Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) (21 page)

Hermione knew the moment she breathed into existence the answer Sebastian demanded, every last glimmer of warmth he’d ever shown her, every smile, every teasing word, all of it, would be killed by a resentful man who’d been trapped—by a conniving schemer. What for a fleeting moment represented the only solution to salvage her brother and sisters’ future lifted, leaving in its place a horrifying truth of her treachery and beyond that, her own integrity.

She’d had a choice and she’d chosen to go along with her aunt’s cunning plan. Now, standing here in a misery of her own making, Hermione knew this vile thing begun of desperation had changed the moment he’d drawn her into his arms. She’d known nothing but him.

“Do you not have an answer?” he bit out. Gone was all hint of gentleness in his tone. In its place this cold, empty vitriol from a man who knew hate. Hatred for her.

Her body went cold and she wrapped her arms close to herself. She could not do this. Even if it meant her ruin. “S-Sebastian,” she began, her voice cracked and she tried again. “I can explain—”

“My goodness, Your Grace!” Her aunt flew across the room. “Such boldness.”

Hermione backed away from her aunt’s outstretched hands, sidled closer to Sebastian, craving distance from the woman who’d planted the seed of a vile plan. Except, Aunt Agatha had not forced Hermione to carry it out. She’d done this all on her own. She stole a long glance up at Sebastian. His lip peeled back in a sneer, and seething hatred rolled off his tautly held frame. She choked back the emotion clogging her throat. She could not blame him. She quite hated herself, too. Agony twisted her heart.

“You do realize, you must do right by my niece,” Aunt Agatha pressed, ruthless and as relentless as Boney had been in his quest to dominate the whole of Europe.

“Undoubtedly,” he said in a clipped, ducal tone Hermione had not once heard from him—until now; discovering in the worst way even the amiable, charming dukes, were capable of that same icy derision and condescension as all the others. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Aunt Agatha rocked back on her heels. She opened and closed her mouth several times, a woman who’d clearly expected perhaps some protestation from the revered duke. “Well, very well, then.” A pleased smirk wreathed the other woman’s face.

“No!” Hermione cried out. But the remainder of her protest withered and died on her lips at the black glower Sebastian fastened to her face. She folded her arms to her chest and rubbed her fingers over her forearms in attempt to drive back the chill that racked her body in a horrible tremor.

“Oh, splendid, just splendid, there is to be a wedding,” the pudgy Lord Brookfield intoned. By his cheerful smile, he was the only one present unable to recognize the seething fury of the respective future bridegroom.

Humiliated at her life playing out in this macabre fascination before strangers, Hermione yanked her attention from the trio and turned to Sebastian once more. “Please, will you not speak to me?” She held up her hands beseechingly.

He spoke over her entreaty. “I’d request a moment with Miss Rogers.” It took a sliver of a moment for Hermione to realize Sebastian directed his ducal order to the interlopers of her carefully, but not so carefully thought out ruin.

Lady Brookfield looked between them and then had the sense to silently guide her husband from the room.

Aunt Agatha slapped a scandalized hand to her breast, the victorious gleam in her eyes masking all false modesty. “You would sully her reputation further by asking to—?” Surely a man of Sebastian’s intelligence saw Aunt Agatha’s role in this horrid scheme.

“Madam,” he spoke through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

Her aunt staggered back. “I never!” She gave a flounce of her greying brown hair. “As you are to be married, a brief meeting with Hermione’s chaperone just outside will not rouse any additional disapproval.”

Her stomach roiled and she looked away from this ruthless woman, her mother’s sister, whose blood she shared. And now, in Hermione having made this irreversible decision, she had only proven she shared the other woman’s avaricious spirit.

Aunt Agatha sailed from the room in a flurry of satin skirts. The click of the door shutting thundered in the suddenly quiet room.

Hermione stood immobile, afraid if she so much as moved wrong or breathed too loudly, she would shatter into a million splinters of shameful pain at Sebastian’s feet.

She directed her gaze to the floor and waited for an explosion of fury.

He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger; his hard and unrelenting grip forced her eyes back to his. She swallowed past the swell of emotion clogging her throat and ran her gaze lovingly over the harsh, angular planes of his chiseled cheeks. He’d deserved nothing but the truth from her and all she’d given him were lies. “Did you orchestrate this meeting, Miss Rogers?” And deception. Somehow, the silken soft whispered question sounded more violent than any harsh epithet he might have spewed.

