by Julia Quinn
“Edward?” Sebastian said, sitting back as if he were completely unaffected. “He’ll enjoy that.”
“Really?” Louisa smiled and looked up. “I just need to find the right scene.”
“Something dramatic I hope?”
She nodded. “But Annabel has insisted that we not include the goats.”
Annabel wanted to make a pithy comment, but she hadn’t quite got her breathing under control.
“I don’t know that Lady Challis would appreciate livestock in her drawing room,” Sebastian agreed.
Annabel finally managed to breathe evenly, but the rest of her was feeling very odd. Shivery, as if her limbs were desperate to move, and there was a tightness beginning to coil within her.
“I never even considered a live goat,” Louisa said with a laugh.
“You could try to draft Mr. Hammond-Betts,” Sebastian suggested. “His hair is rather fluffy.”
Annabel tried to focus her eyes on a spot right in front of her. They were talking right over her, about goats, for heaven’s sake, and she felt as if she might burst into flame at any moment. How could they not notice?
“I don’t imagine he would take kindly to the request,” Louisa said with a bit of giggle.
“Pity,” Sebastian murmured. “He does look the part.”
Annabel took another shallow breath. When Sebastian dropped his voice like that, soft and husky, it made her positively squirm.
“Oh, here we are,” Louisa said excitedly. “What do you think of this scene?” She reached past Annabel to hand the book to Sebastian. Which of course meant that he had to reach past Annabel, too.
His hand brushed her sleeve. His thigh leaned into hers.
Annabel jumped to her feet, knocking the book out of whatever person’s hand it was in (she didn’t know; didn’t care, either). “Excuse me,” she squeaked.
“Is something wrong?” Louisa asked.
“Nothing, I, ehrm, just…” She cleared her throat. “I’ll be right back.” And then: “If you’ll excuse me.” And then: “Just a moment.” And then: “I—”
“Just go,” Louisa said.
She did. Or rather, she tried. Annabel was in such a hurry she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going, and when she reached the doorway she only just managed to avoid crashing into the gentleman entering the room.
The Earl of Newbury.
The giddiness bubbling along inside Annabel died in an instant. “Lord Newbury,” she murmured, dipping into a respectful curtsy. She did not wish to antagonize him; she merely wished to not marry him.
“Miss Winslow.” His eyes swept across the room before coming back to hers. Annabel noticed that his jaw tightened when he spied Sebastian, but other than that, the only expression on his face was one of satisfaction.
Which naturally made Annabel nervous.
“I shall make the announcement now,” he told her.
“What?” Somehow she managed to make that not come out as a shriek. “My lord,” she said, trying to sound placating, or if not that then at least reasonable, “surely this is not the time.”
“Nonsense,” he said dismissively. “I believe we are all here.”
“I haven’t said yes,” she ground out.
He turned to her with a withering glare. And then said nothing else, as if nothing else was necessary.
He did not even think her worthy of a response, Annabel fumed. “Lord Newbury,” she said firmly, placing a hand on his arm, “I forbid you to make an announcement.”
His face, already florid, turned nearly to purple, and a vein began to bulge in his neck. Annabel removed her hand from his arm and took a cautious step back. She did not think he would strike her in so public a setting, but he had punched Sebastian in front of their entire club. It seemed wise to distance herself.
“I have not said yes,” she said again, because he was not responding. He was just looking at her with a thunderous expression, and for a moment she feared he might actually have an apoplectic fit. Never in her life had she witnessed another human being so angry. Spittle was popping from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were huge and froglike in his head. It was horrific. He was horrific.
“You don’t get to say yes,” he finally spat out. But his voice remained a harsh whisper. “Or no. You have been bought and sold, and next week you’re going to spread your legs and do your bloody duty by me. And you will do it again and again until you produce a healthy boy. Are we clear?”
