The Debutante’s Brooding Protector (The Duchess’s Darling Debutantes #1)

Prologue

TWO YEARS EARLIER

Sebastian Vane, Marquess of Blackwood, had no business being here.

The vicar's voice droned on, but the words barely reached Sebastian where he stood, half hidden behind the old stone wall that separated the graveyard from the lane beyond.

He was too far away to hear much, but an occasional phrase reached him. Something about God's mercy… Something, something… Eternal rest.

Eternal rest. Such a polite turn of phrase. As though Andrew had merely grown drowsy from his studies and slipped off to take a nap.

A nap which just happened to last for eternity.

In truth, Sebastian’s oldest friend had been trapped in an inferno, far closer to hell than the heaven this vicar kept mentioning.

Sebastian sucked in a breath as the memory of the fire threatened to drag him under, back into that horrible heat, the screams and shouts still echoing in his skull.

He reached up to touch the mottled skin of his neck and jaw. It no longer hurt nearly as much as it had in those first days after the fire. But there were times, like right this very moment, when he wished it did.

Physical pain was an excellent diversion, and he’d far prefer that to the emotional anguish before him.

From where he stood, Sebastian could see several of his and Andrew’s friends from school. A couple were already married, their wives in tow. Then there were the local gentry, and some strangers he assumed were distant relations.

And at the front, clustered together near the open grave—Andrew’s family. His father and two younger sisters. Their mother lay in the grave beside Andrew’s.

It’d been years since he’d been here for that funeral, but little about the family burial ground had changed. He angled his head for a better look at the family, and pain speared through him at the movement. Air hissed out through his teeth as he waited for it to pass.

The burns were only three weeks healed, the new skin raw and tight across his left side, and the physician had been very clear about the risks of infection when he’d tried to convince Sebastian to stay home today.

Sebastian had been very clear too. He was going to this funeral. Paying his respects was the very least he could do for his oldest friend.

His left hand throbbed beneath its bandage. He couldn't quite close his fingers yet. And the physician had warned that the scarring across his jaw and neck might never fully heal.

He’d carry the scars for a lifetime.

Good. It was only right that Sebastian carried the reminder of that night.

Not that it would do anything to ease his guilt, but it would ensure he couldn’t forget. Not Andrew, or the fact that it was his house, or that the party had been his idea. None of it.

The scars meant that every day he’d remember his friend and his duty to Andrew’s family.

Andrew’s father, Viscount Langley, was barely upright. The man had always been slight and bookish. Andrew mentioned once how his father’s health had taken a turn after their mother passed. Now the older man listed to one side, propped up by a solicitor on one arm and a parish woman on the other.

First his wife, and now his son. His heir. The boy who'd been meant to hold it all together. Sebastian's jaw tightened until the new scar tissue pulled.

My party. My invitation. He didn't even want to come.

Andrew had protested. Sebastian remembered that now with vicious clarity.

They'd been in Sebastian's study, sprawled in chairs with brandy, and Andrew had said, “I don't know, Seb.

Father's not well. I should probably go home.” And Sebastian had waved it off.

“One weekend. The old man will survive.”

He'd been careless with the words the way he’d been careless with everything. But in the end, he supposed he’d been right. The old man had survived.

It was Andrew who had not.

He didn't belong here with the mourners. He was the reason they were grieving.

He was the reason so many were grieving. Andrew wasn't the only life lost that night. There'd been a woman too. The Duchess of Ashworth's younger sister. She’d been brought along by her husband.

He didn’t even know her given name, but he knew she'd been trapped in the east wing. Just like he knew Andrew had gone back in for her. And how he knew neither of them had come out.

A sniffle cut into his thoughts. His gaze snagged on a small figure near the viscount.

The girl couldn't have been more than six.

She had Andrew's coloring with fair hair and wide blue eyes, and she was standing very still in a black dress that was slightly too long for her.

Someone had pinned it hastily at the hem.

She was holding wildflowers in one fist, and with the other she was gripping the skirt of the young woman beside her.

This was Charlotte. The youngest Hale.

The last time Sebastian had seen her, she'd been a baby in a cradle while Andrew cooed at her like an idiot. “She's going to be a terror, Seb. Look at that grip. She's got my finger and she won't give it back.”

Charlotte didn't look like a terror now. She looked like a child trying very hard to understand the deep grief going on all around her and not quite managing it. Her lips trembled and she gave another loud sniff.

Sebastian's bandaged hand curled into a fist at his side. The pain was clarifying.

The young woman beside Charlotte reached into a reticule, found her handkerchief and slipped it into Charlotte’s hand without interrupting the vicar’s monologue.

