Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(35)

For three years, she’d been content to craft romantic stories of love for fictional ladies. In Hermione’s twenty-two, nearly twenty-three years she’d had one of the village boys steal a kiss and she’d repaid the favor as any young girl of thirteen would—with a swift punch to the nose. That had been her last embrace. Until now.

Sebastian’s entrance into her life was, and would forever be the singular most romantic moment to have ever happened to her.

He walked toward the window. She studied his lazy, languid movements, aching to hold onto Sebastian and the dream of him. Forever. And when he remembered he was a duke and she was simply a mere Miss Hermione Rogers, the memory of him would live on in a story. Her fingers itched with an urge to commit the details of his long-legged stride to her notes—for reasons that had nothing to do with her book and everything to do with a wish to commit his effortless grace to memory so when she was an old woman, likely a spinster, still penning romances she’d only dreamed of, she could remember there had been a time that a charming, dashing duke had roused her senses to awareness.

He paused beside the old oak table littered with three very familiar volumes. In his commanding ducal fashion, he picked up one of the books by Mr. Michael Michaelmas. Her stomach fluttered at his handling of her work.

Sebastian fanned the pages, his head bent over her earliest story published by Mr. Werksman.

Hermione spoke quickly, moving around the table. “D-do you read, Sebastian?” She curled her fingers into tight fists to keep from pulling the copy of The Mad Marquess out of his hands.

The hint of a smile played about his lips. “Indeed, I do.” He didn’t take his attention off the book. “Are you shocked to discover I’m a literate duke?”

Her toes curled with the awkward embarrassment of being privy to one reading her work. Oh, she knew her stories were purchased; else the thrifty Mr. Werksman would certainly not have extended her a publication offer these past two years now. The knowing that someone read her work however, was vastly different from witnessing it.

“You read Gothic novels, do you, Hermione?” At last he glanced up.

She narrowed her gaze at the faintly condescending glint in his eyes. “I do.” She grabbed for the book.

He snapped the volume closed and held it beyond her reach. “You do not strike me as a Gothic novel-reading young lady.”

Well, technically she wasn’t a Gothic novel-reading young lady. She was a Gothic novel—writing young lady. “By your tone, I gather you find something wrong with Gothic novels, Your Grace?” She folded her arms across her chest, hating that his answer mattered. Hating that she wanted him to see the value in what she did.

He inclined his head. “I imagine a person would be better served in reading the classics.”

“The classics?” She’d tired long ago of Society’s unfavorable opinion on the Gothic novel.

He nodded. “Or the romantic poets, even.”

She furrowed her brow at that last dangling; “even”, which greatly implied…“anything”. As in a person would be better served reading anything than the drivel she wrote. “I’d venture you’ve never read a Gothic novel.” He was probably one of those stodgy readers, who’d not dare deviate from Polite Society’s norms and expectations for any and all matters—including the literature selected.

“You would be correct, Hermione.” Sebastian opened to a random page and skimmed the passage. He proceeded to read aloud. “‘Everyone knew marquesses by nature were mad. Mad they weren’t dukes. Mad their landholdings were not as vast as those enviable dukes.’” He glanced up a moment.

Heat burned her cheeks and she had to remind herself he did not know she was the author of those words he so disdained.

“‘But this marquess.’” He dropped his voice to a menacing whisper. “‘But this marquess was madder than all others…’” He snapped the book closed once again. “Hardly the quality of writing to rival Chaucer or Aristotle.”

Hermione plucked the copy from his fingers, torn between slapping his smug face and sinking under the hopelessly frayed carpet with embarrassment. “I wasn’t…” She cleared her throat. “That is, I don’t believe the author intended to rival Chaucer or Aristotle. I imagine sh—he intended to invoke passion and mystery and great love.” And as The Mad Marquess had been received so favorably, she’d imagined the book had done all she’d hoped for the story.

His gaze grew hooded. “Love and passion and mystery. Is this why you read these silly stories?”

She’d accepted long ago that, as an author she would never, could never please every reader. His view on The Mad Marquess was really but one opinion, and therefore shouldn’t matter. And yet, strangely, it did. “Do you imagine there is something wrong in reading about love and passion, Your Grace?”

He had the good grace to look discomfited.

“Is your life so empty, so vastly cold that you should mock any and all who read a Gothic novel?” she pressed relentlessly. She held out The Mad Marquess. “Go on, take it, Your Grace. Do not merely pull lines from a handful of pages and determine the quality of a book on those lines alone. Read it in its entirety, and then you can speak to me of the worth of such literature.”

Sebastian hesitated, and then accepted the book, a patronizing grin on his lips that made her grit her teeth. He held it up in unspoken thanks. “How can I refute such a challenge?” He bowed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some very serious reading to see to this day.”