“No,” Annabel said, making sure that her voice, at least, was perfectly clear, “we are not.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Let’s see, Lady Louisa, which scene have you chosen?” Sebastian grinned as he reached for Miss Sainsbury, which had fallen to the carpet after Annabel knocked it from his hands. What fun that he should be doing a recitation from his own work. A bit absurd that he should be playing Miss Sainsbury, but he had enough confidence in his manhood that he felt he could carry it off with aplomb.
Besides, he was rather good at this sort of thing, if he did say so himself. Never mind that the last time he’d read for an audience he’d fallen off a table and dislocated his shoulder. He didn’t regret it in the least. He’d had the housemaids in tears. Tears!
It had been a beautiful moment.
He scooped up the book, straightening to hand it back to Louisa so that she could find her place again, but when he caught her worried expression, he paused. Then he turned, following her gaze.
Annabel was standing near the doorway. So was his uncle.
“I hate him,” Louisa whispered vehemently.
“I’m not terribly fond of him myself.”
Louisa grabbed his arm with a force he would not have imagined she possessed, and when he turned to face her, he was startled by the ferocity in her eyes. She was such a colorless thing, and yet at that moment, she was positively ablaze.
“You cannot let her marry him,” she said.
Sebastian turned back toward the door, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t intend to.”
He waited, though, to see if the situation would right itself. For Annabel’s sake, he did not wish to cause a scene. He was well aware that Lady Challis had planned the house party with the Grey-Winslow-Newbury love triangle as the main source of entertainment. Anything that even hinted of scandal would be on every London gossip’s tongue within days. Unsurprisingly, every eye in the room was set firmly on Annabel and Lord Newbury.
When they weren’t stealing glances at Sebastian.
Truly, he’d had every intention of staying put. But when his uncle began to shake and seethe, his skin mottling with fury as he hissed something at Annabel, Sebastian could not stand by.
“Is there a problem?” he asked in a cool, smooth voice, coming to stand slightly behind and to the side of Annabel.
“This is none of your concern,” his uncle spat.
“I beg to differ,” Sebastian said quietly. “A lady in distress is always my concern.”
“The lady is my affianced bride,” Newbury snapped, “and therefore she will never be your concern.”
“Is that true?” Sebastian asked Annabel. Not because he believed it might be; rather he wished to give her the opportunity to make a public denial.
She shook her head no.
Sebastian turned back to his uncle. “Miss Winslow seems to be under the impression that she is not your affianced bride.”
“Miss Winslow is an idiot.”
Sebastian’s gut tightened, and his fingers got a strange, tingly feeling, the sort that forced one’s hands into fists. Still, he kept his demeanor cool, merely raising a brow as he commented dryly, “And yet you wish to marry her.”
“Stay out of this,” his uncle warned.
“I could,” Seb murmured, “but I’d feel so guilty in the morning, allowing a perfectly lovely young lady to meet such a terrible end.”
Newbury’s eyes narrowed. “You never change, do you?”
Sebastian kept his face remarkably blank
as he said, “If you mean I’m eternally charming…”
His uncle’s jaw tightened, nearly to the point of shaking.
“Winsome, even, some would say.” Sebastian knew he was pushing it, but it was so damned hard to resist. There was such a sense of déjà vu in these arguments. They never changed. His uncle went on about what a pathetic excuse for a human being he was, and Sebastian stood there, bored, until he was done. Which was why, when Newbury started into his latest rant, Sebastian merely crossed his arms, widened his stance, and prepared to wait it out.
“All your life,” Newbury raged, “you’ve been shiftless and without direction, whoring about, failing at school—”
“Well, now, that’s not true,” Seb cut in, feeling the need to defend his reputation in front of such a large audience. He’d never been at the top of his class, but he damn well hadn’t been at the bottom, either.
But his uncle had no intention of bringing his tirade to an end. “Who do you think paid for that bloody education of yours? Your father?” He chortled with disdain. “He never had two shillings to rub together. I paid his bills his entire life.”
