain and discuss matters of the heart with her. “I was planning on riding at Hyde Park.” He always rode at Hyde Park. Usually first thing in the morning before the grounds were crowded with title-grasping ladies attempting to capture his attention.

“Adults don’t tattle. They gossip. Tattling, gossiping…all really the same.”

Emmaline stitched her eyebrows into a single line. “Are you trying to be rid of me?”

“No.”
Yes.

“Emmaline!”

Their gazes flew to the door just as the Duchess of Mallen swept through the entrance. He sighed at the too well-timed entrance.

This meeting had gone from bothersome to I-need-a-bottle-of-brandy.

The duchess sailed across the room in a flurry of burgundy satin skirts. She claimed the seat beside Emmaline, a smile in her eyes. “Oh, how wonderful having my two lovely children together.” She looked between them, a wide smile on her unwrinkled cheeks. “Why, whatever has you both so engrossed?” He’d wager his every last estate that she knew exactly what had brought her
lovely
children together.

Sebastian shoved back his chair and stood. “I was mentioning to Emmaline that I…”

Mother and sister frowned him back into sitting.

“Was trying to leave,” Emmaline interjected. “He was trying to leave.”

He was the only duke in the whole bloody kingdom unable to elicit a cowed, subservient response. Hermione slipped into his mind.
Oh, I’m sure you’re an effective duke.
He suspected the young lady would be wholly
un
impressed if she observed this rather weak showing.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Suspicion laced Emmaline’s words. She turned to Mother. “Why is he smiling like that?”

His grin died at the suspicion lacing his sister’s question. “Like what?”

She leaned across her seat and planted her hands on the edge of his desk. “You’re woolgathering.”

Waxham’s charge from two evenings ago echoed back in his sister’s accusation. He tugged at his suddenly too tight cravat. “Men don’t woolgather. I don’t woolgather.” Dukes
certainly
did not woolgather. They were contemplative, quite rational gentlemen who didn’t think overly long about unimpressed lithe young ladies with… Oh, for Christ’s sake. “I’ve business to see to,” he lied.

Emmaline jabbed a finger at him. “You’d said you were intending to ride.”

“Ah, yes before you interrupted. I was going to say, I had intended to ride but had matters of business to see to.” The lie slipped easily from his lips. Woolgathering, lying…bloody hell. This was bad. He leapt to his feet, his chair scraped noisily along the mahogany floor.

Both ladies widened their eyes.

“If you will excuse me, I intend to appreciate the fair weather we’re enjoying.” He strode over to the door.

“But Sebastian, it is raining,” his mother protested.

“Not yet.” Rain pinged the windowpane, taunting his futile attempts at flight. It would take a good deal more than a bit of English rain to thwart his much needed escape. He strode to the door.

“I thought you had business to attend,” his sister called after him.

He closed the door in his wake. Freedom.

Some things were worth braving a rainy English day for.

As Hermione trudged through the lush, green—and now very wet—grass of Hyde Park, she appreciated the lengths to which a dedicated writer would go for her craft. Rain spattered her brow. She pulled her bonnet down and stared out into the grey-white horizon, with thick, black thunderclouds riddling the sky and readily acknowledged there were some things worth braving a rainy, English day for.

“What can be so important that we should come out in this horrid weather?” Hugh grumbled from a point beyond her shoulder. Having tired of his question going unanswered, he yelled into the howling wind. “Nothing, I tell you. Nothing is this important.”