Page 39 of The Duke of Fire
“Not exactly like this,” he replied. “I have never spent more than a few hours with a woman. I never wanted to.”
She was not really that surprised. She knew about how he had gone through widows, fallen aristocrats, and courtesans like a starving man. And perhaps he was. She was just now understanding what that hunger was like. Even as she reminded herself that such hunger could not bring anything good. It would not lead her to a good marriage. It would not make her a respectable wife one day.
What she would have was a life of independence. But before that, she could explore her passions with no expectations. Like a man. Like the Duke of Firaine.
“I am not surprised, Your Grace,” she said. “Your grandmother told me that you have no plans to marry.”
“She is right in that regard,” he replied.
Amelia told herself that whatever she was feeling was not disappointment. She had no right to think that her presence would change the way he was.
“What made you like this? There must have been something in your youth that made you reject marriage. Even rakes like the Duke of Wildcrest eventually married. He might still have mistresses, I would not possibly know, but—”
“You are asking questions I cannot answer,” he said, cutting her off—not cruelly, but firmly. “And that was never part of our arrangement.”
Amelia inhaled sharply. “I am aware of our arrangement. I am selling myself to you. Your grandmother has helped build my reputation, which you will tear apart anyway. So, forgive me for trying to understand the man who holds my future in his hands.”
“Understand me?” he repeated, his voice low. “Miss Warton… Amelia… I would not try that if I were you.”
“All I am asking is that you act friendly with me,” she pushed. “Or at least civil.”
He looked away, his jaw tight. “I am not built for civility. Not in the way you deserve.”
Amelia flinched. “You make it sound as though I am beneath kindness.”
“No,” he said, finally meeting her gaze, and his voice was raw now. “You are not beneath it. But I am not the one to give you what you need.”
How could someone who could kiss her so passionately be inherently cold? His grandmother was right to send him a notice of her death! The man was unfeeling.
“Make sure you do not forget why we had this arrangement in the first place. My grandmother was right to remind you about what I am. Who I am. In the end, what we have lies in using each other. I am using you, yes, but you are also using me to escape Warton House.”
The truth of it stung worse than any lie. And yet, somehow, she found her spine. What did she think? That their situation would change after a kiss?
“You think I do not know that?” she whispered. “You think I have not spent every night wondering what I have become just to get out of Warton House?”
Amelia recognized the truth in his words. Still, it hurt. It hurt to hear it from him. She thought that the hunt would become a fantasy to get lost in. Instead, it became a reminder not to getlost in the fantasy that she had begun spinning in her head.
Sebastian looked away.
Amelia swallowed hard. “I thought I could endure this if I pretended—for a little while—that you were someone worth wanting.” Silence bloomed in the space between them. “But now I see,” she continued. “You are not just guarded. You are heartless.”
His hand twitched on his knee, but he did not speak again.
Back in the carriage, they were quiet once more. It was as if the kiss by the gardens never happened.Except she still felt it everywhere.
Chapter 14
Sebastian thought the days afterThe Arrangementwere even drearier than the ones that came before. It was like walking through a perpetual, heated fog.
He had tried to stay away from Amelia for a while, but his grandmother had made it a habit to invite her to his house for company and, sometimes, to introduce her to friends. He had been made aware that his grandmother had even begun finding suitable matches for her.
“Since you are not interested in her that way, it is best for her to have some options. From what I have seen of that girl’s family, she needs to get out of that house,” his grandmother had said.
It should not bother me. I was the one who asked her to do that.
Sebastian did not know whether to protest her plans. He wanted to claim Amelia as his own. To touch her, kiss her, and possibly bed her to rid her from his mind. Yet, he also wanted to ensure she was doing well. He found himself lingering by the windows overlooking the gardens whenever she was there for a visit, a stroll, or even a chat with the dowager’s other guests. He toldhimself that he had no business watching her, but he continued to do so. Repeatedly.
“She is just a novelty,” he had grumbled to himself during one of those moments when he spied her, sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the garden. “The thrill of pursuit.”