She drew in a shuddery breath. Her answer would bring nothing more than hatred from this man—the first honorable one she’d known. And how had she repaid that honor? By proving herself a lying, indulgent creature. Self-loathing rolled through her in waves.

“Miss Rogers,” he snapped.

She jumped and raised her gaze reluctantly to his. For the half beat of a heart, she considered lying. In the lie, mayhap she could bury all the other lies she carried. The weight of guilt settled about her shoulders. Her eyes slid closed.
I cannot.
The lies between them were so great, if one more was told, she’d be buried under the weight of her mistruths. “Yes,” she said quietly, not sure how that one word emerged so calm when inside she was breaking apart by a misery of her own making.

For a long while, silence blanketed the office. Then, he cursed.

She jerked. Her ears burning with a string of vitriolic curses a young lady had no right hearing but wholly deserved. Hermione inched away from this man, now a stranger.

Sebastian scraped his gaze over her person. “You once spoke to me of love and passion.” His lip peeled back in a sneer. “You accused me of being cold and unfeeling. But tell me this, Hermione, where is the love in
this
.” He gestured angrily between them. “Where is there anything but calculated betrayal in what you’ve done?”

Do you imagine there is something wrong in reading about love and passion, Your Grace? Is your life so empty, so vastly cold that you should mock any and all who read a Gothic novel?

“Sebastian.” Oh, God. He was right. So very right. “You have brought me so much happiness and—”

His cynical laugh cut across her words. “Do you believe I care a jot about your happiness now, madam?” His words sucked the breath from her lungs. He may as well have slammed his fist into her midsection. A sound of disgust escaped him and he spun away from her. He took several steps toward the door.

Horror filled her as she considered the ugly possibility that he, too, would step outside Lord Brookfield’s office and gladly forget her and in his leaving steal the only real joy she’d ever known. Surely, he’d already determined that too-tall, conniving Hermione Rogers with her horribly titled Gothic novels possessed a reputation that was not worth saving. Why would he then go ahead and marry such a woman? Panic hammered at her chest. What would become of her sisters? Hugh? Elizabeth and her babe? “Sebastian!” her voice came out on a half-sob. She could not live her life without him. It was selfish and wrong, but she needed him, still.

He froze. Except, now that her exclamation had stayed his movements, she found there were no adequate words to ever pardon this shameful act.

His tired question cut into her slow-churning thoughts. “Was it solely for my title, Miss Rogers?”

“No.” The denial burst from her lips. However, no response, even the truthful one would ever be believed by him. And why should it? What had come before this, surely had mattered—in at least some, small way.

“Was it all a facade?” Pain roughened his voice and it ate away at her insides like an insidious poison.

There had been too many lies between them; all on her part. “Yes,” she said softly. He stiffened. “That is, not all of it, Sebastian. Only at first. But then everything changed.” She’d fallen in love. She dug her toes into the soles of her slipper, her contempt for herself threatened to consume.

Sebastian turned back. He ran a scorching gaze over her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She cringed at being so studied by this new man who knew no teasing or caring in the harsh, unfamiliar expression he wore. His eyebrows dipped menacingly. “Did you orchestrate our meetings, madam?” he asked, a steely edge to his words.

“Yes,” she whispered. “But not in the way you imagine.” Her gaze slid away from the burning intensity of his greenish-brown eyes and she fell silent. What was there to say? She
had
set out and waited for him at Hyde Park, in the name of his title, but for the purpose of her book. To issue protestations and insist otherwise would be a lie. For how could she now explain that she was the author, Mr. Michaelmas, and had sought him out initially for the benefit of a story? Just one more falsity between them he could never forgive.

“What a bloody fool I’ve been.” An ugly, bitter laugh spewed from his lips and she recoiled at the sound of it from this hardened man she didn’t recognize. “Of course, it all makes sense.” He slashed the air with a hand. “Your being out at Hyde Park, in a storm no lady would dare venture outside in.”

She winced at the likely deliberately thrown insult. Those carefully orchestrated meetings had not been about his title—not in the sense he believed. “That had nothing to do with me trying to…” But again, unless she shared that other great lie between them, there was no suitable response to explain away their meeting at Hyde Park.

He chuckled. “How very disappointed you must have been to have gone through the trouble of spooking my horse.” He made a tsking sound. “Throwing yourself to the ground and securing a match that very day.”

She tightened her mouth. “I didn’t intend to trap you.”
Then
.

