Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(23)

“Precisely,” her sister went on, voicing the thought and somehow making it even more real. “He won’t. And we can’t simply rely on your meeting him at various social functions. Every other lady present will be clamoring for the gentleman’s notice for no other reason than because of his title.”

Oh, how very wrong her sister was. The duke could have his title stripped and his lands removed and he’d inspire fluttering hearts and shivers of awareness in dowagers and debutantes alike.

Addie elbowed her in the side. “Hermie.”

She grunted. “What was that for?”

“You’ve gone all moon-eyed, Hermie.”

“Don’t call me…” A mischievous sparkle glimmered in her sister’s eyes. These were sad days indeed if she’d allow an eleven-year-old girl’s teasing to rankle. “I have not gone all moon-eyed.” She was far too practical and logical to ever do anything as foolish as go moon-eyed, as her sister had suggested.

“Yes, you have,” she spoke as fact. “Your eyes get silly.” Addie directed her eyes to the heavens. “And your mouth goes all funny.” She went slack-jaw, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

“I certainly do not look like that.” She bristled with indignation.

“Humph,” her sister mumbled, her tone threaded with skepticism. “Either way, you need to meet him.” She hopped off the bed. “I suggest a discreet inquiry from our servants to his.” She raced over to the door.

Where had her sister learned such tactics? “I’ll not do something as indelicate as spy on His Grace, Addie,” she called after her.

Addie pulled the door open. “You will if you want to tell the affable duke’s story,” she said, without even glancing back. She slammed the wood paneled door in her wake.

Hermione drew her knees close to her chest and stared at the closed door. It either spoke volumes of her sister’s wisdom or Hermione’s desperation, but once again Addie’s idea was not an altogether ill-thought-out one. She rubbed her chin across the fabric of her modest brown skirts. She really didn’t want to spy on the duke. There was something quite underhanded and devious in such actions. However, it would all be in the name of research…and by the disrepair of her father’s office, it was much needed research.

Hermione collapsed backward once again. She tossed her arm wide, gaze fixed on that same watermark. Putting inquiries to the duke’s servants it would have to be.





C





hapter 8

The following afternoon Sebastian drummed the tip of his pen along the opened ledger atop his desk. He considered the marble hearth at the opposite end of the room, remembering a different office, a different hearth…and a certain young lady.

Hermione, to be exact.

Close up, even in the dimly lit quarters of Denley’s room, he’d not found her any type of grand beauty like the ladies who drove men to dash sonnets, not that he’d ever be one of those silly dandies who favored poetry.

However, after their chance meeting in the London streets, he’d been unable to rid himself of the breathless quality of her laugh or the silver flecks that dotted her eyes or…He groaned. It would seem he was one of those sonnet-sprouting fellows, after all.

But blast and hell, there was something very intriguing about a woman who’d uttered, “You’re a duke,” in that deflated way. The same way she might have responded if he’d announced his intentions to remove her pencil and bar her from penning any more sentences.

He threw his pen down, abandoning hope of work as an all too familiar restiveness thrummed through him. There had been a time, when he was a younger man and merely the heir to a dukedom, when the title of duke hadn’t paved his way or garnered favors. In the six years since his father’s passing, however, he’d ceased to exist as anything beyond that very revered title.

Until Hermione. The mysterious stranger, by Waxham’s admission, no one knew anything of.

And God help him, he wanted to know—

A knock sounded at the door. He looked up, grateful for the interruption, and then tamped down a groan.

His sister, Emmaline, stood framed in the doorway, a smile on her lips. “Sebastian.” A smile he’d learned long, long ago to be very leery of.

For one horrified moment it was as though she’d read the dangerous thoughts churning through his head. But then, he narrowed his eyes remembering Emmaline and the Countess of Waxham’s scheming from across Lady Denley’s ballroom floor. “Em.” Whatever would his sister say to his sudden preoccupation with a Miss Rogers?

And I suppose you should call me Hermione…

A wounded expression, patently insincere, lined Emmaline’s face. “Never tell me you aren’t elated to see me.” She wagged her brown eyebrows.

“Indeed,” he drawled, allowing her to make of that “indeed” what she would.

“Humph,” she mumbled at his noncommittal response, apparently taking exception. She tugged free her gloves and wandered over to his desk. “May I?” She’d already claimed the edge of the leather wing-back chair.

“Please do.” She either failed to note or care about the heavy sarcasm underlining those two words. He’d wager by the constant megrim she’d given him through the years with her antics that it was, in fact, the latter.