Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) (17 page)

The laconic, stone-faced servant gave a terse nod and pulled the door open.

The early morning sun glared through the entryway. Sebastian shielded his eyes a moment and squinted, attempting to adjust to the sudden brightness. A servant stood in wait with the reins of Sebastian’s mount. He paused on the stoop to tuck the small book in the front of his jacket then, bounded down the steps to accept the reins. He swung his leg over the black stallion then with his knees, nudged him forward.

As he turned down North Row and rode through the empty streets, quiet resonated. With the
ton’s
members still abed, he contemplated his meeting with Drake. The other man was correct; there was little harm in courting Hermione and determining if she would be a suitable companion to him.

His body heated in remembrance of her breathy moans as she’d arched and strained against him in a seeming attempt to meld her body to his. Yes, she’d be suitable; in the ways he’d have his duchess—courageous, bold, passionate, eager and unafraid of the marital bed. Sebastian kicked his horse onward, guiding him along Kensington Road to the entrance of Hyde Park, onward to a familiar riding trail. He guided Bolt to a halt. The enormous creature kicked up gravel and dirt as he drew to a stop. Sebastian dismounted and rapped the reins loosely about an enormous Sweet Chestnut tree.

Awareness radiated down his back and he stiffened. He squinted into the distance at the lone figure, seated atop a crisp white blanket, vivid on the splash of vibrant green grass at the edge of the riding trail. Even with the space between them, he recognized the thick, nearly black hair. His lips pulled. It would seem the young lady hadn’t the sense from their last exchange on this very path to avoid the riding trails.

Sebastian patted his horse’s withers and studied her with the distance between them. For his awareness of her nearness, he may as well have been an inanimate part of the landscape. With the slight bend to her shoulders and her focus on something on her lap, she remained engrossed in whatever task occupied her attention.

Which really begged to be discovered.

With a final stroke of his horse’s sweat-dampened coat, he started in the lady’s direction. Except…with each step he took, all earlier amusement with her concentration faded to be replaced with annoyance at the unchaperoned young woman. Upon their first meeting at Hyde Park, she’d insisted she’d left her maid back at her carriage.

Now, studying her as he did, it occurred to him—she went out sans chaperone. Didn’t she have sense enough to know a lady without a chaperone could encounter all manner of danger? He continued striding toward her. By her admission, there was no mother. He clenched his teeth. However, there was certainly a father. What manner of gentleman allowed his daughter to embark through London, even the fashionable parts, on her own?

Sebastian paused just before the edge of her blanket. Hermione’s pencil flew wildly over the page, back and forth. Periodically she’d pause in her efforts and chew at the tip of the pencil in an endearing manner that hinted at her singular focus on her important task. His earlier annoyance faded and for the first time he celebrated her lack of chaperone, a luxury that allowed him another stolen moment with her, beyond the watchful eyes or judging eyes, or any eyes…but their own.

He fished into the front of his jacket and withdrew Drake’s gift. He tossed it down onto the blanket before her.

Her pencil froze mid-sentence and she stared at the copy of
The Earl’s Entrapment
while blinking in rapid succession. She picked it up and studied it.

“Hello, Hermione.”

Her lean frame went taut and she tipped her head back slowly until their eyes met. “Sebastian,” she said, her voice the same husky whisper he remembered from their kiss that roused forbidden images involving her luscious dark hair draped about them as a silken curtain. Then she snapped the journal in her hands closed, jerking him back from his desirous musings. She scrambled to her feet and folded her arms behind her back, shielding the book in her hands. “What are you doing here?”

Going mad one blink of your thick, dark lashes at a time.
He arched an eyebrow. “I suspect the better question, Miss Rogers, is what are you doing here?”

Hermione’s fingers twitched reflexively about the journal in her hands. What was she doing here, he’d asked. She couldn’t very well say,
“Oh, you see, I write Gothic novels and came here to draw up inspiration from our meeting for a story about an affable duke, who is, in fact, you.”
She didn’t imagine that would
ever
be well received with the affable Duke of Mallen.

“Hermione?”

