Page 41 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"That sounds like something Sebastian would say."

Julian's expression changed slightly.

Amelia noticed.

"Is he here?"

Julian didn't answer immediately. "Yes."

Her heart gave one hard, traitorous beat.

She hated that Julian noticed. He did. But he was kind enough not to comment.

"Would you like to leave?"

"No."

The answer came too quickly, and Julian's mouth curved.

"I thought not."

I only mean to observe. She held to that thought like a rope, moving carefully through rooms that offered her no polite fiction to hide behind, no pretense that desire was something to be managed rather than simply felt. A door stood ajar further down a haze of tobacco smoke emanating from it and through it she glimpsed a woman reclining before an easel in considerably less than a morning dress, entirely unbothered.

"Amelia?"

She turned, and her heart dropped straight through the floor.

Sebastian stood not three feet away, a glass forgotten in his hand, staring at her with an expression of such open shock that for one long moment neither of them said anything at all.

"You should not be here," he said finally.

"You should know by now that telling e where I ought not be is unikely to discourage my curiosity." She lifted her chin, though her pulse was racing considerably faster than the words let on. "The Duke of Dunhaven invited me."

"Julian." Something moved behind his eyes, quick and complicated, gone before she could name it.

Then Julian shifted beside her. Sebastian's gaze moved to him.

"You brought her."

Julian raised an eyebrow.

"She came willingly."

"I did," Amelia said.

Sebastian looked at her.

"Why?"

She bristled immediately.

"Is that your way of welcoming guests?"

"It is my way of asking why you are here."

"Curiosity."

His eyes remained on hers.