Lord Sebastian's Secret

by Jane Ashford

  “Do you not agree with me, Lady Georgina?” said the baroness.

  Georgina turned to find the two older women looking expectantly at her. Should she admit she had no idea what they were asking? It was rude. “I’m not certain,” she ventured.

  “You’ve never had to manage a house full of servants,” continued the baroness. “Wait until you do. You’ll find that a season in London quite ruins good country workers.”

  “I haven’t found that to be true,” said Lady Robert. She spoke as if she’d been accused of some insensitivity.

  “Well, perhaps with a much smaller staff…” began the other.

  Lady Robert bridled, and it seemed as if a quarrel was in the offing when the gentlemen finally, finally came in. Georgina’s pulse accelerated as Sebastian entered first. She scarcely noticed the baron, Wyatt, and her father behind him, talking, or Sir Robert and Charles straggling at the end of the group, clearly the worse for drink.

  Emma, seated at the pianoforte in anticipation of this addition to their company, began playing at once.

  Charles Kenton hurried over and took the seat beside Georgina, the one she’d been saving for Sebastian. He really was too irritating. It was true they had sometimes played together as children, but they’d hardly seen each other since. And as she recalled, he hadn’t been particularly interested in her, or kind, in those long-ago days. Last season, in town, they’d danced together a few times, but she’d understood he was devoted to another young lady entirely. He leaned too close, and she was treated to a strong whiff of port. “How is Miss Winstanley?” she asked, sitting back in her chair.

  Charles snorted indelicately. “Engaged to Torrington,” he said. “She went for the title, as you ninnyhammers all do.”

  This was not only insulting, it was untrue, if it was aimed at her. She had not “gone for” a title. She very well could have. A belted earl had offered for her. But if she’d cared for that, she wouldn’t have Sebastian now, which had become unthinkable.

  Charles leaned closer and actually put a hand on her arm. “Not too late to change your mind, you know.” His wine-laden breath was hot on her cheek. His fingers moved on her skin. “I may not be a dashed duke’s son, but I could show you…”

  Suppressing a stinging retort, Georgina slipped free and stood. “Excuse me,” she said. Furious, she walked over to the pianoforte and pretended to listen to her sister’s performance.

  Sebastian was at her side at once, a bulwark. “What’s wrong?” he asked. Before she could answer, he said, “Kenton. Shall I haul him out by the scruff of his neck and thrash him?”

  The picture made Georgina choke on a giggle. And with that, her mind cleared. Charles Kenton was nothing, an idiot who’d had too much wine and would be very sorry for his behavior in the morning. The man next to her was everything Charles was not. And he was hers. She longed with all her heart to touch him.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Sebastian guided her by subtle degrees over to a window embrasure. He pointed as if showing her something outside and drew her into the shelter of the draperies. “That’s some constellation or other,” he said. “Has a story attached. Greek, I think. I forget the details.”

  Georgina laughed wholeheartedly this time. Then she turned and leaned against him. Sebastian slipped his arms around her and drew her tight. Heat raced through Georgina, head to toe, at the feel of his hands. She rested her cheek on his chest, listening to his heart pound. Her skin tingled; her breath quickened. This was the sort of feeling that made people throw scruples to the winds and do reckless things, she thought.

  She checked over her shoulder. The curtains hid them, barely, from the rest of the party. She raised her head, laced her arms around his neck, and pulled him down to her. She wanted his kiss more than she’d ever wanted anything. Enflaming memories of the texture and tantalizing skill of his lips filled her.

  “There you are.” Charles Kenton swept the curtain back. He stood between them and the room, but it was obvious that the next moment would expose them. His glare was bloodshot and spiteful. “You must come play for us, Georgie.” He stepped back as they moved apart. “We want Georgie to play, don’t we?” he asked without looking at the others. His repetition of the rejected nickname was grating.

  Georgina would cheerfully have hit him. Judging from Sebastian’s expression, he was about to. “Emma is much more skilled than I am,” she said. She moved out to stand between the two men.

