Sebastian wondered what influence Louisa had wrought in such an arrangement.
“Very good,” he said and followed the butler inside.
He was shown into a drawing room that, while tastefully appointed, felt cluttered and overdone. Louisa would never put such colors together, and she would never arrange the sitting arrangement so close to the door. He wasn’t sure where these thoughts sprang from, and he swallowed them down, willing himself to focus on the present.
He didn’t wait long. The precise tapping of heels on the wood floors greeted him first, and he turned to the door expectantly.
A flash of memory swept through him at the sight of the woman standing there. It was as if he knew her from somewhere but not entirely as a person. It was more that he’d seen her in different pieces of childhood memories. Like when he was playing with his toy soldiers on the back staircase because his mother didn’t like to hear him in the house, and he had to hide where she wouldn’t find him. This woman had passed him on those stairs, he was sure of it.
“Your Grace,” she said as she curtsied. “I expected you would come. Should you like tea?”
He shook his head to tell her no and immediately regretted it. He must have given himself away because she folded her hands in front of her, a knowing smile on her lips.
“Your wife already told you what we discussed yesterday, did she not?” The woman’s tone was deceptively neutral.
“Yes.” He did not make the mistake of nodding again.
“And you imbibed hoping to erase the truths she told you?”
He did not wish to answer that.
She waved away his silence. “Your father was the same way. Never touched a drop unless circumstances overwhelmed him.” She walked to the corner of the room where she tugged on a braided rope. “You look very much like him, did you know? Only he never wore his hair quite so severely.” She sat on the chair closest to the door and gestured for him to sit on the sofa.
He didn’t want to. He wanted to keep this conversation as brief as possible, but there was something about her voice which drew him in, and he found himself sitting.
“I’ve heard a similar comment recently,” he said, trying not to remember how Louisa had looked in the moonlight.
“I was proud to work in the Waverly household, Your Grace. Your father was a well-respected man, and he treated his servants fairly.”
“I should like to know then how it is you believe to know what really happened the night my father died.”
Her mouth tightened, the lines around her lips growing more pronounced, but she did not back down from his bold statement.
“It’s a rather obvious answer, Your Grace. I was there that night.”
She was stopped from further explanation by the arrival of the teacart. She dismissed the maid and poured herself, handing him a cup. It was the exact shade at which he preferred his tea, and he looked up, meeting her gaze with a question.
“You might have forgotten, Your Grace, but I have served you tea many times. Do you not recall your mother’s attempts to stay present in your life after you went to Eton?”
Honestly, he’d forgotten. When he was home on holiday from school, his mother would always arrange for them to take tea together as her way of catching up on his tales from school and how his grades were. Inevitably, his mother would become distracted, and he was left with her lady’s maid. Another flash of recognition swept through him, and her face grew clearer in his memories.
“I do remember,” he answered, taking the tea gratefully and sipping it. Warmth spread through him instantly, and he willed it to travel to his head and relieve him of the ache there.
“Did your wife tell you all that we discussed, Your Grace?”
He swallowed his tea. “I believe so.” He felt a pang of guilt at the words. He hadn’t given Louisa the chance to tell him if they had discussed it all or not. He’d run from the house instead, like the coward he was.
“Then you’ll know there was a commotion that night. Your mother had taken to entertaining her lovers while your father was not in residence and he had returned early that evening. He was not expected. Your mother, she enjoyed the more passionate fellow for her bedmate, and when your father unexpectedly appeared, the man became enraged. He was a foolish young man who wanted your mother for himself.” She gave a brittle laugh. “What a stupid man. He ruined so many lives that night with his brash selfishness.” The woman studied her tea as if seeing another time, and something shifted inside him.
It was as if he’d finally broken free of a vise that he’d thought permanently squeezed around his chest.
When she looked up, the housekeeper’s eyes were soft with memory. “Your father loved you very much, Sebastian.” Her voice was thick with emotion, and he started at her use of his given name. It was as if she’d spoken it before, but there was more. It was if she’d spoken it before with…love.
He shifted on the sofa, unsure what to say. He had suspected his father loved him. There had been nothing to contradict that fact, but there was so much about Sebastian’s childhood that had meant abandonment and rejection that it was hard to accept anything else, especially love. So he was not sure if he’d ever really admitted it to himself.
“Your father would be so happy to see you’ve wed, especially to a woman such as the duchess. She’s a beautiful person, Sebastian, inside and out.”
Again, the use of his given name uncurled something inside him, the tone of her voice, the softness of her gaze, it all came together at once.
“You loved my father.” He spoke the words before he knew he was going to.
She wasn’t startled by his outburst. In fact, she appeared puzzled, her brow furrowing.
“I thought your wife had told you.”
Shame fell upon him, and he looked down at his tea.
“I’m afraid I am not very good when it comes to…” He couldn’t say the word, choosing instead to let his sentence drift off.
“Love?” She spoke it with such clarity, he envied her.
