Page 48 of Scandal’s Daughter

Chapter 22

“Wherein our suitors take their places.”

Sebastian scanned the ballroom and felt his heart clench as his eyes immediately settled on a burst of fiery red hair. She stood out like a beacon, a lovely blaze of glory in a sea of insipid pallor. Every other woman in the room paled beside her in his eyes. Not one could hold a candle to her beauty, she shone like a sun, dazzling him and hurting his heart all at once.

He had promised himself he would approach her. He would be calm and polite and try to arrange a time when he might call on her and explain ... explain what? How in the name of God could he explain the manner of madness that had come over him that fateful day?

For there was no doubt of it now. Friends of his father’s, the few truly honourable and trustworthy people who had stood firm in their friendship to his family, had all agreed. She was the image of her mother.

This was the face of the woman that his father had fallen in love with. The woman he had loved so desperately and passionately that he had murdered her husband when he’d discovered their affair and left Sebastian and his mother to face the outcome alone. For the first time in his life Sebastian felt he had some glimmer of understanding as to how his father had felt.

For if that woman had been anything like Georgiana, he felt compelled to admit that he sensed that same madness overtaking him too. And it was utterly terrifying, the gnawing realisation ... that he might do just about anything to be with her.

Ever since his father’s death, ever since he had become the Duke of Sindalton and the man of the family, he had required utter and absolute control. He knew every detail of his estate’s management. He never left any decision to be made without it first going through him. Every aspect of his life had been strictly managed by him with utter discipline. Down to his decision that it was time to take a wife.

Lists had been made. Pros and cons considered. Until she had come into his life ... and everything began to spiral out of control.

“Good evening, your grace,” chimed an ingratiating voice in his ear. “I do hope you are enjoying our little soiree.”

Little soiree?

Sebastian gave an inward snort of amusement. Lady Ashton’s ballroom was packed to the very elegant rafters, there were candles blazing in such numbers the glare was giving him a headache and no conceivable extravagance had been overlooked. Little soiree indeed.

Sadly, it wasn’t conceit that led Sebastian to believe a great deal of effort and an obscene amount of money had been spent on the outside chance he might look at her daughter with an eye to marriage.

“It is a very great success by the looks of things,” he replied, trying hard to force his unwilling face into some semblance of a smile. “I think half of London must be here tonight.”

“Oh, your grace!” The obnoxious woman trilled, smacking his arm playfully with her fan. “Only the better half I hope,” she added, as her daughter gave an ear-splitting shriek of laughter at her mother’s tasteless joke.

She fell silent suddenly and an over familiar hand slid over his forearm. “Of course, I would have rejected ... that woman if I’d been able to, your grace,” she said, her voice dropping to an intimate whisper.

“But it is so terribly awkward. One dare not insult the earl, such a terrifying man!” she said with a visible shudder. “He positively puts me in a quake. But I know you will forgive me,” she crooned, her fat hand caressing the impeccable line of his sleeve. “After all, one unwelcome presence at a crush like this is really rather inevitable isn’t it. And we are all on your side, of course.”

Too late she looked up and blanched as she saw the white-hot fury he knew must be blazing in his eyes.

But Sebastian had not been raised a duke without knowing exactly how to crush someone who had incurred his displeasure without making a scene.

“If you will excuse me, Madame,” he replied, every word dripping ice and disdain as he turned his back on her with a sneer and walked away.

It didn’t afford him the same satisfaction that wringing the blasted woman’s neck might have done but he’d given the gossip mill enough fodder for the time being without murdering his hostess. No matter how appealing the idea might be.

Without his ever having consciously moved his feet in her direction, he found himself crossing the floor. The closer he got to her, the harder his heart seemed to thud and the impossibility she would ever be his seemed to grow.

Could she ever forgive him?

Even if she did, would she choose him over Beau or any number of the dazzled looking suitors who were gathered around her like planets circling a sun. And if by some miracle she did want him, could he really marry her, knowing his mother would never forgive him. Could he be so cruel to his mother after all she had suffered after the scandal his father had wrought?

She had been destroyed that day and had barely left the house ever since, too terrified to face the outside world and the varied pitying or sneering faces of the ton. Could he really bring the daughter into the home that her mother, Lady Dalton had shaken to its foundations? It would surely kill his mother.

But he couldn’t stay away.

She was wearing white, her creamy shoulders revealed by the cut of the dress, a demur single row of pearls at the slender column of her throat and pearl drops at her ears. On any other of the young women here it might have looked insipid, but against the blaze of her hair she was breathtaking.

He felt a jolt of desire so overpowering that he had to pause for a moment to collect himself before he moved any closer.

She was talking to Percy Nibley and the poor bastard was as obviously in her thrall as every other man that seemed to be hovering about her. He took a step closer and suddenly she became aware of him. Her head came up, the smile falling from her lips, her shoulders growing taut.

Misery washed through him at the idea his presence would take the smile from her face and put her on her guard. It had been such a short time ago she’d lain in his arms and laughed and whispered secrets to him. Why hadn’t he realised how precious that had been before it was too late?