  “No, no, you must play.” It seemed as if Kenton would grasp her arm, but an abrupt movement by Sebastian stopped him. He did not give up, however. “That ballad we loved so,” he insisted.

  “I don’t know which you mean,” replied Georgina coldly.

  “‘Forget Not Yet,’” said Charles through his teeth, naming a tune that had been wildly popular last season.

  Everyone was looking at them with varying degrees of curiosity, disapproval, amusement. Eliza Kenton’s mouth hung open. Suddenly, the whole scene seemed ridiculous to Georgina. A feeble, meaningless melodrama. She had to stifle a laugh. “I fear I have forgotten it.”

  “You have not…” Charles began.

  “I know it,” said Emma.

  She started to play with great spirit, and Georgina decided she would never be annoyed with her sister again. She smiled up at Sebastian. The thunderous expression faded from his face. His blue eyes warmed. Their gaze held, saying all that needed to be said. And the recognition of their bond on Charles Kenton’s face was all the revenge required.

  Six

  The games and books Sebastian had requested arrived, but they didn’t have the desired effect. Emma and Hilda enjoyed the diversions, but they wanted the whole household to participate in their new pastimes. After an evening when they cajoled even Mr. Mitra into joining a raucous session of lottery tickets, Sebastian found himself much more in charity with them.

  Flashes of resemblance to Georgina, in their looks and mannerisms, further endeared the two girls to him. Indeed, he thought he would like them very well if only they weren’t around all the time. Their bright, inquisitive young faces continually came between him and his betrothed, and it seemed there was nothing to be done about it except wait for the wedding. If only he knew how to manage that without losing his wits.

  And Nathaniel had sent nothing to keep off the dogs. His eldest brother had, in fact, been mildly sarcastic in his return letter, certain that his large, military brother could handle a few pugs. “He’s thinking of one small, pampered creature lying in the lap of a dowager,” Sebastian said to Sykes when he read this aloud. “He’s never seen a moving carpet of the beasts. They egg each other on.” His valet nodded; he’d had a few encounters with the resident canine mob by this time. Their affinity for leaping upon freshly ironed neckcloths irritated him intensely.

  What was worse, the ringleader Drustan had developed a positive obsession with Sebastian. And as he was the dog most often let loose in the house, he was unavoidable. Sebastian wondered if this new persecution was due to Mr. Mitra’s absence. The Stanes’ Indian guest had followed Sebastian’s advice and established a retreat at the top of the old stone tower, out of Drustan’s reach. So if Georgina’s mother had set the dog to persecute him, she was missing the mark.

  On a sunny afternoon in August, as the pug followed him about the garden, Sebastian seriously considered dousing himself with vinegar after all. It might be worth offending the noses of his human companions if he could permanently repel Drustan. It wasn’t as if he was getting close enough to Georgina for her to notice, he thought sullenly.

  The dog’s latest trick was to weave in and out under his feet, tripping him up and then yowling as if he’d been kicked each time Sebastian stumbled. His piteous cries had drawn Georgina’s mother once already, and she hadn’t seemed to find Sebastian’s explanation persuasive.

  Sebastian sat on a bench under the spreading branches of a great oak
. Drustan rushed over to throw his front paws around Sebastian’s boot and offer the leather his customary unwelcome attentions. “You are a thoroughly repellent dog,” Sebastian said.

  “He’s spoiled,” a feminine voice replied.

  Sebastian looked up to find Emma standing on the pathway. Blushing, the girl kept her eyes well above ground level. “I brought you this,” she said. “He hates it.” She held out a tattered lump of fabric. “Mama told me you’d kicked Drustan, but I knew you never would have done so. And that he must be playing his tricks.”

  Sebastian gazed at the offered object. It was some sort of cloth animal, he decided. There were four stubby legs and an indeterminate head. It had clearly been chewed and battered over a long period of time.

  Emma extended it further. “Show it to him,” she urged.

