His Temporary Duchess (Dukes Ever After #5)

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

T he devil take it. Sebastian scowled as he accepted a glass of wine and tried to look as though he did not wish to be anywhere but here. His wife, dancing the first two dances with a young buck, set on flirtation. Of course, she likely did not know it, but she ought to have known better than to dance with another man.

The first two sets as well, dash it all.

You ought to have asked her , a small voice said in the back of his head.

Of course, he knew that well enough, but he had not expected her to accept the hand of the first gentleman who had requested it.

In truth, he had not expected anyone to ask her at all. A fool’s error. He had presented her in a way to make her appealing to all the young men in the room. A wife, a new Duchess, looking especially well. It was like dangling bait in front of them and expecting them not to snap.

Now he would be forced to watch her dance for half an hour, and no doubt when he came to collect her and impress upon her the importance of her duty to him, she would fix him with an innocent gaze and inform him that she did not know he had ever intended to dance with her.

Until this moment, he had not.

Until this moment, he had not known he would want to do anything more.

A dangerous, dangerous desire.

Then again, was not all desire dangerous?

“I see my son is entertaining your wife as I bore you with talk of hunting,” the man beside him said with a chortle. If the man in question had not been the Earl of Derbyshire, Sebastian might have been tempted to clock him square in the jaw.

As it was, he watched Eleanor in time to see her laugh, head tipped back and lips wide in mirth. Lord Sinclair, that ridiculous boy child, had done what Sebastian never had.

“She is a pretty thing, is she not?” Sebastian forced himself to say, tone light as though it meant nothing to him that his wife was currently making a fool out of him.

When they returned home, he would find a way of punishing her. Perhaps in the way she desired, then denying her everything she wanted. A promise that every time she misbehaved, he would torment her beyond all endurance.

That would teach her.

A spike of arousal lanced through him, and he abandoned the train of thought, choosing instead to excuse himself from the Earl and prowl further around the room. Before he could get his wife back in his sights, however, Luke materialized from seemingly out of nowhere to accost him.

“How are you doing, my dear fellow? I had hoped you would be here. But where is the lovely Duchess?” His gaze followed Sebastian’s until he found her, and he made a small noise of acknowledgment. “Ah. I see.”

“Go away,” Sebastian growled.

“I think if you truly wished me to leave, you would go to greater lengths.”

“What lengths do you wish me to go to? Speaking to Lord and Lady Rochester to have you cast out? I have not ruled it out, I assure you.”

Luke smiled wistfully. “I am sorry the years have been so harsh to you.”

“ Enough , Luke.” A pang of pain interrupted Sebastian’s irritation, and he rolled his shoulders, trying to dislodge the feeling. “I am not a man who indulges in friendships.”

“You were once.”

“That was then.”

“Is now so very different?” Luke peered at Eleanor once again, and Sebastian had to resist the urge to strike him. For both looking at his wife, and for being so very right. Now was no different in his essence, save that he now knew he would not endure another person leaving him.

No man could control the actions of others, not fully. All one could do was remain in control of oneself, and that was something he fully intended to do. He would make it so he did not run the risk of becoming close to anyone ever again, and thus, no matter what their actions were, he would not be hurt by them.

He had learned his lesson with Luke once. He would not play the same game again.

“My wife is none of your business,” he snapped. “Do not speak about her again. And do not speak to me again. That is not your place.”

“You cannot hide from the world forever, Sebastian,” Luke called from behind him. “You may have given up on your friends, but your friends have not given up on you.”

Sebastian did not dignify the statement with a response, or even a grunt of acknowledgment. He had no friends remaining, no matter what Luke wished to delude himself into thinking, and he preferred it that way.

And indeed, as he strode around the room, no one spoke to him except for the sake of having exchanged words with the Duke of Ravenscroft. The thought was freeing until the second dance came to an end and Lord Sinclair finally led Eleanor from the dance floor—and straight into the waiting arms of Mrs. Margaret Bennett.

Sebastian stiffened, though he had not meant to. He had no love for his wife, but he had even less love for the woman who had treated the girl as a servant in her own home. Neither party had admitted to as much, but he knew how to read between the lines. Upon seeing her stepmother, he saw the way Eleanor’s shoulders curved in, and the way her chin fell a little lower.

Lord Sinclair, cad that he was, merely bowed his excuses and abandoned Eleanor to her fate.

Sebastian did not think before he moved, striding toward them both until he came to stand beside Eleanor, looming over her and glowering at Mrs. Bennett. At least she was not carting one of her obnoxious daughters with her.

“Mrs. Bennett,” he said, barely reaching for politeness as he placed Eleanor’s arm firmly in the crook of his elbow. She was shaking again. Fear. The girl thought nothing of defying him, sometimes in decidedly open ways, but the merest brush with her stepmother made her shake .

“Your Grace,” Mrs. Bennett said, dipping into a curtsy. “I am relieved to find you both here safe and sound. Eleanor, you know, has not been responding to my letters, so I was convinced she must be ill.”

“That is not true,” Eleanor said weakly. “I have indeed responded to your letters, ma’am. But—”

“I have asked three times if we might come to stay.”

Sebastian did not even attempt to tamp down his irritation. “I believe such an honor rests on the shoulders of those hosting,” he said, and looked down at Eleanor’s head. “My wife and I are enjoying the beginning of our married life together, and wish for no interference.”

“I had not thought you would consider it interference, Your Grace.” Mrs. Bennett sent Eleanor a poisonous glance. “We would not stay long. Just for tea. Eleanor knows what she owes us.”

