Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands Book 3) Page 18

But there it was just the same, poor delivery aside. Saying it felt equal parts alarming and freeing. And also right. So very, very right. Daisy was his. She was his, and she was innocent of any and all Fenian plots. She was kind and good, sweet and giving, and everything a woman who had spent most of her life being abused by her father should seemingly not be. She was the part of himself he’d been missing. The part of himself he hadn’t known existed until he’d recognized it in her eyes.

  “Bloody hell, Bast,” Griffin bit out. “You know it’s impossible.”

  Sebastian kept his eyes trained forward as he rode, pretending as if he hadn’t heard his friend speak. It was early, and Hyde Park was not yet teeming with the scores of horsemen and parade of the fashionable that would inevitably clutter it. Dawn rides had long been their habit—the perfect cover for relaying sensitive information that was best not entrusted to paper.

  Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.

  But as it happened, Sebastian wasn’t inclined to give a damn. For the first time in his life, he felt… at peace. He’d dedicated his life to the League, but he had finally reached his limit. He would not send an innocent woman to gaol. He would not misuse her after she had given so freely of her body, mind, and heart. By God, he would not treat her as a pawn for another moment more.

  Because she wasn’t a pawn.

  She was Daisy, and she was strong against all odds, and her laughter was infectious, and she had changed him in a way he’d never imagined possible. She had opened a door into a life he might have, and God help him, he intended to walk through that door. With her at his side. He intended to take that life and make it theirs.

  “Sebastian,” Griffin said again, and this time his tone was grim.

  Grim because he could read Sebastian better than anyone else could. But Sebastian didn’t want to hear any of his friend’s sermons. He didn’t need any further reminders and warnings concerning Daisy. His mind drowned in them. The only thing keeping him afloat in this vast ocean of self-loathing and confusion threatening to consume him was the same person Griffin warned him away from.

  Daisy.

  And that was why he wanted her as his true wife, for the rest of their lives. She was everything he wanted, and nothing he’d ever imagined he’d needed. He’d realized that he couldn’t get her out of his life until he got her out of his blood, out of his head, and out of his bed. But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.

  She was his, full stop.

  “Sod off,” he said conversationally.

  He didn’t want to hear what Griffin had to say. Not a word.

  “You took her to the opera,” his friend countered. “A book shop, the museum, hell, Sebastian, you’re courting the chit. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

  He continued to ignore Griffin, urging his mount into a faster pace. Eyes and ears everywhere, he thought bitterly. Apparently, Carlisle’s little birds had been following him about with more dedication these days. Was Griffin one of those birds? The thought was akin to a knife to the gut. He was like a brother to Sebastian. The brother he’d never had.

  Griffin’s gelding matched his mare pace for pace. “You’re bedding her,” he called out, “and it’s turning you into a fool. Do yourself a favor and find someone else to fuck.”

  That was bloody well the wrong thing to say to him. The wrong fucking thing to say to him.

  Sebastian reined in his horse and dismounted, forcing his sometime friend to do the same. They squared off like a pair of prize fighters, staring each other down. Rage coursed through him, tightening his jaw until his teeth gnashed together. Sebastian broke the uneasy silence first.

  “Never speak of her that way again,” he warned in a voice that vibrated with barely suppressed fury. He had never before wanted to smash his fist into Griffin’s nose the way he did now, so much that his knuckles ached with it.

  “You want to hit me, Bast?” Griffin sneered. “Over a set of skirts you haven’t even been bedding for the span of a month? Go ahead, you prick. Choose a treasonous tart over our brotherhood. Hit me. See what happens.”

  A set of skirts. That was the phrase that did it. Or perhaps it was treasonous tart. Sebastian would never know for certain. All he did know was that in the next breath, his fist collided with Griffin’s jaw.

  His friend’s head snapped back, and he stumbled before regaining his footing. “Jesus, Sebastian. What the bloody hell?”

