Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

by Christi Caldwell

  A smile played about her lips as she grabbed the nearest page of The Nefarious Duke. Nor would most gentlemen ever dare pick up a scandalous Gothic novel per that same young lady’s request and certainly wouldn’t dare admit something as outrageous as having enjoyed said novel.

  Her smile withered. He’d intended to offer for her. She crumpled the page in her hands and then forced herself to lighten her grip. Oh, that great irony of her life. If she’d been but patient, he would have offered for her and even now would be in this house, in her bed… Her body warmed at the memory of his touch, the passion they’d shared that one, now distant night, so fleeting that oftentimes, as she lay abed, she wondered if she’d merely imagined the feel of him in her arms.

  A knock sounded at the door. She swiped a hand over her eyes. “Addie, I told you I needed to…” Her words trailed off as the door opened.

  The butler, Carmichael, stood in the entrance beside an unfamiliar gentleman. Handsome with chestnut hair and serious hazel eyes, he studied her a moment in silence. “Your Grace, the Earl of Waxham,” the butler announced.

  She furrowed her brow at the somehow familiar name. The Earl of Waxham. Waxham…Waxham… Then she remembered her aunt’s throwaway words inside a carriage on the way to Lady Smith’s ball about a Sophie Winters who’d captured Sebastian’s heart.

  Now, the Countess of Waxham, though why any fool girl would choose a mere earl over a duke, I’ll never understand.

  The gentleman arched a single brown, eyebrow and her cheeks warmed. She surged to her feet, hovering behind her husband’s desk. Carmichael backed out of the room, leaving her alone with the earl. He bowed low at the waist. “Your Grace, it is a pleasure.” And by the gentle warmth in his eyes, he was the first person in polite Society who seemed to actually mean those words.

  Hermione smoothed her palms over the front of her skirts. “Er…likewise.” After all, she’d long tired of the angry, disappointed, judgmental company she’d kept of late. She motioned him forward. “Would you care for tea? Refreshments?” An explanation as to why you’re here?

  He waved a hand. “No, no refreshments, necessary.” Curiosity teemed in his gaze as he took in the papers scattered about. She hurried out from behind Sebastian’s desk and placed herself between the earl’s line of vision and her work.

  She cleared her throat and gestured to the leather sofa at the center of the room. “Would you care to sit?”

  He inclined his head and claimed a spot upon the leather sofa her brother had occupied a short while ago.

  Hermione forced her legs to move. She claimed the mahogany scroll armchair opposite him. “I am afraid His Grace is not here, my lord.” Her stomach tightened with a familiar humiliation.

  “I am aware of that,” he murmured. Those five words gave little indication to his thoughts on that particular detail.

  Of course, he was aware. One would have to be buried under the cobbled roads of a London street to not know the scandalous Duchess of Mallen. She braced for the pitying glint in his eyes; pity, which never came and for that, she would be eternally grateful.

  He beat a hand against his thigh. “Mallen and I have been friends since Eton.”

  Her heart sped up. “You’ve known Sebastian since he was a boy?” How could she know so much about Sebastian and yet so little?

  “I have.”

  A thousand and one questions sprung to her lips and she had to firm them into a tight line to keep from asking about her husband. He would have been a serious type of boy who likely hid his grin and practiced a ducal frown in front of a bevel mirror. A smile played on her lips.

  He spoke quietly. “He knew early on his responsibilities as a duke and took them quite seriously. His father, the duke, died unexpectedly some years ago and Mallen stepped into the role with great ease.”

  How very much alike they’d been. He had taken over the care of his sister and mother with the passing of his father, much the way she’d seen to her own brother and sisters. Yet, their experiences had, in other ways, been so vastly different. “I imagine he did,” she said more to herself. Where Hermione had bumbled along, doing the very best she could to help Elizabeth, Addie, and Hugh, he’d likely guided his family effortlessly without the same missteps she herself had made. But then, how very different the world was for a woman.

  “Forgive me, Your Grace.” Lord Waxham leaned forward in his seat. “I’ve been unclear.”