Sebastian continued relentlessly. “Your lack of chaperone at each meeting.” A lack of funds and a
remote
father was really to account for the lack of chaperone. “It all explains the suspicions I had where you were concerned.” He spread his arms wide and sketched a deep, mocking bow. “Will you not congratulate me?”

She shook her head in abject confusion. “Congratulate—?”

“I’ve at last figured you out, Miss Rogers.” He scoffed. “And it only cost me my freedom and happiness.” Another laugh rumbled up from deep within his chest, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Oh, this is rich.”

She cocked her head. “It is?” It all seemed rather horrid to her.

Sebastian strode over with such swiftness that she staggered backward and placed the sofa between them. “You little schemer, I’d intended to offer for you.”

Her heart paused and involuntarily her hand fluttered about her breast. “You did?” she whispered. He cared about her, mayhap even loved her just a bit. Or rather, he
had
cared about her. Now, there was no longer a hint of love, warmth, or fondness.

“If you’d been patient, Miss Rogers, you would not have needed to go through all these machinations.” Sebastian dropped his gaze and she followed it down to the empty dance card dangling from her wrist. He gave his head sad shake. “That damned card. You had me at that damned card.”

Her heart picked up a frantic, hard rhythm as the implications of his admission robbed her of breath. He’d likely never forgive her, but she needed to at least try to salvage what had been real between them. “I know you detest me.” And rightfully so. “I know what I’ve done here is unforgiveable, but I need you to know when I saw you, I never saw your title.” Not in the way he believed.

He gave his head a disgusted shake. When he spoke it was as though he’d not heard her admission. “You would have been a duchess, regardless. At least I now know the true character of the shameless charlatan I’ll take to wife.” He spun on his heel and marched to the door.

Hermione flew across the room and over to him. “Sebastian, where are you going?”

He stilled, his fingers upon the handle. “You needn’t worry, Miss Rogers. I intend to wed you, whether I wish it or not. I am nothing, if not honorable,” he spat.

She knew that. It was just one of the many parts of Sebastian Fitzhugh, 5
th
Duke of Mallen she loved.

He ran one more scathing glance over her person. “I merely wish I could say the same for my wife-to-be.” With that painful barb, he yanked the door open then stormed out.

Aunt Agatha stumbled over herself to step out of his path. Her aunt’s words called to her, almost from a distance. “You’ve done well, my dear. You are to be a duchess, and you’ve saved your family from ruin,” she added that last part as though it were an afterthought.

Hermione stood there numb, staring at the doorway through which Sebastian had just disappeared. Yes, she’d saved her family from ruin.

But at what cost?

C
hapter 19

H
ermione pulled back the curtain and peered down into the quiet London street. Thick grey clouds blanketed the sky, portending a future storm. Her lips twisted with bitterness. Figuratively and literally.

“Come away from that window, Hermione Rogers,” her aunt snapped from over her shoulder. “We do not need the duke arriving and observing your eagerness. Such behavior isn’t becoming of a future duchess.”

She ignored her aunt and continued to stare absently out at the intermittent carriages that rattled by. “Nothing conveys eagerness more than trapping a gentleman into marriage,” she said, her voice flat. As empty as her life had been for the past eleven years, for one glorious week she’d known happiness with Sebastian and with one rash decision, she’d thrown away all hope of his love.

From the crystal pane she detected her aunt’s mouth tighten with disapproval, but the woman was wise enough to relinquish the matter. The flutter of her satin skirts indicated she’d moved. “What you’ve done is honorable, Hermione. You’ve saved your family, secured the title of Duchess of Mallen, and you’ll no longer have to worry about your material comforts.”

She spun around. “Do you truly believe there was anything honorable in my forcing the duke’s hand?” she asked, incredulous that her aunt could be so unfeeling. For no matter Hermione’s feelings for him, what she’d done had eliminated his right to choose happiness and true love. “Nor was this ever about my material comforts,” she spat. She redirected her attention to the window, but her aunt refused to allow Hermione her solitary thoughts.

Aunt Agatha placed a hand upon her shoulder and forced her back around. “Your mother would have wanted this.”

An ugly laugh spewed from Hermione’s lips, startling her with the vitriol there. She’d never known herself capable of such cynicism. “Then you never truly knew my mother.” How had she ever believed there was anything romantic about lies and betrayal and unrequited love? Perhaps because in her fictional world, truth eventually came to light and true love triumphed. Had she truly been so foolish to believe such things?

