His Temporary Duchess (Dukes Ever After #5)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T he next social engagement Sebastian and Eleanor attended was a picnic by the side of the Thames. Sebastian joined Eleanor out of a sense of obligation—or at least, that was what he told himself. In actuality, he found the riverside, with the picnic blankets and parasols and small boats, oddly charming.

That was, until Luke joined them at their blanket. “Sebastian, old boy,” he said altogether too cheerfully. “Just the fellow I was hoping to see.”

Beside him, Eleanor beamed up at the man. “Lord Greycliff! I am so glad you could make it.”

“I was delighted to receive your invitation, ma’am.” Luke bowed gracefully over Eleanor’s hand as Sebastian scowled.

“You invited him?” he demanded.

“And Miss Ashby,” Eleanor said, standing on her tiptoes and looking through the crowd. “I believe she is attending with her mother, but she should be here soon, and she can join us in our boat.”

Sebastian blinked. “Boat?”

“But of course.” She looked at him innocently, all large eyes and fluttering eyelashes and butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. When she did that, she looked positively angelic, which did not help matters. “Why would we attend a picnic if we did not also have a boat ride? This is London, you know, and I have it on the best authority that boating is the height of fashion.”

“On whose authority?” Sebastian growled.

“Mine.” Luke stretched out beside them both and plucked a grape from the basket the servants had spread out. The day was a lovely one, and Sebastian had thought it was shaping up to be a charming one—until he had been assaulted by his old friend.

Your current friend .

No. One man’s determination did not equal friendship, and Sebastian could not forget the way Luke had abandoned him, without so much as a by your leave. No explanation, just a note to explain he was going right when Sebastian had needed him the most. If he’d still had one person in his corner, the business with Lady Lydia might not have—

But it was useless to think of those things. Luke had left, just as Lydia had ended their engagement, and everyone in the world he knew left him. That was just the way things were, and better he had learned that lesson then so he would not have to suffer the pain of that loss again.

“Olivia—that is, Miss Ashby —also says that it is the height of fashion,” Eleanor said, taking his arm and squeezing it. “I thought it would be such fun.”

Sebastian thought ruefully of the clothes he had picked out for her, waiting in her bedchamber at home. An apology of sorts for the wardrobe he had left her at the beginning of their marriage. And considering she had not worn the clothes, he hardly thought it made a difference regarding whether she would want to leave the marriage or not.

Besides, he thought she would look charming in the blue gown he had selected for her. When he’d seen it, he had thought of her dusky curls and known that he must see her in it. Really, the gift was more for his benefit than anyone else’s. He would enjoy seeing her in it, and he would enjoy the way he suspected her face would light up when she saw the gift.

Until then, he would have to endure this company.

Eleanor waved at Miss Ashby, who came to join them, auburn ringlets gleaming like burnished copper in the sun, and her blue eyes merry and amused.

“Your Grace,” she smiled, curtsying so deeply, he felt the urge to snap his fingers at her and tell her to rise. “It is such an honor to make your acquaintance again. When Eleanor—that is to say, Her Grace—invited me to come boating with you I was quite aflutter. And Lord Greycliff, too, what a pleasure to see you here. My friend did not tell me you would also make one of the party.”

Luke grinned. “I take it I am not a disappointment?”

“Oh no , my lord. How could you think such a thing?”

“I am relieved to hear it.”

Sebastian glanced between the two and wanted to groan. Eleanor beamed, more radiant than the sun itself. No doubt this outcome, a connection between their two friends— acquaintances— was another thing she had been hoping for.

“Is it not wonderful?” she whispered to him. “Lord Greycliff and Olivia got on so well when they met in Hyde Park that I thought it would be a crime if they were not to meet again, and do you not think that today is so very romantic a setting?”

Sebastian thought that he would rather like to kiss his wife, and he thought it a great shame that he would not be able to. He also thought that he had no particular desire for Luke and Olivia to fall in love, though he suspected he would have no opportunity whatsoever to influence this.

“Do you have Scrunch with you?” he asked instead.

She wrinkled her nose. “Here? He would just get lost. I left him at home in his nest where he will sleep most of the day and be happier. Why, do you wish he was here?”

“Where does he sleep?”

“In my bedroom, in one of the drawers. I have already told the servants not to go in there, and Abigail will tell any future maids we have.” She accepted the change of servants without so much as batting an eyelid, though he knew that when she first arrived at the manor to stay with him, she had been confused and dismayed by the overhaul.

“Would he not benefit from somewhere more secure?”

She shrugged, leaning back on her hands and tilting her face to the sun. “There is nowhere else for him. I hardly dare telling most people about him—you might think that a mouse is an acceptable pet for a Duchess, but I assure you, most people do not.”

“I also do not,” he informed her, and the corners of her lips curled into a smile.

“Well then, you understand.”

He made a mental note to request a carpenter to make her some kind of cage for the animal. One large enough and comfortable enough that the mouse would have all the space it needed without taking up—and therefore making a mess in—one of his wife’s drawers.

That, too, would be a surprise, he decided.

His hand brushed hers, and she looked up at him, gray eyes soft and warm and filled with subtle hope. Not for the first time, he wondered what the devil he was doing in this marriage with this woman.

