The ladies’ faces turned a very similar shade of puce. “You ought to be careful,” Miss Davenport hissed. “You do not want to make an enemy of us.”
“I hadn’t intended to come here and make an enemy of anyone. But you seem to have decided that for me. Calling into question the honor of my husband, the validity of our marriage, and my birth. Do you think he deserves better?” She tilted her head as though in contemplation. “Then who ought he to have married? You believe him a murderer.”
Miss Davenport and Miss Peterson both rose, their noses in the air. “We shall be taking our leave,” Miss Davenport muttered. “We know where we are not wanted.”
Aurelia smiled. “It is a wonder you came to sit with me, then.”
The two ladies took themselves off in a flurry of skirts and raised chins, and Aurelia sat back in her chair. So far, she had made enemies of a duchess, a soon-to-be-duchess’s wife, and the future wife of a marquess.
Hopefully, Sebastian had been having far better luck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
By some miracle, nothing else happened between the end of the intermission and leaving for the carriage. Instead of home, they went to Sebastian’s townhouse on Grosvenor Square; he had sent people ahead to prepare it for them.
This all felt like a terrible mistake.
Sebastian felt his temper rising, and fought to keep it in check. Aurelia hadn’t known this would happen—she hadn’t known that their negative reputations would have this undue effect.
He wished they had never come.
“They’re jealous,” Aurelia said.
He glanced at her.
“Jealous? Of what, pray?”
“That you married a nobody like me instead of returning to thetonand choosing a wife in the regular fashion. All those mothers and daughters in there—they’re jealous. And the Duchess of Fenwick—”
“Do not mention her,” he said shortly.
Aurelia took a deep breath. “What did you expect her to do when you riled her so?”
“There was nothing else I could do once I learned what her nephew had done. And shedismissedyou over it.”
“I suspect Lord Redwood told her I attempted to seduce him.”
“And shebelievedthat?”
“Of course,” Aurelia shrugged. “He is her nephew and the apple of her eye. I am no one.”
Sebastian controlled himself with some difficulty. Yes, logically, he understood. But this entire situation just made him feel more furious.
They were silent until they reached the grand townhouse, four stories, and lights gleaming behind the windows. Sebastian hadn’t returned to this particular one since he had married Kate.
What a terrible decision that had been.
Aurelia gawked at the grand building. “Is thereanythingof yours that doesn’t look like it was built to house a minor royal and his twenty illegitimate children?”
Sebastian chuckled lowly as he handed her down from the carriage and guided her into the impeccably tiled hallway, then through to the Grecian-style dining room, with frescos on the wall. She looked around in wonder, but he wanted to forget everything. Even the delicious aroma of food couldn’t change his mind.
“Sit,” he said shortly, leading her to the chair beside his. After the first few days of their marriage, Sebastian had quickly come to terms with the fact that she wouldalwayssit beside him, erasing the formality he had grown up in. What else was there to expect, having married a woman who had not lived within theton? Even at the duchess’s house, she had been, in essence, staff, straddling the gap between upstairs and downstairs.
Certainly not a high-born lady.
His brows descended over his face.
“Sebastian?” she asked gently, putting a hand over his. “What’s wrong?”
