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.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
How much they’d not known about each other.
“But then I fell too ill to complete the image.”
The string-less violin in the painting.
“Elizabeth’s fever raged for days.” She drew in a slow breath and wrapped her arms about herself as though seeking warmth and comfort all at the same time, accustomed to relying on only herself for both. “Her fever climbed until she was no longer lucid.”
He ached to take her in his arms; to be that which she deserved, but he’d lost that right when he’d walked out of her life.
“She began to convulse, shake uncontrollably…” Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. “And by the grace of God,” her words dripped with more bitterness than he ever remembered of her. “We both lived.” She ran her hands up and down her arms, despite the warmth of the room. “She was not the same afterward, and that was the last image I ever painted,” she added as though it were an afterthought.
He strained to hear those faint spoken words.
“The fever left her…” She met his gaze squarely, almost challengingly. “A child, at least in her mind.” Something dark flashed in her sapphire eyes.
Sebastian swallowed a ball of emotion. He thought of Emmaline; happy, wedded, with a family of her own. And then Hermione’s sister. That one unfair act of fate had transformed her family. It had been easy to be a brother to Emmaline, but if the circumstances had been reversed, would he have been the loyal, loving, devoted sibling Hermione had become these years? “I am so sorry,” he said even as the words left his mouth he realized how wholly inadequate they were for the great tragedy that had befallen the golden-haired angel described by Hermione.
Her shoulders lifted up and down in a little shrug. “As a child, I remember Mama and Papa’s sadness. Mama cried and cried, but I didn’t know why. I only knew Elizabeth was my sister. I knew she always had a smile and a laugh.” A wistful look stole across her face, driving back the earlier darkness. “Oh, that is certainly not to say Elizabeth doesn’t have bouts of temper. She does. The worst times can rival my younger sister and brother combined.”
How much sadness she’d known. With one unfortunate twist of fate, her family had been shattered and his brave, resilient Hermione had been trying to put the pieces back together since. He held a hand out. “Oh, Hermione,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
She firmed her jaw and met his gaze. “I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t pity you.” Just the opposite. She had his admiration for her strength in the face of her family’s great struggles. It occurred to him how not unalike they’d been; elder siblings who’d taken on the mantle of responsibility by the sheer order of birthright. But how much greater the burden would be for a woman amidst a broken, shattered family.
“We were quite happy,” she said it almost as though she sought to convince herself to the truth of that.
“Then why did you never paint again?” he asked quietly. Why, if she’d truly been happy?
Hermione trailed her fingertips along the back of the mahogany arm chair. “Whenever I touched another brush or charcoal, I remembered the day we fell ill, and it just seemed such an ugly reminder of such a dark day.” She looked at him and shrugged. “Why would anyone ever want to remember that?”
Why, indeed.
Her expression grew pensive. “From our illness, I also learned that happiness was fleeting.” A needlelike pain stuck into his heart as he realized she spoke of their happiness together as well. He’d spent the p
ast month thinking only of his own heart and his desiring for more, all the while failing to realize everything she’d endured. He was humbled by the depth of such self-centeredness. Why should she have confided in him?
“Then my mother died,” Hermione said, her words running together; words he ventured she’d never told anyone, until now. “My father loved her desperately and he fell into a deep despair. His…our,” she amended, “finances fell into disrepair.” Who had she shared this burden with? Who had been there to support Hermione through her great losses? Her brother and sister would have been mere babes. Pain knifed through him at just how alone she’d been. She continued on composed, even as each revelation threw his world into tumult. “And Elizabeth needed caring for.” She began to pace. “We let most of the servants go, but were forced to keep on her nursemaid. I use the mon…” She shook her head so hard she dislodged a single strand of dark hair. She brushed it back.
The money she earned as Mr. Michael Michaelmas went to care for her sister.
