A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

her a favor and not shown up at their wedding at all.
    In retrospect, he really did appear to have been a bastard.
    However, from what he’d gleaned from intelligence sources over the last year, Eleanor had gotten her revenge in an unbelievable way. He might not have visited her, but he’d had contacts in London who kept him aware of how she was.
    He stood on the doorstep of his Belgrave town house for a full minute before making his presence known.
    Did he knock or simply open the door? He owned the damned house. His wife still lived here. He had been following her alarming activities for several months and had maintained her finances through his London solicitors for the six years of their marriage.
    True, he could have written ahead to tell her to expect him. But part of him was afraid she would have bolted if he’d given her warning of his return.
    He took off his hat.
    Two hot-eel vendors had slowed on the pavement to stare at him. One nudged the other. His dark scowl sent them scurrying down the street.
    He reached decisively for the doorknob. The door was locked, a sensible thing when a lady lived alone in a crime-plagued city, he assured himself.
    He lifted the heavy brass knocker. After an interminable silence he heard footsteps hurrying to answer the door. He glanced around. Was it his imagination or had the dust-collector slowed his cart to observe him? Was his return such a momentous event that it attracted the notice of strangers?
    He half-smiled at the dust-collector, who did not smile back.
    The door opened. Relief and disappointment briefly overshadowed his anticipation. His short, balding butler studied him with respectful suspicionfor a moment before masking all expression and bowing to allow him entrance.
    “My lord,” the butler said. “I did not realize—”
    “Who is it, Walbrook?” a melodious voice inquired from the vestibule to Sebastien’s right.
    He stepped around the genuflecting Walbrook, the tidy line of traveling bags in the entry hall. He wasn’t sure if he’d caught Eleanor on her way out or in from some entertainment. But one thing was certain. He understood by the shock on her oval face when she stepped forth that he was the last person on earth she had expected at the door.
    He cleared his throat. In truth, he was probably as discombobulated as his wife.
He
had expected more. A shriek of delight. A tearful hug. A wife rushing forward to greet her husband after an inexcusable separation. She was beautiful, elegant, frozen in place. He was not sure what she would have done had he not swept forward and crushed her in a desperate hold. She had little choice but to allow herself to be embraced.
    “Eleanor.” He couldn’t help himself. His hands swept down her nape, her back, to the soft curves below. He realized that another servant had joined the chambermaid on the landing. But he was holding his wife, in his own house, and it wasn’t a dream. He closed his eyes for several moments of bliss—half-convinced by her stunned silence that he could step back into the position he had eluded for the last six years. No questions asked. No answers given.
    Wasn’t that the English way?
    The master is home. The wife is beside herself with joy. Let’s not embarrass ourselves with a display.
    All is well now that his lordship is here.
    Not exactly.
    “I’m home,” he announced unnecessarily, as if her lack of enthusiasm meant she was too overwhelmed by emotion to react.
    As it turned out, she
was
overwhelmed. But not with the, “Sebastien, I have wished for this moment so desperately that I cannot speak,” sort of emotion. It was more of the, “Heaven help me. The rotter has actually come back. What am I supposed to do with him?” shock of a woman who considered herself virtually a widow.
    His old deerhound had galloped forth to get down on all fours and growl balefully from the bottom of the stairs, as if Sebastien were a ghost. Even Eleanor’s personal maid, Mary Sturges, many