Chapter 13
Maurice wanted to wrap his arms around Sebastian and hold on tight in an uncouth impolite outpouring of emotion.
His butler, Hardwicke, would be horrified.
But Maurice had fallen completely and utterly in love with Sebastian and if it wasn’t impossible, he wanted Sebastian in his bed every night.
He wanted to hold him and kiss him and consul him when he was sad, and he missed his snarky jokes too.
Since they’d met, Sebastian had never treated him like a Duke and Maurice had no one else in his life who did that.
In the past six weeks, he’d taken the task of making some friends seriously, spending time visiting several of his peers who he respected and trying his best to relax enough to become friends.
Having a task to do—one that Sebastian had inadvertently given him—had helped with the pining.
Damnation, the constant pining for Sebastian was more than his ducal outlook could deal with, and now he was here in the same physical space as Sebastian it all came rushing back.
“Wildgoose.”
“Your Grace.”
“Come to dinner.”
Sebastian flashed him a look. “Dinner? Or?”
Oh God, yes please. Heat rushed all over his body, setting him alight from his heart outwards, searing through his veins and across his skin until he was aflame. He gulped.
“I can’t.” Sebastian shook his head, as if he’d remembered that he’d been the one to push Maurice away. “A friend has arrived, and I need to entertain him.”
“A friend?” Maurice hated the jealous tone in his voice, but the idea that Sebastian had moved on in the last six weeks and had a new lover stabbed him in the chest. He shouldn’t have left, but the dilemma was that Sebastian had wanted him to, so he’d had no choice.
“Sir Pashley. Surely you saw him interrupt and upset the zebras?”
“I did see a rider arrive, but I assumed it was a messenger.”
Sebastian’s shoulders shifted with a deep breath. “A messenger would have more sense than to disrupt my work.”
Maurice had been so worried by the idea of Sebastian having a ‘friend’ that he only just pieced together who the friend was. His envy was misplaced, and the tension in his shoulders released on a long slow breath. “Hold on. Sir Earnest Pashley has arrived to visit you?”
“Yes. My friend Earnest. I have mentioned him before.”
“He must stay with me. Come to dinner with him.” He thanked the Lord for providing this opportunity. Sebastian’s gaze shuttered and he pinched his lips together.
“Yes.” And with that, Sebastian walked away to talk to his stable lads, leaving Maurice once again uncertain.
With anyone else, he would demand the respect of his title, preserving his dignity.
Instead, he held his head high and walked back to his house to greet his guest as if nothing in the world bothered him.
Three hours later, Maurice went down to the formal dining room for dinner.
Hardwicke had informed him that his guest had requested a bath to freshen up after riding here, and so Maurice had spent the time in his office writing to Theodore, Earl of Milnes-Wilkes’ heir—they’d reconnected in Whites a few weeks ago—and doing other administrative tasks which his steward should probably do.
It was busy work to distract himself. And now he was adequately dressed for dinner by his valet and the nerves had returned.
He wiped his palms on a napkin and handed it to Hardwicke, who would supervise dinner tonight with three footmen.
“Your Grace?”
“Yes, Hardwicke?”
“Am I to understand that your guest is the poet, Sir Earnest Pashley?” Surely Hardwicke knew this already.
"Yes. The stable master, Wildgoose, will join us for dinner. They grew up together, you know.” Maurice was glad for the excuse to have Sebastian for dinner.
He knew the servants were all curious after their dinner six weeks ago but given the way things had been ended by Sebastian, he wasn’t able to articulate any of it to anyone, particularly not his staff.
“What an unusual coincidence. I thought Mr Wildgoose grew up here on the farm?” Hardwicke asked.
“He was adopted by Wildgoose Senior as a young man to work here, as was his brother Barry, but before that he was in an orphanage in London with Sir Pashley. Before Sir Pashley was a sir.” Maurice probably didn’t need to add that detail as it was obvious that no one with a title would begin their life in an orphanage, and so he took a few slow breaths to ease his nerves.
