One Tempting Proposal (16 page)

He liked the dazed look in her eyes when he finally lifted his head, and he couldn't resist touching the soft curve of her cheek. But he pulled back after a single stroke. If he continued touching her, he'd continue kissing her, and all of his resolve after their last encounter had already been shattered.

Glancing over his shoulder, Seb half expected to find the two disapproving sisters wagging their fingers at him, but there were three individuals in view. Two women with a boy between them. All of them were turned in his and Kat's direction, as if they'd been watching their intimate display.

Wonderful. The idea of these outings was for them to be seen, not to create a scandal.

He braced a hand over his brow to block the sun and get a better look, and shivered. His stomach plummeted to his feet and he felt seasick.

The trio began walking toward them, and there could be no mistake. His aunt and Alecia stared at him as they approached.

“Kat, excuse me a moment.”

Her hand gripped his wrist.

“If you intend to speak to them, I'm going with you.”

His wish to keep her out of the ugliness with Alecia warred with his desire to have Kat by his side, but she didn't allow time for his inner battle. She slid her hand down and clasped his before beginning a determined march toward his aunt and former lover.

“Lady Stamford, how nice to see you, and you, Lady Naughton. Such a lovely day for a walk through the prettiest garden in London.”

Both ladies agreed with Kat's assessment and then turned their gazes toward Seb. The boy positioned himself near Alecia but seemed more interested in the greenery than the adults' conversation. Naughton's son was a mirror image of his mother—­black hair contrasting with pale-­hued eyes. At least he'd been spared his father's weak chin and overlarge head.

Seb caught his aunt's eye as Alecia and Kat carried on a conversation of inane questions and practiced answers.

His aunt took two steps to her left and tipped her head to encourage him to join her. “Do look at this unusual vine, Sebastian.”

Before he could ask any of the half-­dozen questions burning his throat, she leaned toward him, balancing gloved palms on her upturned lace parasol.

“I see questions in your gaze, my dear. Pay me a visit tomorrow and you'll have your answers.”

 

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE MYSTERY OF
why his aunt invited Alecia to her ball and spent the next day promenading with her in the Royal Botanical Gardens were the questions that had kept Seb up most of the night.

An acquaintance between the women was unexpected, but Alecia's husband held a minor position in the government. Perhaps Lord and Lady Naughton were popular among London social circles.

He still shivered at the memory of looking up from kissing Kat to find his aunt and Alecia on his heels. Between the letters he'd destroyed and Alecia's tendency to pop up where he least expected to find her, he felt hunted, pursued. Irony of ironies, by the woman he'd once pursued to the point of forfeiting every bit of his peace of mind.

He spun the paradox in his mind as he waited for his aunt to join him in her drawing room. Tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, he studied a painting of a blond country girl walking through a meadow. The artist had achieved a fine composition, with a golden mean sort of proportionality. The female figure in the center looked back at the viewer over her shoulder, a surprisingly seductive pose for such a wholesome subject, and the line of her neck and shade of her hair reminded him of Kat.

A pang of longing—­for the sight and scent of her, to hear her voice saying something impertinent and clever—­struck him as his aunt swept into the drawing room with a maid bearing a tea tray following in her wake.

“Where should we begin?”

At the beginning, of course.
Kat's words from yesterday's outing at the Botanical Gardens rang in his mind.

“How long have you been acquainted with Lady Naughton?”

His aunt took a sip of her tea before looking at him square. “You needn't be quite so polite, my dear. Ask me what you truly wish to know.”

Seb frowned. So perhaps there was more than a polite acquaintance between the women. He suspected he didn't know enough of the truth to ask the right questions.

“I'm content to start with how long you've known her.”

She sighed, clearly disappointed. “Not long. She approached me at a dinner party a few months ago.”

“A few months ago? Or was it two months ago? After I inherited my cousin's dukedom.”

His aunt dipped her head in a curt nod. “I hadn't missed that connection, my boy, but do hear me out. Ned knew her husband, and I vaguely remember Naughton saying years ago that he was considering marriage.”

“Ten years ago.”

“Yes, perhaps it was.” She offered him a sad grin before setting aside her teacup. Leaning forward, she clasped her hands in her lap. “Alecia—­”

“Alecia, is it? My, you two are close.”

“Don't be peevish, Sebastian. I have much to tell you, and some of it will be quite difficult. But I know how you value honesty, as did your father and my Ned. You deserve honesty.”

Seb lifted his teacup and took a long sip, savoring the flavor and nearly scalding heat of the liquid.

Honesty. His aunt wished to speak of honesty? And in the same breath in which she mentioned Alecia? Clearly she didn't know the woman well at all.

“Forgive me, Aunt Augusta. Please carry on.”

