Dax shrugged. “Eliza hardly speaks of her. She died when they were so young.” His friend leaned back in his chair, resting his head against his knitted hands. “I have the impression the Darby children were largely left to their own devices. Their parents neither neglected them nor did they dote on them. They were just loving parents who wanted the best for their children. The best tutors, the best nannies, the best school for Andrew.” Another shrug. “Why do you ask?”
Sebastian made his way over to the windows and stared out at the passing traffic.
“We encountered a pair of women at the wedding breakfast who seemed to upset Louisa.”
Dax sat up. “It wasn’t the aunts, was it? Maude and Martha.” Dax gave a mock shiver. “They upset Eliza, too. Apparently they’re her mother’s cousins once removed or some such thing. They drove Eliza batty.”
Sebastian turned back to his friend at this. “They did?”
Dax gave a sure nod. “According to Eliza, they only pop up at funerals and weddings, actually mostly at funerals. Rather unsettling if you think about it.”
Sebastian mulled this over while he took a sip of the warm tea. Perhaps he was overthinking it. Maybe Louisa had nothing to hide, and those old women were simply a touch creepy in their eccentricity.
But why did he get the sense he was still missing something? He resumed his seat, setting aside his teacup to lean on the table toward his friend.
“Dax, I think I’m missing something,” he said plainly.
His friend raised a single eyebrow. “I haven’t seen you this engaged since Vaughn suggested a tax on shoe polish. What is it?”
“Have you noticed how Louisa caters to her sisters? For such a strong-willed woman, I find it odd that she bows to their every wish.”
“If you speak of Viv, then I can assure you it’s the nature of all the sisters to bow to her. The woman is formidable.”
Sebastian waved off the suggestion. “It’s not just her. It’s Jo, too. She’s particularly protective of her.”
Dax gave a laugh. “I think the thing you’re missing is common human relations. Johanna is the youngest sister. Of course, Louisa is protective.”
He felt a sense of calmness at his friend’s certainty that it was nothing more than normal familial connection. It still troubled him though.
“How do you know this? I don’t see any siblings running over you.” He gave his friend a wry smile, but the man only leaned back with a laugh.
“Why continue to produce children when you made a perfect one at the first off?” He asked, gesturing to himself.
Sebastian felt a smile tug at his lips, and the tension in his chest eased for the first time in days.
Dax was probably right. Louisa wasn’t hiding anything from him, and he shouldn’t worry so much over it. Only…he couldn’t love her.
He toyed with his discarded pen, the ink dripping onto a scrap of paper to create a navy blue pool.
“Dax, would you consider your marriage a love match?”
Dax gave a bark of laughter. “I wonder what’s brought this up.”
Sebastian cast him a frowning glance.
Dax ignored his friend. “Yes, I am lucky enough to count myself among the men who have found a true match, but I think you already know that. What is it you’re really asking?”
“Do you remember when you plotted to wed a wallflower to avoid falling in love?”
Dax’s face grew somber. “We don’t bring that up in this house. Eliza has shown me the foolishness of my ways.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Sebastian leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers in front of him. “I told Louisa I cannot love her.”
Dax gave no reaction that he’d even heard him. It was some time before Dax stood and bypassed the teacart on the way to the liquor cabinet in the corner. He poured each of them a measure of scotch and returned to their table, pushing aside the lists of names they had been studying. He handed his friend a tumbler and sat back in his chair, waiting, knowing Sebastian would speak when ready.
Sebastian held the tumbler between his hands, rolling the glass back and forth as the sunlight caught the liquor like the angles of a prism.
Like swimming in a cold creek, it was best to jump in all at once.
“I’m afraid that if I love her, I’ll make the same mistakes my father did,” Sebastian said.
“What mistakes?”
In all their years as friends, Sebastian had always trusted Dax with his secrets. All of them except this one. He peered across the table at his friend, and he realized that at some point they had grown up. They were not the young boys they had once been, hiding frogs in the beds of their enemies at school, racing their horses across the fields of their country estates to feel the wind whipping past them.
There were shadows under Dax’s eyes, and Sebastian realized with a jolt George was likely keeping them up at night. His friend was a father now. No longer the carefree bachelor he had once been alongside Sebastian. Now he held responsibility for another human being, his son.
This realization struck a note deep within Sebastian, and he pressed a hand to his chest as if to still it.
“My father made some poor choices in response to his lover ending their relationship.”
Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to tell his best friend the truth. It wasn’t because he wished to protect the title either. Deep within him, Sebastian still wanted to shield his father from anyone who might judge him for his deeds.
“You never told me about what happened with your father. You seemed to disappear during that time.”
Withdrew from society was what Louisa had said. Disappear was a far more appropriate word. He could still remember the way he had felt during those first few days after his father’s death. It was like he’d turned into a ghost, passing through the days as if he weren’t really there. He could hardly remember what had even occurred during that time. He vaguely recalled his mother making the necessary arrangements, instructing the staff to rid the house of any trace of his father. He couldn’t recall much after that. In fact, he had no memory of his mother being in residence after those first few days, but that seemed entirely possible. He hadn’t done more than move from his bedchamber to his sitting room in those days. He couldn’t very well know if his mother had been there.
