Page 46 of His Temporary Duchess

She shrugged, leaning back on her hands and tilting her face to the sun. “Thereisnowhere else for him. I hardly dare telling most people about him—you might think that a mouse is an acceptable pet for a Duchess, but I assure you, most people do not.”

“I also do not,” he informed her, and the corners of her lips curled into a smile.

“Well then, you understand.”

He made a mental note to request a carpenter to make her some kind of cage for the animal. One large enough and comfortable enough that the mouse would have all the space it neededwithout taking up—and therefore making a mess in—one of his wife’s drawers.

That, too, would be a surprise, he decided.

His hand brushed hers, and she looked up at him, gray eyes soft and warm and filled with subtle hope. Not for the first time, he wondered what the devil he was doing in this marriage with this woman.

To Eleanor’s delight, the boat trip proved just as lovely as she’d hoped. Sebastian and Luke took the oars, forced to work together as they navigated the boat into the center of the river. Eleanor and Olivia, sheltering their faces from the sun with the rim of their bonnets, huddled together and trailed their hands in the water.

“He is so unbearably handsome,” Olivia sighed under her breath as they watched the men, their coats abandoned and shirt sleeves rolled to their elbows.

Eleanor sighed too. “Yes.” She watched Sebastian’s throat bob with effort as he barked a command at Luke—who, credit given where it was due, accepted it without question and adjusted their course. “He is, is he not?”

Olivia cast her a wry glance. “You are looking at your husband.”

“Should I not be?”

“Do you truly believe that the Duke is more handsome than the Earl?”

“Why, of course.” Eleanor frowned, glancing at Luke, who was, naturally, handsome enough in his own way, but could never hold a candle to Sebastian. Why, he did not have the glossy black hair, tied at the back of his neck, the same fierce gray eyes, the subtle dimple that popped in one cheek when he smiled. Eleanor could not help wanting to provoke that smile from him as often as possible, and as time went by, she felt as though she did so increasingly often.

Luke, by contrast, was charmingly handsome in an urbane way that did nothing for Eleanor—but quite clearly did something for Olivia.

“I think both men are handsome,” Eleanor said diplomatically. “But I confess, I find my husband more handsome than his friend.”

“I suppose that is to the right. Would you say they are friends?”

Eleanor watched as Sebastian exchanged a brief look of triumph with the other man, his mask slipping just enough that he allowed some of the friendliness underneath to show.

She just knew that under the façade he kept in place, there was a young man eager to be loved and accepted. If only he would let that side of him out.

“I think they could be,” she said. “And I hope that, in time, they will be.”

“I hope so too. What is the next event we can get them at?” Olivia grinned wickedly. “Ideally another one involving this level of physical exertion. Have you ever found anything so appealing as a gentleman glistening with sweat?”

Eleanor thought back to the way Sebastian had appeared to her naked, bathed in candlelight, his chest rising and falling as she urged pleasure from him, his eyes hot and heavy and dark, fixed on her as though he could see nothing else in the world and had no wish to.

“No,” she said. “Nothing.”

When Eleanor and Sebastian arrived home, to her surprise, she found that instead of retiring to his study or elsewhere, he accompanied her upstairs.

“To see this ridiculous nest your rodent has created,” he said when she asked him what his purpose was.

“It is notridiculous, and I have only given him rags to make do with. I would hardly sacrifice one of my dresses for the task.”

“No?” He raised his brows at her. “Not even the ones I left for you to wear?”

“Those were designed for me to wear in deliberation?” She turned astonished eyes to him, and he felt like a cad all over again.

“Well, they were left there, and one might have thought that upon inheriting the room and them, you might have had no choice but to wear them.”

“I suppose so, and I would have done if it had brought you peace, but I am glad you did not require it of me. I hardly know how to wear them, and they seem so heavy. So much brocade!” She laughed, the sound light and airy, and for the first time since his marriage, Sebastian followed his wife into her bedchamber.

It was outfitted much as he had left it, although now, her scent lay thick everywhere, and although the bed was neatly made, he had a vision of her sprawled there. All this time, he had not been with her, not been lying in this bed with her, imprinting it withthemrather than just her.