Page 78 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

Her gaze sharpened with wonder. “How could you?”

“You told me,” he said simply. “I listen when you speak, Darcy.”

The words brought back every quiet proof of that truth. She’d mentioned her fondness for strawberries, and the following morning a silver platter of them, chilled and perfectly ripe, had awaited her at breakfast. Days later, after she remarked that lavender had always soothed her, he presented her with soaps scented expressly for her by a London perfumer.

Then had come the perfumes, the most extravagant and intimate of his gifts.

Three exquisite crystal flacons had rested within a velvet-lined box, each fragrance created exclusively for her. She had uncorked them with mounting wonder. One held lavender softened by delicate notes she could not name. Another mingled honeysuckle with sweet jasmine. The third was altogether different: warm, elegant, and impossible to describe, as though the perfumer had captured some secret part of her and given it scent. They were unlike anything she had ever worn, evocative, lush, and wonderfully rich.

“Thank you,” she’d said softly, turning one of the crystal flacons in her hands so the afternoon light danced through the cut glass. She lifted it once more to breathe in the fragrance, and a smile of pure delight curved her lips. “These scents are wonderful. Everyone will be asking me about them.”

“I instructed the perfumer that the formulas were to remain his alone.” His gaze never left hers. “No other lady shall wear these fragrances while I have any say in the matter.”

Warmth had unfurled through her chest with such startling force that she could only look at him. She crossed the room before she had consciously decided to move. Rising onto the tips of her toes, she pressed the gentlest kiss to the corner of his mouth.

It was no more than a fleeting brush of her lips, an offering of gratitude so instinctive she scarcely understood what she had done until she drew away. Sebastian shuddered once. Then, to her astonishment, he leaned into the place where she had kissed him, his eyes drifting closed as though he wished to hold the caress there.

Her heart had given a curious flutter. He had once explained that not every kiss carried the same meaning. Some conveyed comfort. Others affection. Some were born of longing, and others of ungovernable passion.

The kiss had not been one of those he had described. It had been gratitude, but not the distant gratitude offered for a thoughtful gift. It had carried something infinitely more personal: the silent acknowledgment that he had seen her, listened when no one else ever seemed to, and made her feel cherished in a way she had never before experienced. Beneath that gratitude had lived an affection she had not yet been brave enough to name.

She had meant only to thank him.

Yet as she watched him lean into that small caress, as though it had reached some guarded place within him, Darcy wondered whether he had understood that she had given him something more than thanks.

Her chest warmed anew with the realization that Sebastian did not merely hear the things she said. He remembered them, considered them, and transformed her smallest remarks into acts of tenderness she had never expected from anyone. In his company, she sometimes felt as though she had become the very center of his attention, and that illusion was becoming dangerously precious.

“Then I would love to see the sea,” she said softly, unable to contain her smile.

“We shall go alone.”

Darcy stilled. “But the girls...”

“They will have many opportunities to see the sea,” he said, stepping closer, his tone gentler now, though no less certain. “This journey is for you. They are safe here, cared for, and surrounded by everything they require. You need not worry about them while we are gone. For once, allow someone else to carry the responsibility.”

She hesitated, the familiar instinct to place her sisters above all else rising within her.

“Take this moment for yourself, Darcy,” he said quietly.

Her throat tightened. For so long, every choice she made had been governed by necessity, duty, and the relentless need to secure her sisters’ well-being. Even now, with that burden eased, she did not know how to set it aside.

Darcy looked at Sebastian and felt emotion rise thickly into her throat. For a moment, she could not speak. Then a smile slowly broke across her face, bright and unrestrained. As she had beneath the stars, she wanted to stand before something vast and unknowable, to breathe salt air and hear the endless roar of the waves. More dangerously, she wanted to experience it with him.

“Yes,” she said, her voice carrying a breathless excitement she made no attempt to conceal. “Yes, I will go.”

Darcy had not been prepared for her first sight of Brighton. When the carriage crested the final rise and began its descent toward the town, the distant band of blue across the horizon appeared unreal, more trick of light than something vast and living. Then the sound reached her, a deep, ceaseless roar unlike anything she had ever known.

“The sea,” Sebastian said quietly, as though sensing her wonder.

Darcy leaned forward, one gloved hand pressed lightly to the carriage window as the view opened fully before her.

The sea seemed endless.

A great expanse of shifting blue and silver, the waves rolling toward the shore in steady rhythm, their crests catching the light as they broke against the pebbled beach. The air itself felt different here, sharper, tinged with salt and something wild that stirred deep within her chest. “Oh…” she breathed.

Sebastian said nothing. When she glanced toward him, she discovered that he was not looking at the sea at all, but at her, as though her wonder were the spectacle he had brought them there to witness.

They passed along the promenade, and Darcy’s attention shifted to the life thriving beside the shore. Ladies in fashionable walking gowns strolled beneath parasols, lifting their hems just enough to avoid the damp stones, while gentlemen lingered nearby with their attention divided between the sea and the company they kept.