Jocelyn had lied about Anthony seducing her. Sebastian detested liars. He took some comfort from the fact that she was completely transparent with her emotions. Indeed, he did not doubt that Anthony had teased and flirted with her, and even made promises o
f marriage. The necklace being in her possession showed that his brother had, at least momentarily, questioned the depth of his affections for Miss Peppiwell. But he had not bedded Jocelyn.
He might well have gone far enough for her to be deemed wholly compromised by society. But clearly, he had not even kissed her properly.
Sebastian muttered a curse as his cock came to life, and his grip on the whiskey glass tightened at the memory of the taste of her lips and her passionate response.
He understood Anthony’s slight defection from Miss Peppiwell. Jocelyn’s dark beauty was astonishing. Her skin was smooth and flawless, though her cheeks had been kissed by the sun, showing him she spent a lot of time outdoors. Her luxurious mane of raven hair with her storm-cloud eyes had a stunning effect on his senses. Yet, it was not her beauty that intrigued him. There were too many beauties in London, eager to been seen with him at balls and operas and desperate to be in his bed, for him to be enchanted by appearance. Beauty alone had never piqued his interest.
Jocelyn fascinated him. It was her fiery temperament that drew him most. He already knew she wasn’t a simpering fool. He had no time for the vain and frivolous women of society. He viewed the sweet-tempered, pliable young misses straight from the schoolroom with disdain. None would dare storm his estate and point a derringer at him, a duke, demanding the stain on her honor be satisfied.
The ton would be titillated to know that was how the arrogant Duke of Calydon had wed. The scandal would roar like an unquenchable fire.
Distaste curled his stomach at the fickleness of society. The scandal would die under the onslaught of his undeniable power. For he controlled the purse strings of many families through his investments. Days later, they would all simper to be seen with her, and be invited to the balls she would come to host. She would probably be declared “an original” for how she had snared him, where a less fortunate woman would be an outcast for life.
He pulled the locket from his pocket and held it up in the glow of the fire and moonlight, despising the relief he felt to have back what she’d gifted to him.
His father had died in a carriage accident several years past, and his mother, Margaret Abigail Jackson, the dowager Duchess of Calydon, had not even honored the appropriate mourning period before wedding her lifelong lover. She had not suffered the condemnation of society overly much, either.
Her eldest son, on the other hand, had long harbored a fathomless disdain for her because of her illicit affair and complete disregard for his father. A contempt so deep Sebastian had hardly deigned to speak with her. After he came into the title, he had wasted no time in banishing her to the dowager house and cutting off her allowance, ignoring her pleas, cold and indifferent to the perfidious female’s tears and machinations.
A few months back the family solicitor had hand-delivered her secret cache of diaries, written over the years of his childhood. His father had held them in his possession and left instruction for them to be handed to Sebastian at a certain time. He glanced at the packet of bound journals on his desk still awaiting him to read them fully. His parents had endured a cold marriage, never kissing or touching. He barely remembered any words or gestures of affection at all, only the perfunctory kiss his father normally placed on her forehead, unable to do more in the face of her revulsion for him. Sebastian had hated her after discovering her in the garden with her lover at the tender age of six, furious at realizing the cause of the constant arguments which had resulted in the nearly total absence of his father from his life.
All because she had a lover whom she could not relinquish.
Two things he learned from the couple of diaries he’d read thus far: his unfaithful bitch of a mother loved her paramour unashamedly and unreservedly, and she’d abhorred the touch of his father, who worshipped the ground she walked on. Sebastian had suspected what he would find, but had still found it difficult to read the words of a woman he had once loved. She had hardly found it fit to love him in return, too busy with her lover. The pain he felt reading her words had been too real, so he had yet to read the remainder.
Her journals also brought home another inescapable fact. That he needed an heir. His father had not been lying in the letters he left for him. When he wrote about Anthony not being his son, Sebastian had thought it bitter ranting. However, her diaries revealed Anthony and Constance to be the children of her lover. His father had proof of this as he had not been in her bed for years, and he also had one of her journal as irrevocable evidence. His father hated his wife’s perfidy so much that he had promised to use the journal to renounce Anthony and Constance, if Sebastian did not marry and obtain an heir for himself.
Sebastian had told Anthony, and let him read the damning letter his father left him. The pain that had flared in his brother’s eyes had punched Sebastian deep. He had seen right through the laughter and quip that Anthony now understood why their father had always been so cold with him.