He didn’t answer. He merely studied his tea, thinking of the mess he had made with Louisa.
He looked up when Mrs. Shaw set down her tea and stood. When she took the seat next to him, he stiffened. She pulled the tea from between his hands and took his hands into hers. The gesture was so foreign, her concerned gaze completely alien. Nervousness crept through him, and he stilled.
“Sebastian, your father and I were lovers for many years. Louisa didn’t tell you?”
He drew a deep breath. “I didn’t let her.”
Mrs. Shaw straightened and patted his hand. “I was concerned about as much. I knew when your father died you would be lost. I just hadn’t realized how lost.” She shook her head. “I should have told you. I just—” Her voice broke for the first time, and it suddenly occurred to him how much she had loved his father.
They had both lost someone that night. Lost someone they loved to another’s selfishness.
He squeezed her hands, and she looked up.
“I think Louisa is trying to find me now.” The words were almost too difficult to say.
Louisa wasn’t trying to fix it. Louisa was trying to heal him.
Mrs. Shaw’s smile was gentle. “I think she is.”
He gathered himself to ask, “My mother lied about that. She didn’t want me to bring justice against her lover, I imagine.”
Mrs. Shaw’s lips thinned. “Your mother is in possession an unspeakable selfishness, Sebastian. Your poor father tried to protect you from it.”
He studied the older woman’s face. “You and he…were happy?” He didn’t know how else to ask the question, but somehow he needed to know. But he wasn’t asking if his father was happy. He was asking if his father was happy in love.
Her smile was something unlike anything he had seen. It was pure nostalgia for a time when things in her life were better, when they were very near perfect.
“We were so very happy,” she finally said.
/> He let the silence linger between them for a time before he brought himself to spoil her momentary bliss.
“Mrs. Shaw, you know who my mother’s lover was.” It wasn’t the question he wished to ask, but he knew she would understand his meaning.
Who was the man who had killed his father?
Lines stood out along the corners of her eyes as she said, “He’s dead, Sebastian. He died years ago when he was thrown from his horse and broke his neck. I am not decent enough to lie and say I mourned his death.”
So much in his world had changed in a single night and yet nothing had changed at all. It had all already happened. It was only his understanding of it that was different.
Better.
It was better because of Louisa.
He nodded. “Then I don’t need to know his name. It doesn’t matter anyway.” He stood abruptly, a sudden sense of urgency compelling him to right the things he could. God willing.
Mrs. Shaw stood with him. “What are you going to do?”
“It seems I must have a conversation with my mother.” He was to the door before he turned back. “Mrs. Shaw, I wonder if on your day off if you should like to come to the house for tea. I’d very much like to share stories of my father with someone who knew him.”
Mrs. Shaw’s smile was slow and complete. “I should like that. If you can make me one promise.” She stepped closer to him, laying a single hand on his arm, her eyes imploring. “Don’t use the things that happened to you as an excuse for avoiding the things of which you are afraid.”
He studied her imploring expression, and something unraveled inside him.
He covered her hand with his own. “I promise,” he said and left, this time knowing exactly where he was headed.
* * *
She wondered how quickly one could get thoroughly soused from champagne.
She hoped it was very quickly indeed.
She had arrived with Viv, Johanna, and Andrew after Eliza had arranged it. There was no sense in Louisa enduring the scrutiny of arriving alone to the Kittridge ball, Eliza had reasoned, and as Sebastian had completely disappeared, Louisa was not one to argue.
Where was he?
The thought tumbled end over end through her mind. Dax said he’d gone off that morning after rousing himself from his stupor. Not a word was said on where he was going, and no one had seen him since.
Had he gone to see Mrs. Shaw? She couldn’t remember much of their conversation the previous day, only the way it tore through her in regular intervals as she recalled his hateful accusations.
She was done fixing things. The truth of her mother’s death sloshed through her like a rowboat on a stormy sea. One moment she couldn’t believe it to be true and the next she couldn’t imagine how she had believed otherwise. Her whole life she had directed herself based on the assumption of this terrible thing she did. But she hadn’t done it. Instead she’d done something quite spectacular.
She’d stayed with her mother as she died.
It was this thought that played over and over again in her mind. She could recall it so clearly, and yet every time she had remembered that day, the noise around her had been scolding and cold. Now as an adult she pictured what everyone else likely had at the time.
A small child curled up next to her dead mother.
Wonder flooded through her. Wonder at how she had been so unknowingly brave at such a young age. Wonder at how she had sensed her mother was dying, how she had known she couldn’t let her be alone. Wonder at how she’d carried on, making her sisters happy at all cost.
It was the same courage that had seen her seeking out the witness to the death of a man she’d never met.
The same courage that had her marrying the Beastly Duke and eviscerating the disagreeable façade he had spent years cultivating.
She didn’t know anymore what to feel. Had she been right in finding out the truth of his father’s death? Or had she overstepped? Sebastian was a private man. She knew that. But as his wife, shouldn’t there be fewer secrets between them?