  “Hermione,” she automatically corrected. She detested all reminders of the title she’d stolen. Unclear was a good deal better than untruthful.

  “I’ve known Mallen since he was a mere boy. I’ve witnessed his calm and resilience in the face of great loss.” He gave her a pointed look. “But I’ve never known him to be the brooding, dark fellow he’s become.”

  The muscles of her stomach contracted. Hermione quite hated the brooding dukes. And she quite hated herself for having transformed Sebastian into that sort of gentleman. She lowered her gaze to her yellow skirts. Her throat worked. “I am sure you’ve read the gossip columns, my lord,” she said, her voice hollow. He knew what kind of woman she was, and more, knew she’d trapped his best friend into a loveless marriage.

  “You do not strike me as a fortune-hunter,” he said with a candidness that brought her head up.

  And yet, that is what she was. Shame burned like acid inside her stomach. “What am I to say to that?” She could not so humble herself and admit to Sebastian’s closest friend she’d indeed trapped her husband. It was enough Society already suspected.

  “I want to see him happy.”

  “So do I,” she murmured softly. Unable to meet his perceptive stare, she shifted her gaze to a point beyond his shoulder. Except she’d robbed him of any chance of a deserved happiness.

  “I do not presume to believe you know the circumstances surrounding my marriage to my wife, Sophie, the Countess of Waxham?”

  Sophie Winters, the woman Sebastian had cared for. She gave a curt shake of her head. “I am merely a baronet’s daughter from Surrey who came to London but once.” And who would now forever remain.

  “I’ve learned from my own experiences that there is always more to one’s circumstances.”

  In this case, there was a good deal more. There was Elizabeth. And Hugh. And Addie. She said nothing.

  “Do you love him?”

  She should be outraged by the boldness of that question, but she welcomed honesty in a world ruled by gossip and falsities. “I do,” she said softly. “I made a mistake, my lord.” What a feeble explanation for the wrong she’d done. “A horrible, unpardonable mistake.” Hermione drew in a slow breath thinking of her fractured family and gave her head a sad little shake. “And what is most reprehensible,” she squarely met his gaze, holding her palms up, “is that I cannot, in all honesty and in good conscience, say I’d not make that same choice again.”

  A stretch of silence fell between them. Her words lingered and danced about, a damning confession from her to this stranger. At last, he climbed to his feet and sketched another bow. “Hermione, I wish you every happiness.” Had he heard the words she’d just confessed?

  She stood and followed his swift, determined stride to the front of the room.

  He spun back around. “I trust what drove your actions were honorable. I’ve known Mallen enough to know though stubborn, he is reasonable enough to listen and hear the truth.”

  Hermione searched his face. “How can you possibly know that, my lord?” How, when her own husband did not?

  He inclined his head. “A lady eager for the role of duchess would not remove herself from polite Society. A title-grasping miss would flaunt that title about ton events. Yet, how many balls have you attended, Hermione? Soirees? Dinner parties? Operas?” Her silence served as her answer. “No, a woman so hungry for that coveted title would not shut herself away in her husband’s office.” With a final bow, he took his leave.

  She stood there long after he’d taken his leave. Her heart stirred with the f
irst hint of hope since her husband’s departure from her life. Sebastian deserved honesty when she’d been anything but from their first meeting. Perhaps if he knew what had driven her, if he could not wholly forgive mayhap he might accept and allow them to move forward. Only then could she have the hope of trying to teach him to feel whatever it is he’d once felt for her.

  Hermione strode over to the desk. She sat down in Sebastian’s wide, leather chair and began to write… The most important words she’d ever attempted to put to page.

  Dearest Sebastian…

  C

  hapter 25

  Seated at his private table at the back of White’s, Sebastian fiddled with the edges of the ivory velum note in his hands. He’d read and re-read the same handful of lines. They were all but committed to memory.