She jumped. “Er…”

He took a step toward her, wrinkling the fabric of the modest white sheet she worked upon. A faint spring breeze carried the edge of the blanket and it danced in the early morning air. “Are you following me, Hermione?” His seductive whisper wrapped about her, more heady than her first taste of bubbling, French champagne.

Heat splashed across her cheeks, which had nothing to do with his charge and everything to do with the thrill coursing through her at his body’s nearness. Except, on the heel of her body’s awareness was the dangerous idea dangled by Aunt Agatha two nights ago. “C-certainly not. I was here f-first,” she stammered. “I wouldn’t…” His slow grin deepened, wreaking havoc on her senses and driving away the unpleasant thoughts of her duplicitous aunt. “You’re making light of me.” She’d forgotten what it was like to smile and laugh. At their every meeting, Sebastian reminded her how.

“Indeed I am.” He captured one of her tresses between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed the lock. “Are you always so serious?” This was not the first, or even the second time he’d leveled that charge.

“Yes,” she whispered. Her lids fluttered closed. She hadn’t always been. There’d been a time when she’d been carefree and lively and recognized gentle teasing. Life tended to replace such sentiments with a harsh solemnity, though.

“That is a shame. A young lady should wear an easy smile and not have the solemn look you so often wear.” His words drew her back to the reality of her situation, a cruel reminder of the duke’s part of just what drove a woman to become so solemn and more guarded with her smiles. He rubbed the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. “I’d like to know the reason your lips turn down at the corners. Here,” he touched first one corner. “And here.” Then the next.

The horrid truth that was her life hovered upon her lips so all she wanted to do was take the burden thrust upon her and pour it into his surely more capable hands. She trailed her tip of her tongue over her lips and his green eyes fixed upon the movement.

“You’ve bewitched me,” he whispered. And there, in the early dawn hours in the lush, manicured grounds of Hyde Park, with the threat of discovery breathing about them, Sebastian claimed her lips.

Hermione’s journal tumbled to the ground. Her note from Elizabeth tucked between its comforting pages went with it, as she twined her hands about his neck, and layered herself against him. He slanted his lips over hers, gentle and searching at first and then frenzied as he worked his hands down her hips. She moaned in protest as he pulled his lips from hers, but he only shifted attention to the wildly fluttering pulse at her neck.

“Who are you Hermione Rogers?” he whispered against the frantic beating there. “And what have you done to me that I should forget myself here for anyone to see.”

Her head fell back as he nipped at the sensitive skin of her neck. She groaned, and knew she should be shamed by the wanton sound, knew that she surely possessed the same wicked streak that had been the demise of too many young ladies’ reputations, but as Sebastian dipped his attention lower to the modest swell of her décolletage, she at last knew the question that had lingered as she wrote her stories of love.

This was why women would sacrifice all; for this hot burning that threatened to set her entire body afire.

“Hermione,” he groaned.

And just that utterance, her name, managed to do what nothing else had, until that moment.

Hermione jerked back. Her chest heaved with the force of her desire. She stumbled backward, a hand at her breast. She scanned the area with panicked eyes, as a sick terror filled her that she’d be discovered and ruined as surely as Elizabeth was. A duke might dally with a poor baronet’s daughter, but those lofty lords wedded impeccable young ladies, free of scandal, who’d bring a significant dower to already plentiful coffers.

He eyed her through thick, hooded lashes more tempting than Apollo, god of light and sun. The wind tossed a thick golden strand over his brow. Her fingers twitched with the desire to brush it back. “You ask me who I am, yet the truth is I’m nothing more than a mere baronet’s daughter.” She waved a hand about, gesturing to the calm surface of the Serpentine and lush, manicured grounds. “But for now, I’ve never left my family’s country cottage in Surrey. I enjoy Gothic novels. I have siblings.” A knot twisted her insides over the deliberate truth she withheld. Dukes did not dance attendance upon ladies whose bloodlines included family members of simple nature. “That is all I am,” she finished, clasping her hands together.

Sebastian remained frozen, studying her with an indecipherable expression. But for the morning call of the goldfinch and the soft breeze, silence met her pronouncement. She shifted under the weight of his bold scrutiny. “I’ve known you but seven days, Hermione, and I know you enough to know there is so much more to you than that.” His gaze searched her face.

