The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,77
life.
If he broke the rules, she was a fury.
Sebastian Fitzgerald Tremont, fifth Duke of Ashcroft, laughed softly, fondly, in awe despite his vexation. A tiny thing, barely tall enough to reach his shoulder, nine stone soaking wet, Delaney Temple had skillfully tamed him.
Aside from memorizing a thousand-page manuscript in minutes and retaining every word, tenaciousness was her gift.
She led him around like Hep, who at this moment slumbered by her feet, releasing his wheezing puppy snores to the night. They both, he and the dog, happily tripped along behind her, the duke, not the beast, trying unsuccessfully to hide his feelings.
Her brother had returned from Scotland with his new wife, the rebranded Kitty Temple, and Sebastian had been forced to act sad when he was euphoric, not letting on that he had his own relationship in the making. Once again, he was supporting another couple, as he’d done with Finn and Victoria, paving the way for at least modest societal acceptance. Once they secured it, Case and Kitty could return to London.
Naturally, he and Delaney were the worst kept secret in Oxfordshire. That they made an effort, tiptoeing about, meeting in secret, when coffee showed up daily with his favored tea on his morning tray, told the full story.
If the lower house staff knew, everyone knew.
He’d only gotten into one fistfight so far, with Finn, denying he was in love until his throat was raw, while trying to wipe the silly grin off the boy’s face. They all—Julian, Finn, Piper, Victoria, hell, even Humphrey—believed it would work out, that he’d break her. Like Delaney was an untamed horse, and he, her new owner.
They believed it was only a matter of time before he made her change her mind about becoming a duchess.
When he hadn’t found the courage to offer again.
Not when the lady was unwilling.
He’d considered his wretched proposal a thousand times. The attempt had been flavored with sexual release, the most explosively erotic night of his life—and he’d reacted like a brute. Like the Cro-Magnon she’d accused him of being in a rather rousing argument that had ended with her bent over the desk he currently sat upon. Another argument lost but won, spoils paid out in shared pleasure.
They were trapped in competition.
Archery, chess, billiards, life, where he wasn’t giving up, and neither was she. Consequently, they danced around each other’s wishes while stripping off their clothing all over the estate, never talking about where the union was heading, only diving in headfirst. Her favored approach, not his. Every day, Delaney got in deeper with the League, and he got in deeper with her. He hadn’t fallen, but he had slipped. Like settling into a warm bath, comfort and calm and home.
Things he’d yearned for and never imagined he’d have.
Between the soft beats of his heart, Delaney had become essential to his happiness. He’d finally found the woman who fit him like a lost puzzle piece. An outspoken, overconfident, marginally-educated genius. Lighthearted, carefree and droll, the antihesis of an English chit. She made him laugh—and he realized from the shocked expressions, maid to majordomo, that he hadn’t laughed often before.
When she took him into her body, when they whispered in the dead of night and ate breakfast by the fire in their altogether, it was Sebastian Tremont, just the man, she claimed.
He’d never been more certain about wanting to be that man.
In the chilled coziness of their dungeon, on that very night, he accepted his defeat. He nearly smiled, imagining the ton’s reaction to him not only marrying the Terrible One, but also being in desperate and hopeless love with her.
His friends, his family didn’t understand that he wanted her for who she was, not who she could be. She’d been out-of-the-gate perfect, and he wanted her.
And he wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted.
“Was the nightmare a bad one?” she asked without looking up from her text, sensing, as she often did, his unease.
Sebastian frowned, his fingers stilling on the strings. He’d been plucking, agitated composition, she liked to call it. “I dreamed you found another note. Then it went up in smoke before we could read it. I’m ruining your sleep with these damned visions. But somehow, dreaming of fires seems to keep me from setting them.”
“No more notes, only a sullen Simon, trying to find a path to this girl stuck in the in-between. What must he feel to be connected, yet not an actual part of her world?”