Ah God, he could not bear to think of the weight of the world the baronet had thrust upon Hermione’s diminutive but capable shoulders. She’d been forced to become a parent to her younger and elder siblings, relying on no one but herself. And he, in his unwillingness to listen and his abandonment, he was no better than her father. The thought ravaged his conscience. Nearly bringing him to his knees with the weight of his own shame.
Hermione folded her arms tighter about her waist and rocked forward. “I have lied to you,” she whispered.
It mattered not that she was Mr. Michaelmas. As his duchess, she could write all day, every day. “It doesn’t matter, Hermione. It—”
“No,” she said with such adamancy, the protestation withered on his lips. She met his gaze. “I should have told you. It was unpardonable, but I’d have you know the whole truth.” The muscles of her throat worked. When she spoke, her words emerged on a faint whisper. “There was a gentleman.”
There was a gentleman. A black haze descended over his vision. Someone who’d come before him. The world ceased spinning and he stood in a quagmire of jealousy and resentment, nearly consumed by the force of his emotions.
Then she spoke. “Lord Cavendish.” The two words dripped a venomous poison. By the vitriol in her tone, he suspected if Cavendish were present, she would have gladly fed him that poison and watched him writhe.
“What did he do?” he asked his tone brusque. If he hurt her, he would see the notorious rogue destroyed.
Tears flooded her eyes and the sight of those crystalline drops threatened to shatter him. “He came upon my sister, Elizabeth.”
A chill turned his blood to ice in his veins. Oh, God. This admission wasn’t about Mr. Michaelmas or a love she’d carried for some gentleman. It was something worse. Something far darker.
A lone drop fell. “I shouldn’t have allowed her to go out on her own. Her nurse, Partridge, Papa, none of us should have. And yet we did. We’d done it so many times before and nothing had ever come of it.” She brushed back a tear. “One day she became lost and a dashing gentleman escorted her home.” A sneer pulled at her lips. “Lord Cavendish,” she spat the name. “We so graciously welcomed him into our home and thanked him for helping Elizabeth. He supped with us. Listened to Papa’s readings. And fools that we were we didn’t realize the shame he was guilty of, until I stumbled upon him one afternoon, going to visit the village.” She pressed her hands over her face and drew in several breaths.
He reached for her, gently took her hands and held them in his. She seemed to find the courage to continue. “Lord Cavendish knew Elizabeth went for her walks and would wait for her. I don’t know how many times, Sebastian.”
Sebastian stilled as the implications of those words registered. Fury licked at the corner of his mind; it spiraled dark and black throughout his body. He struggled to speak but could find no adequate words.
“He’d convinced her to do…” Another tear. She pulled her hand out of his and swatted at it almost angrily. Did she see those tokens as a sign of weakness? A woman of Hermione’s strength and courage could never be weak. “Things no unwed lady should ever do.” She held his gaze. “He raped her.” Her pronouncement lingered in the room, leaving with it a void of silence.
Stunned, he released Hermione. He balled his hands into fists, his fingers reflexively twitched with the desire to take the bastard Cavendish apart with his hands. To make him suffer for what he’d done to the girl, Elizabeth. For Hermione’s sake, Sebastian struggled for a semblance of calm. The young dandy would pay.
“She is with child, Sebastian.” Her words came out on a broken whisper.
Oh, God. But there was no God in this. There was only the devil and all his vile darkness. He swiped a hand over his eyes. “Hermione,” he said, his voice ragged. Why hadn’t she turned this burden over to him?
Then, isn’t that what she did? A dark voice niggled. Desperation will drive people who are not normally desperate to do desperate things.
Sebastian let his arms fall back to his side. A hesitancy filled his wife’s expressive blue eyes; those windows into her soul. She took a step away from him. He registered the stiff set to her tall, slender frame, the distance she’d placed between them and frowned as an ugly possibility occurred to him. His words emerged harsher than he intended. “Do you imagine I would hold your family responsible for Cavendish’s actions?”