Her throat worked under the force of her swallow. No one had seen much of her beyond the role of protector for her small, damaged and broken family. No one looked close enough to see anything more than the hopeful salvation of Hugh and Addie and Elizabeth—even Papa. She gathered up her book and blanket and held them close to her chest. “What you see in me, Your Grace, is nothing more, nothing less. I’m a young woman who,” she said with a jerk of her chin at the forgotten copy of
The Earl’s Entrapment
still at their feet, “enjoys reading Gothic novels. And if you’ll excuse me, I really must return home.”

Before he could utter a protest, she spun on her heel and marched through the morning dew-dampened grounds back to her carriage, and the waiting servant she’d forced along at this early hour.

She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers, resisting the insatiable urge to turn back around and return to Sebastian and his gentle teasing and his forbidden kiss. Nothing could ever come of anything between her and Sebastian…nothing that was honorable, anyway.

C
hapter 15

A
short carriage ride later, Hermione entered through the chipped and scraped door of the townhouse with her journal and blanket tucked under her arm.

Addie stood in the foyer; hands planted on her hips. The black glare emanating from her sister’s eyes gave Hermione pause. “Where were you?” the young girl demanded.

A little smile pulled at her lips. “Out, poppet.” She tweaked one of Addie’s curls. “What is the—?”

“Without me?” her sister cried, the charge echoed off the walls, her tone as aggrieved as if Hermione had slain her favorite puppy. “You always take me with you when you write.”

“Not always,” she said automatically. Most of the time. But not always.

Her sister knitted her eyebrows into a single line. “You were not…” She glanced around and dropped her voice to an angry whisper. “…doing whatever it was that got Elizabeth into trouble?”

The journal fell out from Hermione’s arm and her eyebrows shot to her hairline. She closed the distance between them and whispered back, “What are you on about, Addie?” She glanced around. Though there was but a handful of servants remaining and all of them loyal, Elizabeth’s secret was not one she’d share with anyone, let alone a member of the household staff.

Addie’s shoulder lifted in a quick, jerky motion. “Hugh said we’ll all be ruined. He said you’re probably making the same mistake with your duke that Elizabeth made with Lord Cavendish, and that you’ll never make a match then because dukes don’t marry the daughters of impoverished baronets just one step away from ruin. He said—”

Hermione took her by the shoulders. “Whoa,” she said calmingly. “First, Elizabeth made no mistakes where Lord Cavendish is concerned.” Their eldest sister was a beautiful soul whose innocence that vile cad had taken advantage of. “Second, do not listen to Hugh.” She had quite a few things to say to her growing ever-more-truculent brother when she found him.

“So you won’t go making a cake of yourself as Hugh said you were going to do?” Addie tapped a finger against her lips almost contemplatively. “Because Hugh said you were lovesick for the duke, and you’d likely do something foolish just to be his duchess.”

Hermione’s skin still burned from the scorching press of Sebastian’s lips upon her. Hugh, for his young years, was remarkably close to the mark in all his charges and fears. “I will not do anything foolish.” Though in actuality, she already had—on more scores than she could ever admit to her young sister. “I went out alone because I was in need of inspiration.” And the perfect place to conjure the story of an affable, charming duke was by the edge of the river where he’d towered above her, his expression a blend of annoyance and concern.

Her sister frowned. “Well, I still cannot imagine why you’d not bring me along, even if it is early and I detest morning as you should. I am so very lonely with you gone and hate London and miss the country and…”

As her sister prattled on, Hermione’s mind wandered back to her recent exchange with Sebastian. All her initial plans to meet a duke and conduct very valuable research for her latest novel had proven unnecessary with the powerful nobleman invariably ending up…well, wherever she happened to be. It made one wonder if Aunt Agatha had been correct, and mayhap there was more. There
had
been a waltz, and now three kisses (three
passionate
kisses) and—

Addie pulled at her arm. “Hermione, are you listening to me?”

She gave her head a shake. “Er, yes…” she lied.

“He will not provide for Elizabeth?”

She blinked. “Who will not provide for Elizabeth?” she asked slowly.

