Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(66)

She’d had a choice and she’d chosen to go along with her aunt’s cunning plan. Now, standing here in a misery of her own making, Hermione knew this vile thing begun of desperation had changed the moment he’d drawn her into his arms. She’d known nothing but him.

“Do you not have an answer?” he bit out. Gone was all hint of gentleness in his tone. In its place this cold, empty vitriol from a man who knew hate. Hatred for her.

Her body went cold and she wrapped her arms close to herself. She could not do this. Even if it meant her ruin. “S-Sebastian,” she began, her voice cracked and she tried again. “I can explain—”

“My goodness, Your Grace!” Her aunt flew across the room. “Such boldness.”

Hermione backed away from her aunt’s outstretched hands, sidled closer to Sebastian, craving distance from the woman who’d planted the seed of a vile plan. Except, Aunt Agatha had not forced Hermione to carry it out. She’d done this all on her own. She stole a long glance up at Sebastian. His lip peeled back in a sneer, and seething hatred rolled off his tautly held frame. She choked back the emotion clogging her throat. She could not blame him. She quite hated herself, too. Agony twisted her heart.

“You do realize, you must do right by my niece,” Aunt Agatha pressed, ruthless and as relentless as Boney had been in his quest to dominate the whole of Europe.

“Undoubtedly,” he said in a clipped, ducal tone Hermione had not once heard from him—until now; discovering in the worst way even the amiable, charming dukes, were capable of that same icy derision and condescension as all the others. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Aunt Agatha rocked back on her heels. She opened and closed her mouth several times, a woman who’d clearly expected perhaps some protestation from the revered duke. “Well, very well, then.” A pleased smirk wreathed the other woman’s face.

“No!” Hermione cried out. But the remainder of her protest withered and died on her lips at the black glower Sebastian fastened to her face. She folded her arms to her chest and rubbed her fingers over her forearms in attempt to drive back the chill that racked her body in a horrible tremor.

“Oh, splendid, just splendid, there is to be a wedding,” the pudgy Lord Brookfield intoned. By his cheerful smile, he was the only one present unable to recognize the seething fury of the respective future bridegroom.

Humiliated at her life playing out in this macabre fascination before strangers, Hermione yanked her attention from the trio and turned to Sebastian once more. “Please, will you not speak to me?” She held up her hands beseechingly.

He spoke over her entreaty. “I’d request a moment with Miss Rogers.” It took a sliver of a moment for Hermione to realize Sebastian directed his ducal order to the interlopers of her carefully, but not so carefully thought out ruin.

Lady Brookfield looked between them and then had the sense to silently guide her husband from the room.

Aunt Agatha slapped a scandalized hand to her breast, the victorious gleam in her eyes masking all false modesty. “You would sully her reputation further by asking to—?” Surely a man of Sebastian’s intelligence saw Aunt Agatha’s role in this horrid scheme.

“Madam,” he spoke through gritted teeth. “Get out.”

Her aunt staggered back. “I never!” She gave a flounce of her greying brown hair. “As you are to be married, a brief meeting with Hermione’s chaperone just outside will not rouse any additional disapproval.”

Her stomach roiled and she looked away from this ruthless woman, her mother’s sister, whose blood she shared. And now, in Hermione having made this irreversible decision, she had only proven she shared the other woman’s avaricious spirit.

Aunt Agatha sailed from the room in a flurry of satin skirts. The click of the door shutting thundered in the suddenly quiet room.

Hermione stood immobile, afraid if she so much as moved wrong or breathed too loudly, she would shatter into a million splinters of shameful pain at Sebastian’s feet.

She directed her gaze to the floor and waited for an explosion of fury.

He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger; his hard and unrelenting grip forced her eyes back to his. She swallowed past the swell of emotion clogging her throat and ran her gaze lovingly over the harsh, angular planes of his chiseled cheeks. He’d deserved nothing but the truth from her and all she’d given him were lies. “Did you orchestrate this meeting, Miss Rogers?” And deception. Somehow, the silken soft whispered question sounded more violent than any harsh epithet he might have spewed.

She drew in a shuddery breath. Her answer would bring nothing more than hatred from this man—the first honorable one she’d known. And how had she repaid that honor? By proving herself a lying, indulgent creature. Self-loathing rolled through her in waves.

“Miss Rogers,” he snapped.

She jumped and raised her gaze reluctantly to his. For the half beat of a heart, she considered lying. In the lie, mayhap she could bury all the other lies she carried. The weight of guilt settled about her shoulders. Her eyes slid closed. I cannot. The lies between them were so great, if one more was told, she’d be buried under the weight of her mistruths. “Yes,” she said quietly, not sure how that one word emerged so calm when inside she was breaking apart by a misery of her own making.

For a long while, silence blanketed the office. Then, he cursed.