Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

by Christi Caldwell

  His mother recoiled. “Is that what you believe? That I merely care about your responsibility to the title?” Shocked hurt underscored that question.

  He flexed his jaw and poured himself another glass. “Come, Mother, we both have known through the years what my obligations and responsibilities were to the Mallen line. Father made them very clear. Do not suggest you are not in some part happy in my being forced to at last wed.”

  She marched across the room then ripped the glass from his fingers. Liquid droplets of brandy splashed his fingers and stained her gloves. “You are certainly free to sulk like a petulant child, Sebastian, and you are entitled to your resentment.” She stalked over the floor and hurled the contents of the brandy into the empty hearth where it noisily sprayed the cold metal grate. “I am not making excuses for Miss Rogers, but if the reports are to be believed…” She held a hand up when he attempted to speak. “And as you’ve not spoken to me or anyone in three days now, I am forced to rely on the tales of gossip, you followed your Miss Rogers into Lord Brookfield’s office.” She gave him a pointed look. “And those are certainly not the actions of a gentleman.”

  A dull flush heated his neck and he gritted his teeth. He’d not be made to feel culpable. Except, blast and hell, his bloody mother was right and he detested that she, regardless of how many years he’d attained, invariably always proved correct.

  His misery was a product of his own carelessness. He’d followed Hermione. He’d observed her sad little smile, her subtle gaze, and he’d set after her, all the while knowing they were one reckless exchange away from ruin. Responsibility for his circumstances lay firmly with his own actions. If he’d not trotted after her like a lovesick swain then perhaps even now he’d be paying a visit to the lady’s father, requesting her hand, and working out the details of the betrothal contract, as opposed to the perfunctory, curt exchange he’d had with the gaunt man two days ago.

  “Oh, Sebastian,” she said softly. He jumped as his mother touched his shoulder, not having noted her return. “All I’ve ever wanted was for my children to be happy.” Her lips twisted wryly. “Even though Society seems to find such sentiments a secondary concern to marital connections and amassed fortunes.” She squeezed his arm. “For everything that transpired at Lady Brookfield’s ball, you must try and remember what came before it with your Miss Rogers. You must search for what drove you to risk scandal to follow after her.” She gave him a sad smile. “Unless you move past your resentment and anger toward Hermione, you’ll never be happy.”

  Would his mother truly defend the schemer who’d trapped him? “Do you imagine I can ever be happy with a woman who saw in me nothing more than a title?” Living with Hermione, he’d merely be reminded daily of his own poor judgment.

  “I don’t know the answer to that.” Her shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “I only know marriage is until death, and that is quite a long time to live with this fury.” She hesitated a moment. “Your sister mentioned you seemed quite taken with the lady.”

  He gave his head a derisive shake. What a fool Hermione had made of him. In front of his family, his friends, the whole of Society. “The lady is a fortune-hunter,” he said tiredly. “You’d defend her?” Was he the only logical one to see Hermione as the viper she was?

  “Perhaps there is more to your Hermione’s actions that night.”

  I’m so sorry.

  For a moment he grasped with hope to his mother’s supposition. And he shoved aside such wistful yearnings. He scoffed. “Do not try and pardon her actions, Mother.” He remembered the stricken expression on her face. The apology in her eyes. Even with her betrayal, he’d ached to take her in his arms and drive back the pain he’d seen there. Fool. A bloody fool. He’d become worse than the sonnet-sprouting types.

  “I intend to leave after the wedding,” his mother said quietly, unexpectedly.

  “You do not have to do that,” he answered automatically. His marriage to Hermione would be one of obligation. There was no warmth or regard. Anything he’d felt or imagined he’d felt for the bold miss had died with the apology on her lips in Lord Brookfield’s office.

  “Of course, I do.” His mother snorted. “You and Hermione will not need me underfoot. I intend to join Emmaline and her family in the country, following your wedding ceremony.” She hesitated. Something in her tone gave him pause. “Your sister is expecting,” she said cautiously as though he could be anything but happy for Emmaline and her husband. “She intends to retire to the country for her confinement.”

