Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(63)

Sebastian forgotten, she started across the ballroom, holding Lord Cavendish in her sights. He watched her approach; his gaze darted about as if he sought escape. And Hermione thrilled at the coward’s reaction. She sidled through the crowd, skirting dancers performing the steps of a quadrille. Nearby lords and ladies eyed her, an interloper in their extravagant London Society, with vague disinterest, and then shifted their attention to some other more worthwhile creature to gossip about.

She drew to a stop before him. Having been acquainted in the country, no formal introductions were required. Not that Hermione would have let formalities come between her and this meeting. Only, having detested him as she had for these four months now, and all the words she’d prepared to spew at him should their paths ever cross, she found herself robbed of speech. Her chest heaved.

“Yes?” He raised an insolent eyebrow. “May I help you?”

His disdainful greeting jerked her back from her momentary shock. “Lord Cavendish.” The baron paused; surprise flared in his eyes at her boldness. She stole a sideways glance at those around her, but surrounding ladies and gentlemen tittered on with their own morsels of gossip. “I’d speak with you, my lord.”

He gave a flick of his chin. “This is certainly not the place to discuss anything, Miss Rogers.” A furious glint reflected in his heartless eyes. “Nor are there any matters I have to discuss with you.”

She balled her hands into fists. In this moment, with his smug, deprecating stare trained on her, she hated him. God help her, if she had a pistol she’d put a ball through his chest right now, with a glad little smile. “Indeed, there is.” She tilted her chin back. “My sister. I’d discuss my sister with you.” Reason crept back in. She could not do this thing. Not in the public manner.

He feigned surprise. “Ah, forgive me. Now I remember. Please send my regards to…what was her name? Miss Lydia?”

She recoiled. Oh, God if he’d plunged a dagger through her heart, he could not have wounded her more.

“Ahh, no, it is Miss Elizabeth Rogers, forgive me,” he said with a mocking glint in his hard, cruel eyes. “If you’ll share with her the happy news of my recent betrothal.” The room dipped under her feet and foul fiend that he was, Lord Cavendish pounced on his opportunity to make a hasty retreat. “I bid thee good evening, Miss Rogers.”

His voice became distant. She reached out for purchase and then blinked away the momentary weakness, cursing him for reducing her to this shocked and stunned miss. She dug deep for the fury she’d carried in her heart these many months now, fed that rage, because it strengthened her; it kept her from dissolving into a panicky, empty heap. She blinked to bring the room into focus…and registered Sebastian directly across the dance floor, a hard frown trained on her.

Hermione closed her eyes a moment. If she left this ballroom, Sebastian would follow. Do not. Do not. Do not. It was a futile litany rolling around her mind.

God forgive me. She turned on her heel and with wooden-steps continued through the crowded room and slipped away from the gaiety of polite Society. He would follow her.

She hated herself for knowing as much…

And going anyway.





C





hapter 18

Sebastian listened halfheartedly to the discourse between Waxham and Sophie; all the while his thoughts remained fixed on another.

Hermione. In a mere eight days, she’d come to mean so much to him that he could detect the subtle nuances of her body’s movements. Now, he studied her as she walked at a brisk clip, with an almost military-like precision through the crowd. All traces of warmth he’d come to expect replaced by a hardened mask he didn’t recognize. Then she stopped beside Lord Cavendish. He narrowed his gaze. Cavendish; a blond, fawned-over scoundrel.

“Mallen?” Waxham murmured, a question in that one word.

“Hmm?” However, he turned a deaf ear to the other man’s response. Hermione’s cheeks flared red. With rage? With embarrassment? And more…what was Cavendish’s connection to the lady? Then, after a handful of minutes she turned around and stalked toward the back of the ballroom. Their exchange so brief, he could almost convince himself he’d imagined it.

Almost.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured to Waxham and Sophie. Before questions could be raised, he started after Hermione.

Even with a handful of meetings between them, her happiness had come to matter to him, enough that he wanted to bloody Lord Cavendish senseless for whatever slight the man had committed. This moment in the Brookfield ballroom so very similar to their first meeting at Lord Denley’s. She drew him, like a moth to flame and he was content to be burned if it meant he could have her in his life in every way.

He at last managed to escape the lords and ladies attempting to engage him and slipped from the ballroom, just as a flash of yellow skirts disappeared around the corner. He quickened his stride and set after her. Sebastian turned the corner. Hermione pressed the handle of one of Lord Brookfield’s many doors. “Hermione,” he said quietly. His voice, the lone sound in the empty corridor, echoed like the blare of a pistol.

Her skin turned ashen and she stiffened, but said nothing. He expected her to flee as she’d done on so many occasions, yet she stood tall and proud. “Sebastian,” she whispered when he came to stop before her.