For a moment Sebastian was taken aback. “Well, then, I suppose I must thank you,” he said quietly. “I did not know.”
“Of course you didn’t know,” his uncle shot back. “You don’t pay attention to anything. You never have. You just trot about, sleeping with other men’s wives, running away, leaving the country, and the rest of us have to take responsibility for all your pranks.”
Now that was too much. But when Sebastian got angry, he got insolent. And flip. And actually quite funny. He turned to Annabel and held his hands out as if to say—how can this be? “And here I thought I was joining the army. King and country and all that.”
A small crowd had gathered around them. Apparently Lady Challis and her guests had given up all pretense of discretion.
“I do hope I’m not mistaken,” he added turning to onlookers with a carefully constructed expression of incredulity on his face. “I shot an awful lot of people in France.”
Someone snickered. Someone else covered a laugh with a hand. But no one, Sebastian noticed, made any move to intervene. He wondered if he would have done so, were he an onlooker.
Probably not. The tableau would have been far too entertaining. The earl, spluttering with fury; the nephew, poking fun. It was what they expected of him, Sebastian imagined. His wit was dry, his charm legendary, and he never lost his temper.
Newbury’s face turned an even more astonishing shade of magenta. He knew that if Sebastian held the humor, Sebastian held the crowd. In the end, most would side with rank and wealth, but for now, in this moment, the earl was a buffoon. And Sebastian knew he hated it.
“Don’t stick your nose where it does not belong,” his uncle bit off. He jabbed a thick, sausagy finger at Sebastian, coming within a few inches of his chest. “You didn’t even care about Miss Winslow until you heard I was planning to marry her.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” Sebastian said, almost affably. “And in fact, I would counter that you had decided to be done with her until you thought I might be interested.”
“The last thing I’d want is one of your trollops. Which she”—he jerked his head toward Annabel, who had been watching the entire exchange with openmouthed horror—“is in fast danger of becoming.”
That tightening in Sebastian’s gut did another twist. “Careful,” he warned, his voice dangerously soft. “You’re insulting a lady.”
Lord Newbury rolled his bloodshot eyes. “I’m insulting a whore.”
And that was it. Sebastian Grey, the man who walked away from confrontation; the man who’d spent the war far from the action, picking off the enemy one by one; the man who found anger to be such a tedious emotion…
He went berserk.
He didn’t think, he barely felt, and he had no idea what anyone was saying or doing around him. His entire being shrank and twisted, and the hideous, primitive cry that came from his throat—he had no more control over that than he did the rest of his body, which launched forward, practically flying through the air as he knocked his uncle to the floor.
They crashed through a table, Lord Newbury’s heft splintering the wood, and two candelabras, both fully lit, went tumbling down.
There was a shriek, and Sebastian had a dim awareness of someone stamping out flames, but the entire bloody house could have been on fire and it would not have stopped him from his one singular goal.
Wrapping his hands around his uncle’s throat.
“Apologize to the lady,” he growled, jamming his knee right where it would hurt most.
Newbury let out a howl at the insulting blow.
Sebastian’s thumbs rested longingly on his uncle’s windpipe. “That didn’t sound like an apology.”
His uncle glared up at him and spit.
Sebastian did not even flinch. “Apologize,” he said again, each syllable clipped and hard.
All around him people were yelling, and someone actually grabbed one of his arms, trying to haul him off his uncle before he killed him. But Sebastian could not make out anything they were saying. Nothing could possibly register above the hot roar of rage rushing through his head. He’d served in the army. He’d shot dozens of French soldiers from his sniper’s perch, but never had he wanted to see another man dead.
But oh Lord, he did now.
“Apologize or so help me God I will kill you,” he spat. He tightened his hands, feeling almost gleeful as his uncle’s eyes bulged and face grew purple, and—
And then he was yanked off him and held back, and he heard Edward grunting with exertion as he hissed, “Get hold of yourself.”