  “That is wonderful.” He managed to squeeze the required words out past a tight throat. With their loving marriage, Emmaline and Drake, now expecting a second child would forever possess something denied him by Hermione’s greed. In the end, Sebastian would have a perfunctory partnership, devoid of any of the quiet, congenial companionship he’d at least hoped.

  His mother took his hands in hers. “I trust you can find happiness with your Hermione.”

  “She is not my Hermione,” he said, exhaustion in his tone. She had never been his. Everything she’d said, every meeting had been a lie.

  Do you imagine there is something wrong in reading about love and passion, Your Grace…? The memory as she’d been that day passionately defending her Gothic novel slipped into his mind, refusing to stay buried. The muscles of his stomach tensed. Had anything about the lady been real?

  His mother’s lips tugged slightly at the corners. “Alas, Sebastian, she is your Hermione.” With that, she gave his hands a final squeeze and then slipped out of the room.

  He stared after her. Yes, it would seem Hermione would forever belong to him.

  Whether he wished it or not.

  “I don’t know why I can’t attend the ceremony.”

  As Hermione stared at her wan reflection in the chipped bevel mirror, she realized the great irony in her sister’s pleading. Addie wanted to attend the wedding between the Duke of Mallen and her older sister, more than anything.

  And more than anything, Hermione wished she herself could be anywhere but where she would be in…She looked to the small table clock at her bedside. One hour. In a mere sixty minutes. Thirty-six hundred seconds. Her stomach churned and she fisted the annoyingly bright, canary yellow skirts her aunt had insisted upon for Hermione’s wardrobe. No one should wear this obscene color. No one. Particularly not on this miserable, shameful day. Her wedding day. She pressed her eyes closed.

  “Did you hear me?” Addie called out again. “I asked why I couldn’t go to—”

  “Because you can’t,” Hermione said for the tenth time that morning, and surely the fiftieth time since she’d informed Addie three days ago she would not be allowed to attend the hastily thrown together ceremony in the Duke of Mallen’s townhouse.

  Addie pouted. “But now I’ll never see a wedding.” She hung her legs over the side of Hermione’s bed and kicked them back and forth in a distracted manner. “Hugh has already said I will never find a husband and that Elizabeth can never marry.” She stopped swinging her legs. “If I don’t attend at least your wedding, then I’ll never see one.”

  Hermione turned to face her sister, managing her first smile in three days. “You’ll find a husband.” A small smile. But a smile, nonetheless for her sister’s grand flourish for the theatrics. In marrying Sebastian, Addie would have everything she deserved in life.

  That should bring her some solace. Only, it didn’t. A swell of emotion clogged her throat. She’d sacrificed Sebastian’s happiness for the well-being of her sisters and brother. Her siblings would at last be protected and she? Her heart spasmed. Well, she’d lost the right to happiness.

  Her sister hopped off the bed and skipped over. She tugged at Hermione’s arm, pulling her back from her despondent musings. “Do you love him?”

  She managed a jerky nod as her throat worked. With everything I am. I do.

  “Does he love you?”

  A sob caught in her throat. She covered her lips in an attempt to disguise it
as a cough. Perhaps he had. Once. But never again. The truth of that nearly cleaved her in two.

  Alas, her sister was far more mature than most eleven-year-olds. Four lines of worry creased the girl’s brow. “Why aren’t you happy?”

  Pain dug at her heart. “I did something bad, poppet,” she whispered. Something unforgivable.

  Addie scratched her head. “To your duke.”

  He’d never been hers. I was going to offer for you, madam…

  Except, he almost had been. He’d almost cared enough, respected her enough to make a formal offer for her. In spite of her family’s lesser rank, when dukes married the daughters of other dukes and much more higher titled ladies than a mere baronet’s daughter, he would have wed her. A bitter laugh bubbled up past her lips. Instead, she’d forced his hand and in doing so had killed any affection he might have held for her.

  Addie rocked back and forth on her feet. “Are you all right, Hermione?” Her lower lip trembled. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Fine, poppet.” Hermione sucked in a shuddery breath. “I’m just fine,” she lied and mustered a smile. She’d never be fine again.

