The Duke's Night of Sin (24 page)

He stalked back to his glass, filled it, and drank it down in one draught.

His grandmother was sputtering at the thought. She snatched up her glass and brought it to her mouth, grimacing when she realized it was empty. “Your father went astray and dishonored this family in more ways than you know. It is up to you to restore that honor.”

“I cannot change the past, Grandmother. I realize that now. All I can do is live
my
life the best way I know how. Will my actions make others forget my father’s mistakes, I cannot say. All I can do is try to be a better person. And with Siusan, I am that man.”

“You are a great fool if you believe you can restore our honor with
that woman
at your side. Hear me, boy. You must put as much space between you and that sinful creature before it is too late! She is poison to you! Believe me when I tell you that she will ruin you, destroy your standing in the House of Lords.”

Sebastian turned slowly and peered through the low light toward her. “It is already too late, Grandmother. My heart is hers. I love her.”

P
enned inside the tall stone walls, the bitter wind raced around the perimeter of the back garden like a corralled horse. Dried leaves swirled in circles around Siusan’s ankles, catching and pulling on the lacings of her boots and on her stockings.

“What are you doing out here on such a bitter day as this, Su? There is a fire in the parlor hearth. Why do you not come inside and sit with me there for a spell?” Grant sat down next her on
the marble bench and shivered. “Ye’ll freeze your backside off sitting on this. It’s like ice.”

Siusan shrugged and gazed out at the sturdy boxwoods, their leaves still lush and green while the rest of the garden was withered and brown. “I have a very difficult decision to make, Grant, and I canna allow the laughter and simple pleasures of being with my family to sway my final decision in any way.”

“Och, Su, we’re as tightly bound together as the stitches of silk you fashioned to bind Sterling’s wounds together after a bout.” A momentary grin touched his mouth, and even in this dire moment, Siusan chuckled inwardly at the memory. “Even sitting on a block of icy stone canna force more than twenty years of life together from your mind.”

“Nay, I suppose not.” Siusan sighed, but after a moment in thought, turned to Grant. “How am I to make this decision?”

“What is the decision, as
you
view it?” He squeezed her gloved hand in his warm bare hand. “Remove what anyone else might have told you, or might think, that could affect your own decision.”

Siusan sat very still. “I canna, for while my decision will affect my life, it will also change the lives of others, people I care deeply for, as well.”

“Tell me what
you
are trying to decide.” He leaned forward on the bench in order to better see her face.

She withdrew her hand from his and pressed her fingers together as if in prayer, then held them to her lips.

Siusan rocked a little, forward and backward, almost the way her mother had rocked her when she was small child. It was a little thing, but it calmed her at times when life became complicated.

Pondering Grant’s sage advice for a few moments more, she finally lifted her fingers away from her mouth and turned to look at Grant. “This could be the most difficult decision I have ever made—because you can’t help me with it. No one can.” She lowered her gaze, then met Grant’s gaze. “I must choose between allowing Da and the rest of Society to see me as a respectable woman. Not as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.”

“This does not sound like such a hard decision. It is what you have always wanted. What we all have wanted since we came to London.”

“It is what I want. For the first time in all my life, Da claims to be proud of me. People I do not even know seek my counsel. Members of the
ton
who practically gave us the cut direct, nearly baring
their teeth when we entered a ballroom, are sending cards, begging my attendance at events.” She turned her gaze up and met his, and gave her shoulders a dismissive shrug. “This is the life I’ve always dreamed about, but I fear that to claim it would be wrong of me.”

“Why would it be wrong? Siusan, you have changed. You are no longer the woman you were before you left for Bath. Far from it. You’ve grown. The mask that hid your true identity has fallen away. Whether you meant to or not, you have shown the world the Siusan your brothers and sisters have always known—a kind, caring, talented, and respectable woman.”

Lowering her head, so he could not see her tearing eyes, she nodded. “You are right, I canna hide anymore. I need to face life … but also the pain that accompanies it.” She raised her head and faced him, let him see the tracks of the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I canna allow the Duke of Exeter to shoulder dishonor that he rightfully should not bear. I canna let him be forced to marry a lying chit and accept the disdain of the House of Lords and all of Society because I choose to remain quiet and hide my own indiscretion.”

“Siusan.” Grant pulled her against him and hugged her.

“Please, let me finish.” Her voice was quavering now, but in her heart she felt the truth of her words. “If indeed I have changed, if I possess true morals, then I must admit that I lay with the Duke of Exeter in the library, and I must do so publicly.”

Grant’s gaze was serious and questioning. “If you do this, you will certainly lose Da’s respect, and because he will view your act of intimacy with the Duke of Exeter as dishonoring the family name, he may well send you off to carve out a new life,
alone.”

“I know.” A tear hastened down her cheek and dripped from her jaw.

“Society may shun you, and so may the duke himself. He may claim to love you, but you must prepare yourself for the possibility that even he may turn from you so that he may preserve his own family honor.”

“I realize this too.” She gulped back a sob. “But if I do not accept my responsibility, then I have not changed at all. You are right when you say I have shown my true face to the world. Now I must accept the consequences of a life built on truth, and embrace the woman I have become.”

Grant hugged her to him again. “Do your brother a wee favor, Su.”

She leaned back and blinked up at him.

“Consider your decision a little longer. Do not act until you are completely certain of it. Be
sure,
Su, because whatever you decide will change your life, but in very, very different ways.”

Rising, he took her hand and pulled her from the bench. “Now, what say you? Shall we go inside and thaw our bums by the fire?”

Siusan smiled. “You do realize that if you wore woolen breeches instead of silk on days like this, you would not need to worry so about freezing your bum.”

Grant laughed. “Perhaps, but then I would not look so damned fine either, would I?”