To Eleanor’s delight, the boat trip proved just as lovely as she’d hoped. Sebastian and Luke took the oars, forced to work together as they navigated the boat into the center of the river. Eleanor and Olivia, sheltering their faces from the sun with the rim of their bonnets, huddled together and trailed their hands in the water.

“He is so unbearably handsome,” Olivia sighed under her breath as they watched the men, their coats abandoned and shirt sleeves rolled to their elbows.

Eleanor sighed too. “Yes.” She watched Sebastian’s throat bob with effort as he barked a command at Luke—who, credit given where it was due, accepted it without question and adjusted their course. “He is, is he not?”

Olivia cast her a wry glance. “You are looking at your husband.”

“Should I not be?”

“Do you truly believe that the Duke is more handsome than the Earl?”

“Why, of course.” Eleanor frowned, glancing at Luke, who was, naturally, handsome enough in his own way, but could never hold a candle to Sebastian. Why, he did not have the glossy black hair, tied at the back of his neck, the same fierce gray eyes, the subtle dimple that popped in one cheek when he smiled. Eleanor could not help wanting to provoke that smile from him as often as possible, and as time went by, she felt as though she did so increasingly often.

Luke, by contrast, was charmingly handsome in an urbane way that did nothing for Eleanor—but quite clearly did something for Olivia.

“I think both men are handsome,” Eleanor said diplomatically. “But I confess, I find my husband more handsome than his friend.”

“I suppose that is to the right. Would you say they are friends?”

Eleanor watched as Sebastian exchanged a brief look of triumph with the other man, his mask slipping just enough that he allowed some of the friendliness underneath to show.

She just knew that under the facade he kept in place, there was a young man eager to be loved and accepted. If only he would let that side of him out.

“I think they could be,” she said. “And I hope that, in time, they will be.”

“I hope so too. What is the next event we can get them at?” Olivia grinned wickedly. “Ideally another one involving this level of physical exertion. Have you ever found anything so appealing as a gentleman glistening with sweat?”

Eleanor thought back to the way Sebastian had appeared to her naked, bathed in candlelight, his chest rising and falling as she urged pleasure from him, his eyes hot and heavy and dark, fixed on her as though he could see nothing else in the world and had no wish to.

“No,” she said. “Nothing.”

When Eleanor and Sebastian arrived home, to her surprise, she found that instead of retiring to his study or elsewhere, he accompanied her upstairs.

“To see this ridiculous nest your rodent has created,” he said when she asked him what his purpose was.

“It is not ridiculous , and I have only given him rags to make do with. I would hardly sacrifice one of my dresses for the task.”

“No?” He raised his brows at her. “Not even the ones I left for you to wear?”

“Those were designed for me to wear in deliberation?” She turned astonished eyes to him, and he felt like a cad all over again.

“Well, they were left there, and one might have thought that upon inheriting the room and them, you might have had no choice but to wear them.”

“I suppose so, and I would have done if it had brought you peace, but I am glad you did not require it of me. I hardly know how to wear them, and they seem so heavy. So much brocade!” She laughed, the sound light and airy, and for the first time since his marriage, Sebastian followed his wife into her bedchamber.

It was outfitted much as he had left it, although now, her scent lay thick everywhere, and although the bed was neatly made, he had a vision of her sprawled there. All this time, he had not been with her, not been lying in this bed with her, imprinting it with them rather than just her.

That felt like a missed opportunity. Weeks of missed opportunities.

His breath grew short and arousal thrummed through him.

But Eleanor’s gaze turned immediately to the dresses that he had arranged to be set out for her arrival. The blue dress first, then others behind. Gray, to match her eyes, and a soft cream silk that would cling to her curves delightfully.

Obscenely.

He could not allow her to leave the house wearing it. But for him—yes, he could have her wearing it for him, just as she had come to him the other night wearing nothing but that thin little slip of nightgown.

He hardened almost painfully.

She whirled back to him, joy lightening her face like sunrise, a smile blooming at her lips and brightening her eyes from gray to the deepest blue.

“Sebastian,” she whispered, and he knew with that single word he was lost, and may never be found again. He knew with that word that the battle he had fought to keep her out of his life had failed already, and even if he banished her forcibly from his presence, he would never be able to banish her from his mind.

He knew, beyond all doubt, that his quest to convince her to leave had failed. Not now, but days ago. Weeks . It had failed the moment she had walked down the aisle to marry him, and he could not bring himself to regret it.

“Is this for me?” she asked.

“It is.”

She pressed her hand to her lips and tears sprang to her eyes. “I don’t know what to say. This is—the gowns are beautiful. You bought them for me?”

“Well, I can hardly wear them,” he said irritably, annoyed by her shock, even though it was perfectly justified. Annoyed, too, by her tears, and the effect they were having on him. And, most of all, annoyed because he wanted nothing more than to ease her suffering and wipe away the moisture on her cheeks. With a hesitancy he deeply disliked, he stepped closer and used his thumb to wipe them just so. She looked up at him, expression trusting, and he cursed. Then he drew her to him and kissed her.