“ Indeed ?” Sebastian raised his brows. “I have an idea of what my wife owes you, and it certainly is not tea, and not in my house. I thank you, ma’am, but I have claimed Eleanor’s hand for the next dance.” He gave her a small inclination of the head, nothing approaching a bow, and tugged at Eleanor’s arm. She came meekly, following him out onto the dance floor and standing opposite him in the line of ladies.

Sebastian did not miss the hectic flush in her cheeks, or the way she finally relaxed now she was out of her stepmother’s gaze. It irritated him to no end that he noticed these things at all, and he found himself grinding his teeth as he prepared himself for the torture that was to come.

He had not danced in a very long time. It was an abominably dull way for a healthy young man to spend the evening, and if he had any need for female company, he would not have chosen to come to one of these obnoxious balls and held insipid hands with a lady for half an hour.

No, there were far better options for a man of such vigor.

Yet, when he glanced up to find Eleanor’s gaze locked on his, and when her hand brushed his and he took it more firmly, he found himself more aware of her existence than he had ever been before. Her proximity, the way her curls framed her face. He wondered at the silkiness of them. The way her fingers tightened infinitesimally around his when he guided her, and the loss of her hand when the dance parted them. Every time her skirts brushed his legs, he wondered what lay beneath them.

What man had taken a wife for over a week and had yet to see what she looked like without her clothes?

He could remember in vivid detail how she had looked in her nightgown when she had entered his bedchamber. The pebbled press of her nipples against the soft silk, and her hair loose around her shoulders.

Dash it all, he detested that she occupied so much space in his thoughts.

The problem was that he had not had her the way a husband ought to have a wife. Once he had given in to his urges, his infernal preoccupation with her would desist, and he would be free to go about his life as he always had.

Yet if he was to see his plan through, he would not grant himself the chance to give in to his urges.

“Well, Sebastian?” she asked, raising her gaze to his when they met in the dance once more. “Are you going to say nothing to me?”

“Why?” he asked curtly. “Do you have something in particular to say?”

She glanced down, eyelashes casting soft shadows on her cheeks. “Thank you for intervening with my stepmother.”

“You were terrified.”

“Yes,” she breathed, still not looking at him. “She… often has that effect on me.”

“Then do not be scared any longer. You outrank her. She may do nothing to harm you.”

“Even a Duchess can at times be subject to scandal.”

“By God,” he muttered, frowning down into her sweet face. “Is there much of scandal to be said about you?”

“Well, I think not, but she may not speak the truth.”

“Then you will no doubt have some gratification in dismissing the rumors.” He felt his irritation growing. “And if they persist, I shall act myself. Let it not be said that I have no power.” In fact, he had more power than ever now his inheritance had been released and he was finally at liberty to draw on the funds his father had left him.

“I doubt anyone would say you were powerless, Sebastian,” she said, and smiled shyly at him. He found himself staring at her a moment too long until the dance parted them once more. He had never experienced such a thing—the urge, in that moment, not to kiss her or push her skirts about her legs or any of the coarse thoughts he often had about a woman he desired, but to return her smile.

Age was getting to him after all, no doubt. Thirty approached, and perhaps he had overindulged a few too many times.

“Tell me what you were thinking dancing with Lord Sinclair,” he said when they returned together. He gripped her fingers more firmly this time. “That was the first dance. You ought to have danced it with me.”

“Well, I looked to you for direction,” she said. “But you were engaged in conversation, and you said nothing about dancing. I know many young gentlemen do not care for dancing, and I supposed you were one of them.”

Just as he’d thought. And a small pang reminded him that he had, as she said, been engaged in conversation, and although he had intended broadly to dance with her, he had not thought to communicate such a thing. He had assumed, more foolishly of him, that when he searched for her, she would be patiently waiting.

Getting rid of her would be harder than he had hoped if she was prepared to find enjoyment and engagement elsewhere if he did not deliver.

“In the future, presume that I will wish to dance the first set with you,” he said crisply.

“Yes, Sebastian.”

He almost told her to stop using his name, then he hesitated. To be sure, it felt a little too intimate, but he could not say he disliked the sound. Not to mention that it was precisely what he had commanded, all for the sake of appearing as though they were happily married.

“Smile at me,” he said, and she glanced up into his face once more, offering a hesitant smile that he privately reflected showed nothing of the lover about her. “As though you desire me, Eleanor. I know you can do it.”

A knowing glint entered her eyes. “And if I told you that I did not desire you?”

“Then you will do well to pretend,” he retorted. “And stop your lying. I know when you do it.”

“A convenient trait.”

“ Quite . So you will desire me, Eleanor. And you will smile at me, at least as long as we are in attendance here. And when we return home together, you will say not one word of complaint.”

She pressed a little closer, her breasts just brushing the lapels of his coat. “And if I do not, will you punish me?”

“I have a mind to do so anyway, after that showing with your dancing.” His hand found her waist, and her eyes sparked with excitement. “Did you think I would not notice or care, sweetheart? Or that I have not been plotting what to do about it ever since?”

“I had not—I had not known you would be angry.” Her voice turned breathy, and he recognized the sight of desire in her eyes. Oh yes, she wanted him, and he craved giving into that mutual want. Lust , he knew, could be sated so very easily, and he had every right to her.

There were things he could do that would not count as consummation. Ways he could have her, yet not.

The evening could not end soon enough.

“I will show you in the carriage home,” he murmured as they came together for the last time that dance, “ precisely how angry you have made me, Eleanor.”

She visibly shivered, her skin erupting in goosebumps. “Will you? Good. When are we leaving?”

He smiled at her as the dance came to an end and they bowed opposite one another. “When the night is over and not a moment before.”