When they entered the parlor, they saw that they were not alone. Reflexively, Siusan cowered behind Grant the moment she saw their father sitting in the tufted chair next to the fire, stroking his long white beard.

“Father.” Grant bowed. When he bent, Siusan was exposed behind him.

Siusan moved beside Grant and curtsied gracefully. As she rose, she saw several dried brown leaves clinging to her walking frock. Her father’s thick eyebrow lifted as he noticed them too. “I beg your pardon, Da, we had not expected you to
grace our home for another sennight. Please forgive our appearance.”

The Duke of Sinclair extended his hand to her. “Come here, my dear child. Ye are dressed sensibly given the unusually frigid day—unlike yer brother, who I observe still wastes coin on fribbles and fancy dress.” Though she expected him to lift his attention from her to frown at her brother, he did not remove his gaze from her. “Please be seated, Siusan.”

Grant moved beside her like a guard.

“Grant, I should like to speak with yer sister privately. Leave us.” His brow lowered in his seriousness.

Grant lifted his chin. “I should like to remain, if you do not mind. This room possesses the only warm hearth in the house, except the kitchen, of course.”

“Then by all means, hasten to the kitchen, and while ye are there, ask Mrs. Wimpole if she might brew some tea for this weary traveler.”

Grant turned his eyes toward Siusan, with a look that communicated that he would not leave her, no matter their father’s wishes, if she needed him to stay by her side.

As she sat down on the settee near the window,
she sent him a quick nod, releasing him. No need for Grant to endure their father’s disdain unnecessarily.

Her father watched Grant exit the parlor and did not speak until his son’s boots could be heard descending the stairs into the kitchen. “Ye have surprised me, Siusan.”

Though his recent letter had expressed his pride in her, days had passed since he penned it and, by now, everything might have changed. She had no notion what his man of affairs in London might have reported.

She focused on his face, watching for any sign, but, alas, his tone gave nothing away, and she could not tell if his
surprise
was one of pleasure or disappointment.

“Did I surprise you?” She stilled her features. Two could play at this.

“Ye must know of what I speak.” Then he confounded her with a smile. The expression was so alien to his features that she leaned forward over her knees, unable to refrain from staring at his tilted lips in utter amazement.

Siusan knew, however, to remain quiet. It would be most unwise to offer up any details of the past week’s goings-on when she was not certain how much he actually knew.

Raising her eyebrows, she simply waited for him to speak again.

“From what I hear, ye are a great heroine, my dear.”

She felt her cheeks coloring and hoped he would see her blush as an expression of modesty rather than embarrassment when the memory of Sebastian’s naked body warming against hers suddenly flashed in her mind. That intimate press of skin, far more so than riding through the snow, was truly what saved Sebastian’s life … and her own.

“And more than that, ye have taken it upon yerself to work to earn money to support yer family. Ye did not choose to gamble, or fight, or trick others into handing ye their purses. Ye
taught,
ye wrote columns, and even penned a book.”

There was that smile again, but something did not feel the least bit authentic about it. Or maybe it was she who did not feel genuine—after all, she had not worked out of some great sense of providing for her brothers and sisters. Nay, she went to Bath, and took a position as a schoolmistress, for the sake of hiding from a man she had been intimate with, knowing he mistook her for another. And not caring.

“How I wish yer brothers and Priscilla would
have the fortitude to follow yer lead. But they are worthless and will be until … if ever … they learn what honor means, to oneself and to the family. But ye, Siusan, ye have learned this lesson and made yer father most proud.”

She felt nauseous. Here she sat, being lavished with praise for her transformation into an honorable woman. But she hadn’t changed at all. If she had, she would be racing through London to confess to the Duke of Exeter that she had been his lover in the library.

She alone had it in her power to restore his honor and save him from a loveless marriage!

Rising from the settee, she crossed to the secretary and withdrew from the desk a piece of foolscap. She dipped a pen in the ink and hurriedly penned a note.

“Siusan, what are ye doing?” Her father pounded his cane on the floor. “Sit down at once.”

Ignoring him, she drizzled the page with pounce, then shook it off and folded the paper, sealing it with a wax stamp.

Eyeing Poplin, the house’s lone manservant passing before the doorway, Siusan started for him before she had any opportunity to fashion an excuse for walking away from her father.

“Siusan!” He called out to her. “Return at once.”

“I cannot, Father. I have an urgent errand to attend to—one about which I am already terribly delinquent.” She whisked her cloak and bonnet from the hooks near the door.

Perplexed, Poplin looked at her, then at her father in the parlor. From the pounding of the cane, he was coming after her. She had to leave immediately.

“Please, see this is delivered at once.” She pressed the folded letter into Poplin’s hand. “Deliver it yourself. Give it to no one else but the addressee. Do you understand?”

The old man was trembling slightly, but he took the letter from her and whisked it behind his back as he opened the front door for her. Siusan rushed out into the square, then turned on the Brook Street to summon a hackney to transport her to Blackwood Hall.

Where she would confess her sin to Sebastian … and to anyone else he required.

I
t was twilight when Siusan arrived at her destination and peered out the carriage window at Blackwood Hall rising from the hillside. There was nary a cloud in the dusky sky, and the stars were already blinking as bright as the many candles in the windows above.

It was rash coming here without even sending a card. Sebastian might be in Town for all she knew, coming for her. More likely, though, he was
too consumed with the young woman … who claimed she was with him in the library at the gala … and who was with child.

How had this Miss Aster chit known what had occurred in the library? Siusan, herself, had been there, and she hadn’t even known that it was the Duke of Exeter she’d been intimate with in the darkness. Clearly, the duke hadn’t known that she was his lover. So, how had some barely out miss cleverly assembled all of the puzzle pieces of that night—wedging herself in to replace Siusan—to complete a scene Sebastian would take for truth?