"Correct. We were scamps when we were young.” Sir Earnest Pashley entered the room in a dramatic sweep with Sebastian following.
“You were a scamp. Adam and I were much more sensible.”
“Rubbish. Remember when Nobbie decided to let all the chickens out and one ran into the kitchen.”
Sebastian laughed, the sound caressing Maurice’s skin. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“But you laughed when the Cook grabbed one of them and it slapped her in the face with its wing.”
Sebastian was still smiling. “We got in so much trouble for that and it wasn’t even me.”
Sir Pashley nudged Sebastian, and damn if Maurice wasn’t jealous over their easy friendship. “Well, we weren’t going to let Nobbie take all the punishment by himself.”
“No.” Sebastian paused, and then stopped smiling. “Your Grace, let me introduce my good friend and complete rascal, Sir Earnest Pashley. Earnest, this is his Grace, the Duke of Edenwick.”
“Is he the one?” Sir Pashley sent Sebastian a coy look—one that communicated plenty about how much he knew about him and Sebastian—and Sebastian flinched before darting glances at Hardwicke and the footmen.
“We can speak freely in front of my servants. They know to hold their tongues outside the estate.” Maurice desperately wanted to know Sebastian’s answer to Sir Pashley’s question.
Sir Pashley bounced on his toes. “Please say yes. He’s deliciously ducal and uptight. Don’t you just want to see him undone?”
Goodness! Who was this person who dared say such things? Not just out loud but also in front of a Duke. Maurice hadn’t recovered from the shock when he noticed that Sebastian had flushed with his brown skin darkening across his cheeks.
“I have and it was everything.” The whispered admission from Sebastian made Maurice’s knees crumble. “But it’s impossible.” Sebastian said the hard part much louder.
“Oh, it’s not. I have the perfect solution for you. Well, Adam has the perfect solution. He sent me here to tell you.” Sir Pashley waved his hands in the air.
“Shall we be seated?” Maurice needed to sit down before his legs collapsed under him.
This was too much to hope for, and he wasn’t sure if he should be worried about the idea that Sebastian’s chaotic friend had a solution, or if he should be worried?
He was definitely worried. There was no way that this person could do anything that would be quiet or sensible or .
.. helpful? Dread pooled in his stomach like a lump of stale bread, and he sat stiffly in his chair, trying to breath slowly to calm the erratic way his heart thumped.
Sweat slid down his spine and made his palms moist, so he rubbed them on a napkin.
“The Duke of Baverstock is going to marry his daughter off to the recently widowed Earl of Ervington," Sir Pashley said.
“No. Ervington is ancient, and he’s been through four wives already.
” Maurice had never liked the old man. There were rumours that Ervington did unspeakable things to his wives, but it had never been confirmed and besides he was a peer; protected by the same system that benefited Maurice.
If anything demonstrated that the peerage should be held accountable it was men like Ervington.
“I agree, it’s gross, and also—” Sir Pashley waved his hand in the air, “Lady Victoria is in love with her maid, a Miss Ginny McPeachy, and so the idea of marriage to any man is unconscionable to her.”
Maurice’s chest hurt with empathy for the young lady. “I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“Obviously—” Sir Pashley waved his hands around. “You will marry her. She’ll be safe from Ervington, and she can live here with Ginny.”
“But she doesn’t want to marry a man, and I don’t want to...” Maurice wanted Sebastian.
Sebastian sighed. “Maurice. It would be a marriage on paper only. If the world sees you are both married...”
He frowned, staring at the two of them. What was he missing?
Oh. Ohhh. “I would be free to love who I want without the world noticing because all they’d see was that I was married?
” Fucking hell, the solution was incredibly simple.
His chest swelled and his heart galloped at the possibility.
His mouth was dry. He could have Sebastian in his bed and in his life as his lover forever and the world wouldn’t hurt Sebastian.
“Yes.” Sir Pashley rolled his eyes. “It’s been done before.”
