He said not a word as he escorted her into the house. She removed her coat, veil, and gloves, handing the items to an alarmed Marie, and then she stood before him, awaiting his edict.
But he said nothing to her and instead turned to the maid. “See that a tray is brought to the library. Her Grace is no doubt famished since she left the house without taking luncheon first.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” With one last panicked look at Eliza, she hurried away.
In truth, Eliza was not hungry—recent events had left her feeling delicately nauseous—but she would eat every bite, if it made him happy. She decided to take it as a good sign that he advocated for her well-being in the same breath he censured her. Surely, if he hated her he would withhold sweets, even if he wouldn’t go so far as to actually starve her.
Sebastian pivoted and strode in the direction of the library. After a brief hesitation, Eliza followed him. He arrived several moments before her, and by the time she arrived, he had located a book—her book—from the shelves and removed it. He stood there, still silent, studying the cover.
The quietness worried her a thousand times more than if he had shouted at her. Sebastian was never silent. He was a veritable magpie, never more so than when he had nothing to say. That he was silent now, when there was so much to say, was a very bad sign, indeed.
“Sebastian,” she said, and then stopped. An apology hovered on the tip of her tongue, but words seemed inadequate for the magnitude of her betrayal.
“Go on,” he said encouragingly. “Tell me how your life is none of my concern, and that I should bloody well keep my nose out of your affairs.”
“I would never say such things to you.”
“No?” He considered that. “But that is what we agreed to, didn’t we? You negotiated the terms of our marriage with admirable skill, as I recall. I was not to pry into your bank account, or your study, or—once our union produced a child—your bed.”
She flushed. When he put it that way, their marriage seemed…not like a true marriage at all, really. But hadn’t that been her intention all along? And now it seemed impossible to her that they should live like that. She could no more keep him out of her life and heart than a picket fence could keep back the ocean. Nor did she want to.
“I agreed to your requirements willingly enough, so I have no right to be angry now. I do understand that. Yet I am, Eliza. I am very, very angry.” His blank expression and measured tone were at odds with his words.
It was awful to see him so dispassionate. “Please let me explain,” she said softly.
His dark brows winged up in surprise. “Do you want to? You needn’t, you know. It’s none of my business how you spend your time.”
She didn’t know whether to cry or slap him. “I am your wife. I am your business.”
He glanced up from the book then, and their gazes collided. She had never seen him look like this—unsure, hesitant, yearning. He looked away again, clearing his throat. “Well. Then you better start at the beginning, I suppose. Tell me how it happened.”
“I began writing stories as soon as my childish fingers could grip a pen. But Lady Anonymous began with a dance. I owe you gratitude for that, Sebastian, though I have never been able to tell you until now. It was the night of your ball when we first met, and you schemed for me to dance with Sir Albert Penderton, the author. I told him how it was my dearest dream to see my own books bound and read. For some reason he found my ambition enchanting, and so he encouraged me in this. His books are published by John Murray, and Sir Penderton arranged our introduction.”
Sebastian blinked. “I did wonder why you were so eager to dance with a man entering his seventh decade. But you said that your brother did not know about your account at the bank. How were you able to sign a contract and accept funds without his knowledge?”
“My brother’s man of business was fond of me. He had been my father’s man before that, and he had often been the one to arrange for my care after my mother and then stepmother died, as my father was grieving too deeply to pay attention. He pretended to be my brother, signed the contract, and instructed the bank to open the account in my name. He passed away last year.” She raised her chin. “I’m not the least bit ashamed of my actions. I lied and deceived the publisher and the bank, yes, but what of it? I shouldn’t have to stoop to such measures to lead my own life simply because I am a woman.”
“You will get no argument from me, Sigrid.”
Her heart warmed at his words and the familiar name. There was even a glint of humor in his eyes. Hope rose slowly in her breast.
“But your brother did not agree, I gather,” he said.
She nodded. “He sees nothing wrong with a woman owning property or having her own funds at a reputable bank. It was the nature of my work that he did not approve of. Lady Anonymous was too scandalous. She pokes fun of her betters and allows that women have brains for something other than marriage and child-rearing. He would have been even more ardently against an unmarried woman writing such things. What man wants to be the husband of Lady Anonymous?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’ve heard Lady Anonymous is delightful, as wives go. A bit secretive, to be sure, but amusing, witty, and entirely beddable.”
She nearly fell over, so great was her shock. “But…but you’re angry with me! I would be the most scandalous duchess London has ever seen if it is discovered I am Lady Anonymous. That is not what you wanted in a wife. She must be above reproach, to make up for my own flaws. Those were your words.”
“Eliza.” He looked perplexed. “I said that in jest. Tell me you don’t think I care about a little scandal. Besides which, I don’t have flaws. I am a duke. The same principle applies to you as my duchess.”
