Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) (29 page)

Then she spoke. “Lord Cavendish.” The two words dripped a venomous poison. By the vitriol in her tone, he suspected if Cavendish were present, she would have gladly fed him that poison and watched him writhe.

“What did he do?” he asked his tone brusque. If he hurt her, he would see the notorious rogue destroyed.

Tears flooded her eyes and the sight of those crystalline drops threatened to shatter him. “He came upon my sister, Elizabeth.”

A chill turned his blood to ice in his veins.
Oh, God.
This admission wasn’t about Mr. Michaelmas or a love she’d carried for some gentleman. It was something worse. Something far darker.

A lone drop fell. “I shouldn’t have allowed her to go out on her own. Her nurse, Partridge, Papa, none of us should have. And yet we did. We’d done it so many times before and nothing had ever come of it.” She brushed back a tear. “One day she became lost and a dashing gentleman escorted her home.” A sneer pulled at her lips. “Lord Cavendish,” she spat the name. “We so graciously welcomed him into our home and thanked him for helping Elizabeth. He supped with us. Listened to Papa’s readings. And fools that we were we didn’t realize the shame he was guilty of, until I stumbled upon him one afternoon, going to visit the village.” She pressed her hands over her face and drew in several breaths.

He reached for her, gently took her hands and held them in his. She seemed to find the courage to continue. “Lord Cavendish knew Elizabeth went for her walks and would wait for her. I don’t know how many times, Sebastian.”

Sebastian stilled as the implications of those words registered. Fury licked at the corner of his mind; it spiraled dark and black throughout his body. He struggled to speak but could find no adequate words.

“He’d convinced her to do…” Another tear. She pulled her hand out of his and swatted at it almost angrily. Did she see those tokens as a sign of weakness? A woman of Hermione’s strength and courage could never be weak. “Things no unwed lady should ever do.” She held his gaze. “He raped her.” Her pronouncement lingered in the room, leaving with it a void of silence.

Stunned, he released Hermione. He balled his hands into fists, his fingers reflexively twitched with the desire to take the bastard Cavendish apart with his hands. To make him suffer for what he’d done to the girl, Elizabeth. For Hermione’s sake, Sebastian struggled for a semblance of calm. The young dandy would pay.

“She is with child, Sebastian.” Her words came out on a broken whisper.

Oh, God. But there was no God in this. There was only the devil and all his vile darkness. He swiped a hand over his eyes. “Hermione,” he said, his voice ragged. Why hadn’t she turned this burden over to him?

Then, isn’t that what she did?
A dark voice niggled.
Desperation will drive people who are not normally desperate to do desperate things.

Sebastian let his arms fall back to his side. A hesitancy filled his wife’s expressive blue eyes; those windows into her soul. She took a step away from him. He registered the stiff set to her tall, slender frame, the distance she’d placed between them and frowned as an ugly possibility occurred to him. His words emerged harsher than he intended. “Do you imagine I would hold your family responsible for Cavendish’s actions?”

“Surely you didn’t think I could share this?” She dropped her gaze guiltily. “I knew in marrying you, you deserved to at least know these truths and yet I said nothing…”

Sebastian strode over and her words trailed off. These secrets she’d kept were too much for any person. He claimed her hands in his and one at a time, raised them to his lips. He paused at the smattering of ink upon the tips of her fingers. She followed his gaze and tugged at his grip. He tightened his hold about her person and raised first one wrist to his lips, and then the next. Her pulse pounded wildly. “You once told me that one does not make people their business. You told me they must learn a person’s interests, their hopes, their desires.” The muscles of her neck worked under the force of her swallow. He stroked his palm over her cheek. “How could you not have realized I wanted you? I wanted you from the moment I observed you at Lady Denley’s writing notes upon your own dance card.”

Another tear. “You did?”

He caught the drop with the pad of his thumb. “I did.”

“Even with my silly yellow skirts?” Another tear replaced the first. It wound a sad little trail over her porcelain white cheek and he would have cut himself open if it would spare her any more pain.

“Especially with your silly yellow skirts.” He dropped his brow to hers. “I do not want you to be my business, Hermione.” He brushed a soft kiss against her lips. “I want you to be my wife.” He touched his lips to her cheek. “Let me learn your interests and share them, tell me of your hopes and together we will attain them, and desire for nothing because as long as you’re mine, if you should call forth the stars, I’ll bring them down to you.” Sebastian lowered his brow to hers.

A sob slipped past Hermione’s lips.

