Page 77 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

The knowledge was exhilarating and utterly terrifying.

What scared her most was the equal certainty that he did not see her in the same light. To him, she was a diversion, a pleasure to be enjoyed while it lasted and relinquished when it no longer did. Darcy closed her eyes briefly, steadying herself against the truth.

Sebastian did not strike her as a man prepared to surrender himself to the permanence of marriage, though she had no doubt that, if he ever chose it, he would be faithful and honorable in that role. He possessed that depth and sense of duty, even if he kept both carefully guarded beneath layers of charm, cynicism, and indulgence.

Even if he were inclined to marry, she possessed nothing that could recommend her as his countess. She had no name that would satisfy his family, no fortune that might justify the match, and no position that would make her suitable in the eyes of society. The disparity between them was too vast and too firmly rooted in the world they inhabited. She had always understood it, but now she felt it with a clarity that left no room for denial.

Still, her heart refused to yield to reason.

Determined to think of something else, Darcy pushed back the covers and rang for the lady’s maid Sebastian had assigned to her, asking that a bath be prepared. She had no notion how long they would remain in Derbyshire. When she had asked him in the cottage, while nestled within the curve of his arms, he had replied only that they would remain until the scandal in town had been forgotten.

Darcy understood the care he took to protect his mother and sister from further speculation about her place in his life, yet the knowledge pinched painfully inside her chest. Thankfully, her own sisters remained unaware of the scandal sheets and their conjectures. They were simply delighted to be spending time with their brother, and in each of them Darcy could see love and attachment taking deeper root.

Please do not disappoint their hearts, Sebastian, she pleaded silently, unable to imagine how he meant to keep them in his life while concealing them from his mother and Caroline.

Would he hold them in secrecy forever?

The maid entered, and Darcy smiled her thanks before preparing to spend the day with her sisters and, perhaps, her lover. The days that followed settled into a gentle rhythm that might have seemed idyllic had she not remained so keenly aware of how fragile it all was. Sebastian gave freely of his time. Jane, who had once watched the riders in town with quiet longing, now spent her mornings by the lake as he taught her to fish, her delight evident each time she managed to catch even the smallest of creatures. Her laughter carried easily across the water, bright and unrestrained.

At other times, he turned his attention to the others, never neglecting one for the sake of another. He taught them card tricks that would have scandalized any proper drawing room, his expression one of mock solemnity as he warned them never to reveal such knowledge to anyone. He instructed them in riding astride, much to their wicked delight, and continued their daily swimming lessons, his patience unending even when Sarah declared herself far more suited to directing the lesson than participating in it.

Darcy watched it all, a slow and insistent longing stirring within her for more than she had ever permitted herself to desire. Sometimes she joined them and allowed herself to be swept into their laughter, into the simple, unguarded happiness of those moments. At other times, she remained apart with a book open before her in the library, pretending to read while imagining how easily this life might persuade her to mistake borrowed happiness for something she could keep.

She had begun to make plans.

If she were to secure her future, she would do so through her art. The commissions from Aphrodite had already given her a measure of independence, but she required more: private patrons, discreet and wealthy, who would value her skill and grant her the freedom she sought. Rebecca had been right. Opportunity existed for a woman bold enough to seize it.

Darcy intended to be bold, because this life, this ease, and this growing attachment could never be hers to keep. Still, in the quiet of night, Sebastian gathered her into his arms and devastated her with pleasure. He never questioned why she yielded to him so readily, and at times she wondered whether women slipped into his bed with such ease that he found nothing remarkable in her surrender. The thought pricked at her more than she wished to admit. Yet another part of her found comfort in his silence, in the fact that he did not demand explanations or force her to name what she herself scarcely understood.

He took her as though she were something to be cherished, with a slow, consuming tenderness that stirred a fullness in her chest she could not easily contain, and at other times he fucked her with a depth and force that left her breathless, her fingers clutching at the sheets, at his shoulders, her voice breaking as she cried his name. She’d woken the next morning deliciously sore, her body still marked by the memory of him.

Yet the moments that most endangered her heart were not always the passionate ones. Last night, for instance. He had found her in the library with a book in her hands. Instead of drawing her away or attempting to seduce her, as he so easily might have done, Sebastian had stretched himself upon the carpet and rested his head in her lap while she read aloud. Afterward, they had spoken of every manner of subject. He told her what it was to debate in the House of Lords, how influence might be used to shape a bill, and why some measures deserved a man’s full conviction even when they earned him powerful enemies. Darcy had always known that peers possessed influence, but until she listened to Sebastian speak of wielding his position in service of others, that knowledge had remained distant and abstract. Now she understood something of the power he carried and the care with which he could choose to use it.

He drew from her story after story of the life she had shared with her family and his father, listening without resentment, as though he wished to understand every facet of the man they had both loved. Sebastian had appeared genuinely astonished when she told him that the old earl once cooked for them while her mother was ill. They had employed a cook, certainly, but he had insisted upon preparing the meal himself, laughing with Darcy in the kitchen when neither of them possessed the least notion of what they were doing.

Sebastian had asked whether she had been happy then, and she had answered, “Very much so,” though an ache tightened her throat because she wanted still more.

She was greedy for a life with him, yet lacked the courage to confess it. Darcy knew precisely what place he would offer her, the same one he had offered Red: that of his mistress.

She understood her mother a little better now. Mary had loved the old earl and had been greedy for whatever part of his life he was willing to give her, though it meant joining him in betraying vows he had made to another woman. She had borne his children knowing the cruel stain society would place upon them for the circumstances of their birth. Darcy could not approve of every choice her mother had made, yet she still loved her, and the precious memories of her remained untouched by judgment.

But Darcy would never become a kept woman or surrender her independence for the security of such an arrangement. Still, the simplicity of those evenings in the library with Sebastian, the quiet intimacy and ease of their shared confidences, filled her with a yearning so deep it frightened her. It was not merely his touch she desired, but his companionship, the peace of being understood, and the fleeting illusion of something that might endure beyond the confines of the moment. That yearning tempted her toward the very compromise she had sworn never to make: accepting whatever portion of him he offered simply because life without him seemed increasingly difficult to imagine.

The library door opened softly, drawing Darcy from the memories ensnaring her. Sebastian entered with the morning air still clinging to him, his hair slightly disordered from his ride and his coat unfastened. A restless brightness animated his dark blue eyes, filling the room from the moment he stepped inside.

He paused when he saw her, and a slow smile touched his mouth. Her heart leaped, then seemed to shiver beneath the heated caress of his regard. “Come away with me,” he said. “I wish to take you somewhere.”

Darcy blinked, startled by the abruptness of it. “Are we not already on a trip?” she asked, setting her book aside as she rose. “Where would we go?”

“To Brighton,” he said. “I mean to show you the sea.”

Her breath left her in a soft gasp. “The sea?” she repeated, as though the word itself held a kind of magic.

She had read of it, imagined it, and dreamed of standing before its vast and endless expanse, but never had she believed she might truly see it.

“I have always wished to see the seaside,” she said, wonder threading through her voice.

“I know.”