Sebastian carried his glass over to the window and pulled back the curtain with his other hand. He stared down into the busy streets below. Black lacquer carriages bearing lords and ladies heading to the evening’s amusements, as they did every evening, a city tableau that had likely played out upon the same pavement below ten, thirty, and fifty years ago. And at the end of your life, what did you have? He swirled the contents of his glass. If a man is fortunate, Sebastian, when he leaves this Earth he’ll have left his estates thriving and his coffers full. The memory of those words rang so clear, his father’s voice fairly boomed off the very walls.
“Responsibility, commitment, and honor.”
Next to the successfully managed estates, his father had extoled powerful familial connections above all else. Sebastian’s lips twisted wryly. So much so, the man had betrothed his five-year old daughter to another duke’s son. A union that had in no way taken into consideration those two small children or their future happiness.
Sebastian took a sip. If his father could hear those treasonous thoughts, he’d have rolled over in his well-cared for grave. With his passing, however, he came to appreciate in death, what a man left behind, the real legacy that remained was his family. That was the real mark he made upon the earth. At no point had anyone who’d shared remembrances of the late duke ever mentioned a blasted thing about the well-run properties and the colossal wealth he’d amassed. The only one who truly spoke with any real fondness of the late duke was Sebastian’s mother.
For some inexplicable reason, the duke who’d valued power, honor, and strength above all else—had somehow—fallen in love with his wife.
Sebastian had also come to appreciate, the very insignificant mark he would make if his heart were to suddenly attack him, as had happened to the previous duke. And that was the toll by which he measured himself. Not the wealth or the estates or the familial connections. At thirty-one, his father had a wife he loved and an heir. In his life he’d go on to produce a daughter, Emmaline.
A knock sounded at his office door. He stiffened, and turned just as his mother pulled the door open and stepped inside “Sebastian,” she said with a smile. She drew on her long, white evening gloves.
He inclined his head. “Mother.” He searched for a hint that she remembered the significance of this very day, but the softness in her expression gave little hint of pained thoughts.
She sailed into the room, her silver satin skirts snapping about her ankles. “You’re intending to join me this evening?” His mother stopped beside his desk.
Glass held in salute he said, “As a dutiful son, I cannot imagine a place I’d rather be but at Lord and Lady Denley’s ballroom.” And he’d prided himself on being that dutiful son.
Her laugh cut into his words. “So very dutiful you’ve not attended a single ball in a fortnight.” Alas, it seemed it was never enough.
He inclined his head. “Has it been a fortnight?” He quite detested the tedium of the events. The simpering ladies shoved into his path by eager mamas who’d have nothing more than the illustrious title of duchess for their daughters.
“And not a single event at Almack’s,” she carried on.
“Almack’s, is it?” He took a sip of his brandy. She was matchmaking. “Is there a certain lady?”
She blinked. “Beg pardon?”
Sebastian waved his glass. “Almack’s, my appearances at events? I take it there is a certain lady you’ve selected for my duchess.” As it was she’d already been far more patient than most other mothers.
His mother pursed her lips. Her graceful face devoid of wrinkles gave little indication of her years. “Oh, hush. I know better than to matchmake for you. You have very specific,” she arched an eyebrow, “requirements in your duchess.”
He gave a lazy grin and then finished his drink. “I do at that,” he said with a deliberate vagueness that resulted in another arched eyebrow. Though he expected both his mother and sister would be indeed quite shocked if they were to glean the very precise items upon that mentioned list his mother now spoke.
His mother chose that inopportune moment to glance down—at the damning page upon his desk. Sebastian moved with alacrity. He crossed over so quickly, droplets splashed over the rim of the glass. She snapped her head up. “Sebastian?”
A dull heat climbed up his neck. He finished the contents of his glass and set it down hard—away from his lists. “We should be leaving.” Now. Before, with a mother’s intuitiveness, she pried a bit more about the pages he’d left in plain sight. The last thing he wanted this evening was to discuss the items contained within those sheets. Particularly with his mother.
She sighed, fiddling with her gloves. “Indeed, you are correct.” But still she did not move.
He propped a hip on the edge of his desk and discreetly slid his ledger over the first exposed sheet. “Lady Denley’s?” he asked, remarkably ill on discourse. This whole subterfuge business was better suited for those brooding, gloomy dukes of which he’d never been accused of being.
“Yes.” Still, she remained.
Sebastian shifted on the desk, angling toward the other visible and damning page. “I daresay Emmaline will be there.” Though that was no longer a certainty. With her daughter Regan, his sister and her husband had become quite domestic. A pang of envy struck.
“Undoubtedly,” she said wryly.
He slid another ledger atop the list. A momentary relief filled him at the protection of the exposing thoughts contained upon those carefully written pages. “We should take our leave.”
“Yes.” She paused. “You did mention that now. Twice.”
“Did I?”
“You did.”
By the lingering look she gave him, there was more she intended to say. She opened and closed her mouth several times and he braced for the eventual mention of his ducal responsibilities. Responsibilities he was, and had been, very aware of since he’d been a boy in the schoolroom with stern tutors. He’d been more fortunate than most first-born nobles with scheming mamas. His mother had never been the scheming type—not in the matter of marriage, anyway.