She gave him a stern look, and he laughed.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If not for the threat of scandal, why are you so angry?”
“For two reasons. One, that you put yourself in danger by traveling alone in a hired hack—”
“But I couldn’t possibly have traveled in our coach,” she protested. “And besides, the driver would have refused to take me, or more likely would have told you all about it.”
“Which should have made you realize the danger of what you were doing. The driver cares for your safety.” He looked at her sharply. “You have done this before, I gather? You ought to have told me, Eliza, long before we married. Weren’t we friends? I would have helped you. At the very least, I would have given you the use of my carriage.”
“I can’t explain why I did not.” She lifted her hands plaintively. “I had a plan for my life. I would live independently with Riya at Hyacinth Cottage, which I received on my twenty-second birthday. I could trust no one with my secret until the house was legally mine. I wanted to tell you, Sebastian. Truly I did.”
Her book was still in his hands. He rubbed his thumb over the words Lady Anonymous. “You must have thought me a fool, giving this to you when you were in truth its author.”
“I never thought you were a fool. Never. I was actually a bit frightened when you gave me this. You said it reminded you of me. I thought you understood me too well.”
His brow furrowed. “Too well. I laid myself bare to you time and again. You had only to snap your fingers at me and I acquiesced. I gave you my soul, Eliza, and you kept yours hidden for fear I would know you too well. That is why I am angry.”
She winced. “I never intended to hurt you.”
“But I am hurt just the same. Christ, Eliza, I…” He fell silent again, his face a portrait of confusion as he continued to ponder the book he held.
“Sebastian,” she said hesitantly, when she could bear it no longer. “Is it all right? Will you forgive me?”
“I forgive you.”
His answer was given far too readily. Surely, it could not be this simple. If he forgave her, then why did she still
feel as though everything was very wrong?
“Then you are not angry with me?” she pressed. “All is well between us?”
He was looking at her with a very odd expression, his mouth twisted in a grimace, and yet his eyes were soft and kind. He looked as though he wanted to gather her in his arms in a loving embrace, and possibly throttle her, as well.
“It is not all right, not yet,” he said. “But it will be.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I had a plan for my life.
The words echoed in Sebastian’s mind long after she’d said them. He’d ruminated on those words at great length throughout the afternoon and evening. When she asked him at dinner whether he’d enjoyed the beef, all he heard was I had a plan for my life. After dinner they had retreated to their respective corners of the library, where Eliza had penned a letter to Lady Claire and he had pretended to read Augustin Pyramus de Candolle’s theories on botanical classification, all the while hearing those damning words reverberate against his skull.
She’d had a plan for her life. A plan that had in no way included him. And he had known this. He could hardly claim ignorance when she had told him so time and time again. From the moment they had first met three years ago, when she had declared she kept her dances for another man, until their marriage negotiations and her adamancy that she would bear only one child, she had made her intentions clear: he did not belong in her life.
But of course he hadn’t listened.
No, he had continued on his merry way, ruining her life with no more thought than a little girl gave to picking daisies, not caring that without the soil and sunshine they would be dead within hours. With all the women in the world who strived to be a duchess, he had to go and marry the one who wanted no part of it.
It hurt abominably, like a knife wound in his chest that wouldn’t heal but remained gaping open for all and sundry to poke and prod at the raw flesh.
Which left him with an uncomfortable, perplexing question. What now?
It was an unpleasantly familiar sensation, this not knowing. Several months after the death of his parents, when the shock and wild throes of grief had subsided to a dull ache, he had been faced with the same question.
What could he do now, to ensure nothing hurt him like this ever again?
The answer then had been simple. He had merely refused to care deeply for anything. It had been easy, really. Frivolity, jests, and schemes made excellent armor. Yet there were chinks in his chainmail, as Eliza was so fond of exposing—Eliza herself being the biggest chink of all.
Christ, but he was a bloody fool. He had gone and fallen in love with his wife. His wife, of all things! As though a wife were not already the person best positioned to call forth gales of agony on a man, he had to let himself fall in love with her, which made the agony all the more agonizing.
It was too late for him to mend the error of his ways. It had been too late almost since the moment of their first meeting, though he had been too stupid to see it. He could no more cease loving her than the Earth could cease its worshipful pivot around the sun. She was dearer to him than the dukedom, dearer than all others, dearer even than himself.
Good God, it was gruesome to feel so much in the confined cavity of his chest. There was too much of it—it threatened to burst from him at any moment and spread through his veins and limbs until it consumed his body and soul.
So, no, he could not cease to care.
But he could leave.
For her own good, of course.
Because he had made a wreckage of her life and dreams, and the best thing he could do for her now was to leave her the hell alone. Let her live in her cottage and write her books in peace. Without him.
