Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(25)
The spell was broken. Reality returned to her. It was daylight. The rumbling of conveyances on the street below reached her ears. What had she been thinking to allow herself to get so carried away? He was a stranger to her, even if he was her husband, and he clearly resented her.
Of course, how could she find fault with him after confessing the way she’d schemed against him? And then, even a breath later, when he’d asked her if there was anything else she needed to unburden, she had misled him again. Had lied to him. Part of her had wanted to tell him about Bridget, but another part reminded her she didn’t know what sort of man she’d married. She would like to believe he would never hurt her, but she had suffered many disappointments in her life, and the cynic in her wouldn’t allow for blind hope or trust.
“The buttons, Daisy.” His voice cracked like a whip through her jumbled thoughts.
With trembling hands, she reached behind her to find the line of buttons cleverly disguised beneath a velvet placket. “Here.”
His fingers brushed against hers for a brief moment, and the contact was like a spark of electricity. Hastily, she snatched her hands away to pluck some more of the pins from her coiffure. Cool air kissed her bare shoulders above her chemise and corset as he peeled open the back of her gown.
“There now.” He pulled her sleeves down, her bodice going along with it. “I’ll loosen your corset. I trust you can manage the rest?”
His tone was cool once more. Almost impersonal.
It was as if he had two opposite parts of himself at war. He was frigid one moment and scorching the next. A cold, imperious man she couldn’t read at one turn and a sensual, wicked lover the next. Which one was he?
She swallowed, confusion warring with the lingering remnants of desire. He must be angry with her for her deception despite his claim to the contrary. “I can manage the rest, Your Grace. It was merely the laces and the buttons that I couldn’t reach. Thank you for your help.”
“Sebastian.” The laces of her corset went slack as he undid the solid knot Abigail had tied earlier and plucked at the crisscrossed strings to loosen them. “Wait another twenty minutes or so before ringing for your lady’s maid.”
“Yes, Your—Sebastian.” She swallowed, holding her bodice to her chest as he swept past her, stalking in the direction of his chamber.
“I’ll be leaving shortly. Settle yourself however you like,” he called over his shoulder, not even bothering to glance her way.
His callous treatment after such an intimate moment stung more than it should. It wasn’t as if she loved him. Goodness, it wasn’t as if she even knew him. But somehow, none of that mattered as she watched him walk away. He wanted her to call him by his Christian name, but he didn’t want to consummate their marriage, and he couldn’t wait to remove himself from her presence.
“Will you be home for dinner?” she called after him.
He hesitated for a moment just before crossing back into his chamber. “It’s doubtful. Should your family call or cause any undue trouble for you, inform Giles to have word sent to me at once. He’ll know where to find me.”
And then the door snapped closed behind him, leaving her standing alone in her new chamber, half-naked and more adrift than she’d ever been in her life.
He was going mad.
He’d trained to withstand water torture, to suffer broken bones, plucked fingernails, mind tricks, and beatings. He’d learned the art of defending himself with his fists and dexterity, with an expert crack of a pistol or the deft flick of his wrist and a sharp blade. He’d spent nights in brutal cold, days in the company of the most sadistic men and scurrilous criminals in the land. Had survived an assassin and a deadly inferno.
He damn well ought to be able to resist one woman. Even if she was a beautiful goddess of a woman who smelled delicious, whose soft skin made him want to taste her everywhere, whose mere presence in a room made him want to take her so hard and deep he didn’t know where he ended and she began.
“Fuck,” he muttered, glaring at the half-empty glass of whisky in his hands before downing the remainder of the contents in one fiery gulp. The burn distracted him but for a second, and the liquor did nothing to soothe his jagged nerves.
“Jesus, Sebastian.” Griffin, the Duke of Strathmore and one of Sebastian’s oldest and best friends in the League, pinned him with a pitying look. They were seated in Strathmore’s billiard room, sipping whisky. “I can’t believe you agreed to marry the chit.”
That made two of them.
Sebastian slapped his glass down on the carved mahogany table between their chairs and took up the decanter to refill it with another hearty dose of amber-colored liquid. “I took an oath. I do what’s asked of me.”
Regardless of how preposterous it was. Regardless of how much he loathed being the sacrificial lamb. And regardless of how doing what he’d been asked had felt wrong for the first time today.
His oath and his sense of honor were currently at odds, wreaking havoc upon his conscience. Everything within him had wanted to claim Daisy Vanreid as his earlier that afternoon. Even though she was a woman he couldn’t trust. Even though doing so would be akin to using her, manipulating a woman he’d soon no longer even be married to. If she was innocent, he’d never forgive himself. But if she was guilty, there would be hell to pay. None of it—not the way he felt or his reaction to her—made sense. Indeed, nothing about this entire mission did, and it sure as hell didn’t help that Carlisle was keeping him largely in the dark.