She wandered away from his desk and he expected she’d make her way to the front of the room, but she strolled over to the sideboard. Wordlessly, she trailed her fingertips upon the smooth, mahogany surface, her gaze fixed upon the bottles. She picked up a single decanter. Her shoulders went taut; the bottle trembled in her hands.
And he knew. Just as he’d known long ago by the shattered glass, the screams, and then the flurry of servants.
“Do you know,” her words so faintly spoken barely reached his ears. “I sometimes think I’m the only one who still marks his passing.”
Of course she remembered. How foolish to believe a woman who’d so loved her husband should fail to note the date of his death. He fell silent, discomfited by her uncharacteristic show of sadness and more. A deep-seeded guilt dug at him, for the traitorous thoughts he’d had of his father. “You’re not,” he said gruffly. “I think of him.”
She stroked the bottle of brandy almost reverently, a link to that dark day of her past. “I know,” she said and turned back to him with a sad smile. “Of course it would be foolish to think you or Emmaline wouldn’t think of him with some fondness.”
Again guilt settled hard in his belly for the resentment he still carried for lessons imparted and expectations instilled. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable revisiting that moment, in this office, on this day outside the privacy of his own thoughts.
His mother returned her attention to the bottle. “But then, that is how love is,” she said softly. “When you love someone you see only them and you cannot imagine in losing that person, that anyone should suffer in the way you yourself are suffering?” She picked her head up. “Does that make sense?”
Sebastian managed a terse nod.
Mother gave her head a shake. “You are right.” She set the bottle down. “We should be going.” With a sigh, she sailed to the front of the room, bre
aking the pall of sadness. She paused at the entrance, looking back. “Oh, and Sebastian?”
He inclined his head.
“If you’d rather no one see whatever words were on those very important pages, I suggest you place them in a more secure place. Now, shall we? I’d wager there is at least one marriageable lady who’ll earn your notice.” She gave a wink and then took her leave.
A wry grin tugged at his lips. Unlikely. The singularly interesting lady he’d courted, a woman he could have imagined something more with, had gone and wed his best friend. Deuced rotten luck, that. Shoving aside regretful musings of Miss Sophie Winters, now the Countess of Waxham, he took care to follow his mother’s advice. He lifted one ledger and freed the poorly hidden list and then hesitated and ultimately, shoving back the last page to reveal those quite humbling, rather humiliating three words, with a glaring line slashed through them.
Fall in love.
There was greater chance of his carriage taking flight over the Thames than such being accomplished at the wholly uninteresting dull affair in Lady Denley’s ballroom.
C
hapter 3
A fortnight after her sister’s masterful plan, Hermione was forced to acknowledge the now obvious truth: it was a good deal more difficult finding a dark, brooding duke at the height of a London Season than she’d ever believed.
It was particularly difficult when a lady found herself relegated to the role of forgotten wallflower. That was rather redundant. Still, for all the bothersome business of being the most unsought young lady on the fringe of notice, there were a good many benefits to being that forgotten wallflower.
Hermione angled her head and studied the smiling couples, the flirting misses with their coquettish smiles and the roguish gentlemen with their improper glances.
Pale pink roses littered the floor. He strode over, pulled her close and… She wrote the words upon her otherwise empty dance card. But for some doddering gentleman with a balding pate and florid cheeks, she’d still not managed to wrangle up a suitable gentleman, let alone a duke, for her research. All the other details to her story had fallen neatly into place, inspired by the opulent, lavish world of glittering Society.
Hermione sat back in her chair on a sigh. Still no duke, though. Not in an entire fortnight of attending balls and soirees and dinners. She’d sat a silent observer to the gentlemen and ladies about her. She’d found a young marquess with a dashing smile as well as a wicked earl with a hard glimmer in sapphire blue eyes.
She tapped the tip of her pencil upon her delicate card, distractedly. Perhaps she’d amend her story, pen a note to Mr. Werksman, and convince him there were not enough stories of wicked earls and sly marquesses, and that those gentlemen were vastly more enjoyable to young lady readers and…
Hermione dropped her pencil. Mr. Werksman wanted a duke. He’d been quite clear in his specific requirements for this particular project. Her heart pounded madly. She was running out of time, fast. Which certainly wasn’t helping the birth of this particular story. She dusted her damp palms together, detesting this sense of panic. She had written through the years for her love of the written word. In a world where she’d always been plain Hermione Rogers with slightly crooked teeth and a remarkably uncurved, rail thin frame, writing was the one thing that had felt extraordinary about her.
Most would consider her a bluestocking. She preferred to think of herself as an author, an observer of life. And she’d been successful.
Until Mr. Werksman and his blasted brooding duke.
Hermione stared absently out at the ballroom floor, into the sea of twirling lords and ladies. The orchestra concluded a lively country reel and the dancers erupted in a smattering of polite applause. The sounds of merriment came as if from a distance. Panic built steadily inside her chest. She’d been failed by so very many. Since Mama’s passing, Papa had failed her. Lord Cavendish who’d presented a façade as an honorable gentleman. And now, for the first time in three years, words which were the one constant in her life now failed her.
