Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(53)

Hermione’s journal tumbled to the ground. Her note from Elizabeth tucked between its comforting pages went with it, as she twined her hands about his neck, and layered herself against him. He slanted his lips over hers, gentle and searching at first and then frenzied as he worked his hands down her hips. She moaned in protest as he pulled his lips from hers, but he only shifted attention to the wildly fluttering pulse at her neck.

“Who are you Hermione Rogers?” he whispered against the frantic beating there. “And what have you done to me that I should forget myself here for anyone to see.”

Her head fell back as he nipped at the sensitive skin of her neck. She groaned, and knew she should be shamed by the wanton sound, knew that she surely possessed the same wicked streak that had been the demise of too many young ladies’ reputations, but as Sebastian dipped his attention lower to the modest swell of her décolletage, she at last knew the question that had lingered as she wrote her stories of love.

This was why women would sacrifice all; for this hot burning that threatened to set her entire body afire.

“Hermione,” he groaned.

And just that utterance, her name, managed to do what nothing else had, until that moment.

Hermione jerked back. Her chest heaved with the force of her desire. She stumbled backward, a hand at her breast. She scanned the area with panicked eyes, as a sick terror filled her that she’d be discovered and ruined as surely as Elizabeth was. A duke might dally with a poor baronet’s daughter, but those lofty lords wedded impeccable young ladies, free of scandal, who’d bring a significant dower to already plentiful coffers.

He eyed her through thick, hooded lashes more tempting than Apollo, god of light and sun. The wind tossed a thick golden strand over his brow. Her fingers twitched with the desire to brush it back. “You ask me who I am, yet the truth is I’m nothing more than a mere baronet’s daughter.” She waved a hand about, gesturing to the calm surface of the Serpentine and lush, manicured grounds. “But for now, I’ve never left my family’s country cottage in Surrey. I enjoy Gothic novels. I have siblings.” A knot twisted her insides over the deliberate truth she withheld. Dukes did not dance attendance upon ladies whose bloodlines included family members of simple nature. “That is all I am,” she finished, clasping her hands together.

Sebastian remained frozen, studying her with an indecipherable expression. But for the morning call of the goldfinch and the soft breeze, silence met her pronouncement. She shifted under the weight of his bold scrutiny. “I’ve known you but seven days, Hermione, and I know you enough to know there is so much more to you than that.” His gaze searched her face.

Her throat worked under the force of her swallow. No one had seen much of her beyond the role of protector for her small, damaged and broken family. No one looked close enough to see anything more than the hopeful salvation of Hugh and Addie and Elizabeth—even Papa. She gathered up her book and blanket and held them close to her chest. “What you see in me, Your Grace, is nothing more, nothing less. I’m a young woman who,” she said with a jerk of her chin at the forgotten copy of The Earl’s Entrapment still at their feet, “enjoys reading Gothic novels. And if you’ll excuse me, I really must return home.”

Before he could utter a protest, she spun on her heel and marched through the morning dew-dampened grounds back to her carriage, and the waiting servant she’d forced along at this early hour.

She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers, resisting the insatiable urge to turn back around and return to Sebastian and his gentle teasing and his forbidden kiss. Nothing could ever come of anything between her and Sebastian…nothing that was honorable, anyway.





C





hapter 15

A short carriage ride later, Hermione entered through the chipped and scraped door of the townhouse with her journal and blanket tucked under her arm.

Addie stood in the foyer; hands planted on her hips. The black glare emanating from her sister’s eyes gave Hermione pause. “Where were you?” the young girl demanded.

A little smile pulled at her lips. “Out, poppet.” She tweaked one of Addie’s curls. “What is the—?”

“Without me?” her sister cried, the charge echoed off the walls, her tone as aggrieved as if Hermione had slain her favorite puppy. “You always take me with you when you write.”

“Not always,” she said automatically. Most of the time. But not always.

Her sister knitted her eyebrows into a single line. “You were not…” She glanced around and dropped her voice to an angry whisper. “…doing whatever it was that got Elizabeth into trouble?”

The journal fell out from Hermione’s arm and her eyebrows shot to her hairline. She closed the distance between them and whispered back, “What are you on about, Addie?” She glanced around. Though there was but a handful of servants remaining and all of them loyal, Elizabeth’s secret was not one she’d share with anyone, let alone a member of the household staff.

Addie’s shoulder lifted in a quick, jerky motion. “Hugh said we’ll all be ruined. He said you’re probably making the same mistake with your duke that Elizabeth made with Lord Cavendish, and that you’ll never make a match then because dukes don’t marry the daughters of impoverished baronets just one step away from ruin. He said—”