If the Duke Demands Page 23

  A prickle stirred at the back of her neck, sensing him before she saw him—

  Sebastian.

  She allowed herself one glance over her shoulder to be certain and instantly regretted it, unprepared for the shock of electricity that jolted through her upon seeing him. Standing just inside the gallery hall, he looked magnificent in his evening clothes of a maroon brocade waistcoat and a black jacket of superfine, with a sapphire cravat pin the same deep blue as his eyes that offset the golden highlights in his hair. He was dressed elegantly enough for an evening on the town…or one of slow seduction in his own bedchamber.

  Turning away before he saw her and she melted completely into a puddle, she fixed her gaze on Miss Bradford even as her heart slid down to her knees. What on earth was he doing here? A museum lecture was certainly not the type of event that a Carlisle brother would attend, and the duke’s unexpected appearance was stirring more interest throughout the curious audience than the lecture.

  But Lady Jane was in attendance, Miranda realized, her heart sinking further. So were the rest of the ladies on his list. So of course he was here. Nothing about last night had changed his pursuit of a proper duchess, which only increased the jealousy Miranda already felt. And her heart slid right through the floor.

  But Sebastian didn’t head for Lady Jane. As whispers and hushed greetings rose in his wake, Miranda realized that he was walking in a different direction…toward her. Each step that brought him closer worked to tighten the knot of nervousness in her stomach. She sighed in relief when he turned down a different row from hers, only to feel a wave of dread sweep over her as he settled into the chair directly behind hers.

  When the whispers at his arrival settled down and the room returned its attention to Miss Bradford, he leaned forward and spoke low at her ear. “You weren’t at breakfast this morning.”

  Her belly fluttered achingly, and a low heat simmered inside her at the innuendo whispered in their private language, one that the women sitting around them would never have understood. Or even suspected. After all, everyone knew the Duchess of Trent was her sponsor for the season, just as everyone knew Sebastian was hunting a wife—in fact, multiple bets had already been placed in the book at White’s for when he would make an engagement announcement and to whom, most of them waged by Robert and Quinton. So no one would have given a second thought that he sought her out, likely believing he was simply checking up on her tonight in his mother’s absence before heading out to the clubs.

  Carefully keeping her emotions from her face, she whispered over her shoulder, “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “You were hungry enough last night.”

  Ignoring that innuendo, if not the cascade of heat it shivered down her spine at the memory of exactly how ravenous both of them had been for the other, she kept her gaze straight ahead. She didn’t dare to look at him for fear of the blush that would color her cheeks and give them away. Or the regret she might see in his eyes.

  “I was concerned,” he pressed in the same low voice. “Are you not feeling well?”

  There was no point in dissembling. She’d enjoyed herself a great deal, and he knew it, having felt her body’s reaction to his, if still completely unaware of her affection for him. “I’m feeling very well, thank you,” she returned in a voice far huskier than she’d intended.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a self-pleased grin pull at his lips, and then the telltale blush did heat at the back of her neck after all. Oh, the devil take him!

  “So am I,” he admitted in a sultry whisper that made her breath hitch.

  “Shh!” The matron to Miranda’s right turned in her chair to scold them for making noise, her narrowed eyes swinging between the two of them in a chastising glower.

  Miranda couldn’t see Sebastian’s response, but the older woman stiffened suddenly, then smiled like a schoolgirl as a faint blush touched her cheeks. She fanned herself rapidly and turned back to the lecture.

  Miranda rolled her eyes. Leave it to Sebastian to charm his way into the hearts of even the most overbearing matrons with just a smile. More proof that the man was a force of nature.

  She frowned, turning in her chair to finally look at him. “Why are you here?”

  “My brothers are at Boodle’s for the night,” he informed her.

  Her heart skittered as a pang of longing pulsed through her. She knew what he meant—that they would have Park Place all to themselves for the night, and that he had come for her. All she had to do was whisper yes, and she’d spend another magical night with him. He probably had the carriage waiting out front for them right now and a ready excuse for Lady Emily so he could spirit her away.

  Squeezing her eyes closed, she shook her head, at both his invitation and at her own foolish temptation to accept. What good could come of it? Another wonderful night of being in his arms, of feeling beautiful and special in that way only he could make her feel, simply to be reminded again at dawn that he could never be hers for more than a few fleeting hours secreted away during the night…and then not at all once he decided on a wife.

  “Lady Jane Sheridan is also in attendance this evening,” she informed him as evenly as possible, not wanting him to notice the unbearable jealousy swelling inside her and mock her for it, for daring to be jealous of a woman so far beyond her social rank that the two of them weren’t even comparable. “I’m certain you’ll want to pay your regards to her.”

  Cold silence answered her. As she held her breath, fearing his biting reply, she knew she hit the arrow home and that he was seething behind her. In the few weeks since they’d arrived in London, she’d come to know him so well that she could sense his moods even without seeing him.

  The lecture ended. Everyone stood to applaud as Miss Bradford took her bows.

  But when Miranda started to rise, he placed his hand on her shoulder and gently kept her in her chair as he murmured, “But roses are my favorite evening flower.”