  Dearest Sebastian…

  She wanted to see him. Begged to speak with him. Where had these words been thirty days ago? He threw the envelope down and reached for his brandy. But goddamn it, after one month he ached to see her. For all the brandies he’d drunk and the nights spent away from her, he’d not been able to purge the memory of Hermione and her tart tongue, or the memory of her kiss, from his mind.

  “I daresay I’ve never seen a more brooding, menacing figure than you,” someone drawled in a wry voice.

  Sebastian glanced up. The last thing he desired was the company of anyone.

  Alas, his friend, the Earl of Waxham, either ignored or failed to care for his lack of enthusiasm. “Hardly your affable self,” Waxham continued, more bothersome than a true fly.

  “What do you want?”

  His friend shrugged. “Isn’t one permitted to take a drink with his friend?”

  Since Waxham had wed last year, he was never far from his wife. Therefore, Sebastian hardly believed this was a mere social call. Envy twisted, hard and vicious inside. How very close he’d come to knowing that in his own life. “That is hardly an answer to my question.”

  Waxham inclined his head. “Ah, yes, of course, the ducal confidence that any and all questions posed will be immediately answered.”

  Do you also make it your business to read other people’s private notes…?

  Sebastian jerked his chin toward the table and Waxham claimed the open seat. But Hermione in all her spirited pride slipped into his memory, as she invariably did and a longing slammed into him so swift and powerful it was like a physical force.

  Wordlessly, he shoved the half-empty bottle of brandy across the mahogany surface. A servant rushed forward with a glass and set it down before the earl who waved off the young man and proceeded to pour himself a brandy.

  Sebastian stared into his own empty glass. After Hermione had orchestrated her ruin, he’d believed everything about her to be false. Only…a lady hunting the title of duchess would not have spoken with such candidness. Instead, she would have fawned and preened like all other title-grasping misses. Yet, Hermione had not. Why? With an impatient sound, he thrust aside the questions and swiped the bottle of brandy. He splashed several more fingerfuls into his glass and took another long swallow.

  Waxham arched an eyebrow. “Nothing to say?”

  He leaned forward so quick, liquid droplets splashed the table. “What would you have me say?” he hissed. That he’d been a lovelorn fool? That he’d held onto a foolish dream of love for himself, fastidiously avoiding scheming misses, only to be trapped by the one lady who had and always would hold his heart?

  The other man propped his elbows on the edge of the table. “Oh, I don’t know, perhaps an explanation as to why you’ve gone out of your way to avoid your best friend.” He waved a hand up and down his person. “That would be me. Particularly considering the hastiness of your nuptials more than a month ago. Or, why that same friend,” he motioned to Sebastian. “That would be you, should believe I wouldn’t be concerned for your well-being.”

  Sebastian took a long swallow, and then stared into the amber depths. “I don’t require your concern.” He paused and felt the first stirrings of guilt. “And, you needn’t be offended by a lack of invitation to the blessed event. Everything with Miss Rogers,” now his Duchess of Mallen, “was a lie.”

  I love you. I need you to know that… As though he could ever again believe her words.

  “What are you on about?”

  The duke tossed back his drink. He really rather preferred not to bandy about his shame, even to his friend by recounting just how easily he’d been duped by his deceitful wife.

  “Mallen?”

  “A lie,” he said on an explosive whisper. He looked around to gauge whether anyone had observed his uncharacteristic outburst. “A lie,” he repeated more carefully. “The young lady coordinated our meetings.” He remembered the gripping terror as she’d dove away from his horse’s massive hooves and gripped the edge of the table, stricken once again by the depths she’d gone to put herself in his path. Quite literally and figuratively. “She wanted the title of duchess,” he said tiredly. He grabbed the bottle once more.

  His friend remained silent so long, he wondered if he’d failed to hear that last hushed piece. A frown played about the other man’s lips. He shook his head. “Impossible.”

  Sebastian’s lip curled. “Quite possible,” he said and filled his glass to the brim. “The lady admitted as much.” He set the bottle down and sipped his drink.

  Waxham swirled the contents of his glass. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it once more. “I am not defending the lady.”