  Sebastian took the thing. It was a little bigger than his hand and meant to represent a rodent, he guessed. A rat? Feeling foolish, he pushed it toward Drustan’s flat face. The intrusion broke the dog’s obsessive concentration. Brown bulging eyes took in the gnawed snout, the hint of broken whiskers. Drustan gave a sharp yip. Then, whining, the dog backed off. Hardly daring to hope, Sebastian waved the stuffed animal at him. Drustan moved farther away, his pug face seeming anxious.

  “Yah!” cried Sebastian, thrusting his newfound weapon forward. Drustan turned tail, literally, and fled. Sebastian gazed at the drooping toy in triumph. He’d feel like a fool carrying it about, but the cause was well worth the humiliation. He checked. Yes, it would just fit in his coat pocket.

  “Drustan is a living example of the word pugnacious,” Emma commented.

  Sebastian turned to stare at her. “Pug…nacious,” he repeated. “That’s where it comes from.” A link between a word and the world often came as a revelation to him. He noticed Drustan, crouched on his belly, peering out from a clump of long grass as if he hoped Sebastian had forgotten what he held. Sebastian shook the cloth rat at him. Whining again, Drustan actually took himself off. “Thank you for this,” Sebastian said to Emma.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner. Mama keeps it shut away in a cupboard. It’s been ages since any of us saw it.”

  “Why does he hate it so?” Sebastian turned the thing in his hands. It was ugly, but hardly frightening.

  “No one knows,” Emma told him. “He used to play with it all the time. Indeed, he would hardly let any of the other dogs touch it. And then one day he developed a horror of it. He’s been that way ever since.”

  “Maybe he met a real rat and tried batting it about,” Sebastian said. “A big one.”

  Emma looked surprised. “That could very well be it. How clever you are!”

  It didn’t seem clever to Sebastian. Merely common sense.

  “Clever about what?” asked Hilda, slithering out of the bushes behind them.

  Sebastian suppressed a start. Georgina’s youngest sister was as stealthy as an army scout infiltrating enemy lines. She clearly had a network of unseen ways here in the garden. He hadn’t been able to trace them, perhaps because of his larger size. But you could never be sure when she would suddenly appear.

  Emma repeated the story of Drustan.

  “It seems obvious when you say it,” Hilda replied. “There’s a family of water rats living down by the stream.”

  “There is?” replied her sister.

  Hilda grinned at her. “Big ones!”

  Emma looked around apprehensively.

  “They don’t come up the bank. Very often.”

  “How do you know?” asked Emma.

  “I watch them sometimes.” Hilda turned to Sebastian. “We should all go out riding,” she said in a breezy non sequitur. “You haven’t seen the waterfall west of here. It’s very beautiful.”

  “It’s more of a trickle at this season,” answered Emma before Sebastian could respond. “I’m sure Sebastian has seen many finer sights.”

  “I doubt it,” said Hilda. “And he likes to get out and roam.”

  She made him sound like a wild animal, Sebastian thought.

  “It’s going to be too warm today for a ride,” objected Emma.

  “Nonsense. And Georgina loves the waterfall.”

  The girls exchanged a combative look. Clearly, Hilda was hatching some conspiracy, and Emma didn’t approve. But Sebastian didn’t care. If Georgina was to be one of the riding party, he was all for it. Although her sisters were effective chaperones, it was still a chance to spend time with her, a thing that was confoundedly hard in this busy household. “Sounds like a fine idea to me.”

  “What if I refuse?” Emma said to her sister.

  Sebastian didn’t understand the defiance in her tone, and Hilda ignored it. “I’ll go and tell Georgina,” she said. She turned, then stopped short. “You should come with me,” she said to Emma.

  “Perhaps I want to stay here and talk to Sebastian.”

  “Perhaps Mama would like to know who misplaced her silver hairbrush,” said Hilda.

  Emma glared at her. For a moment they were like two cats contesting the same territory. Sebastian silently bet on Hilda to prevail, and he was proved right. After a bit, Emma slumped and walked away with her younger sister at her heels.

