He himself was struck by how a woman who’d had a child herself didn’t know the stage of development during which child could be sexed. It was if all the biological nuances of the child’s well-being had been completely forgotten in Amelia’s haste to procure a good reputation for it.
“Mother…” He exhaled slowly, suddenly exhausted. “Gabrielle doesn’t want to know the sex.”
For a moment, the Duchess stared at him as if she hadn’t heard him properly. “She what?”
“She doesn’t want to know the sex,” Sebastian repeated flatly. “She wants it to be a surprise.”
“How perfectly ridiculous!” Amelia threw her hands up, her voice shrill enough to startle Yates from his ruined leather treat. “A surprise! How does one plan for a surprise? Does a surprise take riding lessons or polo? Does it wear dresses or caveats? A surprise cannot cause anything but, trouble, Sebastian – you mark my words.” Amelia stood, smoothing her dress as she took a deep breath, her face slowly losing some of its color.
When she next spoke, her voice was calmer. “Now, you’re going to march upstairs right this instant and you’re going to tell your wife,” the word was strained, “that you’re going right back to the doctors this instant and you are going to demand to know the sex of the baby. Is that quite understood?”
Sebastian could picture it now. Trudging upstairs to find the vision of beauty in their bed only to have to inform her of another of his mother’s ridiculous mandates. She would be shocked. She would be furious – and he would almost certainly never see silk negligee again. That, however, was the least of his concerns. Up until this point, Gabby had been dealing admirably with his mother’s controlling behavior – as admirably as she could under the circumstances. If he told her she’d have to ruin one of the things that most excited her, she would be devastated.
He couldn’t do it.
He wouldn’t do it.
“No, mother.”
Amelia Hunter’s eyes threatened to pop from her head. “Pardon me?”
“I said ‘No’,” Sebastian snapped, his patience gone. He rose to his feet to tower above the woman before him, his eyes blazing. “If Gabrielle wishes the child’s sex to be a surprise, than a surprise it will remain. I give not the slightest whit,” he shoved the leaflets she’d bought him from his desk and onto the floor, “about Swiss secondary schools or secondary schools of any manner. The babe isn’t yet born! These things are of little to no consequence!”
“Sebastian!” Despite the fact that she was a good foot and a half shorter than him, his mother’s rage filled the room. “You have no idea how hard I had to work to make you the man you are today! The planning and the dedication! Do you want your child to be common? Nameless?”
“I want my child to be happy!” Sebastian roared, his fist pounding onto the polished mahogany surface between them so even his mother jumped. He felt the rage and desperation of years of neglect bubbling to the surface and found that he could no longer keep it at bay. “There will be no riding lessons, no etiquette, no ten thousand dollar hospital suite and no more ridiculous demands! This child is not yours, mother, it’s ours! Mine and Gabrielle’s! And if you think, for one minute, that I will allow you to rob it of its childhood like you robbed me of mine, then you are severely mistaken.”
For a moment, silence reigned in the study.
Yates had stopped chewing on Sebastian’s shoes and was, in fact, now eying them as if he feared they’d explode in much the same way as their master.
Amelia was eying her son with wide eyes, in a state of shock that soon turned to quiet rage. “Sebastian, if you do not take that woman back to the hospital this instant, then your father and I are leaving. I will do nothing more to help you.”
Sebastian's laughter came low and scathing. “When have you ever done anything to help me, mother?”
He was through.
Amelia might be powerful, but he wasn’t a media darling for nothing. He was far more popular than his mother had ever been, and by default, that made Gabby popular as well. The Duchess might be miffed enough to try something, but by her own plotting, she’d undermined herself. After all these weeks of calling all the best schools in London and contacting elite tutors and horse stables, trying to delegitimize her own grandchild would result in her own disgrace – and she would never chance such a thing.
Sebastian realized, quite suddenly, that he had the upper hand.
And he had every intention of exploiting it.
“Get out.”
A low gasp escaped Amelia. “You can’t be serious.”
“As the bloody grave. Get out. You may return when the baby is born and not a moment before. If you attempt to enter this house or to harass Gabrielle in any way, I will have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Sebastian!” The Duchess’ expression had quickly changed from one of rage to desperation. Though Sebastian knew he should feel at least some guilt for robbing her of something she’d worked so hard for, he could only remember how he’d felt upon arriving for his first semester at Eton – London’s premier boarding school for boys. He’d been frightened and alone, teased by the other boys for his diminutive size and rendered almost hysterical when his mother refused to take his calls – insisting that the experience would be formative for him.
He’d been only six years old.
“You cannot do this! If the child is born without the proper structure in place-”
“I assure you that I can, and I am.” Reaching for the intercom, Sebastian buzzed Amir. “Amir? Please come to my study to escort my mother upstairs. You’re to help her and my father gather their things and make sure that they make their way peacefully back to Raithewithe.”
“Right away, sir.” He could have sworn he heard an approving edge in the man’s voice.
“Sebastian, please.” The Duchess’ eye were now wide with panic. “I’ve made commitments – arrangements that cannot be undone-”
“We’ll talk when my child is born, mother, and not before.”
