Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Sebastian mingled through the crowd in his usual evening blacks. Only tonight he also wore a black silk domino.
He tried not to feel silly.
Of course, the mask didn’t prevent anyone from recognizing the towering Duke of Ravensworth. Usually, the only people at any given ton event who could match his height were the Windermeres. But they hadn’t yet arrived, which left him to the task of attentive host.
Really, he cared not if all or even a few of the Windermeres showed their—masked—faces tonight.
It was only the one who mattered.
And she wasn’t here.
He knew it without looking. The chemical composition of the room would’ve altered if she’d entered it.
He snorted. He’d vowed to make Delilah come to him. And yet he’d thrown a masquerade ball—obviously, for her. Further, he’d sent her the special license he’d procured. He wanted her to know where he stood. But, most importantly, he wanted her to know where she stood in relation to where he stood.
There was no middle ground.
That was what she needed to understand.
Summer was beautiful, but it was a finite amount of time.
He wanted forever…
Or nothing.
The thought did nothing to improve his mood. In fact, it only plunged him deeper into foul territory.
An approaching figure caught his eye, and he inwardly groaned. Lord Dankworth. A name to suit the man, if there ever was one. Sebastian composed his face for the coming conversation. It wouldn’t do to sneer at a guest—no matter how odious.
“Dankworth,” said Sebastian.
“Your Grace,” the man returned. “Do you recall our last conversation?” he asked, sidling closer in his particular greasy manner.
“I do.”
“And might you be of assistance to me with a certain, ahem, lady?”
The man lifted a suggestive eyebrow, and Sebastian’s sneer was provoked into being.
Dankworth had been seeking to become the patron of an opera singer—one with whom Sebastian had had a dalliance with a few years ago.
When they’d mutually ended their arrangement, she’d gone on to become the toast of London and then on to Paris.
Now, Dankworth wanted “his turn” with her—as if she were an object to be passed around.
As if it were his right as a lord and man.
The fact was she didn’t need Dankworth’s patronage—and Sebastian could only suppose she wouldn’t want the man as a lover, either.
Here was the seedy underbelly of arts patronage. Sebastian had always been vigilant to stay on the correct side of an admittedly blurry line, but many powerful men entered the arts world with the sole intent of procuring sexual favors.
The imbalance of power turned Sebastian’s stomach, and the full brunt of his increasingly foul mood focused on Dankworth. “Who do you take me for, Dankworth?” he asked, low, the question deceptively simple.
“The Duke of Ravensworth, of course,” he said on a laugh that wasn’t quite jolly. The gathering of his eyebrows suggested he sensed something amiss.
Sebastian nodded slowly. “Ah, for a moment there, it seemed you were taking me for a procurer of doxies for you.”
Dankworth’s mouth opened, then snapped shut, a crimson flush crawling up his neck and across his face. That was Dankworth silenced—and everyone within a ten-foot radius who had been gathering in to grab a word edgewise with the Duke of Ravensworth.
Sebastian wasn’t finished. “And to be clear, singers and actresses, painters and poets aren’t prostitutes.
They are artists—many of them at an economic disadvantage.
And grubby, grasping men like you know it, don’t you?
” The circumference around Sebastian and Dankworth expanded, even as ears strained toward the conversation.
“So, you use your money and influence as bait to lure them into your bed. You have no care for them as people or artists, only as flesh to be consumed for your own pleasure—and discarded as rubbish once you’ve had your fill. ”
Dankworth cleared his throat and averted his gaze, clearly willing himself to be as far away from the Duke of Ravensworth as quickly as possible.
The man muttered something unintelligible before scuttling away.
Sebastian felt slightly winded from the vehemence of his short speech—and surprised at himself, too.
He’d said aloud what he usually kept inside, and for good reason.
His efforts to raise funds for the arts weren’t likely to attract much coin if he did.
But…perhaps it wasn’t only coin that mattered to the arts.
Hadn’t his time with Ye Olde Albion Players taught him that much?
The company lived on words and ideas and mutton-and-potato pasties and their art flourished.
Perhaps the arts weren’t best served by a top-down endeavor.
Perhaps the time had arrived for him to enter a new phase of his support.
Perhaps the time had arrived for him to stop acting like such a bloody duke about it.
Wimberley Hill.
There was his way forward with the arts. It wasn’t simply about constructing buildings for the glorification of art; it was also about creating environments where art could grow at its own pace, flourish, and enter the world in its own time.
A sudden frisson of energy sparked through the air, and all eyes flew toward the upper landing of the staircase.
Sebastian knew before he looked that the Windermeres had arrived, for the crowd’s roar had dulled to a whispery murmur for five solid beats of time.
No other arrival could elicit such a response.
Arrayed as a united front in the meager splendor that silk and diamonds could afford their stunning looks, the Windermeres radiated raw glamour, which, in turn, only begot the ton’s rapt fascination. They were that arresting.
But one was missing.
No Delilah.
Disappointment washed through Sebastian. At ten in the evening, her siblings were already arriving at the farthest edge of fashionably late, though no one would think anything of it. They were the Windermeres. They held and exuded the special something that lit sparks in any room they entered.
