Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(45)

“The bookshop,” she supplied. She gestured across the street to the modest structure with the tilted wooden sign above the entrance. “That would be lovely.” And it would. For reasons that had everything to do with additional research for Mr. Werksman’s brooding duke novel.

Liar. She placed her fingers along his coat sleeves. Even with the fabric between them, a thrill of awareness coursed through her, warming her fingers, and spreading throughout her belly.

Hugh stepped in front of them. “We do not require assistance.” He folded his arms. “I’ll escort my sister and you can continue on with…” He narrowed his eyes. “And furthermore, what are you doing here? Are you following my sister?”

Her fingers tightened reflexively about Sebastian’s arm. “Hugh,” she ordered sharply. Since he’d learned of Cavendish’s ill-treatment of Elizabeth he’d become an angry, bitter, too-old-for-his-years boy.

Sebastian shook his head. He looked on at Hugh with a solemn expression on his harshly beautiful face. “You are a devoted brother.” He cast a sideways glance at Hermione. “I daresay you shouldn’t reprimand him for being protective of his sister’s reputation.”

Hugh puffed his chest out and a flicker of pride and a fleeting moment of respect replaced his earlier fury with Sebastian’s presence. But then the look faded. “You didn’t answer my question, Duke.”

Hermione groaned. She would kill him. Horribly and quite gladly.

The faintest flicker of amusement flared in Sebastian’s eyes. “I am a board member at London Hospital, which is…” He flicked his finger toward the end of the street. “…on this same street, and I’ve a meeting to attend.”

The boy grunted a rather noncommittal response.

Hermione’s limited experience with the nobility had proven those capricious lords and ladies self-indulgent, indolent creatures. They didn’t serve on boards of hospitals; they didn’t rescue boys from being trampled by a reckless phaeton. And yet, this one did. Her heart fluttered.

Hugh jerked his chin toward the bookshop. “I suppose you may escort us.” This time, he took care to look across the bustling cobbled road before stepping out.

Hermione and Sebastian trailed behind at a more sedate pace. “I am so sorry,” she said breaking the silence. “For Hugh. I’m afraid he’s becoming increasingly difficult.” A vast understatement. “Since my mother died.” And my father ceased being a good parent. She withheld that last personal piece, unwilling to let Sebastian into the world of her father’s failings. They picked their way across the street.

“How long has your mother been gone?” The quietly spoken question was nearly lost to the noisy, London street.

She stole a glance up at him. “Six years. He’s not been the same since.” None of her family had. She stared at Hugh’s small shoulders. As though he knew they now spoke of him, her brother threw a glance over his shoulder and scowled.

Sebastian gently squeezed her arm. The heat of his touch burned her skin. She paused and looked expectantly up at him. “I am so sorry for your loss,” he spoke in the hushed somber tones of one who also had known loss.

“It is all right,” she said softly. “It was a long time ago.” Except the pain of Mama’s loss, a woman who’d acted out stories with Papa for the pleasure of her children, and whose singing voice could rival a nightingale, would forever remain.

She made to start walking onward once more, but Sebastian stepped in front of her, halting her path. They stood on the edge of the cobbled road among the calls of vendors hawking their wares. The rich green of his eyes a deep jade, the glint within the dark irises more somber than she ever remembered of the genial duke. “The loss of a parent is one that always remains, though, doesn’t it, Hermione? Yes, we carry on as we once did, and smile and laugh, and move about our goings on, but the memory of that loss will always remain.”

She swallowed past the swell of emotion in her throat. He spoke as one who also knew loss. “Who—?”

“My father,” he supplied, correctly surmising the question upon her lips. He nodded to where Hugh stood outside the bookshop. He’d stuck his leg out and tapped his foot in an agitated manner. “I imagine the loss of a parent when one is just a child transforms a person,” he murmured. “Hugh loves you.”

She caught the inside flesh of her lower lip. It didn’t always seem that way. “He’s quite miserable most of the time.” All the time.

“I remember myself as a boy Hugh’s age.” Sebastian snorted. “He’s not different than most children. Boastful. Proud. Obstinate.”

Odd, she’d never imagined a duke did something as plebeian as snort. She tipped her head.

A loose blond strand of hair tumbled over his eye, giving him an almost boyish look. Her fingers ached with a need to push back the tendril, to feel the silken texture of hair far too glorious to belong to a man who already possessed everything under God’s golden sun. And she who’d always prided herself on being the clear-headed, logical member of the Rogers family found herself captivated by a man who belonged more in the pages of one of her books. She swallowed.

His brow furrowed. “What is it?”

Her gaze flitted over to her brother. “Hugh is growing impatient.” She stepped around him and hurried ahead. Sebastian’s long legs easily caught up with the slight distance she’d placed between them.