“Two days,” Ana Maria said.
Sebastian nodded, then glanced at Thaddeus, who returned his nod.
He walked out the door, his chest tight, his heart hurting. But knowing that for him, at least, there was no other way.
She hadn’t intended to wait up for his return. It just happened.
Octavia had gone to bed about an hour ago, rolling her eyes in disbelief when Ivy said she still had some things to go over. Carter had followed a few minutes later, stifling her yawns with her apron.
Ivy did have things to do, she always did, but she couldn’t concentrate, not with knowing he was out there and not here. The only beings who were inside were her, her sister, and his dogs.
The dogs would likely be able to help in a dangerous situation, but she would much prefer to have him here. For obvious reasons.
She smoothed her expression as she heard footsteps coming down the hall, and then his head appeared in the doorway to her office.
“You’re back!” she said, as though startled out of her work. She’d carefully put a stack of papers on her desk and had even managed to glance at some for a few seconds.
“What are you still doing up?”
His hair was disheveled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and he’d undone his neckcloth, revealing his bare throat.
She gestured to the stack of papers. “I was too excited about this evening to sleep, so I thought I’d work through some of this.”
He walked into the room, his expression unlike one she’d seen on his face before.
“Are you all right? Is your sister all right?”
He sat down in the chair, the one she’d begun to think of as his, swinging one leg over the other. “I am, and she is fine.”
“That’s a relief. But if you will forgive the intrusion, you don’t seem fine.”
He dropped his head to gaze at the floor. “I don’t know what I am.” A pause, and then his head shot up and he met her gaze. “And that’s the problem. I don’t know what I am.”
“Is this about being a duke or not?”
He nodded. “Yes. I’ve tried to just put it behind me, as though it was something that was in the past, and I wouldn’t have to deal with it, but it doesn’t work that way. There are always entanglements.”
“What kind of entanglements?” It hurt to see him so unlike his usual self.
“My sister, my cousin, my staff. My dogs,” he added after a moment. “I promised my sister I’d visit.”
“I was wondering why you hadn’t. But it wasn’t my place to ask.” And she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer anyway. What if one of his visits persuaded him just to return permanently?
He snorted, giving her an amused look. “So it’s perfectly fine that we’ve kissed, that I’ve put you on that very desk and had my hands on you, but you can’t ask me if I’m going to see my sister?” He shook his head in mock dismay. “Miss Ivy, you are as hypocritical as some gentlemen of my acquaintance.”
Her cheeks turned red, both from embarrassment at the truth of his words and at the words he was saying, evoking the images and feelings she’d had when they’d been doing those things.
“You know,” she began, “I had a similar experience to yours. Not as extreme—I certainly didn’t lose a dukedom—but I did lose what I had known about myself.”
He leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “Is this when you are going to reveal something about yourself, something personal that blurs the line between employer and employee?”
She made a noise indicating her rueful recognition of his pointed comment. “As you observed, we are far beyond that now.” She raised one of her eyebrows. “Far, far beyond that,” she said in a wry tone. “But if you don’t wish to talk about it, if you want to go to bed or something—”
“Go to bed with you?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “No! I did not mean that at all.” She’d forgotten they’d discussed that much earlier in the evening.
He chuckled. “I knew you didn’t, more’s the pity.”
Although a part of her wondered if she did mean it, at least partially.
He tilted his head, regarding her. The slight lift to his lips indicating he might have figured out what she was thinking. “I want to hear it. I want to hear you.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You probably know I wasn’t raised to be the owner of a gambling den,” Ivy began.
“Who among us is?” he shot back, making her laugh.
“And it’s unlikely that someone as lofty as you were would ever have heard of my family, but we came from good stock. My father was a baron, and my mother was the daughter of an earl.” Her face grew sober. “She died soon after Octavia was born, and our father raised us.” She met his gaze, a wry smirk on her lips. “Not very well, as you likely can see.”
“Go on,” he urged.
“And my father was . . . careless with our upbringing. He didn’t seem to notice if things were wrong.”
“Sounds familiar,” he replied. If his father had been more observant, if he had realized what kind of woman he’d taken as a second wife—it all would have been different. If his father had just asked more questions so as to discover the truth, they would not have even gotten married in the first place.
Sebastian wouldn’t have been born, for one thing. He wasn’t going to be so mopey as to say that would have been a better thing—he liked being alive far more than he would like not being alive. But how he came into being complicated things, clearly.
“And he also was reckless in a few important ways.” She took a deep breath. “He gambled recklessly, for example.”
“And yet you have opened a gambling house?”
She nodded ruefully. “I know. It seems ridiculous, but it is something I am good at.”
“So what happened?” Because something had to have happened. It always did. And if it hadn’t, it always would.