“Apologize to Miss Winslow,” Sebastian snarled at his uncle, trying to shake loose. But Edward and Lord Challis were holding firm.
Two other gentlemen helped Lord Newbury to a sitting position, still on the floor amidst the rubble of the table they’d broken. He was gasping for air, and his skin was still an awful shade of pink, but he had enough hatred in him to try to spit at Annabel, harshly rasping, “Whore.”
Sebastian let out another roar and hurled himself at his uncle, dragging both Edward and Lord Challis with him. They all lurched forward a few steps, but Sebastian was restrained before he could reach his uncle.
“Apologize to the lady,” he bit off.
“No.”
“Apologize!” Sebastian roared.
“It’s all right,” Annabel said. Or maybe she said it. Even she could not quite break through the haze of rage rushing through his skull.
He yanked forward, trying once again to reach his uncle. His blood was pounding and his pulse was racing, and his entire body was itching for a fight. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to maim. But he was held back by Edward and Lord Challis, and so instead he gathered his breath and said, “Apologize to Miss Winslow or so help me God, I will have satisfaction.”
Several heads whipped around to face him. Had he just suggested a duel? Even Sebastian wasn’t sure.
But Lord Newbury just lumbered to his feet and said, “Get him away from me.”
Sebastian held his ground, despite the urging of the two men trying to pull him back. He watched as Newbury brushed off his sleeves, and all he could think was—it wasn’t right. It could not end this way, with his uncle just walking away. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right, and Annabel deserved better.
And so he said it. Clearly, this time. “Name your seconds.”
“No!” Annabel cried out.
“What the hell are you doing?” Edward demanded, yanking him aside.
Lord Newbury turned slowly around, staring at him in shock.
“Are you mad?” Edward whispered, hushed but urgent.
Sebastian finally shook off Edward. “He has insulted Annabel and I demand satisfaction.”
“He is your uncle.”
“Not by choice.”
“If you kill him—” Edward shook his head frantically. He looke
d over at Lord Newbury, then at Annabel, then at Newbury, then finally gave up and turned to Sebastian with an expression of utter panic. “You’re his heir. Everyone would think you’d killed him for the title. You’ll be thrown into gaol.”
More likely he’d hang, Sebastian thought grimly. But all he said was, “He insulted Annabel.”
“I don’t care,” Annabel said quickly, wedging herself next to Edward. “Honestly, I don’t.”
“I care.”
“Sebastian, please,” she pleaded. “It will only make things worse.”
“Think,” Edward urged. “There is nothing to be gained. Nothing.”
Sebastian knew they were right, but he could not quite calm himself down enough to accept it. All his life his uncle had insulted him. He’d called him names—some fair; most not. Sebastian had brushed it off because that was his way. But when Newbury had insulted Annabel…
That could not be borne.
“I know I’m not a—what he called me,” Annabel said softly, placing her hand on his arm. “And I know you know it, too. That is all that matters to me.”
But Sebastian wanted revenge. He couldn’t help it. It was petty and it was childish, but he wanted his uncle to hurt. He wanted him humiliated. And it just so happened that this objective was in complete accord with the only other goal in his life, which was to make Annabel Winslow his wife.
“I withdraw my challenge,” he said loudly.
There was a collective exhale. The room, it seemed, had tensed and tightened, every shoulder drawn up to the ears, every set of eyes wide and worried.
Lord Newbury, still standing in the doorway leading out to the corridor, narrowed his eyes.
Sebastian wasted no time. Taking Annabel’s hand, he dropped to one knee.
“Oh my goodness!” someone gasped. Someone else said Newbury’s name, maybe to prevent him from leaving again.
“Annabel Winslow,” Sebastian said, and when he gazed up at her, it wasn’t with one of his hot, melting smiles, the kind he knew made female hearts bounce and skip, from age nine to ninety. It wasn’t his dry half smile, either, the kind that said he knew things, secret things, and if he leaned down and whispered in your ear, you might know them, too.