Page 67 of His Mad Duchess
Still, her face rose before him unbidden, her laugh brighter than the lamps, her unease a thing he longed to shield her from with his own hands.
Edward tipped his chin toward a passing carriage. “I swear every hackney in London rattles louder after dusk. Must be a conspiracy against conversation.”
Sebastian huffed a laugh. “More likely the drivers know their audience and prefer to drown them out.”
Edward flicked a glance at him, then toward the familiar glow of White’s across the way.
“Shall we? A bottle of claret, a hand or two at cards, and perhaps…” Edward’s smile carried its usual wicked promise. “The sort of diversion you’ve been too virtuous to name these past few days.”
Sebastian hesitated, adjusting his gloves, eyes briefly tracing the glow of White’s before flicking back to Edward. “Not tonight,” he said simply, though the words lacked the edge of irritation they might once have carried.
Edward stopped, raising a brow. “Not tonight, or never?”
Sebastian’s boots struck the pavement in deliberate rhythm, the sound echoing in the quiet evening. “I have no taste for it. The wine is sour, the company tiresome, and the… diversions… are tedious and no longer necessary.”
It is not because of any rule Margaret might have set,he thought,nor out of fear of disapproval. I simply do not wantthem.The wine, the cards, the diversions… none hold the slightest appeal anymore.
Edward’s grin widened, sharp and knowing. “You used to call that tedium the breath of life. Since when, pray tell, does Ravenscourt turn virtuous on the eve of his first appearance with a wife?
Sebastian let the remark pass, the corners of his mouth tugging in the faintest acknowledgment. “Since now. There are better things to want.” His eyes, despite himself, lifted to the darkened windows of the houses they passed, thinking of Margaret. How she would feel, poised for the eyes of all London. The thought of her there, anxious or brilliant, made every claret, every card, every laugh of idle men seem meaningless.
Edward slowed half a step, turning his head to study him. “Better things,” he repeated. “Such as?”
Sebastian only adjusted his gloves and kept walking, refusing him the satisfaction of an answer. But Margaret’s face had already risen in his mind, unbidden, bright as firelight.
Edward glanced at him again, this time quieter, sharper. “Ah. I see. Your mind is not on the wine… or the company.” He chuckled. “It is elsewhere, then. Worth a duke’s attention, I suppose?”
Sebastian met his friend’s gaze, tone low and steady. “It is worth all the attention a man can spare.”
Edward gave a low whistle. “Well, well. Hell has frozen. The rake has hung up his boots. If you tell me you’ve gone and grown sentimental, I shall?—”
“Do nothing of the sort,” Sebastian interrupted, his voice firm, almost amused in its restraint. “I am not sentimental. I am simply… prudent.”
Edward stopped in mid-stride, tilting his head, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Prudent, is it? Since when does prudence look like brooding over a lady while the finest claret in London waits inside?”
Sebastian inclined his head slightly, letting the implication hang. No words were needed.
Edward’s grin widened, sharper, more mischievous. “Since you refuse to confess, I shall assume it is serious then. Tell me, Sebastian, does your prudence extend to being the perfect husband? Or merely the silent sort who broods in lamp shine and cobblestones?”
Sebastian’s eyes flicked toward the lamplit windows of a townhouse, dark but full of promise in his imagination. “The sort that matters,” he said simply, voice low. He did not elaborate, and Edward knew better than to press.
A carriage rattled past, the driver tipping his hat to a passing lady. Edward raised a brow. “See? Even London moves on while you stew in thoughts of virtue and… whatever it is you call your distraction.”
Sebastian let the words pass, boots striking the stones in quiet rhythm. The world outside White’s could have held a hundred temptations—gamblers, cards, wine—but his mind and heart were fixed. “I am going home,” he said finally, tone firm, “to my wife.”
Edward stopped mid-stride, studying him, eyes narrowing in both amusement and surprise. “Home to your wife, you say? Well, well… the city may be ablaze with diversion, but it seems Ravenscourt has found a far more enticing pursuit.”
Sebastian said nothing further. He adjusted his gloves, the click of his boots marking the certainty of the choice. The lamps along St. James’s Street glimmered, the clatter of the city continuing all around them—but for him, the only place of importance lay just a short walk away, where Margaret waited.
At last, the night had come. Their first appearance as husband and wife—the moment London society had been waiting for, and it would be beneath the glittering chandeliers of the Duke of Aylesford’s ballroom, the most coveted stage of the Season.
Her room glowed with candlelight, each flame mirrored in the gilt frames and polished walnut. Outside, carriages rattled past on the cobblestones, a steady reminder that London was awake, watching, waiting.
Margaret stood before the long mirror while her maid adjusted the final fall of silk. The gown—pale ivory, faintly luminousin the light—whispered as she shifted. Its cut was modest, the neckline demure, yet the lines of the bodice had been sewn with such precision that the whole effect was one of quiet elegance rather than simplicity.
“You will turn heads, Your Grace,” the maid said with a quick smile, fastening the last pearl at her throat. “And the rose water—it suits you.”
Margaret lifted her chin, catching the gleam of the pearls in the mirror. She had chosen the gown not because it was bold but because it was not. Ivory, pearls, a whisper of roses—all nothing that could be accused of gaudiness, nothing to give society’s hawk-eyed matrons reason to whisper.Let them see poise, not desperation. Let them see a wife who knows her place.