“Hand me your burdens,” he urged. “I shall handle Cavendish, but together, you and I will care for Addie and Hugh, Elizabeth and her babe.”

She leaned close and he cradled her against him, aching to absorb every worry she’d ever known. He dropped his chin atop the silken mass of her luxurious tresses. They were both silent, reacquainting one another with the feel of each other’s arms.

He brushed his knuckles along her jawline, gently guiding her head up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I love you, Hermione Edith Fitzhugh.”

He loves me
. Hermione’s heart fluttered. He loved her despite her lies, and Elizabeth and her deception, and for everything between them—he loved her anyway.

“Do you have nothing to say?” His husky question poured over her. “Or—?”

She leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. “I love you,” she whispered. “I loved you the moment you walked out of my parlor with a copy of a Gothic novel, and I loved you even more when you read it, and did not condescend it.” Because for what Mr. Werksman and the world believed of dukes, they were not all self-aggrandizing, pompous figures a step away from royalty. Sebastian had proven that.

“All you needed was for me to read one of your Gothic novels?”

A tremulous smile pulled at her lips. She took his face between her palms. “All I needed was you, Sebastian. All I needed was you.” She leaned close to take his lips once more, but he angled away. She furrowed her brow.

He studied her with a searching look, his gaze once more solemn. “From this point on, there will be no more lies.”

Her gaze flitted to the cherished work, her most recently completed, much toiled over book. For three very lonely years she’d penned stories she’d dreamed of for others. She’d crafted a world in which young ladies and scarred gentlemen triumphed over great tragedy and in those stories she’d been able to escape, if even just a bit the realities of her own harsh, oftentimes uncertain world. Duchesses did not write Gothic novels.

“Hermione?”

He’d forgiven so much and promised her everything. God help her, she loved him enough that, even as it would rob a sliver of her heart never penning another story, the rest of that now-full organ would beat with a love for him so great she would make the ache of never writing again a very small sacrifice.

She smiled up at him. “No more lies,” she promised.

C
hapter 27

S
he’d lied.

One week later, hands clasped behind his back, Sebastian paced an angry path in front of the cold, empty hearth, reflecting on that deliberate mistruth of his wife. His conversation with Hermione had undoubtedly not gone the manner in which he’d imagined. She was to have told him the truth about her writing. He would have called her a silly fool, a silly,
beautiful
fool for not trusting him enough. He would have praised her work and admitted he’d been an unmitigated, judgmental arse where it was previously concerned. She likely would have agreed.

Instead… “She did not tell me,” he muttered.

From across the room, perched at the edge of his leather sofa, Addie piped in. “No, I imagine she did not.”

He paused mid-stride as the small girl’s words interrupted his musings.

“It’s not done, that’s why.” From his seat beside Addie, Hugh, concurred. “Ladies writing and all. I’ve told her that.” He glowered at Addie who held her elbow out clearly poised to deliver another well-placed jab.

“I was going to say because she doesn’t trust him after he abandoned her.”

Sebastian winced. Out of the mouth of babes, and all the more honest and humbling for it.

The boy shrugged. “Regardless, it’s not done. Ladies do not write and certainly not duchesses. Isn’t that right, Duke?”

He opened his mouth.

“Why, not?” Addie hopped to her feet, interrupting him. She planted her hands on her hips and stuck her face close to her brother’s. “Why can’t a lady write? Hermione writes more beautifully than anyone I know—”

“You have to say that. You’re her sister.”

“Well, you should say that
because
you’re her brother,” Addie shouted, coming dangerously closer to him.

And Sebastian suspected dangerously close to walloping the quarrelsome lad. “That is enough,” he said quietly. Hugh was to begin at Eton within a fortnight, but why hadn’t he hired this troublesome pair a governess? “Shouldn’t you be abovestairs for your lessons?”

Miracle of miracles, the two imps fell silent. Likely since they now faced the threat of returning to their lessons. Alas, the uneasy peace lasted no longer than the span of a moment.

“You might have simply told her that you know,” Hugh suggested.

Addie bounded over to Sebastian and yanked at his hand. “No, you can’t.” She shot a frown over her shoulder at Hugh. “He can’t. He promised and dukes don’t break their words.”

“Dukes do whatever they want,” Hugh tossed back.

Sebastian dropped to a knee. “I do not intend to break my word.”

Addie smiled and it was Hermione’s smile, every bit as endearing. “Splendid!”

His heart tugged a moment with longing for a babe with Hermione, one with his wife’s bold spirit and her devotion to family, and her sapphire eyes.