  He stared back at Griffin as pain seared his knuckles, and as a reddish-purple bruise blossomed on his friend’s jaw. “Fuck. I didn’t intend to strike you, Griff. I’m sorry. It’s merely that she’s… ”

  He allowed his words to trail off for fear of where they’d been headed. She’s the woman I love. Had he really been about to say such a ludicrous thing? Of course not. There was a vast difference between desiring a woman as his companion and having her in his bed and loving her. He’d only been married to her for the span of a fortnight, Chrissakes.

  “She’s colluding with the Fenians,” Griffin finished for him. “Tell me you don’t think she’s innocent, Bast.”

  “Her father is colluding with the Fenians,” he corrected coldly. “Her father who beat her savagely from the time she was a wee, defenseless girl of four. Her father who she never wants to see again. Vanreid is the enemy we seek to bring to heel, not Daisy.”

  Griffin’s expression remained hard as stone, unreadable. “I suppose we’ll find out the truth of that soon enough.”

  There was something his friend hadn’t said, and he knew it. “Meaning?”

  “It’s time, Bast.” Griffin rubbed his bruised jaw. “Carlisle wants you to proceed with approaching Vanreid about a dowry. He expected you to do it sooner than this, and he isn’t pleased. You’re to invite him to your home. We need to pin the firearms to him. We’ve word from our American agents that an attack is imminent. They’ve commissioned a bloody submarine, Bast. It’s built and seaworthy, and they have every intention of using it to bombard one of our vessels. This is war.”

  Sebastian’s blood went cold. He knew what was expected of him, but he’d been hoping like hell that there would be another way. That Carlisle would change his battle plans and leave Sebastian with a more palatable option.

  The thought of having Vanreid present in his home made his skin crawl. The son-of-a-bitch ought to be disemboweled for what he’d done to Daisy, and that was a bloody, nasty business. Sebastian had seen the aftermath of just such a killing, and though it haunted him to this day, even an end as ghastly as that would be too merciful for Vanreid.

  Now he was to pretend as though all was roses and rainbows, to invite Vanreid to his study and play the part of dissolute rakehell. To bring the bastard close enough to Daisy to hurt her once more.

  He didn’t know if he could do it. He needed time. Time to think. To clear his mind. He had hit the one man in the world who was like a brother to him. But Griffin had not hit him back. For some reason, that troubled Sebastian the most.

  “Thank you for the message,” he said tersely, and then he spun on his heel and threw himself atop his horse once more before riding hell for leather away from the only person he’d ever believed he could trust. Away from unwanted duty. Away from everyone and everything.

  Griffin’s words echoed in the staccato of his horse’s hooves.

  This is war.

  Yes, bloody hell, it was.

  Daisy descended the stairs for dinner at precisely a quarter past eight that evening, just as she had every night since her first dinner with him. What had begun as a small assertion of her independence had quickly changed. She kept him waiting, and he took her to task, though increasingly with more sensual heat than genuine irritation. It had become rather a diversion of sorts between them.

  He pushed, she pulled. He was inflexible and disciplined where she longed to experience life free of the constraints that had once contained her. She wanted to soak up every moment of every day in this new life she led, while Sebastian seemed somehow restrained. The sad
ness in him remained, haunting his beautiful eyes. It was only when she teased him that he came to life at last, shedding his armor and allowing himself to simply be.

  She’d come to realize that her husband was a rigid and disciplined man. He woke before dawn, breakfasted early, devoted himself to his estates and other matters, took his exercise, and then awaited her at dinner. And she liked keeping him waiting, even if it meant she secretly paced the floor of her chamber, sneaking glances at the mantle clock, as she made certain not to be punctual.

  But there was an undeniably different air about him tonight as she glossed her right hand lightly over the polished balustrade, holding her skirts slightly aloft with her left. She’d become adept at sweeping down the staircase as though she glided, and she’d chosen a seafoam blue silk evening gown trimmed with rosettes and a revealing décolletage, but none of those trivialities mattered when her eyes found him as she was halfway down the stairs.