  The marchioness proclaimed it too late in the day to begin an expedition, particularly since Georgina had promised to help her with some household chores. But the following morning Sebastian rode out with the three Stane sisters, his saddlebags laden with a rug and a picnic. Despite the sultriness of the summer day, everyone was in high spirits. Emma and Hilda seemed to have made up their quarrel, whatever it had been.

  Hilda led them west, toward the Welsh hills, chattering about the features they passed, with a sprinkling of her father’s historical knowledge. The other two Stane daughters chimed in now and then. Sebastian listened with one ear as he surveyed the country. It was a folded landscape. Narrow valleys filled with trees, often with the sound of water below, were punctuated by sharp ridges. It would be easy to hide a troop of men in those ravines, Sebastian thought, and dashed difficult to root them out. It was no wonder the Welsh Marches had been a contested border for so many centuries.

  At last, they stopped near the top of a gentler rise. A faint trail up the side showed that others had come this way. “You should show Sebastian the view,” Hilda said to Georgina. “You can see better from down there.” She pointed at the crest before them.

  Sebastian dismounted at once, eager for any chance of privacy. He stepped over to Georgina’s horse, raising his hands to lift her down. When she met his gaze, heat washed over him, fiercer by far than the summer air.

  “I’ll hold the horses,” Hilda said. “I’ve seen the waterfall a hundred times.”

  “I can show you—” began Emma.

  “I need you to help me,” Hilda commanded.

  This was patently untrue, but to Sebastian’s delight, no one said so. As Georgina slid from the saddle into his arms, he felt wholly in charity with young Hilda. Perhaps she’d finally understood the signals he constantly projected. Georgina smiled up at him, and he nearly kissed her then and there. Reluctantly, he let her go.

  Looping the long skirts of her riding habit over one arm, Georgina led him over the top of the hill and down a little way, onto a stone lip projecting over a deep gully. Some yards away, at its head, a twisting fall of water cascaded over the edge into the green depths. “It’s much larger in the spring,” said Georgina. “But it’s still pretty, I think.”

  “Beautiful,” Sebastian replied, not looking at the water. With the sun glinting on her golden hair and the perfection of her form in the snug habit, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

  Georgina turned to him. When she raised her face to his, he saw all he desired in her eyes. He pulled her into the kiss he’d been longing for day and night.

  The world receded. Sebastian w
as conscious only of hands and lips and the intoxicating scent of her. The more he knew Georgina, the more he wanted her. Her eager response made his pulse pound with exultation, and he lost himself in a dizzying whirl of desire.

  He didn’t notice the sound of horses’ hooves until it had nearly died away. Absence more than presence alerted him. And then even the echo was gone.

  Sebastian raised his head and listened to the silence. A breeze rustled the leaves; a bird called; the waterfall rushed in the background. All the signals he’d learned as a military man told him this was empty country. Puzzled, he released Georgina and strode back over the top of the ridge. Hilda, Emma, and all of their horses were gone.

  “Where are they?” asked Georgina behind him.

  “Perhaps Whitefoot bolted, and they rode off after him,” said Sebastian doubtfully. “I don’t see why he would though. He prefers my company, but he’s well trained.”

  Georgina gazed at the empty ridges, the vacant path. “Damn Hilda!” She didn’t care that her language made Sebastian stare. She couldn’t believe her sister would have played such a trick. And at the same time she could. Hilda had been getting more and more impatient about the future. She wanted to leave Stane now, not in a few years when she had her London season. And she wanted promises from Georgina, assurances that she would be included in her elder sister’s household. She seemed to think that Georgina could easily convince their parents to agree with this plan, if she would only try. Georgina had thought she was successfully fobbing her sister off, but it seemed she was wrong. Yet what did Hilda hope to accomplish by this piece of mischief?

  “I suppose they’ll come back in a bit,” Sebastian said.

  “I don’t know.” Georgina marched along the crest of the ridge to the path they’d ridden up. Riding boots were decidedly not made for walking, she thought as she peered down it. There was no trace of her sisters. “This is not funny,” she muttered.