Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(95)

“Ahh, yes, of course,” he said somberly and her child’s ears were too innocent to detect the droll tone.

“May I proceed?”

He inclined his head. “Please do.”

“Your eyes are green and your hair is golden-blond.” She let out a beleaguered sigh as though that offense were the greatest of all the others.

He frowned. “What is wrong with my hair?” Not that it particularly mattered what a ten or elevenish-something girl thought about his hair.

She shrugged. “Everyone knows dukes should be dark and brooding and you, Duke…” She gave him another insolent up and down look, “are just a bit brooding.” She muttered something under her breath that sounded a good deal like ‘I told Hermione one preferred a dark, brooding duke’.

He swiped his hand over his mouth. What was there to say to the girl’s charge? He chose nothing, and instead focused on the more pressing question. “What business do you have in my office, Miss Rogers?”

“Hermione’s office.”

He cocked his head.

“You left and it is therefore Hermione’s office, though Hugh pointed out that you own everything and Hermione was at your mercy and as a result we’re all at your mercy…” She ceased prattling and went silent.

Sebastian frowned, not at all liking this young girl’s assessment. Did she believe him capable of turning both she and Hermione and her brother out?

Then, you’ve not given this trio of siblings much reason to trust you, a voice needled.

The whisper of a memory followed on the heel of that. My brother…we…there were no funds for him to attend Eton… A woman who’d sought connection to his title and wealth hadn’t asked for gowns or jewels. The sole request she’d put to him was for her brother’s education. Why would she do that? Why, unless there was more to her… “Shouldn’t you be abed?” He knew little about the habits of children, but he knew at this late hour Addie should be asleep.

She pointed her gaze to the ceiling. “I’ve reading to do,” she said as though he were a child incapable of comprehension.

“Of course,” he said schooling his features into a serious mask. He glanced at his immaculate desk. Or rather, his once immaculate desk. Pages upon pages of sheets lined every corner surface space of the massive mahogany piece. He wandered over then picked up a random sheet and scanned the page.

She loved him. Loved him in spite of what she must do. Loved him even as he could never love her…

“I imagine you find Gothic novels silly,” she called from over his shoulder, pulling his attention away from the page.

“Hmm?” he murmured, throwing a glance back at her.

She gestured to the page. “Hugh says gentlemen are too intelligent to ever appreciate such drivel.” She flung herself into one of the leather wing-backed chairs in front of his desk and hooked her legs over the arm of her seat. “Do you believe it’s drivel?”

He perched a hip on the edge of the desk. “I believe at one time I was so arrogant. But then I read a story at the insistence of…” Hermione. He recalled the bold challenge in her eyes, the displeased frown on her bow-shaped lips and pain scissored through him. God how he’d missed her.

Addie stared expectantly at him.

“Your sister,” he supplied. “I read a story at the insistence of your sister.”

“Annnnnd?” she asked in an exaggerated manner.

“And they are quite entertaining.”

She gave a pleased nod. “Of course they are.”

He returned his attention to the odd collection of pages.

Alas, Addie appeared unwilling to allow him some quiet. “She really doesn’t like me to read the story as she writes, insists I wait until she’s completed. So, I sneak down when she falls asleep and read…” She wrinkled her nose. “But she works long hours, so I have to stay awake until she seeks her bed.”

Perhaps it was the advanced hour or the nearly entire bottle of brandy he’d consumed, or perhaps it was just little Addie herself, but God help him, he was having a dashed hard time following the young girl’s thoughts. He glanced up from his reading. “Who?”

“Who what?” Then she gave her head a shake. “Oh, you mean Hermione? I have to wait until she seeks out her bed. When she sleeps, she’ll sleep quite hard so there are no worries about waking her.” Pain squeezed like a vise about his heart. He wanted to know all those small details that made Hermione, Hermione.

Addie shoved herself upright and glanced around as if despite her assurance about Hermione’s sleeping habits, she still feared the older sister would discover her presence here.

He returned his attention to the page.

Dukes never wed impoverished young ladies, one step away from societal ruin…

Is that what she believed? Is that what she’d been?

Suddenly, Waxham’s warning blared through his mind. Desperation will drive people who are not normally desperate to do desperate things…Not everything is always as it seems.

The vise tightened all the harder and he crushed the page in his hands. Had Waxham been correct? Had the bold, spirited Hermione Rogers been driven because she’d felt there had been no other choice? His insides churned with the idea of her feeling the desperation Waxham had spoken of, that she felt no other choice but to coordinate her own ruin. He closed his eyes a moment, far preferring the idea of her as a fortune-hunting schemer to the now, niggling possibility there really was more here, more to account for—