  “Good. Don’t,” he bit out. He’d had enough of his disloyal family acting as though Hermione was the wounded party. He didn’t care to add Waxham to the vast collection of defenders.

  “However—”

  “I believed you said you didn’t intend to defend the lady?”

  “—I trapped Sophie into marriage,” Waxham said bluntly.

  He blinked. His friend’s words made little sense. Waxham had sought him out more than a year ago in avoiding marriage to Sophie. He’d asked Sebastian to launch a pretend courtship of the young lady in order to thwart his cruel, spiteful father’s wishes to see Waxham wed his childhood nemesis. “Impossible,” he said, using the other man’s earlier charge.

  “Oh, it is quite possible. After all, Father threatened to cut me off without an allowance.” His friend continued on, in somber tones. “When I enlisted your help last year, I shared with you that my father intended to cut off my allowance.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t the sole reason motivating my father. Our pockets were to let.”

  Sebastian sat back flummoxed. He’d not known.

  “I hardly could have shared that shame with you,” his friend carried on. He took another sip of brandy and then set his glass down. “My point is this, Mallen. I trapped Sophie into marriage, knowing she was worth 100,000 pounds and yet, I loved her. Even with that dishonorable decision I felt forced into, I loved her, and my deception nearly cost me her love.”

  “This is different.” Sebastian flexed his jaw. Except, is it? Waxham’s defense of Hermione planted seeds of doubt and they now took root and grew. He detested the tumultuous questions twisting inside his mind.

  Waxham shook head. “No, it’s really not. Desperation will drive people who are not normally desperate to do desperate things.” He held his palms up. “Not everything is always as it seems.” Sebastian reached for the bottle. Waxham’s next words stayed his movement. “I paid a visit to the Duchess of Mallen.”

  Sebastian stared at him blankly, brandy forgotten.

  “I had the pleasure of meeting your wife,” Waxham clarified. “Not the dowager duchess.”

  Of course, because Mother had taken herself off to the country with Emmaline. All the air left him on a swift exhale. His friend may as well have driven back his fist and slammed it into his solar plexus. He gripped the edge of the table while filled with an almost physical pain for information about his wife. Was she happy? “How did she seem?” He asked hoarsely. She’d not say anything to Waxham about any of wh
at transpired between them.

  Waxham shrugged. “Oh, I imagine about as well as a young lady is after being abandoned by her husband on her wedding night and gossiped about by the ton.”

  The dull ache in his chest throbbed all the more. He pressed his eyes closed a moment. He shouldn’t feel guilty. She’d wrought this…and yet this was about so much more than guilt. For everything that had come to pass, he’d sooner slice off his left hand than see her hurt.

  “Go home,” Waxham said quietly. “Go home to your wife.”

  He dug his feet into the soles of his boots, besieged by a desire to do exactly as the other man said—to stand, walk out, and return home, take Hermione in his arms, and make her his wife in every sense of the word.

  “The ton is talking,” his friend needled, worse than Lady Jersey coordinating matches at one of her famed events. “As one whose wife was the victim of salacious gossip, I would hate to imagine any other young lady being the subject of such cruelty.” He paused. “You’ve shamed your wife.”

  Sebastian clenched his teeth so tight, pain shot up his jawline, up through his temple. For the first time, he glanced around at the filled club and the tables of gentlemen with their curious stares trained on him. Tension coursed through his body under the truth of his friend’s words. The idea of these men and their respective wives, mothers, and sisters disparaging Hermione ravaged him.

  His friend’s quiet murmur pulled him back from his musings. “You do care,” Waxham said matter-of-factly. “And for whatever transpired at Lady Brookfield’s, Hermione is still your wife and deserving of, if not your affection, at least your respect.”

  Sebastian grabbed his glass. Waxham’s words eerily echoed his own thoughts since he’d walked out of his townhouse and out of her life. He finished the remaining contents of his brandy and set the glass down hard. With a steadying breath he reached for Hermione’s note and stuffed it into the front of his jacket. “Send my regards to the countess.” He shoved back his chair.