She shrugged. “My father lost a wager, one where he’d staked me. I was supposed to be married to a Mr. Fallon. He’d won honestly, and he had every right to take me.”
He had every right to take me. Sebastian felt his throat tighten at hearing how close she’d come to having her life irrevocably changed because of a feckless parent—not that he had anything in common with that, did he?
“But then you did something,” he said. Even without her telling the story, he knew she had done something to change her fate. It was impossible to know her for more than a few minutes and not realize she would not settle. Not for an unpleasant future, not for a less than completely loyal employee, not for a mediocre gambling house.
“I did.” Her expression altered, to one that was both mischievous and chagrined. “I challenged Mr. Fallon to a new wager.”
“What were the stakes?”
She hesitated. Were her stakes as scandalous as the ones he’d imagined? And if they were, would she permit him to go punch this Mr. Fallon in the jaw for having dared at all?
Thank God she had won.
“The stakes were that if he lost, I would not have to marry him.” Another pause. “And if he won, I would marry him.” He heard her take a deep breath. “I tried to leave that as the wager, but he pointed out—rightly—that he had already won that particular bet. It would be ungentlemanly for me to try to win the same bet over again.” She bit her lip as she regarded him. “So I promised that if I lost, Octavia would marry his oldest son.”
He absorbed what she’d said, reviewed it in his mind against what he knew of the sisters. “She doesn’t know, does she?”
She shook her head emphatically. “No. And I haven’t had the courage to tell her. She would be furious. But I knew”—and she leaned forward, her expression fierce and determined—“I knew I would win.”
“Gamblers are always that confident, but you know as well as I do that their confidence doesn’t always guarantee the results they want.”
She lifted her chin. There was the ferocious lady he’d come to
know—and desire.
“I had a plan if I lost. I had enough money to send her to our mother’s sister. Our aunt. She doesn’t like us, she never liked our father. Octavia wouldn’t have forgiven me either way, but at least she wouldn’t have had to marry my stepson.” A wry expression crossed her face. “And I knew Octavia would find a way to escape sooner rather than later. While still despising me.” She paused. “But I won. And then our father died, and I took my money, plus what he’d left us, and came here.”
“I think you should tell Octavia about the wager,” he said, her shaking her head in refusal even before he’d finished speaking. “She trusts you to take care of her. She deserves to know.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Just think about it. You’d have had to tell her if you lost, after all.”
“I’ll consider it,” she replied tersely. “So when I won,” she continued, “I took it as a sign that I should do something with my gambling knowledge.”
“No wonder you were so irate when I said your face was expressive.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I believe you said, You’d make a terrible card player, when, in fact, I am an excellent card player.”
Except he could read her, at least in certain things.
“I stand corrected,” he replied mildly.
Her eyes narrowed, as though she knew what he’d said didn’t match up with what he felt. Perhaps she was an excellent card player.
In which case he should try to shield his thoughts from her, given how often they ran to them being naked and supine together.
Or not.
She did want to play, after all, didn’t she?
“Thank you,” she said.
He frowned in question. “For what?”
She shrugged, feeling more vulnerable than she had in months. She had just shared something with him she hadn’t even told her sister, for obvious reasons. It had barely been two weeks, and yet she felt as though she could trust him.
That was even more rare than kissing. Although the kissing was nice, too.
“For listening.”
Her heart did a funny little flip at seeing his lopsided smile. It wasn’t a smile meant to charm or seduce; it was a genuine smile borne of genuine emotion.
At least she thought so. If it wasn’t, he was a far better card player than anyone she’d ever met, and she would have to ensure she never wagered with him.
Unless she was willing to lose. Which would depend entirely on what they were wagering.
God, she hoped he wouldn’t leave to go back to his old life before she’d gotten all of her questions answered.
“I am honored that you confided in me, Miss Ivy.” Her breath caught at how sincere he sounded. First her heart, now her lungs.
He was affecting her entire body. And this time, it wasn’t with his touch, but his words.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself when I lost my title. I thought I’d lost who I was. And I could have, if I’d let it. But then I met you. Call it luck,” he said with a grin.
“I told you I was lucky,” she said smugly.
“You did. Remind me not to play games with you. Unless I am willing to lose.” His gaze slid silkily over her as he spoke, and she shivered in response.
“So who are you?” she asked after a moment.
He looked away from her as if pondering the question. She saw his thoughts flit across his face, and felt her breath catch—again—at the raw emotions she saw there. So many, and so varied. From regret, to anger, to hope, to satisfaction.
“I don’t know yet. Not entirely. But this work, and this,” he said, gesturing to the space between them, “this is allowing me to find out.”
This.
This relationship. This situation. This game.
It would only last awhile, she knew that. He would eventually return to being who he was before—not a duke, but a gentleman. She knew his family would present a solution to the problem that would allow him to maintain his pride while still maintaining his previous circumstances.