Her sister threw her arms up and directed her gaze upwards. “You weren’t listening, which really isn’t like you. You’re the sensible sibling and I’m in desperate need of a sensible sibling. But—”

Hermione took her sister gently by the shoulders. “What are you talking about, Addie?” She gave a slight shake.

The dreaded name tumbled from Addie’s lips. “Lord Cavendish.”

Oh, the blackguard. Surely Addie was mistaken.

“Hugh overheard Aunt Agatha and Papa talking about it.”

Hands still on her sister’s slight shoulders, Hermione turned her around and guided her toward the stairs. “How many times must I tell you not to worry about Hugh’s words?” She would worry enough for the both of them. Nay, all of them.

Her sister paused, one foot on the bottom step. “Promise?” She shot a searching glance back at Hermione.

Hermione marked an X upon her heart. “I promise upon all the stars in the sky, and all the fish in the sea, all the sand upon the seashore—”

“And all the frogs in the ponds,” her sister finished the childhood pledge. She smiled. “I knew Hugh was wrong.”

“Here.” Hermione thrust her book into her sister’s small hands, distracting her from more questions that required Hermione to lie any further than she already had. “Run this to my chambers. I have to speak with Papa.”

Her sister sprinted up the stairs. Hermione stared after her until she’d disappeared down the corridor, and then she started for her father’s office. Surely Hugh was wrong. Except, the other alternative was that Papa hadn’t managed to locate and speak to the young nobleman who’d stolen Elizabeth’s virtue.

She paused outside her father’s office. Since Hugh’s outburst several days ago, she’d been dreading this particular meeting with Papa. She shoved Hugh’s shocking outburst to the recesses of her mind and fixed her attention on her affable duke. And Sebastian, if she were being truthful with herself. Since their first meeting, her very
real
duke had occupied her thoughts and made it nigh impossible to write. The memory of his teasing smile and strong hands upon her person had even managed to drive back the terrifying reality of her family’s circumstances. Now she dreaded this meeting for altogether different reasons.

She drew in a breath and knocked.

“Come in, come in.” Papa’s jovial voice carried through the thin wood panel.

He was the jolly, if absent-minded parent today, then. That was at least preferable and somewhat more promising than speaking to the shell who didn’t truly know, see, or hear any of the pressing concerns threatening to shatter their family.

Hermione pressed the handle and entered the ramshackle quarters. A pipe tucked between his teeth, a thick plume of smoke hung about the baronet’s head, her father scanned the pages in his hands. He rustled through several sheets. “What is it you want, my girl?” he asked, glancing up momentarily.

She cleared her throat. “I’d hoped to speak with you, Papa.”

He dropped the pages and they fluttered to the messy desktop. “Come in, come in then, dear.” He removed the pipe from his mouth and motioned her over.

Hermione closed the door softly behind her and wandered over to his desk.

“Er…feel free to move those,” he said, and gestured with his pipe over at the stacks of ledgers on the lone wing-back chair at the foot of his desk.

She cleared a slight place at the edge of the aged, cracked leather and sat.

Papa tucked the pipe between his teeth once more and exhaled a perfect, smoky ring. The smoky, pungent odor burned her nose. “Must you do that, Papa?” she chided. She’d long detested the acrid scent of his vice.

He waved off her gentle scold. “Bah, one pipe a day helps a gentleman think.”

If that were the case, Papa should be smoking ten pipes a day, because he might be somewhat useful in pulling their family from the direst of circumstances. Perhaps it was cowardice on her part, but she opted to focus on the concern she believed their father might at least be capable of seeing to. She leaned forward and clasped the edge of his desk. “I spoke to Hugh,” she said without preamble.

Several deep wrinkles lined her father’s brow. “Who…?” Her eyebrows dipped. “Er, right, right, Hugh,” he coughed into his hand, having the good grace to appear shamefaced at momentarily forgetting his only son and heir.

“He fears he’ll not be going to Eton.”

Silence reigned. The pall only heightened by the tick-tock of the partially cracked ormolu clock, a once extravagant piece that bespoke a time of almost luxury.

“Papa?”

He took another puff of his pipe and then set it down. He tapped it on a spare dish filled with ash. A mottled flush stained his fleshy cheeks. “He’ll go to Eton, Hermie, my girl.”

