She meant to ask for an explanation. She wanted him to guide her and tell her what might unfold between them next. But before Phoebe could get the answers she needed, the Duke stepped away, pushed open the doors, and disappeared.
Panicked, Phoebe bolted toward the door. She frantically jerked her head from left to right, hoping to spot the Duke, but somehow, he had already vanished.
Where did he go? And why did he leave so quickly?
Feeling flustered and dissatisfied, Phoebe knew there was no other course of action but to begrudgingly return to the box she was sharing with Lord Birchwood.
When she sat back down, she barely heard Lord Birchwood asking where her lemonade was and why she had stayed gone so long.
Her thoughts were far too preoccupied.
Chapter Ten
“You… you do not usually come here,” Sebastian said; he was not usually a man to be so caught off-guard, but this certainly made him so.
Since Vincent had left the Crown’s service two years ago, it was strange to see him present in the Slates, but that was where Sebastian unexpectedly stumbled into him four days after the opera where he had teased Lady Phoebe to a pretty blush.
Vincent tilted his head, causing his dark hair to fall over his forehead. Since leaving the service, he had let it grow a little more. The loose waves made him look more dashing, and Sebastian would not be surprised if he had a trail of ladies following in his wake.
One after another would be endlessly annoyed because the Duke of Ravenwood was ignoring them. It was common knowledge that Vincent did not plan to settle down any time soon, yet some ladies, plenty of them in fact, persisted.
“No,” Vincent acknowledged. “But you do, and I was tipped off by a certain joint friend of ours that you were likely to be here today, given your recent turmoil.”
“Turmoil?” Sebastian scoffed. “I have no cause to complain.”
He dropped into the seat opposite Ravenwood, and motioned for a drink. The server, whose decolletage seemed to be winning its fight against her simple corset, nodded with a smile. He recognized the woman, and knew she remembered his usual order, which was exactly how Sebastian enjoyed his life being.
Familiar.
Predictable.
Knowable.
He might have his own dearth of mysteries and secrets, but Sebastian did not typically surround himself with shady or elusive characters. He liked knowing what he was getting into before diving into any situation. And he took comfort in spending time with people who were consistent.
His life and the company he kept had been largely dependable for almost fifteen years.
Until Lady Phoebe wandered into his small library.
That woman, with her strange quietness and blunt speech baffled him.
Why must thoughts of Lady Phoebe be so all-consuming?
“Sebastian?”
“Hmm?” he asked distractedly, not able to pry his greedy thoughts from the lady with the ash-blonde hair.
There wassomethingvaguely recognizable about it, but he could not put his finger on it. It had been driving him half mad ever since the opera. He had rarely been able to take his eyes off her from across the seats, both of them rising high above everyone else.
The only time he had looked away was to focus on that grip Lord Birchwood kept on her wrist through both halves of the performance, as if pinning her there, right to his side.
Sebastian knew of only one good reason to pin a lady to a spot, and when he employed such tactics, he always made sure his companion for the night wanted to be held by him.
He would never dream of forcing a lady to stay with him against her will. Just thinking of how Lord Birchwood laid his hands on Lady Phoebe and forced her to stick to his side made Sebastian grind his teeth in frustration.
“Sebastian, where is your mind?” Vincent laughed, taking a decent swig of his drink right as Sebastian’s own whisky was set down. “I have never seen you look so annoyed.”
“I am here… with you, as is my mind.”