Sebastian drew a deep breath. “My father killed himself because his lover ended their relationship.”
It was easier to say this time, but he still felt the squeeze of his chest, the feeling that someone was watching.
Dax raked a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair, expelling a narrow breath. “I’m so sorry, Sebastian. I didn’t know—”
“I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“You told Louisa.” Dax spoke the three words like a proclamation.
Sebastian could only nod.
“How did she take it?”
Sebastian pulled up the image that had haunted him that night. Louisa so still, as if her spirit had left her body, her movements mechanical as she’d opened the connecting door.
“I don’t know. She seemed to close in on herself.”
Dax shook his head. “Have you not realized what Louisa’s nature is? As her husband, I would expect you to know.”
“If you didn’t notice, we wed rather quickly, and I haven’t gotten the chance to become acquainted with my wife.”
Dax leaned forward on the table, bringing his face closer to Sebastian’s. “Louisa fixes things, Sebastian. Now that you’ve told her this, she’s going to try to fix you.”
Sebastian straightened, the cloud that had been following him for days suddenly lifting. “She’s going to do what?”
“She’s going to fix you. It’s what she does. Every time one of her sisters has a problem, Louisa comes to fix it. Do you remember how you first met her?”
He would never forget how he first met Louisa, sopping wet in the rain.
“She’d come to Eliza’s aid.”
&
nbsp; Dax nodded and knocked on the table with one fist. “You’ve just given her a problem to solve. She’s going to try to fix you.”
“Why would she do that?”
Dax’s grin was slow and knowing. “Because you told her your secrets.”
“Secrets?” Sebastian stilled, not trusting the mischievous grin on his friend’s face.
“You didn’t marry Louisa for love or for money. I know you didn’t take her dowry. Johanna is telling everyone of the fact. Which leaves only one thing. One thing which would compel Louisa to help you.”
Sebastian’s breathing slowed.
“You married her out of honor, friend. And now she’ll want to make you happy.”
Chapter 8
She hadn’t meant to renovate Waverly House. It just sort of happened.
When she had awoken the morning after her wedding, she’d lain in bed for some time, letting the truth of her position settle over her. Her instinct was to jump immediately out of bed and go about righting the situation so as to ensure Sebastian’s future happiness. But there were several things wrong with that notion.
First, Sebastian was not one of her sisters. She had no right to interfere in his life, especially in his past, and it wouldn’t do for her to arrive unbidden and immediately stampede into a web of family secrets. The second issue was that Sebastian didn’t wish to change. It wasn’t something she could prove. It was more of something she could feel. He had created a world in which he thought he could survive after the unbelievable had happened. Who was she to upset that?
Only she already had by forcing him to marry her.
It didn’t matter if he tried to deny it. He wouldn’t have had to make a decision, honorable or not, had she not created the necessity for it.
If she couldn’t make Sebastian happy, she needed to do, well, something.
She’d crawled out of bed that morning, her head pounding from the kind of sleep that tricks you into thinking it’s welcome but really only makes one’s head fuzzier and gone straight for the strong cup of tea Williams had brought her. She drank it down in nearly one gulp, willing the warmth to spread through her numb limbs and bring her back to some semblance of existence.
Only then did she think about what he’d said.
He couldn’t love her.
She still didn’t know how she felt about this declaration, but it wasn’t immediate regret, which puzzled her. Perhaps because her attraction to Sebastian was still so physical. She hadn’t been given time to explore her other feelings for him. Like the way she was inevitably drawn to him in a room, the way she often craved his practical attention to a problem, the way he rolled his drink glass among his fingertips.
The pain she felt in her chest was a loss of possibility, not a broken heart. It still hurt all the same. She touched her lips briefly, tracing the echo of his kiss.
Would he ever kiss her again? Would he ever make her feel so…wanted?
She blinked away the painful memories and became aware of the room around her. Williams had drawn back the curtains and bright morning sunlight flooded the room in a cheery yellow glow, which was a surprising contrast to the worn state of the place.
The already drab wallpaper was patched and peeling in the corners. The furniture was mismatched and scarred, the exposed wood nearly crying for attention. The carpets were musty and muted, and she wondered when they’d last been shaken out.
She set down her teacup with a resounding ring and pushed to her feet. If she couldn’t fix Sebastian, she was going to fix his house.
That was why three weeks later she found herself covered in fabric swatches as she waltzed about the first-floor drawing room, Jo following carefully behind as she held up samples to the wallpaper to determine the best fit.
“I still don’t see how a duchess could allow the room in which she receives guests to be so…well, so…”
“Awful,” Louisa finished for her sister.
Jo stopped in her perusal of fabric swatches laid out along Louisa’s arms and placed her fisted hands to her hips.
“I mean really. She’s a duchess. Clearly she didn’t have Viv for an older sister telling her what she was doing wrong.”
Louisa couldn’t help the laugh. “Viv may be hard on us, but we’re the better for it, don’t you agree?”