Yet the one who sparkled the brightest wasn’t with them.
Sebastian might have to accept that summer was well and truly over.
That Delilah would never come to him.
That he hadn’t done enough to woo and win her.
Archie took the short flight of steps in two and clapped Sebastian on the back in greeting. “Why the long face, my friend?”
Sebastian willed his usual sardonic smile onto his mouth. That was how to handle Archie. “I’m fairly certain it’s its usual length.”
Archie laughed and gave him another slap on the back, and the night stretched endless before Sebastian.
He didn’t have it in him to make jolly with Archie, exchange witticisms with Juliet—who was regarding him even more closely than usual—or even stand beside Ripon and growl his way through the long hours.
Rory stepped forward. “Come on, let’s see if anything of interest is happening in the card room.” He was regarding Sebastian in a particular way. Rory was like that—deceptively perceptive.
Sebastian shrugged in assent. As the men separated from the ladies, he couldn’t help asking. “Won’t your wife want to dance or some such?”
“Oh, you know Juliet,” said Rory. “She’d much prefer to stand against a wall and watch the goings-on. It’s best to leave her to it.”
Inside the card room, Sebastian settled at the first table they came to. Macao. Probably not the ideal card game to involve himself with, as he was in no mood for bluffing. He placed his markers on crimson felt and was dealt in.
Round after round, he lost, annoying Archie no end, who leaned over and murmured, “You know you’re allowed to cheat to win at this one, old chap.”
Sebastian cared not.
A server asked if he would like a brandy. He refused. Spirits and a foul mood made for poor bedfellows.
After only a few more rounds of cards, the server reappeared, silver tray extended. Sebastian was again about to refuse it when a spray of blue caught his eye. Upon the tray lay not a tumbler of brandy, but a flower. A cornflower…
A wildflower.
His head whipped around, and he gave the room a quick scan, half rising to gain a clear view.
No sign of her.
He let his cards fall onto the felt, where they landed face up. A collective groan sounded around the table. He’d ruined the hand. What did he care?
He’d just received a wildflower.
A tentative, fragile feeling took wing inside him.
“All well with you?” asked Rory, clearly annoyed. Even his patience had its limits.
“I, erm,” said Sebastian, “require the bog.”
All eyebrows to a one lifted toward the ceiling.
Well, not Ripon’s. He snorted.
“The bog?” asked Archie.
Generally speaking, dukes didn’t refer to the necessary room as the bog.
Sebastian supposed summer wasn’t over quite yet—in more ways than one. In for a penny, in for a pound… He shot to his feet. “Immediately,” he tossed over his shoulder, his feet already on the move.
He caught up with the server and snatched the cornflower off the tray. “Who gave this to you?” he asked, trying not to sound too commanding. After all, this man was in his employ.
“A scullery, Your Grace.”
Sebastian stepped outside the room and glanced both ways down the corridor.
Though scattered with several lords and ladies—some passing through, others paired off for private conversation—Sebastian immediately saw Delilah wasn’t one of them.
But he did spot something on the marble floor ten or so feet away.
A yellow tansy.
Another wildflower.
He picked it up and followed its direction, the crowd decreasing in density as the trail of flowers led him away from the ballroom.
It occurred to him after he’d collected his fifth flower that he was acquiring a bouquet, with a few guests casting befuddled second glances his way.
What was the Duke of Ravensworth doing holding a wildflower nosegay?
Others even tried to catch his attention. He ignored them all.
Dead rude of him, of course. He gave a mental shrug. He was Ravensworth.
Except…to the woman at the end of this wildflower path, he was Seb, too.
Or that was what the feeling surging inside him hoped.
He followed the path into his study and turned the lock behind him.
Delilah must’ve done a bit of talking to wheedle her way into his private domain.
The scullery, he suspected. Delilah wasn’t the sort to use her feminine wiles on men to get what she wanted.
Rather, she would’ve turned to the girl no one hardly noticed and given her attention.
She would be a good duchess.
His step faltered. Careful, a small voice warned. It wouldn’t do to get ahead of himself.
The path continued outside to the stone terrace and down a short staircase into his private garden. Every house he owned had a private terrace and garden. Many privileges were afforded a duke, but so too were many demands placed on him. A private domain that only he inhabited was necessary.
It would be Delilah who infiltrated it.
And of course, the wildflower path led to the folly, a ten-year-old structure constructed to look like a Grecian temple on the verge of falling down. Of course, it wasn’t. It was quite structurally sound, in fact.
He took the steps two at a time and came to a sudden stop at the threshold. Lit by a single ray of the waxing moon in the center of the space stood his folly. Delilah. A vision in gold: gold silk dress, gold bandeau in her gold hair, gold silk mask. A goddess.
Suddenly awkward as a green youth of sixteen years, he held out his handful of wildflowers. “These are yours, I believe.”
She reached out and accepted them. A seriousness in clear blue eyes that usually twinkled with mischief, she canted her head slightly. “I always wanted to attend a masquerade ball.”
“I know.”