“Oh, dear. You’re woolgathering,” Addie said.

He grinned. “You are right, Addie. I am.” Didn’t all men hopelessly besotted with their wives wax poetic in their thoughts, words, and actions? He scrubbed a hand back and forth over his mouth contemplatively and then froze. All great tales bore acts of great heroism. Sebastian, where his wife was concerned, had never been that unwavering, valiant hero she deserved. He stood and drummed his fingertips together. His plan would require some level of assistance.

Hugh and Addie cleared their throats and looked at him expectantly.

“Hugh, Addie, I would like to enlist your help. Would you be willing to—?”

“Yes!” Addie clapped excitedly interrupting the remainder of his request.

He motioned the children over. “I’m going to need you to find something that belongs to your sister.” He proceeded to tell them precisely what he required of them.

A knock sounded at the door. They all three glanced up guiltily as Hermione entered the room, a copy of a newspaper in her hands. She eyed them dubiously. “What have you done?”

“Well, that is quite rude, Hermione. We’ve done nothing at all.” Addie gave a flounce of her brown curls and he applauded the girl her effortless ability to prevaricate.

On the swift heel of that was the realization that, with her penchant for mischief and mystery, she was going to be the early death of their father—and by Sebastian’s regard for Hermione’s siblings—the death of him.

“Hmm,” Hermione said. That single syllable utterance laced with skepticism. “You should both be above stairs…”

They groaned.

He shot a grateful look over the children’s heads. Hermione winked as though knowing just what he was thinking, and considering she’d spent the whole of their lives with Addie and Hugh, she knew precisely what he was thinking.

Hugh and Addie filed reluctantly out of the library. Hermione closed the door behind them and leaned against it, a copy of
The Times
held at her chest.

Quiet reigned, the silence enormous with the departure of her garrulous siblings.

“Sebastian.”

“Hermione.”

She said nothing for a long while, just looked at him with that somber, searching way he’d come to expect of his wife. Then she held up the paper. “There was something quite interesting in the gossip column today.” He didn’t give a jot about the scandal sheets. Hermione pushed off the door and wandered close, the paper still aloft. “I’m not one given to reading gossip.” She paused before him.

Sebastian leaned down to claim a kiss. “Good.”

She drew back, that damned scandal sheet between them. “And yet there was something interesting in the pages today, Sebastian.”

He sighed, resolved to the truth that he would not enjoy the pleasure of his wife’s arms until she said whatever it was she now danced about. “Oh?”

Hermione held up the folded front page and jabbed her finger, rustling the page.

He followed her slight movement to the latest salacious piece about a certain Lord C. “Ah,” he murmured.

She tossed the paper to the floor where it landed with a thump. “Ah, that is all you’ll say?”

Sebastian wandered over to the sideboard and grabbed the nearest decanter of brandy and an empty glass. He poured the French spirits into the crystal tumbler. “There is nothing to say, Hermione.” He’d not wanted to ever hear mention of the bastard who’d shattered her already fractured family, and he’d done a sufficient job of ridding the country of Cavendish.

“Nothing to say?” she repeated, as though he’d just announced his intentions to unseat King George IV. Hermione bent and retrieved the discarded paper.

“Having failed to heed the infamous Beau Brummel’s outrageous disrespect for the Prince Regent, a certain Lord C. fell from social favor after referring to the Prince Regent as…” Her shoulders shook. “A fat toad with an enviable purse.” She crossed over and dropped the copy of
The Times
onto the sideboard. “You did this,” she repeated, this time her tone more solemn.

He downed the contents of his glass. “I might have whispered something into the Prince Regent’s ear about the slight.” He set the empty glass down.

“How?”

“I’ve my ways, love.” Ways which included sitting across from the cad at the notorious gaming hells and plying him with spirits until he was loose with his tongue and his already empty coffers.

“Oh, Sebastian,” she said softly.

Where most debts of honor were paid immediately, Cavendish had been unable to pay one very costly, very significant one—to him. A slight against the Regent however had proven the most costly of all Cavendish’s mistakes. Nay, that was not altogether true—the most egregious crime had been committed against Hermione’s sister. His mouth tightened with remembrance of the hellish story she had told of Elizabeth.

Now, with Cavendish’s subsequent exile to France, neither Hermione, nor Elizabeth, or any of her family would have to bear the slight of his existence, but with the exception of the pained memories, they would unfortunately forever carry.

