Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(87)

“Sebastian?” His name emerged as a hesitant question. “Are you going somewhere?”

He drew on his second gleaming Hessian. “Yes,” he said tersely.

She looked to the closed door and then back to him. “Oh.”

Sebastian grabbed his rumpled black jacket and shrugged into it. He started for the door.

A slight thump echoed about the room, followed by the pitter-patter of hurried steps on the hard wood floor. Hermione placed herself between him and the door, the white satin sheet draped around her, giving her the spirited look of Athena the warrior facing down Typhon in his great rampage of Olympus. “Where are you going?”

His frown deepened. As a duke he’d never before been expected to answer to anyone for anything…and he most certainly didn’t intend to begin for this pert miss who’d stolen the title duchess for herself.

She jabbed a finger at his chest. Hard. “I asked, where are you going?” His wife’s sudden movement loosened the grip she had upon the sheet. The right corner slipped, exposing the creamy white swell of her right breast and he was besieged by the desire to take her back to bed and make her his once more. “Sebastian?” she prodded.

Alas, it appeared he would now be expected to answer to at least this woman. He flexed his jaw. “I am leaving,” he forced out past clenched teeth. He could not stay here. He’d done the honorable thing in wedding her despite her betrayal. If he remained, he risked losing the rest of his heart and if he did, she would only destroy him.

“Yes,” she said, her earlier bravado replaced by this hesitancy. “I see that. I asked where you are going.”

Away, before he did something foolish like give her his heart forever. He stomped around her, but she was possessed of an indomitable spirit. With a staggering resolve she blocked his path.

Sebastian folded his arms. “You’ve already informed me that you don’t intend to leave for Leeds.” He spoke in the bored, lazy tones he’d practiced as a youth training for the role of duke.

The slight frown on her lips hinted at annoyance. “That is correct.” She narrowed her eyes and took a step toward him. “Are you leaving for Leeds?” Would she care if he did?

Now that she had her title as Duchess of Mallen there was nothing further she required of him. She therefore shouldn’t care if he went to his clubs or down to greet the devil himself for snifters of brandy. Yet, the slight flicker of hurt in her piercing bluish, nearly black eyes gave him pause. “No, I’m not going to Leeds,” he said when he could formulate words once more. Did he imagine her soft sigh of relief? He strode around her and took the remaining steps to the door. He pressed the handle when she called out…

“Then where are you going?”

She was nothing if not persistent. She exhibited the same tenacity for answers as she did for titles. “My clubs, madam.”

“Oh.” At that relieved ‘oh’, he faced her. “You’ll return later this evening, then?” she asked and he despised the hesitancy in her question. This tentative woman bore no traces to the bold creature who’d stolen into Lord Denley’s private office.

“I will not be returning,” he said, before he changed his mind, took her in his arms and slept by her side until the end of time.

The sheet dipped again. She shifted the fabric and held it close to her breast. “You—?”

“You have your title. You now have my townhouse. I’ll take rooms at my club. We may come to some understanding in terms of our relationship at a later time.” He pressed the handle. “There is, of course, the matter of the heir.” Her quick, shuddery inhalation of air knifed him, and he loathed himself for that deliberate barb. Then with a steely resolve—he left.

And that, was now the hardest thing he’d ever done.





C





hapter 24





1 month later


London


Hermione tapped her feet upon the wood floor, her concentration focused solely on the page before her. After all she’d struggled to put pen to paper and tell the story of the brooding duke, now the words flowed freely. And they tumbled from her, cathartic and healing in ways that saved her from the agonizing pain of Sebastian’s abandonment. Ignoring the ache of her overused wrist, she scratched furiously away at the paper. She paused and flexed her fingers, then dipped her pen into the crystal inkwell.

“I should imagine you’d be done by now,” a familiar child said from the doorway.

Hermione dropped her pen. Ink splashed her otherwise flawless page. She shoved back her chair. “Hullo, poppet.”

Addie skipped into the room. Hugh hovered in the doorway. Papa had sent them to London to reside with Hermione as Elizabeth increased with child. Of course, the request was really made by Hermione and came after Sebastian’s departure. He’d gone to his clubs…and never returned. And if she were being truly honest, her reasons were largely selfish. The quiet that came from living alone in this lavish, too extravagant home had nearly driven her mad. She’d summoned her siblings not even two days later.

With a sigh, Hugh entered the room. He dragged his heels in an exaggerated manner. For Papa’s negligence these years, he’d still been a male figure in an otherwise wholly female household.