But in the meantime, while he was here, he was hers. Hers to talk to, to spar with, to confide in. To kiss. To do more than that.
She wanted more than that. And his body’s response told her the same, although she wouldn’t just assume his brain would follow his body’s inclination.
Although then she’d have to say it all aloud, which made her internally cringe with anticipatory embarrassment. But how could she do it if she couldn’t even say it?
“This is more than I’d expected,” she said at last.
He met her gaze. “So much more.”
She rose and began to walk toward him. He stood also, but didn’t move, just waited for her to approach. She liked that. That he wasn’t rushing her. That he was confident enough that she would come to him to just wait.
“Thank you, Sebastian,” she said, raising herself up on her tiptoes so she could kiss his cheek.
He turned his head, and she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. But he didn’t; he lowered his mouth to just below her ear and pressed his lips to her skin so softly it almost made her cry.
“Thank you, Ivy.”
He lifted his head and gazed at her with a single-minded intensity that she felt through her entire body.
“I’ll be heading to bed,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Good night, Ivy,” he said, just as softly.
“Good night.”
Knowing, as she walked out of the room, that this—whatever this was—meant far more to her than it should. She would get hurt, she knew that. But she also knew that she would emerge from this a more knowledgeable and confident person.
“Where are you going?”
Octavia seemed to appear out of nowhere, her expression avidly curious. As it usually was, Sebastian had observed.
“I’m off to tea with my sister.” Ana Maria’s politely worded summons had reminded him that he had promised, that she was only free this afternoon, and that she would chase him down if he didn’t appear by four o’clock.
“Oh! Your sister, the lady who brought Byron and Keats? Can I come?”
Sebastian opened his mouth, not sure of what to say when she answered for him.
“Oh, of course I can’t. You haven’t seen her much since you left, and it would be awkward if I were there.” She looked mournful, and Sebastian almost found himself urging her to come with him. Even though she was correct in that it would be entirely awkward.
“But you’ll have to bring her to have tea with me and Ivy soon,” she added, her face brightening.
Octavia was possibly the most mercurial person he’d ever met. He felt as though he could get whiplash from her constant shifting of emotions.
“Ivy and me,” he heard her sister say.
He turned to see her, dressed in a plain gown that indicated she was about to retreat to her office for paperwork. Because she did that most days, and then worked in the evenings. How much did she sleep? She must be exhausted.
But she didn’t look it. She appeared fresh and cheerful, giving him a conspiratorial glance as she approached.
“Me and Ivy just sounds better,” Octavia protested.
“Our governess would be ashamed of you,” Ivy replied, but her tone was amused.
“‘Our governess’ meaning you? Yes, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Octavia said.
Of course. She’d mentioned her father being feckless, leaving the raising of Octavia to her older sister. Ivy had been responsible for Octavia’s education as well as her survival? Small wonder she was so protective of her younger sister.
It was how he felt about Ana Maria, even though she was older than he, in years, at least, and had proved herself to be perfectly capable of her own survival. Perhaps it was a better descriptor to say he was concerned with her happiness. That was why he’d been so insistent she finally have a coming-out party, that she indulge herself with beautiful gowns and all the books she’d been denied the readi
ng of while toiling under his mother’s stern gaze.
“You are seeing your sister?” Ivy asked.
He nodded. “I’ll be back an hour before the club opens.”
“Unless she persuades you not to come back.”
Sebastian’s denial froze on his lips. What would he do if Thaddeus and Ana Maria had concocted some plan that would allow him to keep his pride as well as his position?
Two weeks ago, he might have leaped at the chance.
But two weeks ago he hadn’t had the bone-deep satisfaction of a job well done. Two weeks ago he hadn’t met her, hadn’t kissed her. Hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t tromped for miles with her sister and his dogs through parts of London he would have never seen if he hadn’t lost his status.
“I’ll be back,” he repeated, striding toward the door, an uneasy feeling creeping through him.
He was never uneasy. If anything, he had always been entirely easy—satisfied in his life, confident in who he was, assured in his interactions with others.
Until now.
“Sebby!” Ana Maria launched herself at him, making him stumble backward almost back out the front door.
He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. He’d forgotten—or he’d tried to forget—how much he cared for his sister.
“How are you?” he said, stepping back and holding her at arm’s length.
She looked wonderful, but that didn’t mean she necessarily felt wonderful. She wore a fashionable day dress that would be impossible to clean in, not only because of the pale pink color, but also because of the vast amount of fabric and ruffles and what he could only term as thingamabobs, since he had no idea what they were. Some sort of strewn-about decoration that caught the light as she moved.
“I am good.” She spoke in a firm voice. He knew her tells well, which meant he knew she was not entirely good. She’d employed that tone frequently when speaking with his mother. “Come into the sitting room, I’ve asked for tea.”
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