At that moment, Amir entered along with his team and Amelia paled. Sebastian looked her over – the woman who had ruled him long before he’d known what control was – and waved her away.
Amir was ever respectful, of course, inclining his head to her even as he touched the billy club on his belt. “My lady. If you would follow me, please.”
Amelia cast her son one last incredulous look before a sound of disgust escaped her. She fell into step between Amir and one of his men, snatching up Yates as she left his office.
The moment the door closed behind her, Sebastian sagged into his chair. Relief suffusing him.
She was gone. The Duchess was gone.
He couldn’t remember ever feeling so liberated. He was facing an entire four months before he would have to face her again, and when the time came, he would be ready. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled, his chest amazingly light.
It was a few moments before he remembered that Gabrielle was still waiting for him in their room. He leapt to his feet, tearing from his study and racing up the stairs. A few doors down from their rooms, he could hear his mother screeching as Amir and his men attempted to “help” her pack.
He jerked open the door to his suite, only to have Gabrielle meet him in the doorway, her eyes wide. She was still clad in the confection of lace she’d tantalized him with, and Sebastian swallowed thickly at the sight of her barely decent form.
“Jesus Christ, what’s going on out there?” Gabrielle attempted to peer around him, wincing at the din from down the hall. “If sounds like Mount Vesuvius is blowing its fucking top.”
Sebastian met her inquiry with a wide grin. “The duchess,” He announced, “Is leaving.”
Gabrielle’s eyes widened in shock. “Leaving? Shit, did we do something? Did she find out? Hell, let me get dressed-”She made to turn from him and reach for her robe, only to have Sebastian draw her into his arms and kiss her soundly.
Somehow, it seemed as if her pregnancy had
only heightened the taste of her. She was absolutely decadent – tasting of chocolate and desire. For a moment, the young woman lost herself in the kiss, and when Sebastian pulled back, she was visibly dazed.
“What was that for?” The breathless tone of her voice had him twitching in his slacks.
“The duchess,” He repeated firmly, “Is leaving. And she’ll not be back any time soon.”
“But Sebastian…what about the baby?”
“She can’t do anything now. She’s caught in her own web. Now,” He pressed Gabrielle backwards into the room, closing the door behind them to muffle the sounds of his mother’s outrage. “I should very much like to re-enact that picture you sent me.”
Gabrielle’s eyes darkened in lust. “In the middle of the day?”
Growling, Sebastian swept her into his arms. “Any time we wish. All the time. If I’ve only four months left with you, I’m not wasting a second more of it.”
CHAPTER 8 – The Social Ladder
She would not stand for it.
She would not.
After all she had done for him, her only son was attempting to cut her out of the social opportunity of the decade.
Though Amelia Hunter had once been the talk of both London and Raithewithe’s social scenes, those days were long gone. These days, it took her months to get an audience with the queen and her parties were attended only by the most minor titled gentry who happened to be passing through.
The fact of the matter was that she needed this baby to recapture her former glory. Putting her grandchild at the shoulder of the crown prince would put her name on everyone’s lips and recapture the luster of years long past.
But Sebastian, she could now see, had been utterly bewitched by the piece of American trash he had married. She didn’t know what hold the woman had on her son, but Gabrielle had somehow convinced him to defy her.
The duchess was not pleased – not at all.
It took her over an hour after they returned to their estate in Raithwithe to rid herself of the bothersome Arab her son associated with. He seemed hell bent on making sure she made no attempt to contact Sebastian – or anyone else – on the journey home. No sooner had the man and his beastly crew of minions left than the duchess flew to the phone, desperate.
She was trapped. After all the arrangements she had made, if anyone she knew found out that Sebastian and his tramp weren’t making their appointments – that the baby’s place wasn’t being held at the institutions she’d worked so hard to contact...she’d be ruined.
It was obviously too late to undermine the child itself. The media was already heralding its birth as an event second only to the birth of the crown prince two years earlier. Questioning its parentage would drag the Hunter name through the dirt.
Therefore, there was only one thing she could do: get rid of the mother. It was Gabrielle who had caused all of this trouble. Sebastian had changed ever since he’d returned from America with her by his side. He’d grown wilder and harder to control – spending more time away from his family and with his wife. If Amelia removed her from the equation, it stood to reason that Sebastian would return to normal – and the child would once again fall within her realm of influence.
In the next hour, she made a series of phone calls to all the best private investigators money could buy. While she herself hadn’t been able to find anything scandalous surrounding Ms. Arnold, she had no doubt that a well-paid snoop would succeed where she had failed. She would bring the woman down if it was the last thing she did.
Amelia Hunter had not gotten to the place where she currently stood by being timid. She always controlled all of her pawns, and she hadn’t given up the game yet.
Over the course of the next week, random bits of information began, slowly to reach her. It took the investigators longer than usual as the woman they were tracing was from a different continent, but they delivered all the same.
While her son and his little harlot were eagerly anticipating the arrival of her precious package, Amelia was piecing together her attack.