“Perhaps you are right.” Her aunt dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. “Your mother was a silly romantic. She foolishly believed love was enough. Your father,” she flung that word as though it was a curse, “and mother’s love should have taught you the perils in desiring that fool emotion above all else. None of this,” she slashed a hand indicating the room, “would have come to pass if my sister had wed a man of her proper station.”

“Perhaps.” Hermione squared her shoulders. “I would gladly trade a life of wealth and status to have known the fleeting joy shared by my parents.” As it was, she’d bind herself to a man who detested her, and her love for him would go unrequited, unwanted and eventually would die.

“The operative word there, my dear, is fleeting. Do you imagine Hugh, Addie, Elizabeth,” she paused with that final name, “were better served by your parents’ selfish love? Or do you imagine the protection of a strong and more untouchable nobleman, such as your duke, would have been best for this family?”

Hermione hated her ruthless aunt for being correct in this regard. Her gaze flitted away. If there had been a strong, powerful father then none of this would have come to pass. Elizabeth would have never been cruelly assaulted, Hermione wouldn’t have been rushed to London with the sole purpose of making a match to salvage their family—she would never have trapped Sebastian. Useless tears popped into her eyes, blurring her vision as she recounted Lady Brookfield’s ball. Sebastian had intended to offer for her. He had wanted her…and the offer he’d intended to make would not have been out of any sense of obligation but rather because he cared for her. Or rather, he had cared. Any feelings of affection he might have carried had been swiftly extinguished with her betrayal. A tear fell and she swatted it back.

“You know I am correct,” her aunt continued ruthlessly.

“You are not correct, Aunt Agatha,” she said softly. She looked at the elegantly clad older woman with her greying brown hair and gracefully aged face. “In this cold, emotionless world you dwell in, you believe you are correct. But you are not.” Shame clogged her throat, making speech difficult. “With my fear for my brother and sisters, I allowed you to draw me into that world.” She shook her head. Pride brought her back up as she at last told her aunt what she was thinking. “And I don’t want to be part of your world. I don’t want to become you.”

Her aunt’s eyes snapped into thin slits. “What are you saying?” she barked.

“I’m saying I don’t want to see you anymore, Aunt Agatha. I do not like the person you’ve made me become.” Or perhaps that darkness had always been part of her soul? “And I certainly don’t—”

She struck Hermione across the face with an open palm. “You insolent baggage!” Outrage seeped from the woman’s dark blue eyes.

Hermione cradled her cheek, stunned. The usually unflappable older woman shook with rage. Did all people harbor hidden emotions? Aunt Agatha. Sebastian. Herself.

“After everything I’ve done for you?”

She flexed her jaw at the pain radiating from her up through her temple. “I am grateful for everything you’ve done,” Hermione continued. “But the moment you walk out this door, I do not want to see you again. Nor do I want you to see Hugh or Addie or Elizabeth.” Though she would wager all she’d earned as Mr. Michael Michaelmas that her aunt had no intention of ever seeing or acknowledging her eldest niece.

“Grateful?” Her aunt scoffed. “This is how you would repay me? I brought you to London, gave you a Season…”

Hermione started across the room. Sebastian was to call on Papa soon and she did not want her victorious, gloating aunt to serve as an additional reminder of the great crime Hermione had committed.

“What are you doing?”

As though, he needs reminders.
Hermione yanked the door open. “You should leave, Aunt Agatha.”

Her aunt’s hand fluttered about her breast and then she slapped it against her heart. “Well, I never.” She stomped over the floor and then paused at the threshold of the room.

For a moment Hermione hovered behind the door, imagining her aunt intended to strike her once again, but then she stood firm.

The older woman jerked her gaze over Hermione’s frame. Her lip pulled in a sneer. “You may send me away, you may wish to never see me again because you do not like the person I’ve made you become.” She leaned close and Hermione forced herself to not back away. “You blame me for the duke’s displeasure in being wed to one such as you.” The words were a lash upon Hermione’s soul. An ugly laugh burst from the other woman’s lips. “The truth is, I’ve not made you anything you already weren’t, Hermione. I suggested you trap the duke and yet,” she smiled a cold, emotionless grin, “you were the one who actually led him to Lord Brookfield’s office. You merely send me away to hide from the truth.”

“What is that?” Hermione forced past numb lips.

“That for all your protestations, you are no less ruthless or title-grasping than I myself was.” With that, her aunt snapped her skirts and swept from the room, head held high.