  Some of the tension went out of her sister’s plump cheeks. “What did you do?”

  She couldn’t simply acknowledge to an inquisitive child that she’d done something wrong and expect the girl to let the matter rest. “I’d rather not discuss it, love.” The wrongs she’d committed were so great that Hermione could never dare sully her sister’s innocence with the truth.

  Addie tugged her by the hand and pulled her over to the bed. She put her palms on Hermione’s shoulders and shoved her down. Hermione grunted as she landed on the mattress. Her sister planted herself in front of her path of escape. “Out with it.” Addie stared, an expectant look on her chubby face.

  Hermione pressed her fingers to her temples. The girl’s innocence a paradox of her own mature darkness was too much. She shifted her gaze to the opened book atop her small desk. “Do you remember reading The Entrapped Earl,” she began, speaking in the only terms that might make sense to a young girl.

  Addie nodded. “The earl fell hopelessly in love with a young lady after one meeting.”

  Hermione nodded, and then reached for the volume. “But she wanted more.”

  Her sister slid onto the spot alongside Hermione. The bed dipped under the slight addition of her weight. She wrinkled her nose. “She wanted money,” she said with a staggering maturity.

  Is that how her sister and other readers had taken the heroine, Lady Louisa’s actions? Hermione frowned. “No,” she said slowly. “She wanted security.”

  “Aren’t they the same?” Addie gave her a questioning look. She held her hands up on either side of her, mentally weighing each item she ticked off. “We have Partridge and servants and mayhap not new books, but we have old books and all of that is because of money. Are you sure they aren’t the same?”

  “No.” Addie gave her a pointed look. “Yes. Well, perhaps a bit,” she said a touch defensively. She’d not wanted security for herself. She’d wanted it for those she loved. You wanted money, a voice jeered. She made an impatient sound and surged to her feet. I wanted him. “Regardless, he loved her…” And the security that would come in being wed to him. “And Lady Louisa loved him, but she needed him for security and…” And she’d robbed him of choice. Where was the love in that? Oh, God.

  “Money,” Addie repeated, pressing the knife of guilt deeper. “She wanted money.” She hopped to her feet. “The earl could not ever truly love a woman who’d wed him for that reason.”

  Her sister may as well have twisted that vicious dagger into Hermione’s heart. The idea Addie should so hate that character dug at Hermione’s insides. At some point, she’d forgotten they spoke of the fictional Lady Louisa who’d sacrificed all to trap an earl. “You did not like Lady Louisa,” she whispered. For to save her family, Hermione had become that woman. A ragged sigh escaped her. In shattering Sebastian’s trust, she’d forsaken any right to happiness, and likely Addie would never know the sacrifice…

  “No, I don’t like her,” Addie said simply. “I despise her.”

  The muscles of her stomach tightened. God help me, so do I.

  Addie furrowed her brow again. “What does this have to do with the duke?”

  Everything. She gave another weak smile. “Nothing at all, poppet. Nothing at all.” She cleared her throat. “Run along, sweet. I have some things to see to before…” My wedding. She couldn’t bring herself to form those words.

  Her sister let out another disappointed sigh. “Very well, then.” Addie stomped over to the door. She spun back around and jabbed her finger toward Hermione. “But I shan’t allow you to attend my wedding, either.” With that angry outburst, she yanked open the door. The wood panel shook on its frames as she slammed it in her wake.

  It would seem in trapping Sebastian, Hermione had become no more than one of those odious characters who could never be redeemed, a figure so detestable one’s sister could not even like them. Her heart clenched as she recalled the animosity in Sebastian’s once teasing eyes.

  And what was worse, she’d now wed a gentleman who could not even bear the sight of her. Hermione buried her face into her palms and wept until she thought she might break.

  C

  hapter 21

  Hermione’s neck fairly burned with the probing stares directed at her. She shifted on her feet and silently pleaded with Sebastian’s butler to open the blasted door to spare her from further scrutiny.

  Her father rapped again.

  Perhaps the duke had changed his mind. A panicky little laugh worked its way up her throat. Perhaps he intended to renege on his word just as Lord Cavendish had and then they’d all be well and truly ruined.