“The circumstances of your . . . relationship with Alecia are not unknown to me. She has conveyed a bit of your shared history.”

He took another sip of tea to hide a bitter grin. What had Alecia told her? What version of her twisted truth?

“That must have been an interesting story.”

Alecia only told interesting stories.

His aunt stood as if she was too full of frustrated energy to remain sitting. Pacing the carpet in front of him, she cast him a look now and then, as if contemplating what to tell him or how to tell him what she seemed compelled to say. Finally she stopped in front of him and planted her hands on her hips.

“She told me you were lovers.”

He cleared his throat but met her questioning gaze. He'd never expected to have such a conversation with his aunt, but she seemed determined to speak plainly, to get to the heart of the matter. Such straightforwardness matched everything he knew about his aunt.

“That part is true.” Unfortunately. If he could return to his younger self, he would avoid Alecia Lloyd and the pain she'd wrought in his life. But what was done was done. Why deny the truth of their history now?

“May I?” Lady Stamford indicated the space next to him on the settee and he scooted tight against the edge to make room for her.

She stunned him by reaching for his hand.

“She told you she was with child?”

He barely resisted pulling his hand away and storming out of the room.

“She lied. It wasn't the first lie, and it certainly wasn't her last.”

Augusta patted his hand like a headmistress comforting a homesick child.

“That's the rub, my dear. She didn't lie about the child, though she did mislead you, everyone, about the boy's sire.”

He shook his head and found he could not stop shaking it. Years of misery and grief were behind him now. The past. And he wanted to live in the here and now.

“No. I won't hear this. Not again.”

Extracting his hand, he rose and stalked toward the painting on the wall, standing inches from the flaxen-­haired milkmaid's face. This close, she wasn't half as beautiful as Kat.

“She tells me the boy is your son, Sebastian.”

The boy at the gardens, the one sticking close to Alecia's side. He was small, and Seb had guessed him several years younger than ten. He couldn't be his son.

“You refer to the child with you yesterday? He looked to be eight or nine, perhaps younger.”

“Alecia says Archie is small for his age. And he does look a good deal like his mother, but he—­”

“This is beginning to sound like one of Alecia's tales.” He twisted around to gaze at his aunt. “Don't blame yourself. Everyone is taken in by her. She can be quite convincing.”

“Do not underestimate me, my boy.” His aunt's tone turned steely. He knew she wouldn't like his implication that she'd been as duped by Alecia as he'd once been. “Do you take me for a fool, Sebastian? Do you think I didn't suspect the woman of some scheme? You've taken on a title, an estate. None of us wish to see you damaged by this revelation or create any challenge for your future heirs.”

The mention of heirs, of a future, brought Kat to mind, and then his family—­Pippa and Ollie. He wouldn't let Alecia and her lies damage any of them.

“Thank you for the tea, but I must—­”

“Meet the boy, Sebastian. For his sake and yours, we must resolve this.” He still hadn't turned from the painting and his aunt came up behind him, resting a hand on his back. “I am sorry this is so difficult, and that your son, if he is your boy, has been kept from you and you from him.”

His son. Everything in him rebelled at the notion. There'd been months between his break with Alecia and the last time he'd seen her in the village. There'd been no indication at all that she was with child. And back then, with his heart still torn and bleeding, he'd wished she was. Wished she might have been telling the truth when she'd first told him she was bearing his child.

But now, two months after his unexpected inheritance of a dukedom, a decade since he'd had any connection with Alecia at all. No. He couldn't bring himself to believe any of it.

Money motivated Alecia, and it seemed the only sensible reason for this sudden revelation that coincided with his newly acquired wealth.

Was the woman truly brazen enough to use his aunt for her own gain? A bitter laugh rumbled at the back of his throat. Of course, she was. Alecia had nearly caused a man's death, nearly cost him his own life. She'd have no compunction about using Lady Stamford.

“I suppose she wants money. To keep quiet? Not to spread this lie?” It had always been about money with Alecia. He'd taken on a title and inherited wealth, and suddenly her son was his son. Not bloody likely.

“Only enough to help provide for Archie as a duke's son should be.” Alecia's voice sounded from behind him and he whirled to find her standing at the drawing room threshold. “Of course, I also want Archie to know you.”

An ambush, just as she'd attempted at his aunt's ball.

“Stop this, Alecia. Why not tell my aunt what you told me a decade ago? You said you carried my child, and then that the babe was Charles Page's, before finally admitting you weren't with child at all. How many versions of the story have you told this time?”

“What if he
is
your son?” His aunt's emphatic tone made him wince. He knew how fervently one came to believe Alecia's lies. He remembered arguing her cause with more passion than she'd defended herself. Why did she need to, when she had such a talent for winning over zealous supporters?