When the story finally began to fall into place, the Duchess was fairly flabbergasted by the intricacy of the lie that had been constructed. At first, she’d thought that Gabrielle had constructed a fake past in order to fool her son and that even Sebastian had no idea how thoroughly he’d been hoodwinked, but the truth was something far more disturbing.
He knew.
Her son knew that the woman was a piddling nobody raised in the ghetto of a cesspool American without a penny to her name. Dead mother – absent father – and worst of all, she was a painter.
A painter, for God’s sake. In this day and age, only homosexuals or complete idiots tried to make a living in art. Apparently, Sebastian had met the girl during an exhibition and they had fallen drunkenly into bed together. Then, when the dalliance had resulted in an unforeseen pregnancy, he’d tried to pass her off as someone of merit and introduce the child to the British social scene as his heir.
She had to admit, the plan was well crafted – and it would have worked if he’d been trying to fool anyone but her.
Using the key she’d procured years earlier, Amelia took a visit to her son’s Raithewithe estate. In his wine cellar, she found twenty pieces of canvases slopped with what looked like a child’s fever tantrum. These were supposed to be paintings? They were, at the very most, suitable to wipe one’s feet on after a horrid storm.
They absolutely could not stay.
Calling in several movers, she had the paintings moved to the dumpsters behind the house and felt immensely better for it. Then, seated primly in her son’s parlor, she began to look through the pictures the investigator had provided to her. They had been snapped quite discreetly, and showed her son and his “bride” dallying about the high street with another man.
He was quite striking, she considered, though quite obviously an unholy abomination - and when she found a picture of him holding hands with Gabrielle, a wicked smile spread across her features.
She had it.
If she could work this just so, she’d be able to send the little ethnic nuisance packing and have the grandchild she so needed. Sebastian might be upset for a while, of course, but he’d soon recover.
Now, all she needed to do was wait and bide her time.
**
Gabrielle had no idea how this was supposed to help her.
She was seven months pregnant, felt like a gigantic fucking pumpkin, and was trying to twist her body into some ungodly position.
She couldn’t do it. She was going to break her spine.
“Just breathe, darling.”
Closing her eyes, the young woman took a deep breath. “Tristan, I swear if you say that one more time, I’m going to claw your eyes out.”
“My, my. Your hormones are raging, aren’t they?” Straightening from the painful position she was bent into, Gabrielle glared at him. They were in the center of the townhouse the man and his husband occupied courtesy of Sebastian’s generosity, what was supposed to be soothing music playing as Tristan attempted to lead her through a series of prenatal yoga poses.
The man was wearing a pillow beneath his thin t-shirt in order to simulate pregnancy and he looked absolutely ridiculous, barefoot, his hair mussed, as he gazed up at her with inquiring amber eyes.
Gabby huffed out a breath, crossing her arms over the ample swell of her belly as she glared at him. “How is this supposed to help me again? I feel like I’m trying to re-arrange my internal organs.”
“Well, in actuality, your internal organs have already shifted in order to make way for your baby.” Tristan straightened with a winning smile. “This is supposed to help relieve some of the pressure.” Balancing precariously, the slender man raised one leg to stretch high above his head. As he did so, his pillow popped out, slumping to the floor.
Gabrielle was able to maintain her irate glare for approximately ten seconds more before she burst into laughter. There was no way she was doing that and Tristan knew
it. “So, what, do a split and go into labor?” She managed, between fits of giggles.
“Well, ideally, don’t go into labor.” Tristan chuckled, lowering his foot. As Gabrielle took a step backwards heading for the couch, he caught her arm to help her sit down on the couch.
“Christ, I can’t believe I still have two months left!” She had already gained about twenty pounds and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her toes. Her breasts barely fit into E cups and had started leaking profusely – which was both embarrassing and inconvenient.
Though Tristan had tried more than once to assure her that it was only part of the magic of pregnancy, Gabby had promptly told him that he could talk the moment he grew a womb and mammary glands.
However, despite her harping, the young woman really couldn’t be happier. After all, there were absolutely no restrictions on when she could see her companion, and things were almost as they had been before she’d left New York.
She was painting almost daily – she’d already finished three pieces and was working on a fourth. The first one was hung proudly in the front room of Tristan’s house, and Phillip often commended her on its striking patterns. It seemed that the more her stomach swelled, the more creative she became. Sometimes she spent full seven hour stints in her studio in Sebastian's home – until she was exhausted and starving and the man had to drag her downstairs to feed her.
When she thought of the man – the earl who had spirited her away from everything she had ever known – she found herself enveloped with a myriad of feelings – many of them unfamiliar.
In the two months since Sebastian had dismissed his mother, much had changed. It was though a cloud had been lifted from the house – and from the man himself in particular. Gabby still had no idea what exactly had transpired between them the day she’d left, but it must have been something spectacular. The woman had made a massive scene as she left – though she had only caught the tail end of it, having been in the midst of being spectacularly ravished by Sebastian during the worst part of her tantrum.
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