  He wasn’t pacing tonight. His back was to her, head bowed forward as though in prayer, hands clasped at his back. She didn’t know him to be a particularly pious man, and in the fortnight they’d been married, he’d never missed the opportunity to unleash his caged energy on the parquet floor as he awaited her.

  Something had changed, and she felt it the same way she’d experience a chill running straight down her spine. She paused, on the fourth stair from the bottom, watching him. This was not the reunion she’d anticipated after receiving a library’s worth of books, all carefully chosen with her interests in mind. And especially not after an inscription that called her a favorite.

  A favorite.

  As though she were someone to be cherished. Perhaps loved, though that was a finer emotion that she didn’t expect from him after only a fortnight of marriage. Hearts did what they would, and just because hers had stubbornly decided to fall for him didn’t mean his in turn could be expected to feel the same.

  Still, those words had worked their way deep inside her to a place she hadn’t even known existed, making her smile all day long. Those words had been responsible for the soft hums of pleasure emerging from her as she made herself at home in the library. Those words were what caused the frisson of desire to glide through her even now, accompanied by the swift fluttering of her heart.

  But he still hadn’t turned to face her, and he must have heard her footfalls on the stairs by now. “Sebastian,” she called softly.

  He turned to her at last, his expression grim in the moment before he appeared to collect himself and don one of his many facades. A sensual smile curved his lips with ease. “Late again, buttercup?” he asked, but there was no bite to his words, only a bittersweet resonance.

  Her heart clenched in her breast as she forced herself to descend the remainder of the stairs. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting,” she said tonight the same as she had each night before, taking extra care to maintain the flippancy in her tone. This time, she had a new explanation for her tardiness at the ready. “Someone sent me the contents of an entire book shop, and I spent the course of the day attempting to reconcile the shelves, the existing literature, and the new volumes.”

  He strode toward her with a confidence that was purely his, all ducal, and somehow elegant and sinful at once. His dark hair was swept back from his high forehead, and he wore a black coat, black trousers, and a crisp white shirt beneath a gunmetal brocade waistcoat. He looked dark and lethal and delicious.

  And hers.

  He was hers, she reminded herself as he took her outstretched hand in his and guided her down the last step. The guidance wasn’t necessary. His touch, however, was.

  She was smiling at him like a foolish girl, but she didn’t care. “Have you nothing to say, Your—”

  “Sebastian,” he intervened, drawing her closer. He lowered his head, and their lips nearly met. His scent swept over her, pine and man and husband. “A one-half Your Grace is all I’m willing to allow tonight, Duchess.”

  Her fingers tightened over his. He was ever an enigma, keeping a part of himself from her. The part she wanted the most. His eyes were blue, so blue, bluer than the brightest country summer sky of her childhood before her father had moved them to the city.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “For the books.”

  He raised her hand to his lips for a kiss, his gaze searing hers. “I would have far preferred for you to select them yourself, but you were stubborn as ever.”

  His extravagance still did strange things to her insides. When he’d attempted to convince her to buy half the book shop, she had objected. Of course she had. What sane woman would want her husband to empty his coffers over her literary whims? Her father would never have allowed such a thing.

  That thought had ultimately rendered her acceptance of Sebastian’s somewhat high-handed gift all the more acceptable to her. Sebastian wasn’t attempting to control her with his gift. He wanted to please her, and that was the difference.

  “I’m a simple woman,” she said then. “I don’t require crates of books, fancy houses, or servants to satisfy me.”

  He squeezed her fingers, his expression inscrutable. “What does satisfy you, Daisy?”

  You.

  She nearly said the word. She almost revealed herself to him, made herself as vulnerable as she could possibly be. Instead, she shook her head, unwilling to give him everything. Uncertain if she could. Her feelings remained too new and strange. The notion of telling him she loved him made her mouth go dry and her heart pound.

  “I look forward to reading,” she told him instead. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to me, for choosing books to my liking.”

  “Are they to your liking, buttercup?”

  His question was unexpected. No one had ever been as concerned with her happiness and satisfaction as Sebastian was. Sometimes, his attentiveness threw her. Other times, it made her sigh.