Sebastian focused his gaze on this woman, and it took several moments for him to realize that this must be Estella Hale.

She'd been a gangly girl of twelve or thirteen last he’d seen her.

All elbows and knees, trailing after Andrew and Sebastian during a summer visit to the Langley estate with a book tucked under one arm and a smudge of dirt on her nose.

She'd been a nuisance that summer. Appearing around corners with breathless questions about whatever they were doing. Hovering at the edge of the lake while they fished, pretending to read but really watching them over the top of her book. Andrew had been patient with her.

Andrew was patient with everyone.

But Sebastian had been seventeen, full of his own importance, and spectacularly uninterested in his friend's scrawny little sister. He'd called her "little Ella" back then, just like Andrew had, and he’d ruffled her hair, and…

Well, quite frankly, he’d not thought of that child again for years.

But the young woman standing beside the grave was not that child. She stood very straight, her gloved hands clasped in front of her. A veil obscured her face, but she was the stillest person in the churchyard.

While Sebastian watched, the solicitor leaned close to the viscount and murmured something, and the old man's face crumpled.

Estella's hand moved and landed on her father's arm.

The viscount steadied. Charlotte pressed closer to Estella's skirt, and Estella's other hand dropped to rest on her sister's hair.

A brief touch, but the child settled too.

She was holding them up. Both of them. This girl, this seventeen-year-old girl whose brother was being lowered into the ground…

She was the one keeping the family upright.

Sebastian's throat closed.

The mourners began to shift as the vicar finished, breaking apart into small clusters, murmuring condolences as they drifted toward the lane.

Estella thanked each one. Sebastian couldn't hear her voice from this distance, but he watched her nod, and clasp hands, and incline her head with a quiet dignity that belied her years.

The viscount had drifted away, steered by the solicitor.

Charlotte tugged at Estella's skirt and said something, and Estella bent down.

She adjusted the girl's collar and smoothed her hair.

Then she said something that made Charlotte's solemn little face relax, and then took her hand and led her toward the path.

They passed near the stone wall where Sebastian stood just as the wind picked up and caught the edge of Estella's mourning veil, whipping it back from her face.

The gangly girl was indeed gone. In her place was a young woman with fine, pale features and shadows beneath her eyes.

Her chin was a fraction too pointed. Her cheekbones were too sharp.

She wasn't eating enough, that much was obvious.

And her eyes, when the veil lifted… They were Andrew's eyes. That same clear blue.

If he’d seen her anywhere else, he’d never have guessed she was that gangly girl he’d once known. He’d have said she was a delicate young lady. Poised, elegant, and yes…heart-achingly beautiful.

And she’s Andrew’s little sister.

The thought was sobering and put a stop to his appraising stare. His second thought was far more irksome.

Who is taking care of this girl?

She was thin. Too thin. The black dress hung on her frame as though it had been made for someone with far more substance. Her gloves were clean but worn at the fingertips.

Their father was clearly no use at the moment, their mother long dead, and the brother who was meant to hold it all together was now in the ground because Sebastian Vane had wanted one more weekend of careless, foolish fun.

Estella caught her fluttering veil and pulled it back into place, hiding her features once more.

Sebastian was likely the only one watching her closely enough to see the way her fingers trembled. The only sign of weakness.

She walked on, Charlotte's hand in hers, her spine very straight. He was certain she hadn’t seen him.

He stood behind the wall for a long time after the churchyard emptied. A light rain began, and it soaked through his coat and made the burns ache.

He thought about the trembling fingers and the shadows under her eyes. The way she'd touched her father's arm and held the whole family together.

Who is taking care of this girl?

The answer, of course, was no one.

Andrew was dead. The viscount was shattered. The mother was gone. There was no one standing between Estella Hale and whatever the world decided to do with her.

Except, perhaps, the man who owed her brother everything.

Sebastian pushed off the wall. The movement sent pain spiking down his left side, and he set his jaw and breathed through it as he began the slow walk back to his carriage.

By the time he reached the lane, he'd composed the letter to his solicitor in his head. Inquiries into the Langley estate's finances. A discreet assessment of their debts.

For Andrew. That was what he told himself as the carriage jolted forward and the little church disappeared behind the hedgerows.

For Andrew.

The image of delicate features, clear blue eyes, and a trembling hand pressing a mourning veil back into place stayed with him all the way to London. It stayed with him through the long weeks of healing and through the nights when the fire replayed itself behind his eyelids.

Truthfully, the image stayed with him for considerably longer than any debt to a dead friend could explain.

But Sebastian was not, at the present moment, interested in being truthful.

Because Sebastian had work to do.