Chapter Thirty-Seven

I had a plan for my life.

The words echoed in Sebastian’s mind long after she’d said them. He’d ruminated on those words at great length throughout the afternoon and evening. When she asked him at dinner whether he’d enjoyed the beef, all he heard was I had a plan for my life. After dinner they had retreated to their respective corners of the library, where Eliza had penned a letter to Lady Claire and he had pretended to read Augustin Pyramus de Candolle’s theories on botanical classification, all the while hearing those damning words reverberate against his skull.

She’d had a plan for her life. A plan that had in no way included him. And he had known this. He could hardly claim ignorance when she had told him so time and time again. From the moment they had first met three years ago, when she had declared she kept her dances for another man, until their marriage negotiations and her adamancy that she would bear only one child, she had made her intentions clear: he did not belong in her life.

But of course he hadn’t listened.

No, he had continued on his merry way, ruining her life with no more thought than a little girl gave to picking daisies, not caring that without the soil and sunshine they would be dead within hours. With all the women in the world who strived to be a duchess, he had to go and marry the one who wanted no part of it.

It hurt abominably, like a knife wound in his chest that wouldn’t heal but remained gaping open for all and sundry to poke and prod at the raw flesh.

Which left him with an uncomfortable, perplexing question. What now?

It was an unpleasantly familiar sensation, this not knowing. Several months after the death of his parents, when the shock and wild throes of grief had subsided to a dull ache, he had been faced with the same question.

What could he do now, to ensure nothing hurt him like this ever again?

The answer then had been simple. He had merely refused to care deeply for anything. It had been easy, really. Frivolity, jests, and schemes made excellent armor. Yet there were chinks in his chainmail, as Eliza was so fond of exposing—Eliza herself being the biggest chink of all.

Christ, but he was a bloody fool. He had gone and fallen in love with his wife. His wife, of all things! As though a wife were not already the person best positioned to call forth gales of agony on a man, he had to let himself fall in love with her, which made the agony all the more agonizing.

It was too late for him to mend the error of his ways. It had been too late almost since the moment of their first meeting, though he had been too stupid to see it. He could no more cease loving her than the Earth could cease its worshipful pivot around the sun. She was dearer to him than the dukedom, dearer than all others, dearer even than himself.

Good God, it was gruesome to feel so much in the confined cavity of his chest. There was too much of it—it threatened to burst from him at any moment and spread through his veins and limbs until it consumed his body and soul.

So, no, he could not cease to care.

But he could leave.

For her own good, of course.

Because he had made a wreckage of her life and dreams, and the best thing he could do for her now was to leave her the hell alone. Let her live in her cottage and write her books in peace. Without him.

Unless—his chest seized—good God, what if she was already carrying his child? What if she was truly destined to die in childbirth, as she feared? He could not save her from that. How would he—

But no. He wouldn’t allow himself to think on that now, for that way lay nothing but madness and despair. Nearly a month had passed since their wedding vows; he could say with utmost certainty that her menses had not yet occurred, as she had shared his bed every night. Unless she were with child, it should come within a week, most likely.

“Sebastian.”

He looked up at the sound of her voice. “Yes?”

“It has been a long day. I think I will retire early.” She stood and stretched deeply, causing her breasts to strain against her dress. His mouth went dry. “Are you coming to bed?” she asked.

It was terribly unfair that the place he most wanted to be—that is, in bed with Eliza—was the one place he could never be again. He lowered his gaze from her tempting figure to his far less appealing book. “No. I think I shall read for a little bit longer.”

A shocked silence ensued.

He hid his face behind his book, lest temptation overwhelm him. With any luck, she wouldn’t press. He held his breath, waiting for her to quit the room. But instead, her slippered feet padded softly across the floor as she approached his chair. He burrowed deeper.

“Is your book very interesting?” she asked.

“Fascinating,” he replied.

She dropped to her knees. “Tell me about it.”

He stared blankly at the French words before him. It was certainly about something, one didn’t simply string several thousand words together about nothing, but he was having a devil of a time remembering what, with Eliza’s hands resting lightly on his thighs. A familiar word caught his eye: de la botanique. “Botany,” he said succinctly.

“Oh, yes?” He heard the smile in her voice. “I have grown fond of botany, thanks to your interest. Will you read it to me?”

Well, that was easy enough. “Quelque nombreuses que soient les branches des connaissances humaines, quelque variés que paraissent être les moyens que nous avous pour parvenir à la verité, on doit les reduire a trois grandes classes—”

Her hands slid slowly, inexorably forward along his thighs. “Go on,” she encouraged.

“Ah.” His voice came out as a deep rasp. He cleared his throat. “That is, le raisonnement, le témoignage des autres hommes—”

His voice died altogether as she found where he hardened and thickened beneath the fabric of his breeches. She scraped her nails gently up the length of him, making his cock twitch in response.

“How very interesting. Do continue.”

He ought to stop this, now, while he still could. But if he stopped, then she would stop, and he might very well cry.

“Le raisonnement, le témoignage des autres hommes—”

“You read that bit already.”

“Did I?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Her industrious fingers searched out the buttons of his falls and popped them free one by one. His breath caught, he swallowed hard, and continued to read. “Et l’expérience acquise par nos propres sensations— Christ, Eliza.”

For she had licked his cock, root to crown. His eyes rolled to the ceiling as her tongue swirled delicately around the slit.

She pulled away and clucked disapprovingly. “Focus on the task at hand, Sebastian. You were saying? About sensations?”

Oh, God, yes, sensations. The sensation of her warm breath as she leaned in once more, the wet glide of her tongue—

“Sebastian!” she said sternly.

“D’où résulte la division la plus naturelle des connaissances humaines en sciences rationnelles, testimoniales, et expérimentales,” he blurted.

He was rewarded when her lips parted, taking him in, and she gave him a long suck.

“Chacune de ces trois classes—Oh, God—a une manière d’opérer et de raisonner—fuck—”

With every wet pull of her mouth he took leave of his reason. He tossed the book aside and his hands dove into her hair, unmooring the pins with desperate insistence until the silky locks spilled around them in a curtain of moonlight.

She kissed the ruddy tip of his cock and stood. He watched, dazed, as she bunched her skirts to her waist to reveal an appealing lack of drawers.

And then he realized her intent.

No, no.

He moved quickly, before his better nature could be overthrown by his needy cock, and seized her by the waist, bringing them both to the ground.

“Sebastian! What—” she cried.

He was already pushing her thighs apart with his shoulders. “Hush.”

He saw her bite her lip just before his mouth descended into the thatch of crisp, pale curls. His tongue stroked in long, slow licks, teasing and torturing her with pleasure—torturing himself with the taste of what he could never have again.

She cried out, lifting her hips, seeking more. He gave it to her and was rewarded by the tremble of her thighs. He closed his lips around the source of her greatest pleasure, sucking more deeply, licking more firmly, until she called out his name and her hands fisted in his hair, holding him tightly against her.

He kissed each thigh in turn and then slowly lowered her skirts.

She stirred at that, reaching for him with heavy, sated limbs. “You’re not yet satisfied. Come here, darling.”

He went, pulling her into his arms. “Rest now.”

“But—”

“Shh. In a moment,” he said, knowing that moment would never come. She yawned and cuddled closer.

He held her like that until her breaths were deep and even. When he was certain she was asleep, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed.

The next morning he saw a stain of red on the sheets as the maid hurried by with her arms full of linens for washing.

He left that afternoon.