He barely managed to keep a cordial expression, but his tone held a note of warning. Sebastian merely raised an eyebrow in response.
“I have seen how you look at your new Duchess, Cassian,” he drawled. “And when the archbishop told you to kiss the bride, I was sure he did not mean for you to scandalize every dowager in attendance.”
“I did not scandalize every dowager in attendance,” Cassian refuted the absurd claim with a growl.
“Of course not,” Benedict quipped with a conciliatory smile. “Maybe only your grandmother.” He paused and added, “And Hawthorne’s. And perhaps their friends. Sebastian’s grandmother was clapping.”
Which meant at least half of the dowagers in the whole of London. Bloody hell.
He downed the rest of his celebratory drink—his so-called friends had insisted on just two glasses—when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Juliana standing alone in the middle of the breakfast hall. The sunlight filtered through the windows, turning her chocolate locks a deep, burnished gold. When she turned slightly, and her dazed eyes met his, a bolt of searing lust shot straight into his loins, punching through what remained of his common sense and the thin haze of intoxication the bottle had provided him.
He set his glass down and stalked toward her, heedless of the knowing glances his friends threw at him. The woman was a fever in his blood, a slow-acting poison that decimated his sanity by the second.
And he still could not keep well away from her.
“What are you doing on your own like this?” he asked her softly.
She offered him a flustered smile. “My Grandmama found your grandmother, and they have been embroiled in a… riveting exchange since.”
Cassian stifled a low groan. Perhaps the only other person in this entire ballroom who held as much disdain for the cursed Hawthorne line was his own grandmother.
“Well then, you can tell her that we are leaving,” he told her succinctly.
He did not miss the panic that flared in her eyes. “R-right now?” she squeaked.
He should not have found it adorable, but he did, curse him.
“Yes,” he told her firmly. “Now.”
“B-but the guests—”
“My darling Duchess,” he smiled coldly at her. “The entiretonis rife with gossip as to what precipitated our rather hasty nuptials and after that…” He let the words hang between them, enjoying how she seemed to teeter on the precipice of something, before he continued, “Let us say that our hasty departure would be well in line with everything thus far.”
Heat flared in her cheeks, a delectable shade of rose that nearly had him sinking his fingers into her perfectly coiffed locks to pullher close for another demonstration of just how badly his lust was consuming his every thought.
“Very well,” she said softly. “I shall inform Kit and Grandmama that we are to leave soon.”
“You do that, Duchess.”
He was loath to release her, but he was even more unwilling to remain under the same roof as her despicable sibling.
Hopefully, after this morning, Juliana would be the only Hawthorne he would ever have to deal with in the future. And even then, she would no longer be a Hawthorne but a Cavendish.
His Duchess.
His wife.
“Peeking out the window will not make the road any shorter or the horses any faster.”
Juliana froze at the laconic drawl. She dropped the curtain and turned her gaze to the man who sat opposite her, his eyebrow raised. His broad figure practically occupied the entire space in front of her. When his lips quirked into that cocky smirk, she began to wonder if the cramped quarters of the carriage were making her dafter than a ninny who had had too much champagne.
Oh, shemighthave had a little too much champagne at the wedding breakfast, but not in a celebratory manner, no. Alcohol was her only solace from her grandmama gadding on about how she had saved the family and reversed their fortunes—before shegot caught up in a verbal fistfight with the Dowager Duchess, of course.
Juliana, however, had no doubt that if Stonevale had caught wind of her grandmama’s musings, he would have laughed at her face outright.
No, her brother had sold her to the highest bidder. The Duke, her husband, had simply been the one who bought her. She was only fortunate that he possessed a sufficient amount of conscience to marry her. The truth of their farcical union tasted bitter and acidic on her tongue all at once.
“Grandmama always told me that patience was never my strongest suit,” she told him simply. “Perhaps you should have inquired of the merchant about my flaws before you made the purchase, Your Grace.”
