A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Read Online Free PDF

years in faithful family service, entered the hall to regard him in chagrin before apparently remembering her place and welcoming him back with wan enthusiasm.
    Considering his history, he should not be offended that his wife and small domestic staff did not expect him to stay. To be fair, he’d been in France longer than he had ever been home. He’d barely lived in London at all. The pattern of his house hold had arranged itself around an absent master. But from the instant of his return, he began to perceive that his presence discomforted everyone.
    Had he been missed?
    Not if one were to judge by his dog.
    Nor by anyone else, either, he quickly decided.
    “Sebastien,” Eleanor said with a stilted smile, still not moving. “I had no idea you were back in England.”
    “I should have written.”
    Her eyes darkened in mordant agreement. “Well, yes.”
    “I didn’t think—” He released her, aware suddenly they had a small audience of servants and that she was dressed in a light traveling mantle.
    He motioned to the bags on the floor. “Are you going away?” he asked with a frown.
    Suddenly he wondered whether she
had
known he was coming home. Maybe he’d caught her trying to escape. That he would not permit. She had to at least give him a chance to redeem himself.
    She leaned her head back. The faintest blush tinged her pale cheekbones. “Yes, I—”
    He kissed her then.
    He didn’t want to hear she was leaving. Or that he might be too late. His arms locked around her waist, unbending her an inch at a time until she was forced to yield or make an unseemly fuss. Her mouth tasted as cool as English rain, but the flicker of surprise in her eyes reassured him she had not forgotten the passion they had once known.
    Too brief. He savored the faint pressure of gloved fingertips above his wrist, the warm surrender of a woman’s body against an unfair strength.
    He let her go before she could draw anotherbreath. Her hand dropped from his wrist. Then she laughed as if embarrassed by either his kiss, or her own indefinable response.
    “I’m going away for a fortnight,” she said after an awkward pause.
    “To?”
    “Brighton. With the duchess and her boys,” she explained, recovering from their embrace with enviable aplomb. “She thinks a brief spell of sea air will be good for them.”
    “It won’t be good for me,” he said without thinking.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    He laughed. He didn’t care what the servants thought. He wasn’t asking the staff to bear his children or share his life. “What I meant,” he said, “is that you’re leaving just as I’ve come home. And I am disappointed.”
    She shook her head. He waited for her to invite him to accompany her. Instead, she said, “Well, you understand why I can’t disappoint the duchess. Are you planning to stay here while I’m gone?”
    “No.” He glanced around the hall at the servants who stood waiting like a row of wooden soldiers. “I have other arrangements.” And at her clearly relieved nod, he felt compelled to add, “For now.”
    She shot him a look. “Then I suppose I will see you—”
    “When you come back from Brighton,” he said firmly. “You aren’t leaving now?”
    She stared past him to the door. “Mr. Loveridge should be here at any minute.”
    “Who?” he asked sharply.
    “The duchess’s secretary,” she replied.
    “Oh, yes. Loveridge. I’ve heard the name.”
    An uncertain silence spun out between them. A few minutes later he watched as she was whisked away in the Duchess of Wellington’s comfortable traveling carriage.
    What irony. Three years ago she had stood on this exact spot and watched him go away for the last time, offering an explanation for his departure as hollow as hers now sounded. She had known little about his work, only that he’d been discharged from his Peninsular company five years prior at the Duke of Wellington’s personal request.
    She and his London house hold staff believed that he