  Her eyes stung that he could say such things yet still not want a future with her. That he could plan a night alone with her when the woman he wanted to marry sat at the front of the room. “A pity then,” she muttered as she shrugged off his hand and rose to her feet, no longer caring if he thought her jealous, “that dukes prefer primroses.”

  She moved to walk away, but he took her arm and stopped her.

  “Please let go,” she demanded gently, unable to jerk her arm away for all the pairs of eyes around them. Then she seized on a feeble excuse. “I want to meet Miss Bradford. Your mother generously gave me one of her books, and I wanted to tell her how much I enjoyed reading it.”

  His gaze flicked to the front of the hall and to the crowd already gathering to meet the daring adventuress. “It’s your debut season,” he reminded her pointedly, as if she needed a reminder of that! “Discussing a book in front of these people will make you look like a bluestocking.”

  “Good, because that’s exactly what I am. And it’s time everyone realized that.” She choked out, unable to stop herself, “Especially you.”

  He arched a puzzled brow. “I know who you are, Miranda.”

  Oh, that was a lie! He only thought he knew because he’d seen her naked and exposed. But even then, when his hands and mouth had been on her, with the weight of his body pressing deliciously down on her, he saw the woman he wanted to see. Not the woman she truly was. One capable of being just as fine and proper as the society ladies standing around her. One who would make him as equally as good a wife—better, in fact. While these ladies saw only his title when they looked at him, Miranda saw the man beneath. While they wanted his title and fortune, Miranda only wanted to make him happy.

  Suddenly aware of everyone around them, and desperate to flee before he saw her distress, she pleaded, “Please let—”

  “Spend the night with me,” he countered, briefly lowering his mouth as close to her ear as he dared. “We won’t make love if you don’t want to. We’ll simply sit together and talk.” His eyes softened on her. �
��I just want to be with you tonight, however I can.”

  She stared at him, her lips parting, so stunned at his unexpected words that her heart stuttered with anguish. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  God help her, even now with her heart breaking because she knew she could never truly be his, she still wanted him. She still wanted to yield to that velvet voice and the strength of his body, to the happiness and peace she felt when she was alone with him, to the laughter and joy he gave her.

  She glanced toward the front of the room, where Lady Jane now stood watching them, patiently smiling at Sebastian as she waited for him to approach. As was her right. And of course, he would. After all, he belonged at Jane’s side, not here in the back of the room with her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I do. A remarkably fine one.”

  “Sebastian,” she whispered, pleading for his mercy yet unable to help the pained longing in her voice. She wanted to be with him in the wonderful way he was offering, held safe and warm in his strong arms all night, talking and revealing themselves. But would one more night of happiness ever be enough recompense for the heartache she knew would follow?

  Turning her face away so he couldn’t see the raw emotion flashing over her, she choked out, “I cannot.”

  “Yes, you can,” he insisted.

  “No—I want to be with you, Sebastian.” Sadness pained mercilessly inside her chest. “Not the duke.”

  “I am Trent,” he bit out in frustration.

  With a slow shake of her head, she lifted her gaze, and a dark flicker of surprise crossed his face when he saw the glistening in her eyes. “When you’re with me, when you’re laughing and smiling and free…who are you then?” With every ounce of her being, she desperately willed back the hot tears blurring his handsome face. “Because that’s the man I want to be with, the man I want to see happy, now and for the rest of his life. And the pity is that he doesn’t want that enough for himself to claim it.”

  She pulled her arm away and shifted past him quickly enough that he couldn’t make a second grab for her without causing a scene, right in the middle of the quality’s most staid and respectable ladies.

  She blinked rapidly, forcing back tears as she weaved through the chairs to put as much distance between them in the crowded gallery as she could. Even now as she made her way to the front of the room, she felt the heat of his gaze on her back, with the same burning intensity as if his hands were touching her. She shivered and squeezed her eyes shut.

  She’d been such a fool! For antagonizing him last night in the carriage and then going to his room…for dressing up in the masquerade that started it all…for wanting him to accept her just as she was. And after last night, a not-so-tiny part of her had also idiotically hoped he would forget his plans to marry a society daughter and consider her instead. But nothing had changed, except that she was now hopelessly in love with a man who was impossible for her.

  She glanced around the gallery at all the young ladies and their marriage-minded mamas who protected their virtues like bulldogs. Miranda wanted to laugh at them. She could have told them the real truth about sex, that its dangers lay not in falling to ruin but in falling in love.

  She and Sebastian had to end all this foolishness in which they’d entangled themselves. There was no other choice. They would be as they were before, only friends and neighbors and nothing more. It would be difficult—sweet heavens, it would be heartrending!—but it had to be done. Starting right now.

  But when she drew a deep breath and turned around, Sebastian was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sebastian strode into Park Place in the same foul mood in which he’d left it earlier. But now, he reeked of cigar smoke and whiskey from hours spent in search of distraction at Boodle’s with Robert and Quinn, where he’d gone directly after leaving the museum. And after Miranda’s rejection.

