Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(97)

Sebastian closed the door with a soft click. “Hello, Hermione,” he said quietly.

Except, dreams did not talk. Certainly not in that deep, mellifluous baritone. Nor did they walk toward you with bold, determined steps. Then, hadn’t she once written…Noblemen in possession of those bold steps…they always returned…

The last words he’d tossed her before he’d taken leave more than a month ago however, stuck like painful barbs in her memory. There is the matter of an heir… Is that why he’d returned, because of his need for an heir and the proverbial spare?

He stopped in front of his desk. “Hermione.”

In the loneliest days of his absence she’d imagined that carrying his child would be enough—to have a piece of him, and a babe of her own to love. Now she knew that was no longer enough. She wanted all of him.

Not knowing where the stoic calm came from, Hermione greeted him. “Sebastian.” She rose slowly and welcomed the reassuring presence of the desk between them; a comforting barrier. Not because she feared him, never that, but because it lent her an artificial courage to face him. “You’ve returned.” She smoothed her palms over the front of her skirts. “That is not to say you’ve returned to see me. As a duke you surely have business that requires your attention here.” She curled her toes painfully into the soles of her slippers. Stop talking, Hermione. Stop prattling on like a ninny. “Have you come for your heir?” she blurted.

Alas, she’d never been one to prevaricate.

He stilled. For the span of a heartbeat, the resentment and fury she’d last detected in his eyes was replaced by some emotion far gentler, far warmer. Then he shifted his attention to her leather folio. “No, I’ve not come for an heir.”

A twinge of regret pulled at her heart. “Oh.” Selfishly she’d have any part of him that he’d allow her.

He took a step toward her, his gaze fixed on his now disorderly desk.

Hermione’s heart hammered painfully. She hurried out from behind the piece of furniture and his intense stare followed her, the damning pile of pages of her just completed story forgotten. “W-why have you come?” She silently cursed the faint tremor to her words, wishing she could be one of those boldly courageous women, undaunted even in the face of her greatest loss.

Sebastian took a step toward her and she backed up. He continued coming. This time she remained fixed to the spot where she stood. He cupped her cheek. “What an odd question of a woman who summoned me,” he murmured.

“Th-that was two days ago,” she whispered, leaning into his touch and hating herself for craving all of him even as he’d never want her. His absence these two days had spoken more volumes than any books she could write in her life.

“I decided your story was worth hearing, Hermione.”

She blinked at his words. Then she widened her eyes. “M-my story?” Her heart fluttered wildly.

He quirked a golden eyebrow once more. “You asked me to come and listen to whatever it is you would say about your actions, madam.”

Her heart fell somewhere to her belly and then continued sinking all the way to her toes. “Oh,” she said, her tone flat. His implication quite clear—any word she uttered would be construed as nothing more than a work of fiction. Her lips twisted bitterly. By his own admission, even as unwitting as it had been, her work would never inspire.

He brushed his knuckles along her jaw. “Hermione?” he prodded.

She drew in a shuddery breath. It was time to tell him everything. Everything. And as it was quite difficult to ever pick up a story and begin at the middle, she chose the very obvious start point—the beginning.

“I have an elder sister.”



Several moments passed following Hermione’s admission, which really wasn’t an admission that said much at all. Sebastian believed Hermione would say nothing else of it. He waited. Her tight lips turned down at the corners, the stiff set to her shoulders, hinted at the tension in his wife’s frame.

“Her name is Elizabeth,” she said quietly. A sad little smile played upon her lips. “She is beautiful in every way. I was quite envious of her golden blonde curls as a girl.”

He would wager his right to the title Mallen the young woman could never rival Hermione in graceful beauty. Then, no woman could. Hermione had ruined him for all women. Now, he vastly preferred ladies with midnight hair and a mischievous glimmer in their blue eyes. No. Not women. Only her. It had only ever been her.

“We were just girls. Elizabeth but fourteen.” A spasm of pain wracked her face and she took a step away from him. “I was just eleven when we fell ill with a fever. Not much older than Addie now.” She spoke that last part more to herself.

The muscles of his stomach contracted, hating any world, then or now in which Hermione knew pain.

“I’d been upset that morning and swore to never sketch again. Elizabeth knew how much I loved to draw,” she said almost wistfully. “You didn’t know that of me.”

You didn’t ask why she stopped painting…

“You’re wrong,” his gruff words surprised her. She looked wide-eyed at him. “I saw your painting.” He tightened his fists as he remembered back to the image hung proudly in her father’s office. That child’s work; a glimpse into the girl she’d been.