Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(34)

Hermione spun out of his arms. Her chest heaved, her breath coming in rapid, little panting spurts. She touched trembling fingers to her lips. She opened her mouth to speak, but he interrupted whatever tart words were on her well-kissed lips.

He’d not been drawn to her today because of her suspicious behavior in Denley’s office or their chance encounter on Whitechapel Street or their fateful meeting in the rain. “Your kiss is what brought me here, Hermione,” he said huskily, himself confronting the truth. It was her.

Her blue eyes formed wide moons in her face. And he grinned at having once again having silenced the garrulous young woman. She fiddled with the fabric of her modest décolletage, drawing his gaze downward. Her distracted movement all the more erotic for the seductive innocence of it. “W-well.” She moistened her lips. “And did you find it satisfactory, Your Grace?” For the faintly mocking edge to that question, her words bore a trace of a lady’s innocence wondering.

But surely she didn’t mean…? He blinked. Ladies didn’t go about asking gentleman whether they’d found…

“My kiss.” Apparently this lady did. Her hands fell back to her side. “Was it worth coming ’round to pay a visit?”

For all her cheek, the hesitancy in her eyes indicated that her show was all bravado. His response mattered to her. He took another step closer, expecting Hermione to retreat as she’d done earlier. Instead, she remained rooted to the spot. He brushed his thumb along the seam of her lips wanting to taste her once more. “Indeed, it was, Hermione.” His words emerged gruff with desire.

She placed a staying hand over his and he ceased his gentle ministrations. “You are a rogue, then,” she spoke those words with a dawning shock. She scrutinized him in that quizzical manner of hers; as though he were an oddity at the Egyptian Hall.

She’d misunderstood. Did she believe he bandied about his attentions on countless ladies? “I am most certainly not a rogue,” he said dryly. As a duke he’d taken great caution to avoid roguish behaviors that would make him easy prey for fortune-hunting schemers. The women he’d taken to his bed were skilled mistresses who didn’t hold onto hope of permanence between them.

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally. Her gaze drifted to a point beyond his shoulder.

And as she spoke with honesty, he said, “You’ve intrigued me, Hermione. That is why I’ve come.” Her attention snapped back in his direction. In being honest with himself he knew, his visit this day wasn’t about a kiss, or his suspicions, or their chance meetings in Denley’s office or Hyde Park. He’d come for her. She trailed the tip of her tongue over her lips; the innocent gesture sweetly erotic. “I found myself curious about the woman who’d sneak about her host’s home—”

“I told you I sought privacy,” she bristled, mistaking his words as an accusation.

He flicked her nose. “And tell me, did you find it? In Lord Denley’s desk?” She snapped her mouth closed. “No one knows a thing about you, Hermione.” And all the English fops were too dim-witted to see the beauty before them. Just as he had, initially. “Why is that?” Only initially.

She spoke quickly. “I’m new to London, Your Grace.” It didn’t escape his notice that when displeased or put out with him, the lady “Your Graced” him. She drew in an audible breath, the slight sound somehow adding a level of intrigue to the unconventional beauty. “What would you know of me? My name is Hermione Edith Rogers. I quite detest my middle name. I’ve come to London at the bequest of my aunt, Lady Pemberly, my now deceased mother’s sister, to have a Season.” Her tone hinted at her irritation in having this London Season. So vastly different than nearly every other lady of the ton.

He remembered Lord Whitmore’s swift retreat at Lady Denley’s ball. “To make a match?” Sebastian fisted his hands, detesting the unknown stranger.

“Isn’t that the goal of all young ladies?”

Yes, he supposed it was, but there was something in her tone, a nearly imperceptible pause which hinted at altogether different goals for this particular young woman. From the corner of his eye, a scrap of white caught his notice and he shifted his attention to the page on the side table.

She darted a hand around him and picked up the sheet. “Do you also make it your business to read other people’s private notes?”

“Yes.”

A bark of laughter escaped her. “Well, what am I to say to that?”

He found himself grinning, and for the first time since his failed courtship of Miss Sophie Winters who’d thrown him over for his friend, Christopher, the Earl of Waxham, he felt the first stirrings of interest in a proper miss. Not marriage per se. He hardly knew the lady enough to determine her suitability as a bride. Yet it was enough to know she’d captivated him.

Her smile slipped and she touched a hand to her hair. “Is something amiss?”

Whenever she was near, everything was amiss. And that thought didn’t terrify him as much as he expected it should.



Hermione hadn’t known what she’d expected of the Duke of Mallen’s unexpected visit. Certainly not his kiss…or talks of love. Her heart stirred. He believed in love. Oh, he’d not specifically said the precise words. He’d spoken of the emptiness of an emotionless match. The horrified glint in his eyes hinted at the truth he denied…at least, aloud.