  “Good evening, Your Grace.” Saunders greeted him at the door with a stoic nod, the experienced butler knowing better than to comment on either his angry glower or the state of his appearance. “Shall I call for Barlow?”

  Sebastian waved the man off. “I’ll undress myself tonight. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  His fingers tore at his cravat as he bounded up the stairs toward his rooms— No, not his rooms. His father’s rooms. He grimaced. Not even his father’s, because Father had occupied Park Place for only two years. The duke’s rooms, that’s all they were, the man who used them as interchangeable as the sheets on the bed. And now Sebastian was simply the one shouldering the weight of it. A weight he’d never wanted less than tonight.

  Damn Miranda and her cutting remarks about primroses! Didn’t she realize the impossible situation he’d been placed into? That he had to put the dukedom first before everything, including his own wants and desires? What did the infuriating woman want from him, for God’s sake, to marry him herself?

  Miranda Hodgkins as Duchess of Trent. Good God, what would Father say to that?

  And that was the problem. Because a part of him that he didn’t dare acknowledge wanted exactly that. Even knowing how wrong Miranda was for him, she was also perfectly right. For those precious few hours when he was with her, he felt liberated from the rest of his life, and carrying on with the title’s demands seemed bearable. When she smiled at him or made him laugh, he relaxed and could be himself, without fear of judgment or recrimination, in a way he could with no one else. She simply made him…happy. And knowing how fleeting that happiness was made him miserable.

  He opened the door to his sitting room and stopped.

  For a moment, so did his heart.

  Miranda sat in his reading chair by the fire, wearing not the masquerade gown this time but a plain, cotton night rail covering her from wrist to neck and surely all the way down to her ankles if not for the cashmere throw draped across her legs as she sat with her bare feet tucked beneath her. Her long hair hung over her shoulder in a loose braid secured with a green ribbon, and she gazed at him through spectacles perched on her pert little nose, reading Miss Bradford’s book on her lap. She couldn’t have appeared more different from both a society lady and Lady Rose if she’d tried. Yet she looked for all the world as if she belonged right there, as if she waited like that every night for him to come home.

  His breath hitched at the sight of her, all comfortable and ready for bed. What a fool he was for spending those last hours tolerating his brothers’ antics at Boodle’s when he could have been right here, putting her to bed.

  He closed the door and drawled with a half grin, “I didn’t recognize you without your masquerade costume.”

  She smiled nervously, but the teasing shine in her eyes made his chest warm. “I can leave a calling card and come back in the morning if you’d like, to be properly announced.”

  Not a chance in the world. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight tonight, not for one moment.

  “How do you keep getting in here?” He stepped toward her and dropped his unwanted cravat to the floor. Although truly, he didn’t care how she got here. He was simply damn glad that she was. “Should I have a talk with Saunders about security? After all, if a wisp of a woman can keep sneaking inside my bedchamber to torment me, how safe can I be from someone who really wishes to do me harm?”

  Her smile brightened at his sardonic teasing, her nervousness vanishing. She gave a soft giggle, and his shoulders lightened with relief. Ah, that was better. That was the Miranda he knew and lov—

  No. Not love.

  He cared about her; he would admit to that, and even now the warmth of her presence invaded his chest and eased the tension from his shoulders. And certainly he’d felt a reckless desire to be with her tonight, even though he’d promised her that they would do nothing more than talk, if that was what she wanted, although he now prayed that she wanted far more than conversation. But that didn’t mean love. It couldn’t. Because loving Miranda would be torture when he had to
pledge his life to another.

  “I have a key to the terrace door,” she answered. Unaware of the turmoil churning inside him, her emerald eyes shined in the firelight and only served to draw him even more strongly to her. “Josie thought it would be a good idea to keep a spare one at Audley House since the family is spread across two households for the season.” Private amusement touched her voice as she added, “To make it easier for all of us to come and go as we please.”

  He nodded with mock solemnity, appreciating his sister’s foresight more than he could ever tell her. “Wise woman, my sister.”

  “Very,” she sighed deeply. The neck of the night rail slipped down her shoulder and revealed barely an inch more of creamy skin, but that was all it took for his cock to stir to life. Her head tilted curiously as she watched him shrug out of his jacket and toss it away after the cravat. “Do you always undress in your sitting room?”

  “No.” The faster to ravish you tonight…but he thought better of admitting that aloud, for fear of frightening her away. “I have a dressing room off my bedroom.” He nodded toward the open pocket doors to the left and the room beyond, where he could just make out the outline of his bed in the shadows. And then, because something dark and punishing inside him couldn’t help it, he motioned to a set of closed connecting doors on the opposite wall from his bedroom. “That will be the duchess’s room through there, which also has a dressing room of its own.” He was thrilled to the point of aching that she was here tonight, but best to remind her of the rules upfront. Before she expected what he could never give. “Which also happens to be bigger than mine.”

  “As well it should be,” she agreed quietly. “After all, she’ll be the duchess. You’re only the duke.”

  He gave her his best arrogant grin. “I think you missed something when you read Debrett’s. I’ll outrank my duchess.”