  The door opened suddenly, quashing all her fears. The butler, an older, expressionless man passed a gaze from her to her father, and then back to Hermione. Wordlessly, he motioned them inside.

  She stole a longing glance at her father’s old, black carriage. I cannot do this. Not even to save my sisters and brother. I cannot wed Sebastian knowing he’ll forever resent me—

  Father touched her hand and she jumped. “Come along, dear,” he murmured.

  Hermione forced her feet to move forward and walked with wooden steps to the threshold. She paused. Her gaze fixed on the gold knocker etched with two lions. The fierce creatures were frozen in a gold roar. It would appear even the duke’s inanimate objects hated her. She curled her toes as she imagined meeting his very proper, ducal family and just what they would think of a too-tall, plain miss with a hideous yellow dress who’d trapped the duke.

  Their footsteps echoed noisily from the white Italian marble foyer, the sound reverberated off the sweeping ceilings. She looked up, up, ever upward to the stunning pastel scene of cherubs atop their fluffy white clouds. Hermione gulped. She could fit her entire cottage into this massive space. Not, truly. But very nearly close to—

  “You must be Hermione.”

  She jumped and slapped a hand to her racing heart as she turned to greet the woman who swept down the winding staircase. Regal, elegant and in possession of flawless skin and blonde hair, the older woman could be none other than the duchess. “Your Grace,” Hermione dropped a curtsy. Weren’t all duchesses oft frowning, staid figures? All the fictional ones she’d crafted had been.

  The woman came to a stop before her. Her kind stare lingered upon Hermione’s swollen eyes. She smiled gently. “I am Sebastian’s mother, the Duchess of Mallen.” She held out her arm. “The parlor is more comfortable for a meeting than a cold, empty foyer.”

  How could the lady be so…nice to the woman who’d stolen her son’s chance for happiness? Hermione sank into a deep curtsy; the familiar sting of shame scorched her entire being. “It is an honor,” she murmured and then hesitantly looped her arm through the duchess’. The older woman steered her forward. They walked in silence through the house. She took in the crimson carpet lining the halls, the
satin wallpapered walls. The duchess led them to an expansive parlor. She motioned for Hermione to enter. Hermione stepped inside and paused. She flicked her gaze over the lavish fixtures, the tall long-case clock and the crimson sofas with more angry lions upon the arms of the seating.

  Her Grace motioned Hermione forward. “Won’t you sit?”

  “Thank you.” A ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she swallowed it. Why was this woman smiling and kind? She must surely detest her as much as Hermione detested herself. She slid onto the edge of the nearest chair.

  The duchess turned to Papa and they exchanged greetings. “Your Grace, a pleasure, indeed a pleasure,” Papa said as he claimed a seat alongside the duchess. “Isn’t it, Hermione? It is not every day that one meets a duchess.”

  Hermione cringed. Be silent, Papa. Be silent.

  Alas, her father had failed to truly see his children since the death of his wife so he’d not see something as desperate as pleading eyes now. He continued to prattle on. “Then, my Hermione will be a duchess.” He tugged his lapels, proudly. “Not that I’m surprised, of course. She’s quite a special girl.”

  She winced.

  “Honorable.”

  She flinched.

  “Respectable.”

  She winced again.

  “And intelligent. Do you know,” he dropped his voice to a hushed whisper. “She pens quite—”

  “Papa!” Her sharp command emerged as a high-pitched squawk. He looked to her questioningly. She gave her head a curt shake.

  The duchess gave her a commiserative smile, as though she’d interpreted Hermione’s personal shame and sought to assure her that all was well here—which was quite wrong for so many reasons. Nothing was well here.

  Papa frowned and appeared ready to protest Hermione’s plea for his discretion. He looked about. “Will we have the privilege of seeing the duke?”

  Or had the duke come to his senses and realized Miss Hermione Rogers and her scandalous family was not worth having? But then, in this, she’d not been truthful with him either. He knew nothing of her history or her reasons why. A half-sob, half-laugh escaped her. As though her motives should ever matter to him.