“Surely you didn’t think I could share this?” She dropped her gaze guiltily. “I knew in marrying you, you deserved to at least know these truths and yet I said nothing…”
Sebastian strode over and her words trailed off. These secrets she’d kept were too much for any person. He claimed her hands in his and one at a time, raised them to his lips. He paused at the smattering of ink upon the tips of her fingers. She followed his gaze and tugged at his grip. He tightened his hold about her person and raised first one wrist to his lips, and then the next. Her pulse pounded wildly. “You once told me that one does not make people their business. You told me they must learn a person’s interests, their hopes, their desires.” The muscles of her neck worked under the force of her swallow. He stroked his palm over her cheek. “How could you not have realized I wanted you? I wanted you from the moment I observed you at Lady Denley’s writing notes upon your own dance card.”
Another tear. “You did?”
He caught the drop with the pad of his thumb. “I did.”
“Even with my silly yellow skirts?” Another tear replaced the first. It wound a sad little trail over her porcelain white cheek and he would have cut himself open if it would spare her any more pain.
“Especially with your silly yellow skirts.” He dropped his brow to hers. “I do not want you to be my business, Hermione.” He brushed a soft kiss against her lips. “I want you to be my wife.” He touched his lips to her cheek. “Let me learn your interests and share them, tell me of your hopes and together we will attain them, and desire for nothing because as long as you’re mine, if you should call forth the stars, I’ll bring them down to you.” Sebastian lowered his brow to hers.
A sob slipped past Hermione’s lips.
“Hand me your burdens,” he urged. “I shall handle Cavendish, but together, you and I will care for Addie and Hugh, Elizabeth and her babe.”
She leaned close and he cradled her against him, aching to absorb every worry she’d ever known. He dropped his chin atop the silken mass of her luxurious tresses. They were both silent, reacquainting one another with the feel of each other’s arms.
He brushed his knuckles along her jawline, gently guiding her head up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I love you, Hermione Edith Fitzhugh.”
He loves me. Hermione’s heart fluttered. He loved her despite her lies, and Elizabeth and her deception, and for everything between them—he loved her anyway.
“Do you have nothing to say?” His husky question poured over her. “Or—?”
She leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. �
�I love you,” she whispered. “I loved you the moment you walked out of my parlor with a copy of a Gothic novel, and I loved you even more when you read it, and did not condescend it.” Because for what Mr. Werksman and the world believed of dukes, they were not all self-aggrandizing, pompous figures a step away from royalty. Sebastian had proven that.
“All you needed was for me to read one of your Gothic novels?”
A tremulous smile pulled at her lips. She took his face between her palms. “All I needed was you, Sebastian. All I needed was you.” She leaned close to take his lips once more, but he angled away. She furrowed her brow.
He studied her with a searching look, his gaze once more solemn. “From this point on, there will be no more lies.”
Her gaze flitted to the cherished work, her most recently completed, much toiled over book. For three very lonely years she’d penned stories she’d dreamed of for others. She’d crafted a world in which young ladies and scarred gentlemen triumphed over great tragedy and in those stories she’d been able to escape, if even just a bit the realities of her own harsh, oftentimes uncertain world. Duchesses did not write Gothic novels.
“Hermione?”
He’d forgiven so much and promised her everything. God help her, she loved him enough that, even as it would rob a sliver of her heart never penning another story, the rest of that now-full organ would beat with a love for him so great she would make the ache of never writing again a very small sacrifice.
She smiled up at him. “No more lies,” she promised.
C
hapter 27
She’d lied.
One week later, hands clasped behind his back, Sebastian paced an angry path in front of the cold, empty hearth, reflecting on that deliberate mistruth of his wife. His conversation with Hermione had undoubtedly not gone the manner in which he’d imagined. She was to have told him the truth about her writing. He would have called her a silly fool, a silly, beautiful fool for not trusting him enough. He would have praised her work and admitted he’d been an unmitigated, judgmental arse where it was previously concerned. She likely would have agreed.
Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love Page 30