Hermione stared after her long after she’d left, her heart thumping wildly. She drew in one slow breath. Then another. And another. However, she could not escape the hideous truth of her aunt’s vile accusations, all the more painful because of the truth to them. She covered her face with her hands. For all her aunt had been wrong about, in this regard, she’d been unerringly on the mark—she had no one to blame but herself for what she’d done to Sebastian. The truth of that was no balm for the guilt she now carried and would forever carry.

Filled with restlessness, Hermione wandered back over to her spot beside the window. She pulled the curtain back and peered out. Mayhap he wouldn’t come. Mayhap he’d decided she was unworthy of this great sacrifice on his part, because she was. Even as she loved him, Sebastian deserved more than a cowardly woman driven by fear who would betray him in this manner.

A stable match, an emotionless one would also be a lonely one…

She pressed her eyes closed. He’d spoken of more than an empty, emotionless entanglement and still even knowing that she’d trapped him into the very type of union he would have avoided.

A black carriage rumbled up to the front of their modest townhouse. The conveyance rocked to a stop and a moment later the liveried driver hopped from the perch atop his box then pulled the door open. Sebastian’s impossibly tall, elegant frame stepped from the carriage in a sapphire coat with fawn-colored breeches. He tugged on the lapels of his jacket. His mouth tightened with what she believed to be distaste for what he must do.

Look up at me, Sebastian. Know that I love you. Let that mean something.

As though feeling her gaze upon him, Sebastian’s broad shoulders straightened and he glanced up momentarily. His gaze immediately found her lone figure in the floor-length window.

The breath left her on a swift exhale and coward that she was, she let the curtain flutter back into place.

If he’d looked at her with the icy rage of last evening or the black fury, might be preferable, easier to bear than the blank, emptiness in his once warm eyes.

Hermione pressed her lids closed.
What have I done?

Sebastian waved off his driver’s offer of assistance and stepped down from the carriage. He strode up to the handful of front steps and paused. His neck burned with the awareness that came from being watched. He stiffened and glanced up. Hermione stared down into the street, her gaze fixed on him. He straightened his shoulders and strode ahead.

The door opened almost instantly, signifying his presence was, of course, expected. The servant motioned him inside. Sebastian wordlessly entered. He handed his card to the young man. “The Duke of Mallen to see Sir Richard,” he said in clipped and impatient tones.

The servant took the card. He studied the name on the vellum, a frown on his lips, and then gave a curt nod. “If you’ll follow me, Your Grace.” He didn’t pause to see if Sebastian followed but started down the corridor.

The duke trailed behind the servant. He flicked his gaze over the cracked plaster walls, imperfections he’d once noted, imperfections that hadn’t mattered.
She
had mattered, and all the rest had been immaterial. He’d not required a lofty connection. Hermione would have sufficed for no other reason than because he wanted her. He took in the long-case clock at the opposite end of the hall with the cracked glass front. Perhaps, he should have paid a good deal more attention to those imperfections. They had represented a blaring warning to this family’s, and subsequently, Hermione’s financial circumstances. He fisted his hands. Still, for her betrayal he loathed the idea of her impoverished state.

The servant stopped beside a closed door and Sebastian forced back any sympathies. That weakness for the lady had blinded him once. For that, he’d be forever connected to the scheming Hermione. Fury blazed to life inside him once more, just as volatile as the evening she’d carried out her skilled plan.

The young man rapped once.

“Come in, come in,” a jovial voice boomed from the other side. Why would the baronet be anything but jolly? He’d caught one of the most revered titles in the kingdom. A growl worked its way up Sebastian’s throat.

The servant turned ashen and hastily yanked the door open. “H, his Grace, Th-the Duke of Mallen to see you, my lord.”

An older man with bushy white eyebrows glanced up from a stack of papers atop his desk. He eyed Sebastian from behind a thick cloud of smoke from the pipe clenched between his teeth. He pulled it from his mouth and motioned for Sebastian to enter.

Sebastian froze in the doorway. He scraped his gaze over this man who’d used his daughter to advance his own gains.

“Do come in!” The man smiled.

With slow, deliberate steps Sebastian made his way over to the desk of the man who’d coordinated his entrapment. How humbling to be taken down by this bumbling, pathetic excuse of a gentleman.

The older man’s smile withered and he seemed to belatedly realize his blatant disrespect. He shoved back his seat and stood. “Your Grace, a pleasure, quite a pleasure.”

He firmed his lips. He certainly imagined it was for the other man. Marriage between he and Hermione would line the greedy bastard’s empty pockets.

“Please, sit,” the baronet said and reclaimed his seat.