Page 55 of The Duke is Wicked

And he wasn’t planning to propose again, when she’d decided she would say yes if he did, even to that horrible duchess bit. He planned to have her remain his mistress until he married—and now this.

She squeezed the Soul Catcher until the sharp edges cut into her palm.

She would forever question his choice if he asked her to marry him now, never knowing if he’d asked because he wanted her or because he’d made a tactical,biologicalerror. Heaven knows, they’d tried regularly enough for her to get pregnant. In every room in the castle. The stables, the orangery. The bridge crossing the moat in the pitch darkness. Her cheeks flushed, her body heating as it did when she envisioned him, in bed, rising over her or pulling her atop him. Moving behind her when she woke in the creamy light of dawn.

One touch, and he set her aflame.

When she looked up, she found him watching her. Resting against the headboard of his monstrous bed, sheet settled in a neat tuck at his waist. Attraction, affection and trepidation thrummed through her like she’d knocked the sensitive spot on her elbow and caused a painful vibration to rattle her body. Always painandpleasure with this man. His gaze fell to where her hand covered her stomach, then slowly lifted to her face. The expressions crossed his too rapidly for her to gather them, like trying to catch petals set loose in the wind. But his chest lifted and dropped on a labored sigh that didn’t sound like joy.

“Delaney?” he finally asked.

She hung her head, the tears that were ever-present recently, flooding her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not sure what is what for which she apologized. What she wanted, what sheneeded. The Soul Catcher warmed in her hand, an amber glow against pale skin.

Then the room erupted in flames.

Chapter 16

Our love affair is over,Delaney guessed, as she watched the east wing of Sebastian’s home smolder from her spot sitting atop the stone wall surrounding her beloved moat. She tucked a dozing Hep against her chest and wrapped the woolen blanket Victoria had given her around her shoulders. Sebastian hadn’t looked her way since carrying her from the castle and thrusting her into the arms of a footman, the duke’s gaze as burdened as she’d ever seen it.

He would never forgive himself.

Or her.

Dawn had colored the sky in vivid streaks of bronze and yellow, a magnificent backdrop for the chaotic scene unfolding before her. The singed taste of smoke lay heavy in her throat; shallow rivers of water trailed across the lawn to soak the earth. Hoarse shouts and the bang of windows being shoved open, doors thrown wide. Due to a fair wind and unbelievably, a water engine lying in wait for such a situation, the structure's damage seemed relatively minor. The duke’s servants, and his convoy of mercenaries, had vaulted into rehearsed action when the alarm had rung through the dwelling, not the first time they’d been placed in this category of service.

They were more prepared for a blaze than the London Fire Brigade.

Sebastian looked a gorgeous fright. His lustrous hair shooting in every direction, his cheeks blackened with soot, his attire beyond repair. But above it all, a feat she could never replicate, besieged by anarchy and an atmosphere of despair, he looked…regal. She could imagine him on a battlefield, directing his troops.

Across the distance, she sought to catch his eye, but he glanced down, bleak and battered emotion flashing in their amber depths before he tucked it away. His family surrounded him, ash raining down on them like snow. His league of friends—Julian, Humphrey, Finn, Simon—their faces and clothing as decimated as his, trying, she could see, to diminish his anguish with rough jostling. A masculine brand of solace.

They’d not looked at her once, either, the cowards.

But they were, the lot of them, an astonishingly attractive bunch of idiots.

“Just look at them. Overgrown boys. They’ll be tossing each other in the mud soon.” Piper rocked against her, an encouraging elbow bump. “It looks worse than it is. He went with a castle for a reason. Stone is durable. And the water engine was truly an inspired purchase, wasn’t it? Julian knew it would come in handy someday.”

Victoria laid her hand over her tummy. Delaney feared the imbalance caused by her huge belly was going to send her tumbling off the wall with the next ripple of wind. “Only a duke would think to acquire his own.”

The women flanked Delaney, likely fearing she’d race into the breaking dawn if they didn’t guard her. Which she might. She appreciated their effort to reassure her, as their husbands were doing across the way with Sebastian, but she was cranky enough to resist.

“He’ll get over this,” Piper whispered, then frowned at how tentative the statement sounded.

“No, he won’t.” Delaney hugged Hep close, resisting the urge to flee to her attic and stay there until she figured out what to do about her situation, about having intrusive friends who cared for the first time in memory. They didn’t know Sebastian Fitzgerald Tremont, fifth Duke of Ashcroft like she did.

Hedidn’t even understand how well she knew him.

Or how well he knewher. How she’d let him into her life in a way she’d never imagined she would.

Piper knocked her boot against the wall and fidgeted until Delaney was forced to grab her hand to make her stop. “I have a second gift aside from healing,” the viscountess admitted, gazing at the bruised horizon. “I see auras. Bright bursts of color enveloping people. It used to blind me, overwhelm me, but I’ve spent years connecting color to temperament, mood. Now, it’s enlightening because it provides this additional layer of information about anyone I meet. There’s an entire section about auras in the chronology, in your attic, which you’ve probably read.” She darted a glance at Delaney, then away. “Illness is often apparent, as is pregnancy.”

The earth shifted, air leaking from her lungs. She’d hoped it was her imagination, a miscalculation, a trick her body was playing on her. Her menses had been late once or twice before. Though she’dknown, while reviewing the calendar she’d retrieved from her attic, she wasn’t mistaken.

Wonderfully, however, beneath the shock of Piper’s validation was happiness. Sebastian’s baby. A child with amber eyes and a soft smile.

Love was a tide roaring through her body.

Piper laughed and drew her hand in a loopy circle around Delaney and Victoria. “Your auras are shimmering. A vivid shade of lavender I’ve only seen with expectant mothers.”