Page 26 of The Duke is Wicked
Sebastian strolled into a room where her enticing scent lingered, circling the billiard table to halt before them. Delaney looked guilty, Simon pleased. The boy had likely never spent his evening with a bottleanda woman, even if the woman in question had him by a few essential years—though Sebastian feared it was fewer than he’d have liked.
She was adorable, sitting there half-cocked, eyes as pale as spring rain in the gaslight’s glow. Midnight tresses secured in a careless knot at the back of her head, one he could have liberated in less than three seconds. A serviceable gown, absent of ruffles and lace, but more compelling for the deficiency. He was trapped without the cage, aware the jolt of heat flowing between them wasn’t coming just from him. Desire, as persuasive as the scent of gin andwomangoverning the room, streaked through him. Rocking back on his heels, Sebastian snaked his hand in his pocket to keep from touching. “How’s the ankle?” he asked, he and Delaney in complete agreement that she’d been lying through her lovely white teeth about any injury to her person.
She sniffed and put on a proper show, rolling her booted foot in a sluggish rotation. “Much better, thank you for asking.”
Unable to help himself, Sebastian laughed and reached for the glass still pressed to her bodice, slipping it free and lifting it to his lips, holding it there a long moment before taking a sip. Her look was fearless, but her heartbeat beneath his knuckle had been frantic. “What suitable host doesn’t inquire about his guest’s health?” he murmured against the crystal rim.
Simon released a soft snore, and they turned to find him asleep, head buried in his arms, long body folded halfway across the chessboard, the pieces scattered about him.
Sebastian removed the glass from Simon’s hand. “Was the libation your idea? You’re his elder by at least, what, two years?” It was a subtle way to find out how bloody old she was. He was starting to feel like an immoral uncle.
Delaney tilted her head and considered her inebriated friend with a smile that shook Sebastian with its candid affection. If she’d only look athimlike that. “I’m twenty-two, so I imagine Simon and I are close in age.”
Turning to the sideboard, Sebastian placed the glasses next to the open gin bottle.Twenty-two.Too old for Simon, too young for him. “He’s seventeen. And the few times he’s had a drink, very few because Julian holds a tight leash, he’s taken it upon himself to rob someone blind. Pockets things when he’s in the mood, which Julian hopes, like the haunts, he’ll outgrow. Although lately, he talks to one in particular, and I wonder if he’s smitten with a woman long departed. As if a young man’s minority weren’t hard enough to struggle through without falling in love with a ghost.”
“Oh. Goodness, we only had one glass. But it was a rather generous pour.” Turning to gaze around the gaming room, she whispered, “Ghosts? Are they here? Now? He mentioned they were.”
Sebastian glanced over his shoulder, a grin teasing his lips. “Try not to think about it. That’s what I do.”
Delaney looked fascinated and aghast, the mix charming him to his toes. He laughed, which he’d done more since that damned bee sting than he had his entire life.
It wasn’t simple, this attraction.
When he’d always counted on attraction being simple.
She wagged her finger, swaying as she did it. “Come here, Tremont. Your cravat is askew, as usual. When I tie a smart mail coach knot.”
He paused in squeezing lime juice into a glass, telling himself alcohol brought dreadful impulses to the forefront. A petite woman, it wouldn’t take much to knock her off her feet. He wasn’t about to let her touch his cravat in this weakened condition—his or hers. “I feel I must refuse and continue on with my tilted neckpiece.”
She scooted off her chair, strolled to the billiard table and hopped to sit on it like she’d done it a thousand times before, her gown a buttercup swirl around her slender body. He battled to smother his surprise. No English woman, notone, could have copied the move. Certainly not while making it look rakish and elegant. So incredibly lovely and unladylike. “I love this house,” she said and rolled the eight ball along the baize and into a pocket, her crooked grin breaking his heart just a little. “It’s fit for a duke, as fit as any fortress I’ve ever seen. The dungeon alone makes me want to weep. I think the suit of armor in the library isreal.”
Sebastian closed the distance between them, not close enough to touch but enough to reach, handing her a glass. With a quick sip, she sulked to find water, lime and nothing else.
“I was a third son, Temple, did you know that? From your research inDebrett’s,I thought you might.”
She hummed low in her throat but didn’t comment. Evidently not. That would mean giving up valuable information about herself.
“Third sons, even of a duke, lead charmed lives. Although this fire-starting business bungled that. So I bought an army commission to escape and went off to fight battles I’m no longer sure mattered, then returned to find myself stuck with the weightiest title in the land. And, still, the fires raged.” Grabbing a cue, he anchored his elbow on the table, aimed and pocketed a ball with the gentlest kiss imaginable. He was a dangerous player himself. “A third son lives here, not a duke. No upsetting memories assail me when I walk through that Tudor door you like so much.”
“Your father, the fountain.” Her penetrating gaze cut over her glass as she took a sip.
“Ah, so I did talk out of turn while down and out? Not really cricket of you to listen.”
“Cricket?”
Sebastian rounded the table, studied his target, squinted and took a precise shot that had a striped ball cutting past her hip and into the corner pocket. If he didn’t do something with his hands, they were going to beall over her. “It’s a sport I could trounce you at, much like I could billiards, I believe. And chess, I know after watching Simon make quick work of you. Not going to win any wagers at White’s with that level of play.”
“Simon cheated,” she answered hotly. “I swear he moved a pawn while I wasn’t looking, or maybe while I was. He has swift hands, that boy. A pickpocket, wasn’t he?”
Sebastian took a shot, banked the ball but missed the pocket. Her teasing snort followed just behind, thrilling him when it shouldn’t. “He used to be the sharpest cutpurse in London, in the vilest district. Amazing he didn’t get killed before Julian spirited him out of there at all of eight years of age.” Sebastian looked up from the table to find her gaze fixed on him, as tangible as her stroking her finger along his skin. “You don’t care, do you? That Finn and Simon bring none of the elements society finds necessary to the party?”
Conversely, did she care that he broughtmorethan necessary?
She grasped a ball and flipped it between her hands. The seven, if he wasn’t mistaken. “Silly, isn’t it? This lord business. A man thinking he’s better for being born to a man born to a man who didn’t do much of anything but please a king.”
Sebastian chalked his cue, then propped the stick on the floor, turning to rest upon it. “Is it true your attic resembles a library at Oxford?”
Her grin was immediate, her eyes sparkling with delight, scuffed boots bumping against the table in her jaunty rhythm. He grasped the cue until his knuckles whitened, unable to look away from the daringly attractive picture she presented. “Keble College. When my attic used to look like this natty library in Charleston because that’s all I knew. I’ve only seen photographs, because Keble’s for student use, but it houses a world-renowned collection of illuminated medieval manuscripts. Which, to use one of your words, I fancy. They have stained glass windows that I worked into my vision, but it’s such a small space and with all the books…” Her lips tightened, her words fading. She threw a mutinous glare his way, realizing she’d said more than planned.