Unless—his chest seized—good God, what if she was already carrying his child? What if she was truly destined to die in childbirth, as she feared? He could not save her from that. How would he—
But no. He wouldn’t allow himself to think on that now, for that way lay nothing but madness and despair. Nearly a month had passed since their wedding vows; he could say with utmost certainty that her menses had not yet occurred, as she had shared his bed every night. Unless she were with child, it should come within a week, most likely.
“Sebastian.”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. “Yes?”
“It has been a long day. I think I will retire early.” She stood and stretched deeply, causing her breasts to strain against her dress. His mouth went dry. “Are you coming to bed?” she asked.
It was terribly unfair that the place he most wanted to be—that is, in bed with Eliza—was the one place he could never be again. He lowered his gaze from her tempting figure to his far less appealing book. “No. I think I shall read for a little bit longer.”
A shocked silence ensued.
He hid his face behind his book, lest temptation overwhelm him. With any luck, she wouldn’t press. He held his breath, waiting for her to quit the room. But instead, her slippered feet padded softly across the floor as she approached his chair. He burrowed deeper.
“Is your book very interesting?” she asked.
“Fascinating,” he replied.
She dropped to her knees. “Tell me about it.”
He stared blankly at the French words before him. It was certainly about something, one didn’t simply string several thousand words together about nothing, but he was having a devil of a time remembering what, with Eliza’s hands resting lightly on his thighs. A familiar word caught his eye: de la botanique. “Botany,” he said succinctly.
“Oh, yes?” He heard the smile in her voice. “I have grown fond of botany, thanks to your interest. Will you read it to me?”
Well, that was easy enough. “Quelque nombreuses que soient les branches des connaissances humaines, quelque variés que paraissent être les moyens que nous avous pour parvenir à la verité, on doit les reduire a trois grandes classes—”
Her hands slid slowly, inexorably forward along his thighs. “Go on,” she encouraged.
“Ah.” His voice came out as a deep rasp. He cleared his throat. “That is, le raisonnement, le témoignage des autres hommes—”
His voice died altogether as she found where he hardened and thickened beneath the fabric of his breeches. She scraped her nails gently up the length of him, making his cock twitch in response.
“How very interesting. Do continue.”
He ought to stop this, now, while he still could. But if he stopped, then she would stop, and he might very well cry.
“Le raisonnement, le témoignage des autres hommes—”
“You read that bit already.”
“Did I?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Her industrious fingers searched out the buttons of his falls and popped them free one by one. His breath caught, he swallowed hard, and continued to read. “Et l’expérience acquise par nos propres sensations— Christ, Eliza.”
For she had licked his cock, root to crown. His eyes rolled to the ceiling as her tongue swirled delicately around the slit.
She pulled away and clucked disapprovingly. “Focus on the task at hand, Sebastian. You were saying? About sensations?”
Oh, God, yes, sensations. The sensation of her warm breath as she leaned in once more, the wet glide of her tongue—
“Sebastian!” she said sternly.
“D’où résulte la division la plus naturelle des connaissances humaines en sciences rationnelles, testimoniales, et expérimentales,” he blurted.
He was rewarded when her lips parted, taking him in, and she gave him a long suck.
“Chacune de ces trois classes—Oh, God—a une manière d’opérer et de raisonner—fuck—”
With every wet pull of her mouth he took leave of his reason. He tossed the book aside and his hands dove into her hair, unmooring the pins with desperate insistence until t
he silky locks spilled around them in a curtain of moonlight.
She kissed the ruddy tip of his cock and stood. He watched, dazed, as she bunched her skirts to her waist to reveal an appealing lack of drawers.
And then he realized her intent.
No, no.
He moved quickly, before his better nature could be overthrown by his needy cock, and seized her by the waist, bringing them both to the ground.
“Sebastian! What—” she cried.
He was already pushing her thighs apart with his shoulders. “Hush.”
He saw her bite her lip just before his mouth descended into the thatch of crisp, pale curls. His tongue stroked in long, slow licks, teasing and torturing her with pleasure—torturing himself with the taste of what he could never have again.
She cried out, lifting her hips, seeking more. He gave it to her and was rewarded by the tremble of her thighs. He closed his lips around the source of her greatest pleasure, sucking more deeply, licking more firmly, until she called out his name and her hands fisted in his hair, holding him tightly against her.
He kissed each thigh in turn and then slowly lowered her skirts.
She stirred at that, reaching for him with heavy, sated limbs. “You’re not yet satisfied. Come here, darling.”
He went, pulling her into his arms. “Rest now.”
“But—”
“Shh. In a moment,” he said, knowing that moment would never come. She yawned and cuddled closer.
He held her like that until her breaths were deep and even. When he was certain she was asleep, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed.
The next morning he saw a stain of red on the sheets as the maid hurried by with her arms full of linens for washing.
He left that afternoon.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Despite the unpleasant cramping in her stomach, Eliza was in high spirits as she returned home from tea with Alice.
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