“Archie is here. Shall I call him down so that you can meet him?”

She used her soft, almost childlike voice, a voice she'd often used to cajole and convince him.

“No.” His voice cracked off the walls like a gunshot. Both women flinched.

The anger turning in his stomach had nothing to do with the boy. Alecia was the sole focus of his wrath, but his bitterness soured the entire room and the hostility was palpable. The boy didn't deserve any of it. He wouldn't bring a child into such a situation. The fact that Alecia would consider doing so made him even angrier.

He glanced at his aunt, who stood strong and solid at the edge of the room. Her gaze brimmed with worry and concern, not the pitiful, beseeching look Alecia wore.

“I must go. Now is not the time.”

“Sebastian.” Both women spoke his name and it echoed through the room in a discordant whine.

“No, not like this. Not today.”

He stalked to the door, ready to be done with all of it. But his aunt didn't deserve rudeness.

“Good day, Lady Stamford.” He tried to convey with his gaze and tone that he would consider all of it. That he simply needed time. Then he dipped his head toward Alecia, careful not to meet her gaze. “And to you, Lady Naughton.”

“S
O
YOU'VE CAUGHT
a duke. Well done, Kitty.” Cynthia Osgood's mouth twitched in rebellion when she attempted a smile, belying all the saccharine in her tone. “And so efficiently. One waltz and you had him on bended knee.”

“You must tell us your secret, Kitty.” Bess Berwick's eagerness couldn't be feigned. She edged forward in her chair and leaned toward Kitty, prepared to absorb any courtship wisdom she might offer.

Kitty reached up to slip a strand of loose hair behind her ear and found the shell warm against her fingertips. No doubt her ears were as flushed as her cheeks. Sniping with Cynth was a long-­standing habit, but she found it harder to play coy in the face of Bess's sincerity.

She reached for a plate brimming with tea cakes and biscuits and held it out first to Bess and then to Cynthia. Playing hostess was an excellent distraction, but Cynthia wouldn't let her off that easily.

“Come, Kitty. Tell of us of your whirlwind engagement. Did he, in fact, bend the knee?”

“It was too cold for that, I'm afraid. We were in Lady Stamford's garden.”

Cynth sputtered and a few amber droplets of tea arced through the air before disappearing into the intricate design of the drawing room's Aubusson carpet. Thank goodness her mother had chosen a design darker than the white walls and blush upholstery.

“He truly proposed to you moments after your waltz?”

“How romantic!” Bess bit her lip and Kitty heard a little hiccup, as if the young woman held her breath, waiting for the rest.

“Not immediately, no, but not long after.”

Bess tipped so far in her chair, Kitty feared she might land on the Aubusson carpet too. “B-­but what did you say or do to entice him? Did you know from the first moment you met him that he'd ask you?”

“I'm not sure, Bess.”

What had she said to entice him? It was more what she'd done—­leaning into him, resting her hand on his broad firm shoulder, waiting for a kiss that finally came. She'd been as breathless as he, caught in her own snare. But it had worked.

It would seem a good deal less romantic if she described her first encounter with Sebastian, when he'd chased her down the hall of Clayborne House to chastise her. Yes, she'd recognized something unique in him, and in her reaction to him, even then. But admitting it to herself didn't make their engagement real, and it did not mean he'd ever wish for anything but to end it when the time came.

Cynthia lifted a perfectly arched black brow at Kitty's admission. Kitty was always sure of herself in Cynth's presence, or at least she worked very hard to appear so. To admit that she was uncertain of anything was a bit like showing an enemy one's unprotected flank on the battlefield.

“Why such haste for the ceremony?
My
father would certainly never have approved of such a short engagement.” Fluttering her eyes in what Kitty suspected was meant to be a semblance of innocent naiveté but looked a good deal more like she had a lash caught in her eye, Cynth added in a near whisper, “Is there something you're not telling us, Kitty?”

“Miss Osgood!” Bess's exclamation rattled the porcelain on the tea tray.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you, Cynth. There's nothing amiss. Wrexford and I merely saw no need to wait, and my father agreed. No one wants an engagement which drags on and on.”

Cynthia felt the barb and stopped batting her lashes long enough to squint one eye.

“Some men are worth waiting for, surely,” Cynthia squeaked, her voice an octave higher.

“You shall soon find out.” Bess spoke so matter-­of-­factly that Kitty had to bite her lip to stop from smiling, especially when Bess offered a quick wink in her direction.

“Well, speaking of fine gentlemen, I must depart if I'm not to be late for a shopping excursion with my dear Molstrey.” Cynthia stood and shot Bess a pointed look. “Come, Bess. Don't dawdle. We mustn't keep Mollie waiting.”