Her aunt Agatha would say she was better served in finding an appropriate suitor to solve her family’s woes. Except all the gentlemen she’d ever known had proven themselves wholly unreliable.
The mere pittance Hermione received for her stories represented far more than monetary salvation. Mr. Werksman’s payments represented the sole control she had in life over anything. If there were no stories, there were no funds, and if there were no funds there was no control over her own destiny, no helping her siblings, no….She took a steadying breath. This isn’t what it was supposed to be. This pressure. Necessity now warred with her love of her craft.
Hermione looked out to the dance floor once more and froze; the sense of being watched pierced her troubled thoughts. With a frown, she quickly surveyed the crowded ballroom. “Don’t be a ninny,” she muttered. Her fantastical musings were a product of too many stories of too many vile characters, dashing heroes, and frustrated hopes. No one studied Hermione Rogers. Certainly not here in London and yet…
The pinprick of awareness coursed through her. She did another sweep of the ballroom. The dancers performing the intricate steps of the Danse Espagnuole parted. She sucked in a breath, frozen.
A gentleman stared at her over the rim of his champagne glass. With his tall, well-muscled frame he possessed the manner of beauty that made weak young ladies stammer and forget essential details such as their names and the importance of propriety. Hermione gave her head a clearing shake at the sheer implausibility of such a man as he studying such a woman as she. Oh, she was not being modest or self-deprecating. She knew what she was in terms of a beauty and had rather accepted such a truth—she’d never possess the grandeur of those blonde, sought after English beauties. Which was quite fine. She vastly preferred the idea of having the affections of a gentleman inspired by her mind. The dancers moved, cutting off her direct view of the stranger.
She reluctantly shifted her gaze away. Except… Unbidden, her stare wandered out across the ballroom. Her heart quickened. Even with the great space between them, his eyes pierced her.
Look away, Hermione. As much as she longed to honor the wise words at the edge of her conscience, she could no sooner tear her gaze away than she could cease putting stories to paper. No man had a right to be so coolly refined and in possession of such tousled, thick golden hair. The harsh, angular planes of his face and the aquiline nose bespoke power and strength. One such as him deserved a story. She scratched a handful of words upon her dance card. Oh, the stranger could never be a nefarious duke, but he could certainly be…
“Hermione!”
A startled shriek escaped her, earning curious stares from the lords and ladies around her. She hopped to her feet. “Aunt Agatha.” Her heart sank at the dandified fop accompanying her aunt, he in his orange pants and a canary yellow coat. Really, who said either of those colors went together? They didn’t.
Ever.
Not that she, attired in her too-ruffled yellow satin monstrosity, had any right to pass judgment on the attire of others. Yet, she’d had little say in the gowns selected by her aunt. She at least recognized the absolute silliness of such elaborate, blindingly bright fabric…even if the gentleman condescending her with his stare now could not recognize the same flaws in his garments.
Her aunt cleared her throat. “Lord Whitmore, this is my niece, Miss Hermione Rogers.”
He swept his arms wide and dropped a deep bow, so low she suspected the heavy amount of oil in his greased, tight red curls could send him toppling to the floor. Her lips twitched. Now, that would indeed be a delicious piece to any stor—“Ahem.” Lord Whitmore peered down the length of his nose at her.
Hermione sank into a deep curtsy. “An honor, my lord.”
“Of course it is.”
She furrowed her brow at his cool, clipped tones. A hero this one would never be…in any story.
“My niece is recently from the country.” Agatha pursed her lips, likely wishing she
had more praise to sing of her niece than…she’s from the country. “Isn’t that right, Hermione.”
“It is,” she answered automatically. Her aunt’s gaze narrowed. Hermione’s mind spun. But really, what did Aunt Agatha expect her to contribute to such a statement? “Er…that is…I am from the country.” There, that was a touch more elaborate.
“I imagine you find London quite stimulating from the tedium and provincialness of the country.” He tugged at the lapels of his coat. “You know, the lack of stimulating discourse with the less intelligent, simple country dwellers.”
At his arrogant supposition of those living outside his hallowed streets of London, Hermione narrowed her eyes. She far preferred the honest sincerity in the villagers of Surrey to the condescending lords and ladies who mocked with both their words and eyes. She schooled her features into an expressionless mask. “Oh, indeed. I imagine those country dwellers,” from which she herself was one, “wouldn’t even have the intelligence enough to realize the word provincialness is in fact not a word.”
Aunt Agatha’s eyebrows shot to her hairline.
Lord Whitmore scratched his brow. Then, a sudden rush of color blazed across his cheeks. “W-well.” He jerked on the lapels of his coat once more, spun on his heel, and marched off.
It really was such a shame when one possessed such a name as Whitmore and happened to be wholly witless. Another suitor scratched from the proverbial list. And by the tightness of her aunt’s mouth—a once more displeased Aunt Agatha.
She fought back a sigh.
“Hermione Rogers, if you continue this way, you’ll remain unwed, and you require a husband more than any of the other ladies here.”
Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love Page 3