That was the crux of the matter. She wanted to be a part of his life, and he didn’t want to let her in. She’d been wrong all along. Finding out the truth of his father’s death wouldn’t let him love her because he didn’t want anyone to be that close to him.
She sighed and swallowed more champagne.
“If you’re not careful, that will go directly to your head.”
If she had taken a bigger gulp, she would have drowned. She spun in a circle toward that voice, a voice she hadn’t heard in so very long.
“Margate.”
Her heart dropped, not just to her toes, but clean through her slippers and down into the Thames.
Ryder Maxen, the Duke of Margate, stood before her.
Viv’s husband was here.
She was absolutely going to vomit.
Of all the things to happen that night, she was the least prepared for this.
“Hello, little lady.” His voice was exactly the same. The same enthralling drawl, the same one-sided smile that showcased that exquisite dimple. The jet-black hair that fell so artfully over his forehead, the way confidence dripped from his every pore.
Damn the man.
Viv did not deserve this.
“What are you doing here?” She ignored his attempt at civility and squared off.
His expression changed then. His eyes narrowed and his smile vanished.
“Ever the protector. I’m glad to see you haven’t changed, little lady.”
“It’s Your Grace.” She rolled back her shoulders, feeling her power as a duchess course through her.
“I had heard that somewhere. Congratulations. Waverly is a lucky man.”
“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”
His eyes easily traveled the room over her head as he was a good deal taller, and she hated how he ignored her. So she poked him.
He looked down at her, his hand going to where she’d jabbed him in the chest.
“What are you doing here?” She enunciated each word clearly, should he try to ignore her again.
“I must speak with my wife.”
“Why?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see how that’s of your concern.”
“You made it my concern when you hurt her.”
If she hadn’t been looking directly at him, she wouldn’t have believed what she saw.
Remorse.
It flooded his face, soaking his eyes and dropping his mouth until she almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“Yes, well, I deserve that, I suppose.” He gave her a nod and before she knew what he was about, he picked up her hand and placed something within it. “Good to see you, little lady.”
He vanished into the crowd before she could uncurl her fingers to see the butterscotch candy he’d left there. Viv had married Ryder when Louisa was still in the schoolroom. He’d always called her little lady then and never failed to give her a butterscotch candy when he saw her.
Her heart ached for what might have been. Lud, why were men so difficult?
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she saw a familiar face in the crowd, and her heart thudded to a stop.
Sebastian.
She’d only caught a glimpse of him and couldn’t be quite sure, but she picked up her skirts, depositing her empty champagne glass on a passing footman’s tray. He was headed out of the ballroom in the direction of the card rooms. She passed the wall of spinsters, lined up behind the refreshment table like spectators, and slipped into the relative quiet of the corridor between the ballroom and the card rooms.
That was when he grabbed her arm.
She turned around, an oath on her lips to tell him just exactly how worried she’d been about him when she saw who it was.
“Devlin.” She said his name in the same tone she would use to say horse manure.
His smile was cocky. “Heard you married that Waverly beast. Must be lonely. I’d be h
appy to give you a toss if—”
She was done.
She was done with everything and everyone, and in that moment, she would not stand for Jonathan Devlin to utter another word.
She reached up with her free hand, yanked her hatpin from her coiffure, and stabbed Jonathan Devlin soundly in the arm with it. He yelped, dropping his grip on her arm as he danced back in pain. She pulled the hatpin free and waved it at him.
“You will never learn to keep your hands to yourself, will you?”
She didn’t wait for a response. She had a husband to find.
She walked away from Devlin, her focus on the adjoining card rooms. She peered into each with no luck and reached the end before she realized it. If she kept going, she’d find herself in the corridor with the retiring rooms, which was not at all helpful. She turned back and retraced her steps just as Sebastian emerged from the whist room.
She stopped dead.
“Your Grace.” He gave her a neat bow and approached. “I trust you are well this evening.”
She hadn’t known what to expect when she saw him again. Perhaps an apology? Perhaps she should apologize. Whichever it was, it wasn’t this jovial tone she had never heard him use in the entirety of their relationship.
And certainly not with that hair.
“Your hair,” she whispered, receiving a swift frown.
“I’m receiving a good deal of comments on my hair,” he said dryly. “I’m beginning to think there is no pleasing anyone with it.”
She placed a quick hand on his arm. “Oh no, it’s not that. I quite like it. I was just surprised is all.”
Surprised to find he wore no pomade in it whatsoever. His thick, deliciously brown hair hung about his face, making her fingers itch to run her hands through it. He looked so much younger, so much happier, almost as if he were a boy again.
No, he was probably sour and stern when he was a boy, too.
He looked better then, better than he had in all his life.
But…why?
“What are you doing here?” Once again, she found herself asking a completely absurd question of a man in her life.
The Duke and the Lady Page 21