Jo exchanged the swatch in her hand for another along Louisa’s arm. “Indubitably.”
She held up the mauve fabric to the pastel hues of the wallpaper and shook her head. “I simply can’t imagine who would use a green such as that for the drapes in this room.” Her little sister referred to the monstrosity that was the drapes, a study in green and brown that was most likely found in the pages of a mycology book. “I mean, this wallpaper is lovely. Why ruin it with something which too closely resembles mashed peas?”
Louisa gave a quick nod in agreement. She’d been lucky to find that at least some of the rooms had adequate wall coverings of an acceptable hue. But she could recall only too well what Sebastian had said about his mother being largely absent from his childhood. She would have been absent from this house as well, and it showed in the tattered and uncoordinated furnishings.
Jo held up another swatch. “I think this one is it.”
The pattern she held was a pale blue with vines of green and pink and white swirling through it. It complimented the pale wallpaper while highlighting the colors in what would be the new drapes.
Louisa dropped her arms. “Splendid.”
The sisters exchanged mutual smiles of accomplishment before moving back to the sofa where they had spread out the various fabrics and wallpaper samples Louisa had acquired from the design firm she’d hired to assist with the renovations.
“We should probably move on to the dining rooms when you get here tomorrow. I should think it proper to host a small dinner party soon as duke and duchess. I’d like to send out the invitations before Viv reminds me I should.”
“Louisa.”
She stilled at the worried tone in her sister’s voice. Turning only her head, she took in Jo’s furrowed brow and pinched lips. Dropping the remaining swatches in a haphazard pile, she whirled swiftly and took hold of Jo’s hands.
“Darling, whatever is the matter?”
Jo’s mouth worked without sound coming out, and then finally, she said what she obviously needed to say in a blast of air. “This is all my fault.” Her sister did not burst into tears as it was not in Jo’s character. Instead she pulled her hands from Louisa’s and speared her tightly pinned hair with her fingers. “I’m so sorry, Louisa. You really didn’t need to do this.”
Louisa could only stare. “Do what?”
Jo flung her hands wide, encompassing the room and more in their conversation. “This. Marrying…” she struggled with the words before flinging out an accusatory finger which pointed at nothing. “Him!” she finally said as if it were necessary to expel the word from her person.
“Do you mean Sebastian?”
Louisa always marveled at the way people seemed to fear him, but only she knew his secrets, only she knew he feared emotions others took for granted.
Jo collapsed in the chair behind her, sending up a cloud of dust. “Yes. You didn’t need to marry him, Louisa. Not for me.”
Louisa sat on the low table in the middle of the seating arrangement so she could put her hands on her sister’s knees.
“Jo, darling, whatever on earth are you talking about?”
Jo leaned forward, her eyes ablaze. “I know what happened that night, Louisa. Don’t act the innocent.”
Fear shot through Louisa so quickly she choked on it. How did Jo know? Who else knew? She had to speak to Viv. What if this got out? What would happen to Jo’s future?
“You didn’t have to marry him, Louisa. I know it’s tempting, and I know sometimes we want to dip our toe into the things we’ve been told is forbidden. I understand that, I really do.”
The fear was abruptly muddled with confusion.
“What are you talking ab
out?” she asked again, squeezing her sister’s knees.
Jo placed her hands on top of Louisa’s. “I know you were caught in a compromising position with Waverly. I know you married him because you were afraid of what might happen if people found out. I know you married him to protect me.” Jo gritted her teeth through the last word, and real pain flashed in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Louisa. I should have spoken up, but I just couldn’t. You seemed…well, happy.” She spoke the last words as if they were the most preposterous statement ever made.
Louisa sat back, pressing her hands to her stomach. “Jo. My dear Jo. I really need you to slow down and explain what you’re saying.”
She wasn’t sure which surprised her more. That Jo knew the truth of that night, albeit not all of it, or her observation that Louisa had appeared happy to wed Sebastian.
“I was eavesdropping that night outside of Andrew’s study. I know what Viv said to you. How you could have endangered my future.” It was her turn to squeeze Louisa’s knees. “But you needn’t have worried about me. You know I always come out all right.”
Louisa shook her head. “You mustn’t feel guilt over that, Jo. I crossed a line of propriety and I accepted the consequence of that.”
“I know you did. And I know Waverly didn’t accept your dowry. That was the only thing that kept me quiet at first. I thought he really was marrying you out of love.” She sat back and held up both hands in a sign of surrender. “Now, don’t get me wrong. The man is vexing. But perhaps I don’t know or understand the whole of the relationship between the two of you. And as we got closer to the wedding, I tried to pay better attention.” She leaned forward, her eyes imploring now. “I didn’t notice, Louisa. I didn’t notice until I was seeing how very much attached to Waverly you are. You were always by his side at the betrothal ball and then at the wedding breakfast. It was like you had found your match.”
Louisa’s heart beat faster, and her eyes threatened tears. That might have been, but then Louisa had thought perhaps one day they would find contentment in their marriage, if not true love. But she knew now none of that was possible.
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