Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(32)

His gaze lingered on her lips for a moment and in that silly, illogical moment she imagined he might kiss her. And she, a young woman who’d spent nearly years penning stories of great love in the hopes of much needed coin for her family, longed to know the kiss of man.

Nay, not any man. This man. She strove for composure, seeking a reason for his presence here. “Is that why you’ve come? To insist I call you Sebastian?” She wanted him to want to be here for so many more reasons.

Thick, golden lashes hooded his eyes, concealing the momentary flash of emotion that glinted in their green depths. “I’ve come because you’ve quite fascinated me.”

His words yanked her from her reverie. A snorting laugh bubbled past her lips. “I’ve fascinated you.” She stepped away from him, placing much needed distance between them.

He matched her movements. “You find that amusing?” Heavy annoyance underscored his question.

“I find that hard to believe,” she said bluntly.

He propped his hip on the back of the sofa and folded his arms. “What do you believe instead?”

“That you are a bored nobleman,” she said practically. She was nothing if not pragmatic.

He shifted but remained elegantly lounging; he the singularly most elegant aspect of the sparse townhouse that had seen most of its possessions sold off to cover debts from Papa’s neglect of his properties. “I assure you, I am not bored,” he said, his tone droll.

Hermione clenched and unclenched the fabric of her skirts in her hands, detesting the inherent weakness that stirred nervousness in this man’s presence. “That still does not answer what business you have here.”

He pushed himself upright then closed the handful of steps between them. His lazy movements robbed her of the ability to move. He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her gaze up to his.

At nearly eight inches past five feet, Hermione was taller than most gentleman of her acquaintance. Which was a rather smallish number. She also happened to tower over the gentlemen she’d had the ill-fortune of meeting in London. Not this man. Nearly six or seven inches or so taller than her own frame, he made her feel like one of those small, cherished misses.

“You are the business that has brought me ’round, Hermione.”





C





hapter 10

The young lady asked what brought him ’round to her residence. The immediate answer had been her. The actual answer was madness.

She blinked like a night owl. “I brought you here?”

Well, the whole madness piece and all had brought Sebastian ’round to see the mysterious young lady with tart rebuttals and too many questions on her too-full lips that fairly begged to be kissed. He gave a brusque nod. “Indeed.” The moment it was discovered that he’d paid a visit to a marriageable miss, rumors were certain to be bandied about. His mother and sister would be worse than the queen’s terriers with the scent of a bone for details about Hermione Rogers. That in itself should have quelled his afternoon call.

Hermione stared up at him with her head cocked at an endearing little angle. Her lower lip quivered and he stared, transfixed at the trembling, plump flesh of her lower lip. She really was quite kissable. How had he ever found her plain? Her lips were made for sin and seduction and all things scandalous.

Then she laughed. Not the delicate, clear bell-like quality of simpering debutantes but the rich, boisterous kind that earned disapproving stares. And this was so vastly more appealing. The husky expression of amusement flooded him with a sudden desire.

“Oh, my.” She dashed tears of mirth from her eyes. “You are v-very arrogant.” Hermione dissolved into another fit of laughter.

Her reproachful words had the same effect of a bucket of water being doused upon him. He bristled with indignation, as she laughed on at his expense. “I’m not—”

“I-I know you surely can’t h-help it.” She patted his hand. “Being born a duke and a-all.” Had she just patted his hand? As though he was a misbehaving lad of three and not a duke of nearly thirty-two?

How very odd to possess this desire to be treated as just a man and yet be so very humbled by Hermione’s dismissive attitude. “I was not born a duke,” he bit out, giving his lapels a tug. He’d been born a marquess. Altogether different.

“People are not business, Your Grace. They are people. You do not attempt to command and control a person. You do not make people your business. You learn their interests and their hopes and their desires.” Her chest heaved up and down from emotion of her passionate diatribe.

“Sebastian,” he said, on a silken whisper that had seen many lovely mistresses a place in his bed. “Very well, then, what are your desires?”

She stilled. Good, he preferred the minx shocked into silence. There was something quite endearing in the slight parting of her lips and her wide, blinking blue eyes.

“You speak of interests and hopes and desires,” he pressed. “And yet you’ll not share those when asked.” And why was there this pressing need for him to know what Hermione Rogers longed for?

“I don’t know you,” she blurted. “You’re a stranger to me, Sebastian.” Ah, she was more cautious than most young ladies but she’d called him Sebastian and he was encouraged.