Some of the tension left her. She’d assured her brother that for their family’s present circumstances, he would have that which he deserved—an education to match every other respectable young boy of his age. And more, a semblance of normalcy, in light of Elizabeth’s scandal, Papa’s abject misery, and their overall near-poverty.

She made to rise, but then something, a flash of guilt in her father’s pale blue eyes gave her pause. “Papa?” Unease stirred in her chest. “He
will
go to Eton?” she repeated.

“Of course, of course.” Only this rushed assurance and the increased color in his face crushed all her earlier relief. “I imagine when you make a match or…er, I work through some of these failed investments.”

She closed her eyes. Oh, God. When she opened them, her father would not meet her gaze. Instead, his stare remained fixed on the cluttered desktop as he fiddled and fumbled with the ledgers in abject disarray. Hermione leaned over and placed her hand on his, stilling his frenetic movements. “And what if I don’t make an advantageous match?” she pressed, quietly.

He dropped the stack of papers and raked a hand through his hair. “You will.”

She collapsed into her chair; the breath sucked from her chest. “Papa,” she said again, an entreaty underscoring that single utterance.

He managed a wan smile. “You’re lovely, Hermie, and you’d make some gentleman a wonderful—”

“What gentleman would want the dowerless daughter of an impoverished family, with a sister…?” She glanced around, remembering herself. She dropped her voice to a hushed whisper. “With a sister who is simple, and a family whose reputation is now damaged beyond repair?” A bitter laugh bubbled past her lips. A man of Sebastian’s distinguished rank would never link himself with this shattered family.

“A worthwhile gentleman.”

She scoffed.

“One who will love you hopelessly enough to overlook such things, my dear.”

She closed her eyes and gave her head a despairing shake. Ever the romantic her Papa was. A man who’d gone and buried the remnants of his heart with his beloved, departed wife even though there were four very much alive children in desperate need of
his
love and guidance.

“Do not look like that,” he scolded.

“Like what?” The terse question came out far sharper than she’d intended.

“As though you don’t believe in love.”

“I believe in love,” she said defensively. Just not necessarily for herself.

Her father folded his arms at the waist and leaned back in his seat. “I have always admired your intelligence and your ability to craft a beautiful story.”

For all he’d done wrong these years, this man bore traces of the person he’d once been. A father unashamed, even proud of his bluestocking daughter, a man who supported each Gothic novel she penned. “Thank you.” She squirmed, still uncomfortable with praise for her work.

“I’m not finished, my dear.” He held a finger up. “What I’d intended to say is I’ve admired your intelligence, yet for a young woman who can dream up and tell such stories of love, you seem to move through life with a remarkable lack of faith in the sentiment.”

She’d seen what love wrought. Papa’s descent into a fog. Where was the romanticism in real life? “I’m not unromantic, Papa. I’m practical. There is a greater chance of the Queen’s Horse Guard taking flight over the palace than in me making the match you and Aunt Agatha are hoping,”
expecting,
“me to make.”

Her father reeled as though she had struck him across the face.

Hermione glanced away. Love was better kept to the pages of a novel where a woman couldn’t be disappointed or have her heart broken, and as she had learned early on, there were all manner of heartbreaks a young woman could suffer—the loss of a mother or the regret of a detached father. As well as the careless tossing away of a virtue one didn’t know to be prized.

Her father smiled and the expression of mirth transformed him into a man she didn’t recognize. “Some gentleman is brave enough and honorable enough to overlook such things, Hermie.” He quirked a white, bushy eyebrow. “A duke, perhaps?”

Heat scorched her cheeks. Her father had been so removed from everything these past years that she’d not imagined he’d have bothered with details about say…a certain duke who’d come to call. Still, the hopeless romantic, she sought to move him back to more pressing matters. “Have you managed to locate Lord Cavendish?”

Her father’s smile dipped. A chill stole through her. She closed her eyes a moment, knowing with the same intuition she’d had the day she’d marched up the cobbled steps outside their Surrey cottage that Mama had died of her wasting illness. “A bounder, a cad. I did manage to find him at last,” he mumbled to himself. Which in itself was shocking, as Papa hadn’t done a worthwhile thing for his family in so very long. “He’s cucumberish. In dun territory.”