  In this instance, her smile broadened. “The selections were most judicious. You somehow know what I would want to read most.”

  He hesitated, and she couldn’t suppress the sensation that he wanted to say more. Instead, he inclined his head and offered his arm. “Dinner, my darling?”

  It was a tired phrase, she thought—my darling—as she clenched his muscled forearm. She wasn’t his darling, was she? That phrase, so easily rolled off his facile tongue, didn’t mean what her imprudent heart longed to believe it did.

  The truth was that she hadn’t the slightest inclination of what, if anything, he felt for her, aside from desire. The way he looked at her, the way he touched her and held her, told her all she needed to know on that account. But though he’d warmed to her, she mustn’t fool herself.

  And right now, he watched her in that way of his that was intimate and assessing all at once. While here she stood, wishing he’d meant to call her his darling in the truest sense. Wishing he’d forego all manners and formality, sweep her in his arms, and take her upstairs.

  Oh, foolish, foolish heart.

  “Dinner,” she forced herself to say, for it was far wiser than blurting her feelings. “Yes, let’s.”

  By the loin of mutton à la Brétonne, Sebastian realized that it was no stroke of chance that all his favorites were being served in the course of one dinner. And he knew instantly that it wasn’t the redoubtable Mrs. Robbins who was solely responsible. Though Mrs. Robbins had been a retainer for his entire life, she had never in all her years of service orchestrated such a dinner on his behalf unless he had specifically requested it.

  He met Daisy’s gaze over the lovely table setting—fresh hothouse blooms carefully arranged amidst new table linens, silver, and china, candles flickering with a pleasant glow, all of which he was certain was her doing as well.

  “Leave us,” he told the servants dancing attendance upon them without ever taking his eyes from her.

  They remained silent until they were blessedly alone.

  “Buttercup,” he said then, his throat going embarrassingly thick. He would have said something else, but he didn
’t wish to further embarrass himself by wearing his heart on his bloody sleeve.

  His heart on his sleeve?

  Christ.

  From what hell had that rogue thought emerged?

  The answering smile she gave him was so blinding that it robbed him of his breath. For a moment, he stared, basking in her beauty, forgetting all about the untenable mire in which he currently found himself. Submarines, dynamite, and the Fenian menace—not to mention the goddamn League itself and his unwanted mission—dissipated like a storm chased away by the sun.

  “Is the dinner to your liking?” she asked him, repeating his earlier question to her.

  Jesus. He devoured her with his gaze, from her golden hair carefully plaited and styled high atop her head to her high forehead, the dainty slashes of her brows, her elegant nose, and those wide, luscious lips he loved to bite and lick and crush beneath his, then lower for just a beat, over her full, creamy breasts. Suddenly, he was no longer hungry for dinner.

  “You arranged this.” If his voice sounded rusty and deep, it couldn’t be helped any more than his reaction to her could. He hadn’t bloody well wanted to marry her. He hadn’t wanted the all-consuming attraction he felt for her. He hadn’t meant to burn whenever he looked upon her. To want—nay, need—her so much that he was willing to do damn near anything to keep her at his side, as his duchess.

  But he did.

  She tilted her head, considering him and—he feared—seeing far too much. “With the aid of Mrs. Robbins, of course. You’ve been unfailingly kind to me, and I wished to convey my gratitude in some small way.”

  The beast in him instantly thought of other ways she might convey her gratitude as well. None of them involved mutton or potatoes à la Lyonnaise. Fighting a groan, he shifted in his chair as discomfort settled in the vicinity of his trousers. A familiar affliction whenever he was in her presence.

  And then he thought of how she didn’t owe him her gratitude at all. She didn’t owe him a bloody thing, and if she knew the half of it, she’d never speak to him again. Over the past fortnight, he’d done his best to compartmentalize his duty and the way he’d begun to feel for Daisy. But eventually, the twain would meet, and his meeting with Griffin earlier had made that stark fact all the more real.