“Will she agree?”
Sir Pashley sent him an insolent stare. “Why do you think I’m here? It’s already arranged. We just need your agreement.”
“She approached Adam?” Sebastian asked.
“Yes. She’s nearing thirty and had hoped to live out her days as a spinster, but her father still controls her money, so he’s threatened to cut her off if she doesn’t marry.”
“But Ervington is nasty.” Maurice knew it wasn’t the right thing to say.
Sebastian cleared his throat. “Our friend Adam runs a business that helps women like Lady Victoria.”
“It’s very hush hush.” Sir Pashley waved his hands again, apparently unaware that all the staff in the room were listening intently. The absurdity of it felt appropriate somehow.
“Is that what you meant when it had been done before?” Maurice wasn’t sure this was technically legal, although if it saved women from men like Ervington ... perhaps it was more ethical than anything else.
“It’s all above board if that’s your concern,” Sebastian said. “Women who need to avoid a marriage approach Adam and he works out the best way to make that happen. Sometimes, it involves organising an alternative marriage like this, but there are several other ways he helps too.”
“My part in the arrangement is to find men like yourself, your Grace, who need a marriage as a cover for the true selves, and Adam sorts out the details, so when I received Sebastian’s letter, I knew this would be perfect and both Adam and Lady Victoria agree,” Sir Pashley said.
Maurice was glad to hear the last part. He didn’t want to marry someone who was unwilling. “What do you need from me?”
“That depends on whether you know Lady Victoria. Otherwise we will arrange an introduction and you can have the banns read, or get a special licence, depending on what suits the two of you.” Sir Pashley’s explanation sounded like many of the other arranged marriages among the ton.
“And she understands that I couldn’t...”
“Maurice.” Sebastian sounded impatient. “Did you miss the part where Lady Victoria is in love with her maid?”
He’d forgotten because the idea of having a solution to his problem had overwhelmed him.
He could be with Sebastian and never have to worry about Sebastian’s safety, especially if Sebastian married the maid and then they’d be two married couples living together; in the eyes of the world anyway.
The fact that they slept in beds that didn’t match the paperwork was of no consequence; most of the marriages in the ton were organised for wealth or bloodlines, not love.
“Right. I am keen to do this, if it’s fine with Sebastian.” He held his breath as he waited for Sebastian to decide.
“Yes. Let’s rescue Lady Victoria and give Maurice a cover for any of his future lovers.” Ouch. Sebastian’s method for helping shouldn’t hurt this much.
Sir Pashley shoved Sebastian on the shoulder. “Brutal, dear friend. So brutal.”
“I wouldn’t dare to presume Maurice’s feelings.”
“On the contrary, I’d say his feelings are obviously favourable towards you. He is going to marry a stranger for you.”
“That is a fair and interesting point.” The little twitch at the corner of Sebastian’s mouth suddenly made Maurice realise that he was deliberately taunting him and making him wait. He was a Duke, after all, and Sebastian had spoken many times about life was easy for him.
“Once he has achieved this marriage,” Sebastian said with a tilt of his head towards Maurice, one that gave him hope, “it will show me that he is serious and then perhaps we can talk.”
“Goodness. I do love a good sacrifice of the heart. If someone did that for me, I’d swoon.”
Sebastian laughed. “You’d swoon if someone looked at you with lust. If someone made a big romantic gesture for you, you’d probably die.”
“But I’d die happy.”
Maurice let out the breath he’d been holding.
“No one needs to die. Tomorrow, I will ride to Baverstock’s estate and make my position clear to Lady Victoria.
” Now that he had a pathway forward, he merely needed to act, and his strength was in actions.
He was a Duke. It would be easy to speak to another Duke and make his case that Baverstock’s daughter would be better placed with a Duke than an Earl.
Lady Victoria and her maid could live here at Pewett Downs, free to love each other, and he would be free to woo Sebastian back into his bed, and then they could have a future together. It would be perfect.