Page 2 of The Duke is Wicked

Sebastian peered at his face in the grimy window before him and flexed his jaw with a pop. He’d recently purchased a ramshackle castle in Oxfordshire next to Finn’s—mere miles from Julian’s—when he needed another property like he needed a proverbial hole in the head. But this one, Adey Castle, was his and his alone. No bitter memories of growing up under a brutal hand to taint his love of the place; no ghosts, except the usual kind, waiting to spring at him from every dark corner.

It was true. He and Finn were neighbors.

Andfriends.

Sebastian smiled but kept it between himself and the leaded glass, the marvel of having friends still a wonder. Puzzling, this feeling of contentment, because he was surrounded, as most titled men were, by people. The higher the title, the larger the crowd. Former soldiers from his regiment. Women of varying levels of availability and consequence. Sycophants, servants, solicitors, tenants, beneficiaries.

But never friends. He shook his head and swiped his thumb over his battered bottom lip. Nay, the four men in this room were more than that. They werebrothers.

The only ones who understood who he was,whathe was.

They accepted him without question because they were, except for Humphrey, the gentle giant who played anxious papa to them all and now sat brooding in a gloomy corner of the salon, similarly cursed with a mystical gift they neither wanted nor could completely control. Julian had created a League of Lords for this very reason, to bring together the mystical misfits. Sebastian had happily joined the underground organization, for those locked in a supernatural world, the moment he’d been invited.

Still, even with his modest satisfaction of late, a victory in a life filled with chaos, Sebastian realized he was lonely—an ache he couldn’t soothe. Persistent and resounding as a bell ringing through his soul. With a sigh, he palmed his chest to contain it.

“You took a couple of hard knocks, Your Grace.” To calm himself, Julian had retrieved the pencil and paper he carried everywhere and was madly sketching. The scrape of charcoal on vellum circled the room. “Stepping between a cuckold and his betrayer is never a brilliant idea. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were inviting unrest into your life.”

“My face is going to bruise, a story I’ll have to explain all over Town, when your brother’s is the one in need of diminishing return,” Sebastian murmured, the scent of macassar oil, tobacco and liquor, standard gambling establishment aromas, undercutting every shallow, pained breath he took. He’d received a blow to the ribs as well, damn this night. Turning, he perched his shoulder against the window frame and reluctantly settled in. “It’s an excellent question, Finn, friend and neighbor. Whyarewe here?”

Humphrey took a swig straight from the gin bottle and skipped a pair of dice across the scarred table beside him. “Fireball’s worried about Lady Nuisance getting a look at that bruised jaw and offering to kiss and make it better. How to escape that, the despairing duke wonders?”

“You know what I think about that bloody nickname.” Sebastian shoved the soiled handkerchief in his trouser pocket, wondering who the hell it belonged to. “And that’s not it. Not at all.”

“The girl’s right chuffed to see you, every time, while you scamper in the opposite direction. Then she gets angry and disappears, one of those lazy fades where you can still see part of her. What I’d call a flicker. Although, we’re trying to help her evaporate completely, like dew on summer grass, it hasn’t worked yet.” Humphrey rubbed his wrist over his lips, a weak effort to wipe away his sneer. “Goddamn spooky. Although she would make the best duchess, the best wife, in England’s history. Vanish anytime she’s displeased. Or you are.Poof.Sounds like the type of wife I’d like.”

“No one’s kissed the duke and made anything better in months,” Finn replied with another stretch and crack of his knuckles, his delight drenching the room like a rain shower. His wife, Victoria, had arrived in London from Oxfordshire two days ago, and he didn’t lack for anything, from the look of him. “His new nickname in thetonis the ‘duke of no one’s heart.’ Hasn’t been seen at an event in months.”

“Sod off,” Sebastian returned, because he had to say something or be eaten alive. At the very least, he should tell them to stop calling his possibly-maybe-likely intended Lady Nuisance. However, Honoria Hazeltonwasa nuisance. A brash, impulsive girl for whom he had no patience, no interest. When she’d too much interest for the both of them. A lovely young woman of noble birth, Honoria also happened to have a supernatural talent of the disappearing variety. Making the marital arrangement he was pondering a precise, practical tradeoff in their mystical world. His protection, his name, which she desired, for her ability to produce an heir, which he desired—even if he was scared to death a child would inherit his gift. Or hers.

A fear which did not promote romance in any way, shape, or form.

Bracing his forearm on the window frame, London’s acrid, dull-gray deluge washed over Sebastian as he questioned how to bed someone he thought of as asister. Stretching his shoulders in mental evasion, he avoided Julian’s knowing stare. Julian and his wife, Piper, were a love match of a fervent kind. The I-have-loved-you-forever kind. Even more than Finn and Victoria, whose marriage was so passionate they couldn’t keep their hands or gazes off of each other, it was Julian’s marriage Sebastian, in turns, rejected and envied.

Humphrey snorted and dabbed at a splash of gin on the table. “Started playing the violin again after cutting the opera singer loose, didn’t you, Fireball? Seems a pansy hobby, but what do I know? If it soothes the soul like Jules with his doodling, keeps you from torching the West End, I suppose it’s a good thing.”

“Don’t violin strings roughen one’s fingertips?” Finn steepled his hands together and propped his chin atop them with a wistful smile that only made him more painfully attractive. “I’d imagine that could be useful in certain situations.”

“Christ, Finn”—Julian whipped his pencil across the sheet—“get your head out of your—”

“Freezing in here,” a frayed voice stuck solidly between boy and man murmured.

Sebastian looked over his shoulder. Simon, home from Rugby for the summer. An ace sharper and skilled thief, he rested on the floor, legs that were getting longer every day stretched before him, shuffling a deck of cards at an astonishing speed, without once looking at his hands. The finest cutpurse in the city in his youth, and the only person in the League with the ability to communicate with the deceased, Julian had rescued him nine years ago, managing to turn an abused boy into a superb facsimile of a charmed aristocrat.

Except for the startling conversations he conducted with the dead—and his inability to relinquish his larcenous ways.

Sebastian ran his tongue over his teeth, holding back his grin. “You’re cold, lad? That it?”

Finn swore, and Julian reared to a sit, the room falling into a charged silence. Humphrey dropped his head to the table while Simon continued to rotate the cards in an impressive array without a blink, never one who minded issuing a dare.

Sebastian’s grin grew as he decided to accept the wager, a wicked reflection in the glass pane when he looked back at it.If this goes poorly, he decided,at least the fire brigade is just down the way.

After all, Piper had told him he needed to practice.

Closing his eyes, he pictured the hearth in the salon. The cast-iron frame, the tile insets running down either side, the marble mantelpiece spun in shades of ivory and caramel. The firewood piled high in a haphazard twist on the grate.Dear God, Sebastian,aim for that.His fingertips warmed, his heart bumped against his ribs, his breath bottomed out. At the last moment, disagreeably, a fragment of a dream from the evening prior slipped into his mind.

The room, tiny. The woman, beautiful. The books, many.

Eyes the color of a tarnished silver coin capturing his.