Sebastian had promised to fight the provisions their father had implemented with the lawyer. But Anthony had refused, fearing how scandal would devastate their sister and mother. And it was possible that even now Anthony’s nemesis was hinting of his illegitimacy, and the rumors were being whispered, already tainting Constance, diminishing her chances of marrying well. Sebastian had seen the profound relief in his brother at being freed of the unwanted responsibility of their father’s titles. So he knew he had no choice in the matter.
He could not bear the idea of his titles and lands passing to strangers, or worse, reverting to the crown. The estates, the tenants, the responsibilities of nobility that he had learned at his father’s knee, the things that had bound them together in respect and a common purpose from the day he was born, were his to shoulder, and his alone.
Except—
Marriage had always left a sour taste in his mouth, and until the fateful day he had learned otherwise, he had always believed women served but one purpose.
But then, at thirty, he found himself suddenly resolved to the idea of a wife. He had duly composed a list of eligible females. The chore had left the most God-awful taste in his mouth. And just as he’d been about to resign himself to the worst fate imaginable, something miraculous had happened.
Jocelyn had crashed into his life pointing a gun right at his jaded heart.
Disbelief and fascination had held him immobile in his chair as she had pointed the laughable weapon at him. He could have easily relieved her of it anytime he wished, but he had been too riveted by the drama unfolding before his eyes.
He’d known in an instant he had to possess her.
And so, in the space of one brief meeting, he found himself a married man, with his tempting duchess awaiting him in their chambers. A wife who would brighten his life, and share his burdens. He knew it was all right there for him to reach out and take.
But he also knew he could never relent and trust his wife completely.
Chapter Five
Jocelyn’s slender, graceful back was turned to Sebastian, and he could see the fine tremors that sifted along her frame at his entrance.
He closed the door with a soft snick, but she did not turn to face him from where she stood in front of the windows gazing into the bright starlit night.
He had thought she might be hiding under the covers, or at least pretending to be asleep. A pleased smile curved his lips as he observed her. He should have known she would confront things head on, despite her fears. Hadn’t she done that very thing this morning?
He did not have to wait long for the familiar rush of desire that hardened his cock. He paused in removing his dinner jacket, startled by how visceral the need to hold her was. She still did not stir. She had no clue that he was removing every stitch of his clothes. Or perhaps she did. With every rustle and noise he made undressing, her frame tensed and shook with even more tremors. Her hands, held at her sides, clasped and unclasped, moved to form a tight ball at her front.
Suddenly she spun around to face him, her glorious mane of hair that
had been loosely pinned tumbling to her back and shoulders. He met her eyes and a shock of surprise pulsed through him.
His intrepid duchess was not trembling from nervousness or anxiety, after all. The storm clouds that had gathered in her eyes, threatening to break any second, were tempestuous ones. He expected to see a flash of lightening and hear the crash of thunder any moment now.
His beautiful duchess was enraged.
He smiled with satisfaction, and his cock swelled in anticipation.
This…should prove interesting.
…
Jocelyn’s rage was so intense she felt like a bowstring drawn to the verge of snapping.
“Do you realize you’ve had me waiting for almost two hours? With no consideration for the uncertainty I may be feeling?”
His head tilted insolently. “Have I?”
Her rage burned brighter at the complete lack of remorse reflected in his wintry blues.
She had been pampered and scented, her hair brushed for what felt like a thousand strokes, and then dressed in the peignoir he had gifted her. It was so sheer her heart still palpitated at the thought. All for his bloody pleasure. And the conceited cad had kept her waiting. Two miserable hours.
“Why, you conceited bas—”
The rest of the words strangled in her throat as he dropped the garment he had been holding loosely in front of him.
In a shocked daze, her eyes tracked its fall to the carpet and scanned the pieces of clothing strewn about haphazardly—his jacket, waistcoat, his pants, boots, and assorted unmentionables.
She gasped and snapped her head up, and her eyes popped as she beheld her husband standing there.
Gloriously naked.
My God. He was splendid.
She drank in the sight of him, from his slashing brows to his chiseled jaw and sensual lips, down his powerful body. He was tall and sleek with a broad chest, wide, athletic shoulders, and thighs and calves that were hard with muscle. Everything about him was hard, strong, and proud. She had never imagined the male body could be so…beautiful.