“What am I to infer from that?”
“I was prepared for my wife to be plain in the extreme.” He picked up his own glass and swirled it. “Instead, I found myself pleasantly surprised.”
Pleasantly? That… came as a veritable shock.
But she had to retain her wits, wherever they had disappeared off to for the second. There was a reason she could not be certain she could trust him. If only she could remember what that was. When he looked at her with those smoldering dark eyes, her heart thumped hard, and she was liable to forget all thoughts in her head.
Lady Mary Ann was right—he truly wasdevastatinglyhandsome.
And from some stroke of luck or fantastic good fortune, he had marriedher. Yes, so he could use her as a breeding mare, but even so. There were worse fates; to her knowledge, most ladies were used in such a way.
He watched her with eyes that seemed downright suspicious. “I have something to tell you,” he uttered abruptly.
She coughed a little, snapping out of her trance. “Does this have something to do with your former wife?”
At the slack shock on his face, she gathered that it did not.
“If my earlier sentiments were not made clear enough, I have absolutelynointention of discussing my former wife with you,” he said, withdrawing and picking up his glass of wine. “So you may dispel that thought from your head.”
She nodded slowly.Not his wife. Then, presumably, it was also nothing to do with his wife’s death, and anything he might have had to do with it.
But…“I would like to know,” she tried, the words tangling a little on her tongue. “The truth.”
He raised a single brow. “Thetruth?”
“When I hosted the dinner, I made a friend of my guest, and she informed me of some of the… rumors circulating in the village. Thatyou…” When it finally came down to it, she found she could not utter the words.
He watched her with very dark eyes. “Go on? If you wish to ask me a question, you must be able to say it. Or I shan’t know what to answer.”
“I…” In the end, her words failed her, and she changed tack. “I like being married to you.”
His eyes snapped up to trap hers. “You do?”
I… do?
His brows rose still further, and his gaze seared across her face. “And why is that? I thought you were wishing you’d never come here.”
“Well, perhaps you aren’t always nice to me…” she admitted slowly. “And therearethe rumors. But this is a nice house.” She waved a hand. “And I’m aduchess.”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
She leaned in even closer, mesmerized by the flecks of gold in his eyes. “And of everyone in the world, you choseme.”
“I had Mr. Arnold select you,” he corrected, as though the prospect ofhimchoosing her intentionally could not be considered, even for a moment. “I merely agreed.”
“You agreed to marry me.”
“I did.” He pushed his plate back as she leaned in even closer, her head practically by his shoulder. “What are you attempting?”
An excellent question. Whatwasshe attempting? The wine had made her bolder, she only now realized, but it just highlighted her desires, which seemed to currently be in his lap again, his giant arms snaking around her.
That soundednice.
Perhaps he would finally kiss her this time. She felt as though she had been waiting altogethertoo longfor his kiss.
“May I call you Sebastian?” she breathed.
“That is my name, and you are my wife.” He caught her before she could topple to one side. “How much have you had to drink, Aurelia?”