When Hermione stepped into his arms, he stiffened. She wrapped hers about his waist and held tight. He inhaled deep the fragrant scent of lemon and honey that forever clung to her. “I was lost the moment you picked your blue gaze up from your dance card at Lord Denley’s,” he whispered into the crown of her silken curls.

She edged back, her lips turned up in an inviting smile. “Were you?” And peered at him through thick, sooty lashes. He kissed the skin just under her earlobe. She giggled. “Th-that tickles.”

“Does it?” he breathed against her neck.

She swatted at him, her shoulders shaking. “D-do behave. I’m trying to seduce you.”

He hardened as those deliciously bold words blended with her sweetly innocent tone that roused all manners of wicked acts he would ask to do with her.

Standing…

Her legs wrapped about him…

“Sebastian, are you listening to me?”

“Er, yes,” he lied.

She gave him a pointed look. He caught her in his arms. “Oh,” she said on a breathless squeak.

Sebastian carried her over to the leather sofa and it groaned in protest as he laid her down and came up above her. Her legs hung awkwardly over the arm. She wrinkled her brow and peered over his shoulder and then back at him.

“Sebastian?”

“Yes,” he murmured, inching up her skirts.

“I do believe this sofa is too small for…
that
.”

He caressed her lean calf and then trailed his fingers higher, ever higher. “And what exactly do you refer to, wife?” he asked hoarsely as he found the thatch of curls that concealed her center.

“Oh,” she cried out. “Er, that is…I was saying.” Her words ended on a shuddery moan as he slid a finger deep inside her slick, hot passage.

“Yes?” he pressed. He lowered his mouth to the top of her modest décolletage and caressed her with his lips.

“Nothing,” she cried out once more. “I wasn’t saying anything.”

Sebastian ceased his gentle stroking and she grappled with his shoulders, but he sat back on his knees. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside, and then released his shaft from the strict confines of his breeches.

Hermione troubled the flesh of her lower lip between her teeth, and God help him he imagined all manner of things for her to do with those splendid red lips and—

She rose in a flutter of bright, yellow skirts and he reached for her. Hermione danced out of his reach. She sank to her knees before the sofa.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice harsh with desire.

She stroked the tip of her index finger around the crown of his shaft. It throbbed and pulsed with a desire for more of her touch. Wordlessly, Hermione wrapped her fingers about him and lightly squeezed. “Ahh.” His head fell back. “You are a temptress,” he groaned.

A smile played about her lips. She continued to run her fingers up and down his shaft, first in a slow, tentative manner and then with an increasing boldness. Then she dipped her head and the tip of her pink tongue shot out. She licked the single bead from the tip of his manhood. “Hmm,” she murmured, in that contemplative manner he’d come to expect from his always inquisitive, bluestocking wife.

He held his breath in agonized anticipation. And then she closed her mouth over him. Sebastian slid his eyes closed on a hiss, incapable of words, or the hint of coherent thought.

“Hmm” she murmured around his length and the reverberations of her throaty question nearly undid him.

He yanked her up and tore the tiny row of buttons down the back of her gown. “I said no more damned buttons,” he said between great, gasping breaths. He rolled her under his frame.

“Did you?” she asked, and then a moan slipped from her lips as he touched his mouth to her breast.

“I thought I did,” he whispered against the swollen, pink tip. Then he drew the bud between his lips and suckled.

Hermione’s legs fell open in invitation and he settled himself between her creamy, white thighs. “What should I wear, husband?”

He studied her; devoid of her gown, with her chemise rucked about her waist, modest garters exposed. “I find I rather prefer you exactly like this, Hermione.”

A little laugh escaped her as he slid inch by agonizing inch inside of her. “I would be quite the scandalous duchess if I were to—” He plunged deep and her words ended on a grateful cry. She wrapped her legs about his waist and urged him on. Sebastian moved within her in deep, languid strokes. She took him inside her, matching him. “I love you,” she whispered and then he swallowed her scream of surrender.

He joined her over the precipice and filled her body with his seed then collapsed atop her, their chests heaving from the force of their release.

Hermione touched a finger to his lips. “Oh, Sebastian, I do love you.”

His heart tightened. She’d loved him enough that she’d buried the secret of Mr. Michaelmas and surrendered years’ worth of work…and dreams. He didn’t deserve that sacrifice.

“Generally, if a husband loves his wife, he would usually respond with ‘I love you too, goddess of my heart, mistress of my soul,’ but Hermione will suffice,” she teased bringing him back to the moment.