Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(56)

Then again, it wasn’t so much a realization as it was a revelation. Or perhaps, to be more accurate, a fallacy. For it was improbable, foolhardy, and altogether wrong. He said it aloud into the mists anyway because he couldn’t contain the words in his mind any longer. Not for one moment more.

“I’m going to keep her,” he announced, aware that his awkward phrasing made it sound more as if he’d decided to keep a racehorse rather than a wife and mother to his future children.

But there it was just the same, poor delivery aside. Saying it felt equal parts alarming and freeing. And also right. So very, very right. Daisy was his. She was his, and she was innocent of any and all Fenian plots. She was kind and good, sweet and giving, and everything a woman who had spent most of her life being abused by her father should seemingly not be. She was the part of himself he’d been missing. The part of himself he hadn’t known existed until he’d recognized it in her eyes.

“Bloody hell, Bast,” Griffin bit out. “You know it’s impossible.”

Sebastian kept his eyes trained forward as he rode, pretending as if he hadn’t heard his friend speak. It was early, and Hyde Park was not yet teeming with the scores of horsemen and parade of the fashionable that would inevitably clutter it. Dawn rides had long been their habit—the perfect cover for relaying sensitive information that was best not entrusted to paper.

Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.

But as it happened, Sebastian wasn’t inclined to give a damn. For the first time in his life, he felt… at peace. He’d dedicated his life to the League, but he had finally reached his limit. He would not send an innocent woman to gaol. He would not misuse her after she had given so freely of her body, mind, and heart. By God, he would not treat her as a pawn for another moment more.

Because she wasn’t a pawn.

She was Daisy, and she was strong against all odds, and her laughter was infectious, and she had changed him in a way he’d never imagined possible. She had opened a door into a life he might have, and God help him, he intended to walk through that door. With her at his side. He intended to take that life and make it theirs.

“Sebastian,” Griffin said again, and this time his tone was grim.

Grim because he could read Sebastian better than anyone else could. But Sebastian didn’t want to hear any of his friend’s sermons. He didn’t need any further reminders and warnings concerning Daisy. His mind drowned in them. The only thing keeping him afloat in this vast ocean of self-loathing and confusion threatening to consume him was the same person Griffin warned him away from.

Daisy.

And that was why he wanted her as his true wife, for the rest of their lives. She was everything he wanted, and nothing he’d ever imagined he’d needed. He’d realized that he couldn’t get her out of his life until he got her out of his blood, out of his head, and out of his bed. But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.

She was his, full stop.

“Sod off,” he said conversationally.

He didn’t want to hear what Griffin had to say. Not a word.

“You took her to the opera,” his friend countered. “A book shop, the museum, hell, Sebastian, you’re courting the chit. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

He continued to ignore Griffin, urging his mount into a faster pace. Eyes and ears everywhere, he thought bitterly. Apparently, Carlisle’s little birds had been following him about with more dedication these days. Was Griffin one of those birds? The thought was akin to a knife to the gut. He was like a brother to Sebastian. The brother he’d never had.

Griffin’s gelding matched his mare pace for pace. “You’re bedding her,” he called out, “and it’s turning you into a fool. Do yourself a favor and find someone else to fuck.”

That was bloody well the wrong thing to say to him. The wrong fucking thing to say to him.

Sebastian reined in his horse and dismounted, forcing his sometime friend to do the same. They squared off like a pair of prize fighters, staring each other down. Rage coursed through him, tightening his jaw until his teeth gnashed together. Sebastian broke the uneasy silence first.

“Never speak of her that way again,” he warned in a voice that vibrated with barely suppressed fury. He had never before wanted to smash his fist into Griffin’s nose the way he did now, so much that his knuckles ached with it.

“You want to hit me, Bast?” Griffin sneered. “Over a set of skirts you haven’t even been bedding for the span of a month? Go ahead, you prick. Choose a treasonous tart over our brotherhood. Hit me. See what happens.”

A set of skirts. That was the phrase that did it. Or perhaps it was treasonous tart. Sebastian would never know for certain. All he did know was that in the next breath, his fist collided with Griffin’s jaw.

His friend’s head snapped back, and he stumbled before regaining his footing. “Jesus, Sebastian. What the bloody hell?”

He stared back at Griffin as pain seared his knuckles, and as a reddish-purple bruise blossomed on his friend’s jaw. “Fuck. I didn’t intend to strike you, Griff. I’m sorry. It’s merely that she’s… ”

He allowed his words to trail off for fear of where they’d been headed. She’s the woman I love. Had he really been about to say such a ludicrous thing? Of course not. There was a vast difference between desiring a woman as his companion and having her in his bed and loving her. He’d only been married to her for the span of a fortnight, Chrissakes.