The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,27

you work up the courage to ask for her hand, that is.”

“If I admit that Lady Nuisance doesn’t rouse so much as one hair on my head, does that make me sound callous? At least, the fires don’t rage when she’s around. My fingertips remain cool. Happily unaffected.”

“Happily unaffected,” Finn whispered woefully, at a loss, this conversation one they’d had many times since he and Julian jumped into the bottomless sea of love. Like all martyrs, they wanted every man to sink to the bottom with them.

“According to the Alexander men, extreme fondness is an essential part of the marital bargain. And I do mean extreme. Passion, unlike any ever experienced.” Sebastian tossed the bow on the desk and reached to rub his forehead, a headache brewing. He hadn’t shared all of his past with his friends. His parents’ troubled union, his abuse at the hands of his father. He wasn’t exactly sure what love was, but he was sure he didn’t trust it. It had betrayed him every time so far. “It isn’t enough that the woman I choose will become a duchess? My affection for her must forever alter me? That sounds like a trap.”

“But the woman you’re thinking of choosing…” Finn shrugged, discomfited, looking like his coat had shrunk three sizes.

“Lady Hazelton is suitable. Damn-near perfect when one considers her uncanny ability to disappear from one space and randomly show up in another. It’s not as exhilarating as starting fires, but it’s quite something.”

“What if she uses that trick when you’re in bed with her?” Finn tilted his head in consideration. “Could be good, could be bad.”

Sebastian had no interest in bedding Honoria Hazelton, which he understood was a problem. “She’s part of the League. She needs a husband who can protect her. I need an heir. End of story. Give it a rest, Finn.”

Finn ran his thumb across a crack in the stone wide enough to sink a pencil in. “Weren’t you the one who told me my lack of a title didn’t matter? That being a viscount’s byblow didn’t matter, which isn’t even an accurate accounting of my dreadfully impoverished lineage? The biggest lie of my life is a monumental step up. Victoria’s an earl’s daughter as well and too good for me. But being a lady isn’t the reason she is. She’s simply too good for me. But she said yes anyway.”

Sebastian rounded the desk and headed for the arched doorway leading to the stairs, wishing to remove himself from this advice session. He wasn’t sitting through this for another minute without a glass of gin or brandy in his hand.

“So you have a plan, do you?” Finn called from below. “To get the American to tell you what she knows?”

Sebastian smiled. He did indeed.

He was going to beat Delaney Temple at her own game. Or one of them.

And use his fastest horse to do it.

The girl was sitting on the terrace steps, weeping, face buried in the arms she’d folded atop her knees. Her hair, as pale as the moonlight falling over her, hung in a chaotic tumble near to the ground. She looked like a forlorn heroine from a fairy tale, surrounded by misty, gossamer twilight—when Delaney felt like an intruding gnome. The chirp of crickets and whisper of rustling leaves permeated, not unlike the sounds filling the night when she had been in South Carolina.

Delaney paused at the edge of the garden, having left the duke to wander his property, well aware a footman followed a short distance behind, letting her know she was to be a prisoner during her stay. A nightingale’s cry sounded as she crossed to the terrace, uncomfortable with the emotional display but unable to ignore it.

“May I?” Delaney asked, and settled next to the girl, who gasped and jerked her head up, scrubbing hard at her flushed cheeks.

The girl was a woman not much younger than Delaney. Pushing a hiccupping breath through her nose, she swiped a knuckle beneath each eye. “Who are you? And what are you doing at the Duke of Ashcroft’s home?”

Another rude Brit, Delaney deduced with a sigh. “Delaney Temple.” Then, because she knew the gesture wouldn’t be welcomed, she thrust out her hand.

The young woman glanced at Delaney’s hand like it would implode upon contact and sank back against the step, her mortification evident. “Lady Honoria Katherine Hazelton.”

Ah. Blowing a wisp of hair from her cheek, Delaney cast her frown into the darkness. What a trite happenstance. She’d come to England,